from one city paradise to three city hell

[Jorge_Stanbury]

I started a game in which I had no neighboring cities, just a lot of territories, which I methodically engulfed

so I ended up with a big one-city state, everything was fine, everything in green.

But then I decided to create two new zones, so that I have less penalty for 2 mines I had outside 6 hex range of my city
In preparation I had sealed roads to each city, I upgraded the truck to level 3. I also set a supply base ~10 hexes from capital city
I also stockpiled colonists and stratagems

So for each new city hex, I built: domed farm, truck station, solar energy, mines.
These were all completed before setting the new zones

Then I set the new zones, I spent stratagems to get x3 zoos on each one + any fate stratagem that can be spared to get them a good start
clicked next turn, and then my economy which was on the green, is all in red, food deficits, energy deficits, etc

Question: is this because it will take them a few turns to settle down?

It seems to me that the administrative penalty is puny compared to the logistical constrains of having multiple cities

[demiare]

AFAIK zone will fill it's storage a bit before sending excess resources to SHQ.

Plus your domed farms are wrong moves, state farms aren't feeding colonists, they will still need emergency food from SHQ (AFAIK emergency food is free so all you need is to have connection to logistic network). You need them get their own PRIVATE farms running ASAP. Invest a lot into new zones (either via investment stratagems or directly).

But you're mention energy being in red. Energy is moved freely too, so if it's in red then you simply overestimated your economy and barely have any surplus energy generation.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

for some reason energy went into red for one turn, then it got back to green afterwards

how much do I need to invest to get them building private farms?
Is it going to be their first priority? or would they be like, oh lets build sewers and brothels first?

[demiare]

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

how much do I need to invest to get them building private farms?
Is it going to be their first priority? or would they be like, oh lets build sewers and brothels first?

Lvl 1 private farm/dome is cost 1000 cr. As for me it's their first priority, nearby mining and light industry are second one. Brothels and similar stuff is almost ignored until nothing else is available so public assets with +QOL score aren't useless thing to research [;)]

Working happiness is a REAL problem of colonization. Because now they're happily strike with ~60 happiness in "OK" status >_<

[Jorge_Stanbury]

can you build private? how?

or do you mean that if 1000 cr is available, 1st priority will be to build food

it would be awesome to have the capability to privatize, even if at a loss

[demiare]

No, you can't build private, instead your zone should have [Private Funds + Investment Treasury] > 1000 to purchase a tier 1 private farm.

There are Private Investment (Commerce-40) and rare generic private investment up to 3k (don't remember it's name) stratagems. Yes, building cities is expensive one and I like it as it's follow reality.

[lloydster4]

Remember that the green/red arrows only mean that SHQ inventory is increasing or decreasing. Switching from green/red means one or both of following: input has decreased/output has increased.

The first step to diagnosing this situation would be to review your production assets for problems. Was there a disruption that prevented the new zones from sending supplies back to the SHQ, or were they unable to produce as many supplies? 2nd, look to see where your SHQ is sending supplies. Did the new zones request an initial stockpile that depleted your SHQ, or did consumption increase?

Investigate the input/output, and you'll find your answers.

[Lovenought]

Private sector just has to save up 1,000 credits and they'll build a farm to feed themselves, which is always the first priority. It sucks though because Public Budget (money you give to the private sector) is limited by population. In a big city that doesn't need the help, you could dump like 500 a turn or more. But for a small new colony you can only give them like 26, which is nothing. I get that that's probably for balance, to not make the fate cards, public QoL buildings, or the Commerce cards retain their value.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

It would be better if farms could be privatized, even at 0 return

[GodwinW]

When I build a new zone/city I just build a truck stop with the flag 'new zone' toggled on. Then the private economy takes care of building a farm and such.

[Poliorcetes]

The logistics of multiple cities is awful as there is no easy way to find your logistics "problem". You have to individually track down everything to figure out which numbers are not adding up.
Maybe there is a 1 turn delay (some assets do this when built), but nothing will tell you that.
Maybe you lack logistics to some asset outside the city (have to click on the actual asset to see if it got enough logistics).
Maybe the morale of your workers changed and you lacked workers (click on Asset and see if it had any production issues).
Perhaps you can spend 15 minutes going through all the sub menus to try to figure it out, the top bar summary stats is good for that. And then cross correlate it with the unit submenu details. It might not be a waste of time!

Or maybe its a bug, hell I have a city that is stockpiling over 2,000 food and yet the population is "hungry" despite having emergency food sharing implemented and having excess food production. Is this due to some subtle logistics situation? I will never know because playing "Forensic Accoutantant Simulator" wasn't the game I wanted to buy.