How exactly do you make money?

[rman88]

Ya, i had to bring this up as this has always been a big gripe i had with this game. It seems nearly impossible to make money. Unlike compared to the last game where you had to be very greedy with how you handle money. Just placing down to many services or the wrong service building.

But even then, a small town could support all the basic services. You know, water, sewage power, health care, death care, Police, fire department and trash. All of which were more or less doable without like a massive city.

This game, like when first of all it lies to you. Take for example the small coal plant. The first real viable power source you get. as a wind turbine kinda has a wee bit of a issue. That it has an insane upkeep of 7,500 compared to the base of 5000 for the small coal plant. and it only puts out between 0-5 MW compared to the 20 MW. In other words to just make this work you need at least 4 thou most likely more windmills. Look its basic math these things just suck.

Now the price is also a pure lie. As i can tell you this my 1 power plant that only needs to put out 10 MW to power my small little city. Shouldn't be costing me 114k a month. Almost 3 times the max cost of it. And arguing that the rest is power lines that exist in the roads. Just makes me question why is this?

Don't even get me started on the rest of services. which all just lie to you. Take for example the Small fire station, 12,000 a month. Why am i paying 23,000 on the service tab? why is my Water pump and sewage outlet which should tally up to 15,000 costing me 30k a month? Hell a single small clinic and a graveyard at 55% funding is costing me 89k a month. More then it would be on max.

Why is this game Just lying to me?

O before you ask, no nothing is upgraded. So don't even throw that excuse.

[zaltocleotl[Banned@Paradox]]

This would get you banned you-know-where. You "sockpuppet" you!
A warm blanket awarded, because sometimes it's just what we need, and there really isn't anything else that will help anyway.
To answer your last question first - Why is this game just lying to me?
The short answer is:
Yes. The game is lying to you.
The longer answer is:
Yes, the game is lying to you in many, many, many ways. MANY WAYS. Too many to list. Pick a category: Finance, Population, Climate/Time, Traffic, Pathing, Economy, Export/Import, the list goes on.
WHY? Because if it were all truthful and accurate, it would blow a sub-zero cooled Epyc 96-core 10GHz into HPS as we used to call it - heat protected shutdown. I forget the modern word as I tend to do anymore. Any other old farts finding themselves forgetting the newer words for decades-old things? Oh, and the sub-0 cooled Epyc 96-core thermal throttleing or shuting down, ah remembered!, is real. See LinusTechTips on YT if you want to see it happen.
Anyway, the devs did what they could, which, frankly, was a hell of a lot. Too much for our computers. Maybe in another ten years we can run it over a million and still be able to watch people walk and drive and ride and enjoy all the hard work we put in to make their 'lives' worth 'living'. Unless you like playing eternally paused, almost.
We have two hopes:
1. CO gets an impressive job of optimization done,
2. Modders tear into it down to the core.
Three hopes, if you count the status quo of hotfixes for patches ad infinitum.

Your original question: How exactly do you make money?
Will be answered by dozens of posters with at least a dozen methods. Bon appetite!

[mikelleh63]

I just started a city, and I had to gouge my Cims with 13 and 15% taxes, and all my service budgets were at rock bottom, but I survived. Took a few loans, maxed about $300k I also imported power and didnt have police or fir until after 7 or 8k.
Around 14k or so I turned the corner and now I make lots of cash.

[dulany67]

The upkeep of service listed does not include salaries.

Don't place services until you need to.

[rman88]

first of all, i don't don't know about the ban thing. as this is in all honesty a fair question. As this game is Brutal when it comes to making any kind of money. Mainly because the game just lies on what things actual cost. Hell i gave plenty of examples on this.

Issue is, their is really no reason for this. This is not tied to anything outside of a simple number. thousands of games have this system. As in the end its just, expensive - revenue = money per month in game. Each building has a set expense that dose not grow or shrink. least without the involvement of the player. building new buildings or changing the budget which reduces cost of said buildings. This is a very very simple thing. You don't need to be an expert at coding things.

as in reality how the economy of this game works is Very simple. Each building has either a set cost or a set revenue. For example a simple low density house might have a revenue of say 100 dollars base. meaning each month you get a 500 dollars for it.. if you raise it to say 15% then you get 5% more money. if you lower it to say 9% you then lose 1% on that 100. as most money producing buildings are spammable. so 500 bucks a month don't seem that much. But if you have say 200 buildings. that is over 100,000 dollars a month. And this is not even talking about higher teir buildings which make more money.

The economy system of this game is Very simple. Least from a mechanic perspective. the game devs don't know what the hell their doing. because if they did, the game wouldn't lie about the actual cost of service buildings.

Lastly, good to know that for the most part until you reach what. Large city all service buildings are kinda worthless.

Side note, what the hell are you talking it dose not include salleries. that would be part of the base cost. like take for example a small clinic.. why would that cost 12,000 dollars base upkeep. What are they doing that requires that much money?

