Cityfern

I experienced what you are describing, at least I thought so. However, what I found was that this was a regional play problem. I sat for sometimes more than an hour waiting for the great works to get the material it needed, but it didn't seem to be working. The trick is to play another city in that region for a short while, which seems to sync the region. I found, more than once, that shortly after starting the second city the great works would be "magically" finished.

The other factor to consider is the frequency of arrival of the global market trucks. They only come so often to collect cargo and deliver money. So, if you are trading a more expensive commodity, like fuel, you get more money quicker, but will run out of oil quicker.

Is this a single city in a region? It was my understanding that pollution from neighbouring cities was supposed to effect neighbouring cities, but I have seen no evidence of this to date. It may be the case that the "update" has effected this.

A number of possible explanations are: In both those photos, there appears to be an issue with your sewage. If that is the case for too long, and the pipes remain backed up, then it results in ground and air pollution (same goes for rubbish). The wind direction changed and blown the pollution from the bottom right corner over the rest of your city? Maybe the fix for the air pollution means that the air pollution from a neighbouring city (assuming there is one) is now blowing over this city, as originally intended. It may be the case that all of this is wrong, but at the first sign of problems a lot of players of this game put their hands up and claim that the game is bugged or broken, rather than looking for a reason and solution.

Most importantly, space is at a premium in this game. So a large fire station saves you a lot of space as opposed to 4 small fire stations. In this space you can place a casino (for example) which earns you money. In this game space equals money.

Also. he has half the garbage that my city of 130K has, has somehow generated income with 0% tax rate, has some satisfied shoppers (with no C), has no industrial demand (despite no jobs) and no criminals. My experience teaches me that building abandon after a very short time with no power or water. So that doesn't make sense either. But, without the ability to share saves, I dont know what we can do but take his word for it.

25. Wind turbines can be placed on hillsides. Place the power station on flat land and draw the service road along the hillside. You can then plop all your turbines along the hillside. This is space I haven't found any other use for (except you can place water towers sometimes) and makes the wind station a relatively space efficient source of power.

But there are only 12 daymonths in a year. So it is only $144,000 per year, which is still ridiculous, actually.

If you volunteer Police, you get paid. I have seen it in the monthly transaction report. I think it was $100 per (hour/day/month - im not sure). I was wondering whether this money and the money for buying energy etc is deducted from the city purchasing the utility.

I do not profess to have extensive knowledge, so I may be wrong. But this is my understanding: Happiness allows your R to increase in density. The best tool for this, in my experience, is the Mayor's Mansion: every time you upgrade it you add hapiness to every building in the city. Stay on top of the upgrades and do them as quickly as possible. However, it's kind of circular in that the way you upgrade is by having the requisite level of approval rating for the requisite amount of time. I'm not sure, but it would seem to me that hapiness and approval rating are linked. The other way to improve R hapiness is to ensure that they can shop. So make sure you integrate your commercial zones with your residential so that they dont have to travel too far. Parks and libraries act as 'shops' so you can plop down a few of them as well. Profitability allows C and I to increase in density. For C, you need to ensure there are enough shoppers, first and foremost. For I, make sure there are workers and places to ship freight. Healthiness (germs) and Crime Rates also impact on all types of hapiness. The best way to see what people are concerned about is to click on the approval rating button and then mouse over each type of zone and you will get a break down by density type as to what people are concerned about. Try and address these issues. Good luck!

You will make a lot more money from Alloy than coal and ore. And all you need to make alloy is ... coal and ore. So I would try switching some of the coal plants out and replace them with smelting factories. You will obviously need to rejig your trade ports to store the alloy. But once that's done you should be making a lot more money.