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.

[TheDeath]

Originally posted by david:

Did you connect your electricity supply to the neighbouring town to make money from exporting power ?

Yes I did, you have on pool to connect on your start, standing somewere on the map

[Alhevi]

I'm at about 10k pop and still non profit but i'm able to decrease it more and more to get into profit - stonks
I slightly increasing taxes and started to make some industrial zones, so got one sawmil thinng, one chicken, one wheat and now beginning with one ore thing.
In your balance you can see that you have to import these things if you dont have it. I got a cargoport next to my industrial so I#m getting some profits from it, also selling a bit power.

[JohnyT]

Originally posted by pkmis007:

I don't understand how to NOT profit. Play skylines I always profit. Play skylines II after first hour always profit.

How the heck u in debt/ not profit ???

Can you give us any tips? Picked up a few suggestions here already but would be great if the pro players could help those in the community who aren't quite getting it yet.

[Exbeer]

i am at 10 K now, this is after some progress and opening tiles and restructuring my hole city, it is also not a " nice " city, it is just squares , i do the same, i do the power and i also got the recycle plant now, and i am using the little farms and stone ore etc i can find, but in combo with close housing. and ye income is weird " i have 2 sets of services, + 2 elementary + now a high school, figured that woude make better jobs, and income goes from 100K plus to 50 K red, its a wild ride in the city xD i cant seem to find the balance neater.

[Sima | Marco]

first profit at 4k pop,

provide enough local ressources
sell unnecessary energy and water
avoid public transportation until 6k-10k
avoid huge highway intersections
use roundabouts for city entrance / exit
avoid loan
get some milestones to make money
use wind energy with small battery upgrade
cut expenses for water
build 2 antennas for mobile dataconnections

[[CH]the_minimalist]

and all forget: it`s not CL1.

[Steelkaiser]

I’m not sure you’re supposed to make a profit early on. The services are really expensive and too large for your small city so it’s maybe possible by cutting service budget and jacking up taxes but that will make people unhappy. I feel the economy has been balanced around larger cities maybe, but I’m not there yet.
Seems like the government subsidy is there to compensate for it, but it feels pike a stopgap for poor balancing

[Exbeer]

i do feel now that i look a little more into it the special industry does help out a lot. tho they are faar in between , they do help.

[Emjay]

Originally posted by Kevin:

Per some of the dev videos leading up to the launch, I don't think they expect us to make a profit initially, which is why there are such large cash bonuses with each milestone.

This does seem to be the suggestion as I have a load of cash but am still losing it.

I also think we should be tweaking the funding of services such as medical facilities to save money and then crank it up as and when needed.

I'm actually enjoying that whole concept of having to actually manage things as opposed to plonk and forget.

[Exbeer]

quick question, does the resources run out ?

[JohnnySilver]

By selling unfinished products to gullible consumers.

[Emjay]

Originally posted by Exbeer:

quick question, does the resources run out ?

I believe it does as there is a counter on the map selection page.

[K.I.L.E.R]

I pray none of you play Sim City 4.

[Althazar]

It's way late over here, but after my playthrough and I myself wondering why I couldn't really turn a profit (although I always had money thanks the milestones), I've come to conclude that most things in this game are just TOO DAMN BIG, both figuratively and literally.

Like the sheer size of the high school, for example, seems almost cartoonish and unreal, and the capacity it has also makes no sense given that you unlock it fairly early in the game. And then there are the modules that can be added onto the building. Everything is far too big and overwhelming.

Like it's understandable that things like clinics, some local schools, and other small, scaled back services would be wanted in most towns, but CO has always had this track record of making things just too much for what was needed. This was present in the first game and it's gotten a bit out of hand now.

A big part of the reason why I made all those building assets in the "Civil Mania" series I did for was to sort of make it easier to build up the necessary services in the early game or to tend to more "remote" areas of the map. There was no need to build what is essentially a small hospital with a massive fleet of ambulances and an army of medical professionals in a town in the middle of nowhere, so you had the "small clinic" to pick from that was super cheap. Over time you'd want to build the regular clinic and perhaps when you got around 20K build the hospital in that asset set, but at that point you'd have the money and people needed for such a facility. In CS2 the clinic we get might as well be a full hospital in my books.

Even more jarring is the fact that now we have modular service buildings, the need for things to have so much right when the building is initially built kind of makes those modules almost feel pointless. Compared to SC2013's modular buildings, CS2 modular buildings just feel over-tuned to the point you won't really need those modules.

I suspect this is due to how the game seems more driven to people who expand rapidly versus those who are more "slow growth" or methodically about their building.

All I can say is that as soon as modding is opened to all, I suspect to see a lot of scaled back service buildings in the game. I know I'm planning out some things for that right now...

[pkmis007]

when I have 8.7k pop I have 7.4M
9.7k pop 8M
10.5k pop 7.6M
skylines II is easier than skylines even I have water unused and still can't export it I still swim in profit.