Haste makes waste, chum. To be honest with you, there is no quick way to make money in Cities: Skylines II. If finances are a problem and are getting in the way of your enjoyment, you can just turn them off entirely
However, there are ways that you can greatly boost your city’s revenues, which is maybe more what you’re looking for. This includes some tricks that you may not have thought about, plus some that you might not even know that you can do. Here’s how to get your city back in the green.
Note: The Economy 2.0 update has changed the balancing significantly. As such, I’ve updated this article to reflect that.
Hit Milestones
The single fastest way to get money outside of taking out a loan is to simply hit a milestone. Each level that your city passes will net you a huge lump sum to help you on your way to the next milestone. If you’re looking at this guide, there’s a good chance that you’re having trouble boosting your city up to these milestones, which is completely understandable. Also, hitting a Milestone won’t fix your city if it’s hemorrhaging money. However, a good thing to do whenever you level up is to spend your money on these next hints.
Export your electricity
When you’re starting out, there isn’t much in terms of options for meeting your electricity needs. However, once you’ve gained a few levels, you can spend development points on unlocking some additional methods. This can lead to overproduction, which sounds bad but can be turned into a beautiful thing.
Each map has “outside connections,” and among them is a string of high-tension wires leading off the map. If you connect your electrical grid to these wires, you’ll begin exporting your excess power. Previously, you could basically just build a bunch of power plants (or one big one) and export for a tidy profit. In my experience, Economy 2.0 has changed this. However, it still provides a good means to offset the cost of your own service. There is absolutely no reason not to do this, so I’d recommend it anyway.
Cut or optimize services
Speaking of overshooting your needs, it’s very easy in Cities: Skylines 2 to cover your service needs a little too well. If you lay down a bunch of parks to beautify the city, then plop down a park maintenance depot, it can really take a bite out of your profit. However, the most likely source of your service woes will likely be immediately upgrading buildings once you place them. Each upgrade to your service buildings increases the amount they’ll suck from the budget.
If this is causing too much strain on the budget, you can cut services. This will reduce their efficiency but can be the change needed to get back in the green.
However, I would advise caution. Services support your city’s economy; they are of dire necessity. While cutting medical services when you have too many beds isn’t unreasonable, if you cut waste management services on the decision that people can live in filth, it will backfire. Once garbage backs up in power plants and water pumps, they work with less efficiency. This will disrupt things. Ensure that your facilities are in the best shape possible, or it will bite you. Don’t overspend, but underspending is far worse.
Balance your taxes
Don’t just crank your taxes up when you’re short on cash. It can actually have the opposite of the intended effect. Taxes affect how profitable your businesses and industry are and how affluent your population is. And this can be deceptive. If you, for example, crank your industrial tax up to 15%, you might see immediate profit, but then you’ll quickly see your revenue drop with no visible reason. This is because industry will move out and leave buildings vacant. Your entire industrial sector could turn into a ghost town without you even realizing. This means that businesses don’t have anything to sell, and the lack of jobs in commerce and industry will make your population poorer.
Contrary to what you may think, increasing taxes can actually reduce revenue.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but actually lowering your taxes can create big gains very quickly. If your office or commercial areas are suffering, they’re not going to produce much income. A tax cut can convince more of them to move in and upgrade, which then means more tax money in your pocket, even at a lower rate.
You can also subsidize certain sectors. If you want to quickly expand your industrial area, you can push taxes into the negatives to give incentives for new businesses to move in. It is very expensive to do so, but when it comes time to start taxing again, you may immediately see an increase in revenue. It’s all about balance.
Build municipal buildings
You may not see any immediate benefits to building a city hall or central bank but don’t count it out. If you’re making bank with your industry or, say, exporting your excess electricity, then these buildings will help boost that. City hall will reduce your import fees, while a central bank will reduce them further and increase the income from your exports.
Likewise, you may find yourself leaning on loans for big purchases. It can be unavoidable in the effort to stimulate growth. However, the bigger the loan, the more interest you pay. Both the central bank and city hall will lower the interest instantly, meaning you pay less for borrowing.
