Hello guys! I hope you are well and that your city progresses well, together with happy and satisfied citizens. You can get happy and satisfied citizens by providing them with a quality life, education, jobs, entertainment venues, and other facilities that make a good life.
One of the main components that a city can function is the supply chain. The supply chain is tied to industrial production that supplies the city with products for its basic functioning. In this article, we will focus on the supply chain, raw materials, industries, and much more. So let’s get to work.
Cities: Skylines allows players to become successful mayors of cities. Players start building the city, setting up residential, commercial, and industrial zones and dealing with public transport, reducing pollution in the city, preserving the environment, creating jobs, focusing on the health and satisfaction of its citizens, and much more.
A significant segment in Cities: Skylines is the management of industrial zones. Industrial zones serve to supply the city and its citizens with goods and to employ citizens. If you want, you can employ your citizens in offices, but only educated citizens will be able to work in them. Also, citizens can work in commercial zones but be careful because commercial zones cannot be open for jobs for all your citizens.
Providing goods also takes place in two ways: the first is “IT specialization” for office production of invisible goods in which trucks do not participate, and the second is “organic and local produce,” where the district specialization for commercial zones produces the most goods independently.
Also Read: How to Get Rid of Landfills in Cities: Skylines?
Supply Chain in Cities: Skylines
The supply chain in Cities: Skylines includes producing, processing, and selling various content. It also applies to the transport of goods by road in your city, but goods can also be transported by ship, for example. It is clear to you that this must take place constantly, because if there is a stalemate at any step, citizens will be left without the necessary goods and will express their dissatisfaction.
Export and import of goods is essential for the progressive development of your city, so make sure that your industrial zone works at the highest level, for the benefit of all citizens.
In Cities: Skylines, there are four basic types of natural resources. These are fertile land, forestry, oil, and ore. Fertile land and forestry are renewable natural resources, and you can use them indefinitely in the game. They do not deplete. A little trick to increase the forest is to add additional trees from the Decorations tab, and these trees will also be used for production.
Also, if you plant a lot of trees on fertile land, it will lose its fertility. On the other hand, ore and oil can be depleted, and they are limited natural resources. But there is a built-in game mod that will allow you to make unlimited use of oil and ore.
| Raw Material / Industry | Special goods |
| Crops / Farming | Animal Products Flour |
| Raw Forest Product / Forestry | Planned Timber Paper |
| Ore | Metal Glass |
| Oil | Plastics Petroleum |
Also Read: How to Start a New City in Cities: Skylines?
How to Get Raw Materials From Natural Resources in Cities: Skylines?
Well, it’s easy. First, you need to find an area with a particular type of natural resources in your city. This area will become specialized for a particular type of industrial production, depending on its location—for example, oil or forest. Then the magic happens – buildings begin to be built related to the natural resource that lies beneath them.
(Remember that an industry may specialize in producing certain natural resources even if it is not in an area with a natural resource, but will rely solely on imports of that resource, so this is not the best option).
These specialized buildings then move into the production of goods. Natural resources must primarily be processed into raw materials, which occurs in extractor buildings located in the area with natural resources. After that, processor buildings create processed materials by processing these raw materials. Only after that can the goods be sold by commercial zones.
If you have ore and coal power plants in your city, they will consume unprocessed ore and oil. Also, the recycling center can use garbage to produce processed materials that will be used in generic industries.
| Building | Input | Output |
| Extractor | Natural resources | Raw Material (RM) |
| Processor | Raw Material (RM) | Processed Material (PM) |
| Generic Industry | Processed Material (PM) | Goods |
| Commercial | Goods | Sold to customers |
Also Read: How to Use Natural Resources in Cities: Skylines?
How Does Import, Export, And Transportation of Goods in Cities: Skylines Work?
In order to maintain the supply chain, it is necessary to have quality forms of transportation in the city. One of the primary forms of cargo transportation is the one using roads. Transport takes place using vehicles owned by delivering buildings. There is a certain amount of trucks that are only used for selling goods. The mechanism of this game neglects the distance when sending delivery trucks, which can lead to problems in cargo transportation. This can be solved with better traffic connections, so check how your roads are connected.
Another solution is to set up Warehouses if you have Industries DLC. Warehouses will store raw materials in different locations, and it will be easier and faster to transfer them from one location to another.
Except via roads, there are also cargo trains, ships, and airplanes which can improve cargo transportation in your city. This way you will reduce congestion in public transport, and you will not have to rely solely on delivery trucks.
However, it may happen to you that buildings will be notified that they do not have enough raw materials, and, therefore, cannot continue production. What to do at that moment?
If this common problem happens to you, you have to solve it effectively. Otherwise, your buildings will become abandoned, and you will lose money from the city budget.
First, you need to pay attention to the traffic situation in your city. Maybe apply some roads or try to find an alternative way to transport or import your goods. Even the shortest wrong route can cause a problem when using cargo vehicles. Slow deliveries can become a big problem in your city, so pay attention to that.
Another solution is to move generic industries closer to commercial zones, as this will save you the time it takes to transport goods from a more remote location.
Third, balance your Demand and Supply. Focus on building more generic industries if the number of commercial industries is higher. Pure economy!
And last, reduce imports. With imports, you also create a traffic collapse. The solution is again in building generic industries.
In the end, it all comes down to improving transport infrastructure and respecting the rules of supply and demand. Keep that in mind, and you will soon see that your city is well supplied with goods and that you have no problems with exporting products, and the money will start arriving in your budget.
Also Read: How to Fix Sewage Backup in Cities: Skylines?
Final Thoughts
As we said earlier, if you want to be a successful mayor of your city, you must be willing to learn how to manage all city segments. All the small parts of the city are connected to make the whole city work. This means that there is an interdependence of all zones.
This article showed how to get raw materials from natural resources and how to organize industrial zones to work with commercial zones. The four primary natural resources are vital for the city’s supply chain but also for exports that bring extra money to the city budget.
In addition to building industrial zones, you have to pay attention to the traffic connections of your city because exports, imports and the transport of goods itself usually happen via roads. In addition to roads, you can use cargo ships, trains, and airplanes to further facilitate transportation.
If you have additional tips on how to improve the supply chain in Cities: Skylines, feel free to share them with us. Good luck building your city!
