How am I supposed to make money?

[Jyggalad]

In CS1 it was relatively straight forward on how to get money. Now for some reason they deviated from that and added in a lot of ♥♥♥♥ you need to balance in order to make money and not explain anything. I've tried googling and some people say to export energy and you'll get a bunch of money, hold off as long as you can on services, raise taxes on finished products or things your specialize industries produce, and lower taxes on housing.

I did all that and I'm still bleeding money. I have an over abundance of people coming to live in the city but no industries or commercial districts are in demand because of the taxes. So I lower on industry save for finished products my specialized districts are making from what was suggested on another thread. No dice. I tried resetting the taxes back down to what they were by default. Still nothing. I raised my taxes slightly on housing. No significant impact what so ever. I lowered the industry taxes more. Still no demand for new industry districts. I'm unclear on what I am supposed to do here.

[AIRwolf79]

Dude making money is the easiest part of the game.
Dont buy loads of tiles at the start as these require a significant amount of funds to keep up with the land tax.
At the start just build 1x power turbine 1x transformer 1x water tower and 1x sewage outlet.
Build a small housing district next to a small commercial hub. Then an industry site away from and not blowing pollution over your residents. Farming is essential to make any kind of serious money, so build forestry, corn, veg, cotton etc. A large stone quarry is also recommended and should be situated near your industry area.

As soon as services become available put every thing on 50% and knock it up gradually with village growth. You should at this point be making between five and 10k PW as long as you havent put services everywhere. 1 of each service type is enough to cater for your residents in the first four starting tiles.

Congratulations, you have just completed Town Lines two! When you do start making some cash just sit on it for a couple of hours and you will soon be competing with musk for the richest man title.

[girlaroundthecorner]

I don't lower taxes in early game and sometimes increase industry to 11%. After placing services I reduce their budget to 50% then slowly increase after starting to make money. I charge cims 104% for electricity and 102% for water. Don't buy tiles unless absolutely necessary and yes, export electricity once I can afford a geothermal plant. No loans.
Lots of farms and ore, coal etc. Depending on the game I reduce taxes for certain education levels. Placing the industry signature buildings increases industry efficiency which makes money, so my farms are initially small and multiple. Reducing/increasing taxes takes a while to take effect. It's slow going at the start.

[john.glossop]

The main reason for not making money is by opening more tiles than you absolutely must have, because tile maintenance is VERY EXPENSIVE. If you have filled Tile 9, then think carefully how you'e going to use tile 10 before you purchase it, and have a PLAN for how tile 10 is going to make you money BEFORE you commit to it.
If you want some land remote from your current plot, don't go out and buy 10 tiles to allow you to build a road from your original city to thew new settlement. Use existing roads and railways to connect the two, and again, the quicker you can productively use the new outpost, the less it will dig into your reserves. And until your new settlement starts making money, limit your electricity production to wind power.

[Jyggalad]

There seem to be some confusion. Is purchasing tiles not buying more land outside of the map you started with? I seem to have a lot of people suggesting to not buy tiles but I did not put that anywhere. Am I incorrect in that?

[girlaroundthecorner]

Originally posted by Jyggalad:

There seem to be some confusion. Is purchasing tiles not buying more land outside of the map you started with? I seem to have a lot of people suggesting to not buy tiles but I did not put that anywhere. Am I incorrect in that?

You're not incorrect - but it's worth a mention in case that's what you may have done. I've heard some players buy up a few tiles at the start, and with the cost of the tiles, plus the land tax, you can quickly go down the drain. You may not have bought any, but just in case! :)

[Celerybender]

I found zoning for specialised industry like farming, ore, wood etc allows you to supply industry and commercial with raw materials in-house, and export any extra.

[john.glossop]

Tile Upkeep Cost can be switched off when you first start a new city.
To quote from the Forum Article "Save Game Checklist | Economy 2.0 - 1.1.4.f1"
"Tiles now have an Upkeep Cost, and if you have many tiles unlocked you will notice a major change to your budget. If you’re struggling to balance your budget after the patch but want to keep playing on the same save, we recommend enabling “Unlimited Money” in your saves Map Options. If you start a new map and enable the new Map Option "Unlock All Tiles", the tiles won't have an upkeep cost, and you won't have to pay 22,000,000 per month for all the tiles."
22,000,000 sure makes it difficult to turn a profit, but using this "feature", you can save yourself from that exorbitant amount, and get all your tiles right from the start. There doesn't appear to be any form of "half-way house", to eliminate the upkeep cost, but not unlock all tiles at the same time, which is a bit of a shame, letting users unlock them as they need them, which is more realistic than getting all the land on day 1.
They talk here as if it is a "map option", but unreality, it's a new game option, and nothing to do with the map.

[Aieonae]

I usually try to speed through 1 to 2 years just focusing on the original squares.
Upfront is just 2 objectives.
1) Get power up, Sell them at HV line caps(or close to it)
2) Buy more borders squares with highway/road connection to my core squares, build roads and power plant to export electricity via those squares.

I normally rack up the taxes to 13% if needed to run up for things like incinerator and power plants. Usually by 2nd year I build a nuclear power plant and have 2 of its 3 HV transmission set up to export. I would drop tax to 9%. And expand accordingly.

By mid 2nd year I am looking at 100k~120k monthly, with border square giving another 14k ~34k each.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371239138

*IMPORTANT to noted have fueled power plants, incinerators and medical facilities situated near the highway access they need them to function properly. For fuel power plants don’t expect your city can go self sufficient as resources can run dry.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3368131231

Worth noting the game is actually more easier now than when it first released.