I recommend using a script that sets pollution to 10 so you can focus purely on GDP and building. I also recommend a script that raises factory production and warehouse storage (I typically use 500) so you don’t have to micromanage as much. You can leave consumer demand at the default or bump it up—bumping it raises GDP but feels a bit unearned to me. Enable unlimited resources and extremely low executive salaries so you can just focus on GDP.
This is still achievable without those scripts, but it becomes tedious.
I prefer to play on 4 cities with game difficulty between 100–200%, inflation off, and random events off. I am by no means an expert, but these results remain achievable at higher difficulties and with inflation/random events turned on.
These tips stay high-level because plenty of people have already written detailed guides on the individual systems. This is specifically about gigamaxxing city GDP for the sake of GDP.
End State
The goal is a self-sustaining, gigamaxxed city economy with continuous high population growth, dominant player market control through technology and exports, 99 Quality of Life, and enough city revenue to sustain a 100–125 supply index on every government quality-of-life building.
Conditions to Reach the End State
These do not have to be applied immediately or in strict order. Treat them as an overall guide while you play.
1. Fiscal Levers
- Corporate tax = 0–5%. Lower corporate taxes let both you and the AI expand businesses faster, which feeds the investment component of GDP.
- Consumer tax = 0–5%. Lower consumer taxes leave people with more money to spend.
- Individual income tax = 0%. You can set this to 0% immediately and leave it there. You must wait four in-game years before you can become mayor; that is plenty of time for the city to build a war chest that can survive temporary negative government revenue while you expand rapidly. Zero individual income tax means people keep more money, which translates into higher nominal corporate tax revenue, higher business profits, and higher consumer spending that directly raises GDP.
2. Education and Quality of Life
- As the city grows from expanded businesses (and therefore higher government revenue), oversupply education (research bonuses + city competitiveness for exports) and Quality of Life (more immigration).
3. External Demand and Max Technology
- Maxing exports requires max technology through universities and research buildings. With 4 cities that means a total of 104 universities (26 product-class universities per city—yes, it is possible; more under the Research Protocol).
- Max technology also requires Radical Research set to 600% bonus at 17% success rate.
- There are 121 permanent products (excluding obsolete ones). With 4 cities that means 484 research buildings—4 per product, one in each city (for example, one Blazer Radical Research building in each city).
Lines of Effort
1. Secure control and establish foundations (Years 1–4)
- Prioritize shopping malls. Logistics are simpler when products are concentrated in one area rather than spread across the whole city. I recommend 4x specialized buildings for each product class. So, for apparel, that means the mall would have 4x Apparel Stores.
- The faster you build here, the larger the city money war chest you will have to ride out temporary deficits.
- By the end of Year 4 you should easily become mayor of one city. Do not become mayor of two cities yet—that forces you to fund two cities instead of focusing resources on one.
- Once you're a mayor, immediately set individual income tax to 0%. People have more money to spend, which raises business profits and lets you dominate product markets faster.
- Set welfare to 60% and rent to 30%. This is purely for QoL and immigration. Interestingly, 60% welfare does not leave most of the population jobless (even 100% welfare only costs about 5–7% of the city budget).
- Start research buildings using Radical Research at 600% bonus, 17% success rate, 10-year duration.
2. Vertical integration, QoL expansions, and deficit management (Years 5–8)
- Finish vertical integration across all products.
- Use the land-use tools to create roads and zones that tighten logistical costs. See image titled "Logistics".
- Use the land-use tools to cluster QoL buildings. Aim for one of every government-funded building except schools, police stations, and fire stations—those should be 2×. See image titled "QoL setup".
- Prefer that the city funds the first 2–3 universities. The remaining 23–24 product-class universities are player-funded, but that comes in Years 9–12+.
- If deficits become too large, temporarily max every tax (40% corporate, 40% individual income, 20% consumer). GDP will take a temporary –10% to –20% hit while the city gains large revenue. Once the books are healthy, return the taxes to the previous low levels. You will see a +10% to +20% GDP rebound the following year. Because QoL should already be in the 90–99 range, almost no one migrates away.
- Finish building the full set of 121 research buildings (one per permanent product) using Radical Research at 600% / 17% / 10 years.
- When you feel ready, become mayor of a second city and run the same playbook.
