Weekly ‘What Games Are You Playing?’ thread #24: Lot of stuff coming out all of a sudden, feels like

1. Super important that you make efficient use of mechanisms. Cranes multiply construction speed, road mechanisms and excavators substitute for workers. I typically build a real construction office as soon as possible, once I've got the electricity set up, though this isn't strictly necessary (electricity is only used for the fuel pump) though you probably do want electricity first, because keeping your mechanisms fueled up without them leaving the office is ideal. The reason for this, is that mechanisms (excepting road cranes) are super slow, so being able to stow mechanisms in a construction office with a flatbed or two for delivery makes things far more efficient. Also, separate your construction offices into building construction offices and road construction offices, for two reasons. Firstly, there are a number of mechanisms which are only used in the construction of roads, footpaths, and factory connections (bulldozer, paver and roller). Secondly, if you don't separate them like this, you will end up with excavators being sent to build gravel roads and footpaths, which you don't want, as they're significantly slower than bulldozers at this.

2. Gravel roads are good enough for almost everything at the start of the game. Don't invest in asphalt roads and associated mechanisms until you've got your own asphalt plant.

3. Once you've got basic infrastructure suitable for your difficulty set up, don't hesitate to mass import citizens, until everything has enough workers. Do adjust the number of workers in each building to a reasonable number (typically 5 is enough early on), but you should have enough for that + enough to run your construction industry. It typically takes me around a year to get everything built.

4. When it comes to asphalt roads, you should only have one under construction at a time, per paver. The game will automatically distribute construction in a dumb way, ensuring that nothing is built quickly or at all.

5. Things to build after citizens arrive:

A. any missing service buildings (cinema, indoor pool, etc)

B. fire station

C. Justice infrastructure. The latest update added an official small prison, which I highly recommend using.

D. A university. A small headquarters of the communist party was added in the new update, which is much easier to build, though less efficient in terms of workers to students.

E. Initial industry. Fabric-> Clothes is very good. If you're playing with hard money settings (I don't) you may want/need to do this earlier.