Any tips welcome

[WhiteRazzy]

Hey all, just wondering how everyone is going about starting their cities. I'm having issues just breaking even when it comes to money, as my cash flow always seems to be in the negative.

[icedude94]

Unlock the large coal power plant and use the money you get as milestone rewards to plop it down. Hook it up to a neighbor connection and sell the excess power.

Excess power sells at a rate of $2500 per megawatt.

The large coal power plant produces power for a price of $2000 per megawatt.

It's one of the few things your city can export that you actually own.

Do NOT listen to the people telling you to burn garbage in an incinerator and then sell the excess power for money. They think you're making a profit selling energy that way because the electricity revenue is on a different balance sheet from the garbage maintenance cost.

Incinerators don't just burn garbage, they also burn money.

[Jack Greedy]

Yeah i can give You a tip, as i have same problem, just wait for future patches and pray for the Devs that they can actually fix the game, not only optimization but simulation aspects too.
For this time i can recommend You to play some other games like Bioshock Trilogy, Wolfenstein 2 , Doom series, TW: Warhammer 3, Crusader Kings 3, GTA series, some adventure games or many other excellent pc titles.

[WhiteRazzy]

Originally posted by icedude94:

Unlock the large coal power plant and use the money you get as milestone rewards to plop it down. Hook it up to a neighbor connection and sell the excess power.

Excess power sells at a rate of $2500 per megawatt.

The large coal power plant produces power for a price of $2000 per megawatt.

It's one of the few things your city can export that you actually own.

Do NOT listen to the people telling you to burn garbage in an incinerator and then sell the excess power for money. They think you're making a profit selling energy that way because the electricity revenue is on a different balance sheet from the garbage maintenance cost.

Incinerators don't just burn garbage, they also burn money.

As of right now, I have a geothermal plant hooked up and am selling the power from that. I'm bringing in roughly $458,000 from selling energy, but negative monthly balance of about -$35,611. Not sure if I'm just doing taxes wrong or what.

[icedude94]

Originally posted by WhiteRazzy:

I could take a look at your save for you.

[Molybdane]

Losing money early on is part of this game. The best way to deal with it is to continue building around your existing service buildings, and providing raw resources of all types for your industry.

You should avoid reducing the budget of most of your services. Education is a special case, as it is vital to leveling up your buildings.

[WhiteRazzy]

Originally posted by Molybdane:

Losing money early on is part of this game. The best way to deal with it is to continue building around your existing service buildings, and providing raw resources of all types for your industry.

You should avoid reducing the budget of most of your services. Education is a special case, as it is vital to leveling up your buildings.

That's kinda the way I'm playing it, really. I'm doing what needs to be done, and just seeing what the outcome is, lol. It's fun figuring it all out. I'm laughing at most of these people who are claiming "this is a bug" when in reality the game is just harder than the first one.

[WhiteRazzy]

Originally posted by icedude94:

Originally posted by WhiteRazzy:

I could take a look at your save for you.

Might have you take a look at it after I get some more built up and see what's happening, if you're okay with that

[icedude94]

You can lower the budgets of certain services. Like I said before, not all power generation methods make energy at a profit when exporting.

Water never makes a profit exporting so you are safe to lower the budget of that to match your needs. You can also charge zero service charge for water, which will increase water consumption in your city but your businesses will get a +20% bonus to efficiency and your citizens get a +5 to well-being as well as more money in their pockets to spend shopping or going to school.

In my city of 35k, the increase in tax revenue from higher level zones is worth way way way more than the $10k per month I'd be getting charging a service fee for water usage.

[WhiteRazzy]

Originally posted by icedude94:

You can lower the budgets of certain services. Like I said before, not all power generation methods make energy at a profit when exporting.

Water never makes a profit exporting so you are safe to lower the budget of that to match your needs. You can also charge zero service charge for water, which will increase water consumption in your city but your businesses will get a +20% bonus to efficiency and your citizens get a +5 to well-being as well as more money in their pockets to spend shopping or going to school.

In my city of 35k, the increase in tax revenue from higher level zones is worth way way way more than the $10k per month I'd be getting charging a service fee for water usage.

That's good to know then, because I was already starting to drop my water stuff. My next question would be; what's a decent tax rate to have? I know in the last one there was a specific number but I'm trying to throw out all my knowledge of that game and relearn everything for this one.

[icedude94]

Originally posted by WhiteRazzy:

That's good to know then, because I was already starting to drop my water stuff. My next question would be; what's a decent tax rate to have? I know in the last one there was a specific number but I'm trying to throw out all my knowledge of that game and relearn everything for this one.

That depends on a lot of things and what you are trying to accomplish with your taxation.

Are you seeing high commercial demand but a lot of commercial zones say "not enough customers"? Lower your residential taxes and any fees you might be charging them so they have more money to go shopping to satisfy their demand.

Do you want more of your educated teens to enter the workforce instead of attending college? Then you might want to raise the taxes on educated people.

[Höjdarn]

When you increase the taxes you notice the demand decreases. If you want to expand your city decrease the taxes, if you want to make money increase taxes.

[Kedryn]

Originally posted by WhiteRazzy:

As of right now, I have a geothermal plant hooked up and am selling the power from that. I'm bringing in roughly $458,000 from selling energy, but negative monthly balance of about -$35,611. Not sure if I'm just doing taxes wrong or what.

I've got three of those geothermals just over the border, and completely disconnected from my part of the map, from the neighbours; and it lets me fund all of my services (all education, basic police/fire, road maintenance, etc), with 500k per month surplus.

[sethtriggs]

Yeah you are not going to profit to start, so just stay the course and keep building your city.

Don't upgrade your services right away, until you absolutely have to (definitel should have a clinic and cemetery locally to start) - you can get services from elsewhere.

When people are complaining about rent, densify the zones by adding more units, and also try to zone smaller 2x2 and 2x3 lots (like with row houses) for good cheap housing).

Try to go for a college by population of 5K - offices will net you a LOT of cash.

Try to put trees on roads.

And use roundabouts often.

[WhiteRazzy]

Originally posted by icedude94:

Originally posted by WhiteRazzy:

That's good to know then, because I was already starting to drop my water stuff. My next question would be; what's a decent tax rate to have? I know in the last one there was a specific number but I'm trying to throw out all my knowledge of that game and relearn everything for this one.

That depends on a lot of things and what you are trying to accomplish with your taxation.

Are you seeing high commercial demand but a lot of commercial zones say "not enough customers"? Lower your residential taxes and any fees you might be charging them so they have more money to go shopping to satisfy their demand.

Do you want more of your educated teens to enter the workforce instead of attending college? Then you might want to raise the taxes on educated people.

I didn't even think of that. As of right now, I have like 3 or 4 industry companies (yellow tiles, not specialized yet) saying they can't get enough workers. I just got done setting up some row houses, as well. Don't really have anymore demand at the moment for housing but it'll come back

[WhiteRazzy]

Originally posted by Kedryn:

Originally posted by WhiteRazzy:

As of right now, I have a geothermal plant hooked up and am selling the power from that. I'm bringing in roughly $458,000 from selling energy, but negative monthly balance of about -$35,611. Not sure if I'm just doing taxes wrong or what.

I've got three of those geothermals just over the border, and completely disconnected from my part of the map, from the neighbours; and it lets me fund all of my services (all education, basic police/fire, road maintenance, etc), with 500k per month surplus.

Didn't think that was a thing that works. I was thinking about that but didn't really wanna "cheese" it but I guess that could make sense since, strictly speaking, it could just be an energy company building up a bunch of plants, I suppose.