See-Saw Economics

[katamariguy 6]

I have constructed an industry and gambling focused city of 55,000, and I am finding the budget quite perplexing. Every five minutes or so, the cash flow will reverse, from positive to negative and vice versa. I do not know why my economy is fluctuating so greatly. As of now the budget is hovering around +-100 simoleons, but seems to be improving.

[Zades 7]

That is because gambling is broken.  I won't go much into it because it's complicated to explain.  Basically tourists and dumb and whether they go gamble or not depends completely on the will of the stupid agent AI system.  The best way to make money is to do the supply chain, basically go ore, coal, oil -> alloy, plastic -> processors -> computer/TVs.

 

As far as gambling goes, you need to put them right at the entrance where tourists come in: the highway coming into the city, in front of train stations or airports.  Even then, having gambling set constant steady profit is not guaranteed.