For people that can't make money in game

[CastaRune]

I seen so many bar reviews saying they can't make money. Here is some help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJpwFnVYdvQ

For RL money to buy DLC --- well that a story we all know --- They need funds for the next Anno game

[Hundinger]

Ah, good old Taka. Always great content.

[Primigenia]

easy way to make money: sell soap to the prison island guy until you can make steam motors, then just sell steam motors to sir archibald to make easily millions

[ElPrezCBF]

I started on normal instead of customizing since I've played 1404. Still, that was years ago and I had to restart several times. One thing new players need to know about saving money is to balance healthy production with not going crazy on placing production buildings all across the island as the upkeep of many is insanely high. These also cost manpower from the various population classes depending on the building, which you need to keep an eye on to ensure manpower for any class does not turn negative, otherwise production efficiency will fall.

As you upgrade to the next pop tier, your tax income will increase greatly but that will also decrease citizens in the lower tier since they have "upgraded" their jobs. So you can't upgrade all pops at the same time. You can manage this by turning off buildings that don't need immediate production since that also disables money and manpower upkeep until you turn them on again.

Healthy production means having decent stocks of goods that are not decreasing because production cannot keep up with consumption. If you wait until stocks reach zero and hope that you can suddenly place tons of production buildings to compensate, it won't work because people leave if their needs aren't met and this will lead to a downward spiral where production suffers because people leave, but you can't increase production without adequate manpower. So expand production only when stocks start to decrease and not immediately, even if you can afford it.

[Hundinger]

Oh, I'm a soap route enjoyer but I never thought about trading coal to Archie. Thanks for the tip.

[folgra]

Same here.

[Elmdor]

This is pretty good info for new players which is a nice change of pace to see.

Almost all of the money fixing tricks I see people post are basically cheesing a poorly implemented trade system with npc's or Paloma easy mode.

I'm playing with my friend right now who's new to the game and he's obsessed with maximizing building ratio's. Which is fine until you hit the steel phase and it breaks your economy and slows down your game progress to a crawl.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Elmdor:

This is pretty good info for new players which is a nice change of pace to see.

Almost all of the money fixing tricks I see people post are basically cheesing a poorly implemented trade system with npc's or Paloma easy mode.

I'm playing with my friend right now who's new to the game and he's obsessed with maximizing building ratio's. Which is fine until you hit the steel phase and it breaks your economy and slows down your game progress to a crawl.

I think upkeep management has been understated. As much as trade is important, you still need to understand production and upkeep management (including production ratios for different stages to avoid unnecessary upkeep from excess buildings) to set up a healthy trade system. And this is something that new players may struggle with.

If this game could be modded, I'd look out for a mod that lowers upkeep and/or manpower requirements. Even at normal difficulty, the insane upkeep costs slows down the game a lot as you have to constantly micromanage production and manpower requirements to avoid inefficiencies from labor shortages. But production chains from artisans onward push up these requirements by a lot, forcing you to upgrade manpower prematurely to meet them. Such limiting mechanics make gameplay very scripted and not very enjoyable.

I'd rather have a system where manpower for all buildings is drawn from a common pool (instead of by classes) but perhaps with higher upkeep for more advanced buildings. This way, it doesn't force premature pop upgrades before you can expand production to catch up.

[Hundinger]

What do you mean "if this game could be modded"? There are so many great mods out there and now the game has a super easy to use ingame mod browser.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Hundinger:

What do you mean "if this game could be modded"? There are so many great mods out there and now the game has a super easy to use ingame mod browser.

I don't see any mod workshop on steam and I didn't get the game through steam anyway. Any other ways of modding outside the workshop sounds like too much trouble imo.

Edit: My bad, I see the mod browser, guess I'm not used to non-workshop mods. My past mod experience with Xcom was a nightmare when I had to use an alternate mod launcher lol.

[Hundinger]

Try it, it's great. You just need an mods.io account and link it to the game. There is a great selection of mods, some of which should adress your concerns in one way or the other.

[karmavirus]

Originally posted by Primigenia:

easy way to make money: sell soap to the prison island guy until you can make steam motors, then just sell steam motors to sir archibald to make easily millions

This makes so much sense and I love it. They've been digging all day, they have to smell pretty bad. The Queen thanks you for your service.

[karmavirus]

I had to retrain my city-building mind in two ways. One, this is not Tropico and it seems like you can put industrial and farming zones off int the boonies and they people just... show up. No commute to worry about. Two, all logistics consider footwork, the least amount of steps taken the more productive. So keep using warehouses as hubs and space the businesses closely in a quick succession like a conveyor belt. That way the transport picks up and drops off each quickly. Also, the island shares resources between warehouses magically, so you can have a quick coal mine over here and the smelly smelter and steelworks way off in the corner near another warehouse. I tend to make close-knit industrial zones around the warehouses, watch what parts are lagging, reinforce those. Also, don't worry about getting all the nifty buildings on each island. Sometime you just need a little cove of peasants who do nothing but farm hops and chili peppers for their distant island overlords. Once you get that nifty T3 community dock, you can trade workers and artisans as needed. The goods themselves need shipping. Since the main income is taxes, keep the population as close to the needed labor as possible. They need to earn the money to pay you. Sometimes if you over build or if the population shifts, you can vent them into producing exports. Keep an eye on what other folks are buying. FInally, when you get to expanding, remember to send some clay and weapons with that initial building supply boost so you can instantly set up cannons. Protect your fledgling harbors from pirates and dirty players.

The biggest thing that got me making money was just completely isolating industry from living quarters, and spacing the living around Needs/Entertainment hubs just like I did with the warehouses and goods. I'll make little rectangles of neighborhoods around the main attraction, then once they started getting 3 rings away, make a little 3 square ring around it of decorations intermixed with vital facilities like firehouse or markets and pubs, then keep expanding. When the terrain gets dodgy, I absolutely love making farms there with weirdly shaped plots that eat up every inch of that hard to build cliff land. I assume all of my farmers have +4 to climbing checks as a result, and the sheep are dire mountain goats.

[Hundinger]

Originally posted by karmavirus:

Originally posted by Primigenia:

easy way to make money: sell soap to the prison island guy until you can make steam motors, then just sell steam motors to sir archibald to make easily millions

This makes so much sense and I love it. They've been digging all day, they have to smell pretty bad. The Queen thanks you for your service.

Well, I suspect it's more about the old prison metaphor of picking up soap in the shower. I let you guess what that image stands for.