How are you turning a profit?

[Fyrnir]

I know this will get lost in all the rage and QQ threads, but is anyone else having problems turning a profit? I keep myself afloat just fine right now thanks to the lump sums from milestones, but I run at a £260k a month loss continually.

This comes almost exclusively from my recycling plant (£110k a month!) and my healthcare (even on 70%, it costs £80k a month). I am selling extra electricity to the grid, have no need for extra housing, am running most budgets at 70%, and yet most of my income still comes from a vague "government subsidy" and yet isn't close to being enough to covering these outlandish costs.

I'm doing something wrong, surely, but the financial spreadsheets make almost absolutely no sense.

Anyone found a way to generate reliable income?

Edit: Lots of good suggestions here. The consensus appears to be to expect to lose money early on, and then eventually turn a profit with a combination of parking fees, electricity exports, raw material exports, and (for me at least) education profits. Also, not building power or garbage buildings until way later, as apparently you can just export the garbage and import the power far, far cheaper.

[idkidk55]

Experiencing the same. Have a population of a few thousand and have yet to ever turn a profit.

[Svati]

Same thing, I've yet to understand how to run without a definit. Currently at 4.2K habitants.

[Emjay]

Same here, I'm waiting for it all to go wrong and I'm slapping districts down like there's no tomorrow to try and make money. A shame because I'm rushing to build rather than making something half decent.

I suspect I will be remaking a lot of my city in the near future!

[Eozombie]

Yer, same here. No matter what I do I cant profit

[Butter Pockets]

Same situation. My healthcare and garbage are through the roof, but even though I have plenty of both and they cost so much they aren't even being used. My garbage processing rate is abysmal and my cims constantly complain about healthcare. 5k cims and Im almost out of money because I can't profit.

[Fawx]

Yeah, we need smaller services for starting out. Having a medical facility that can handle 100 people when you have a population of a thousand is massively overkill, and it costs a fortune.
Same with the schools. I have a High school that is costing like 80k, with only something like 5-6% of it's capacity in use.

[Verinax]

Yep, exactly the same problem. It's frustrating.

[Joppsta]

I am turning a profit by not optimising my game and instead shovelling it out the door.

Review and refund. Don't support this developer ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[ketrub]

increase taxes

[Harlequin]

Meh, this game is just a beta with a plethora of bugs. I have one clinic, every street is green so service is top yet people keep complaining about terrible medical service. I have a minus of 3k/month atm so in comparison it seems not too bad but I bet I would make profit if not some calculation in the background of the game would be bugged.

[TheBigMemer7]

Rushing to Coal Power Plant and building it in my tiny village was the only way I could turn a profit. But then as I built out more services I lacked the capital to build a second power plant to cover the costs. Definitely the best strategy I think so far. I also heard windmills do not require workers. So it could be possible if you are incredibly tedious to build next to a mountain and just plop 100-200 windmills to turn a decent profit. But then your mountain is littered with windmills and cabling...

[Apples]

almost 5k pop with 2million in the bank, been on negative since i started.

No point in rushing a power plant until it costs more buying the power (Coal is 70,000 per month).

Doesn't seem to be a point to rush anything, except zones, not too keen on demands for different residential types though, i wish people would use it regardless, but instead you seem to be yo-yo-ing been the various types of residential, which really screws any plans over, and obv you want to turn a profit and keep expanding to do so.

Yeah, not sure about medical, unless it's the time it takes the ambulance to get there.

Fire Stations are a bit slow, lost a building before an engine was sent out, and that was from the second fire house i rushed to build.

[Lukinsons]

You'll be in profit when u'll get some farms and forrest industry. Don't be afraid. I was loosing money till 7500 citizens. But I was never in minus bcs of money I got from reaching milestones. I guess it is how the game works.

[Flavalicious]

For me it was specialized industry zones and checking my balance sheet. My medical care expenses were like 1/5th my total budget lol. I turn it down to 80% funding, put me in the positives and the people didnt notice ant real change

[Fyrnir]

Nice to see people having the same problems (you know what I mean!) as I too am experiencing civs complaining about healthcare despite it being available, and also at 4k pop am haemorraging money for these things as there are no smaller options.

Interesting to see theories that this is just to be expected, but perhaps a tooltip would be useful if that is the case.