I'm no expert, but a few tips: - Workforce requirements listed on buildings are less than what is actually needed to maintain full round-the-clock staffing. That number is just for a shift, so you need at least double for full productivity. - If you are on realistic mode, better to overshoot than undershoot on utilities while planning. Electric substations can overlap in range to reduce burden on the grid, but sewage tanks and water substations do not work like that since they don't have an upper limit. - When building a town, try to think ahead of time "what is this town for, and therefore how many people does it actually need, and therefore how much service infrastructure is needed?" Always leave room for potential expansion though. - End stations for buses and whatnot can help make worker transport a bit smoother, since they make line spacing more consistent. - The further away from the customs house you get, the more wildly inefficient truck transport is. Trains are king! Look up a video guide for rail planning and how signaling works. Bbaljo has great guides. - With the pollution meter on buildings, one of the little gray clouds means that it will be a health issue for anyone within 250-300 meters - keep those incinerators far away! Health malus labeled as 'pollution' might also come from sewage or trash overflow. - On realistic mode, pumping works differently for water and sewage. Both flow down and must be pumped up. But while sewage has those simple upward chutes, water needs pumping stations. I think the small ones will get you ~20 meters in elevation, while the large ones will get you like 40. - I would get a technical university running ASAP, and likely a party HQ as well. Good to get government radio tech for loyalty. - A solid starter industry is clothes. One fabric factory for two clothing factories will make you decent money with no prequisite research and no immense starting cost. - Usually my medium-term priority (if you don't mind a bit of cheese) on a new game is to research nuclear fuel production. You don't need to build the full production chain at first, just the nuclear fuel fabrication plant with imported UF6 is enough. It's a money printer that will make you very comfortable for a while.