[dulany67]

Originally posted by rman88:

Side note, what the hell are you talking it dose not include salleries. that would be part of the base cost. like take for example a small clinic.. why would that cost 12,000 dollars base upkeep. What are they doing that requires that much money?

Not sure how to say it any more clearly, listed upkeep before plopping them down does not include employee salaries. Opinion of how this is handled aside, this is how it works.

[rman88]

Ya dude i just looked this up, And no they don't. only thin they show is the basic info as well as the xp you will be getting. Like for example i try to put down a hospital.

I see, health care availability. crematorium availability, cemintary availability, citizens health, info on hearses and ambiances. their is nothing saying anything about Staffing and or staffing cost.

Hell even in the services tab. The one that shows what you are paying for. They don't show sallies.

[dulany67]

Suit yourself, but that is the reason the number is different.

[rman88]

Even if that is the reason, Then the game is fundamentally broken. as how can you make a decision if you are being lied to. If the game says this building will cost between 5k to 10k. and it cost 20k for things you cannot even look up... Like who thought this was even a good idea? Who cares what the salaries of ant people are?

Not that this even works for a realistic perspective. As some of these services cost millions of dollars. Hell the average hospital runs up a yearly budget of 223 million dollars a year. and you sure as hell wont see that in this game. as their is no way to support building a hospital.

Also side note, i see where the actual wages are. You just have to click on the building.. That said.. what is the point of just not listing the full upkeep. Like a parking lot cost 7k. and has 3k upkeep. Why not just say its 10k upkeep... What is the point of leaving that out?

[dulany67]

That's a reasonable opinion and I don't take any issue with it. For me, it's a game and I only expect it to be so realistic. There are worse problems.

[rman88]

No, this seems like a pretty bad ui choice. as what is the point of leaving out wages with the base upkeep. look if your going to bother separating wages and upkeep. Why not just have both of them be on building list. Say hey instead of 7000 its 10,000 upkeep...

Like this isn't even a conversation over realism. No one really cares to much about that. as even trying to realistically simulate things like wages. like that sorta thing dose not work on a fundamental level. as wages are not stagnate. They keep changing constantly. And then you got things like people quitting. Being understaffed, poor job economy. the list of things that affect wages and how people work are Insane. To much for any single game to properly simulate.

But in the end this isn't even about that. This is about not updating your stupid building icons to include wage cost. like its not that hard, just you know change the 7 to 10.. wow...

[sternenstaub70]

Originally posted by rman88:

Even if that is the reason, Then the game is fundamentally broken. as how can you make a decision if you are being lied to. If the game says this building will cost between 5k to 10k. and it cost 20k for things you cannot even look up...

It's not lying. It's the base cost.
Salaries are dynamic as the number of workers can vary a lot.
How should the game know in advance how many workers with the correct skills will be working ? Even in real life costs get distinguished between fixed costs and variable costs. You can only definitely tell the fixed costs in advance.

Also you can reduce the budget for services, there is no need to run them at 100% right from the start off since they are pretty oversized in the beginning.

[dulany67]

From a practical standpoint, it's only an issue if you place services before you should. The only way to deal with the early game economy is to focus on specialized industry and not place services until you see a significant level of unhappiness for not providing that service.

[rman88]

First of all its a video game. Second its a number. IF the game itself dose not know how to simulate this. What is the point of this argument?

Anyway this is not that hard of a topic. If a school has a max of 24 people. And each one has a wage of 2k.

Are you saying the game is to dumb to know basic math?

Also its kinda funny, as the game itself list Upkeep as both Wages + maintenance. but it never takes into account wages. when giving you the base upkeep.

[Ghostrider]

Originally posted by dulany67:

From a practical standpoint, it's only an issue if you place services before you should. The only way to deal with the early game economy is to focus on specialized industry and not place services until you see a significant level of unhappiness for not providing that service.

Which is sort of made easier with the new lower cost variants of most of the service buildings. Right now the city I am building I am now getting about $200k+ in income, the big money earner when it is available are the oil fields specialised industry.

[rman88]

we all know that the industries grant a fair deal of money. They always did, Hell in that other game i am making nearly 300k from Trash services. the issue isn't really that but that the tool tips are Well lying to you. AS they don't give you the full upkeep.

Personally i think the biggest issue with this game is it try to simulate things in all honesty no one cares about. as how are you going to influence wages? how would you even do that? As the budget dose not even affect base wages. which is weird because typically if you slash the budget your also going to be firing and or reducing wages of your employees.

Ehh whatever regardless thou this is something that really didn't need to be simulated. and if it did, it should be right in front of you when you are making a decision. as 99% of people don't click on buildings to see what the upkeep is.

And of coarse you had to do it after you built it. so if you got to greedy and built a building that has say 20k base upkeep. but turns out it needs 500 employees. so in reality it has a 1 million upkeep..