3. Export dominance and transition to sustainability (Years 9–12)
- The city should now be sustainable on only 5–10% consumer taxes and 5–25% corporate taxes. Keep individual income tax at 0%.
- Player-funded university research and the research buildings become the primary export engines. Each city can hold 26 universities (one per product class) and 121 research buildings (one per product and semi-product).
- Exports boom, and so does consumption, because the research translates into higher profits and higher local incomes.
4. Technological mastery (Years 12+)
- With enough time you can become mayor of all four cities while holding total market dominance. Both city-level and national GDP become enormous.
- Full technological mastery requires 26 universities and 121 research buildings in each city.
Research Protocol
- All research buildings should be set to Radical Research: 600% bonus, 17% success rate, 10-year duration. This sounds intimidating. But it isn't. The math is straightforward.
- There are 121 permanent products. Each can have Radical Research applied. With a 600% bonus at 17% success rate, running the full set of projects makes success effectively certain.
1. Bernoulli trials and Binomial distribution
- Each project is an independent Bernoulli trial with success probability P = 0.17 (failure probability Q = 0.83).
- The total number of successes across 121 projects follows a Binomial distribution.
Probability of at least one success with 121 projects:
P(X≥1) = 1 - (0.83)^121 ≈ 99.9999999838 (effectively 100%).
Approximate probabilities for higher success counts with 121:
≥ 5 successes ≈ 99.9997%
≥ 10 successes ≈ 99.8177%
≥ 15 successes ≈ 93.4%
≥ 20 successes ≈ 59.2%
≥ 21 successes ≈ 49.6%
≥ 25 successes ≈ 17%
≥ 30 successes ≈ 1.9%
Running 121 concurrent Radical Research buildings therefore turns the 17% success rate into a near-guarantee of at least one technological leap (and usually many more).
You can also run multiple buildings on the same product. With 4 cities you can have 4× research on every product (484 buildings total); for instance, 1x Blazer Radical research in each city, in this case, 4x cities. For a single product with 4x research buildings, the chance of at least one success becomes:
P(X≥1) = 1 - (0.83)^4 ≈ 52.54
So, basically, having 4x Radical Research buildings at 600% / 17% / 10 years for 1 product turns that 17% success rate into a 52.54% success rate.
2. Staggered starts (recommended)
Start each successive research building one year after the previous one. Example (the exact calendar year does not matter):
Year N: 1st building (600% / 17% / 10 years), first city
Year N+1: 2nd building, 2nd city
Year N+2: 3rd building, 3rd city
Year N+3: 4th building 4th city
When the first 10-year cycle finishes, the next cycles begin producing results on a rolling 4-year cadence instead of a single synchronized 10-year wait.
Supporting Details
1. Approximate government building capacity (rough guides, not exact)
Elementary school ≈ 62k population
- Middle school ≈ 80k
- High school ≈ 110k
- University ≈ 220k
- Hospital ≈ 175k
- Museum ≈ 175k
- Fire station ≈ 125k
- Police station ≈ 65k
- City hall ≈ 175k
- Library ≈ 200k
- Tennis court ≈ 65k
- Soccer field / Stadium / Golf course ≈ 175k each
2. Milestone counts (cumulative) at 250k / 500k / 750k / 1M population
- Elementary: 5 / 9 / 13 / 17
- Middle: 4 / 7 / 10 / 13
- High: 3 / 5 / 7 / 9
- University: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (I usually stop at 3–4)
- Hospital / Museum / City hall / Soccer / Stadium / Golf: 2 / 3 / 5 / 6
- Fire: 2 / 4 / 6 / 8
- Police / Tennis: 4 / 8 / 12 / 16
- Library: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
3. Tax-lever sequencing heuristic
- When demand > supply, that means lower corporate taxes so businesses can expand faster.
- When supply > demand, that means lower consumption taxes so people can spend more.
- Interestingly, on top of 0% individual income taxes, 0% corporate taxes theoretically nets into even higher GDP. This is due to business expansion hiring people, driving immigration up for labor, which population drives GDP up. You can set corporate taxes to 0% eventually, though, the game needs other tax methods, like land-value tax so that you can reasonably drive corporate taxes to 0% while still having a sustainable city.
- Always watch city deficits.