Hello there, thanks for clicking on this instead of watching a youtuber who probably would be of better help than me, just sayin. cause i know i did. and used some ideas, don't worry about it on how i feel like would be helpful tips and tricks on creating your COMMUNIST UTOPIA

Look for part 2 cause steam likes being a b**ch to me. Sorry Comrades

I'll break this down into 3 main parts with many smaller parts
EARLY GAME (0-2 years) MID GAME (3-5) LATE GAME (+6)

Welcome to early game is going to be a b**ch to your sanity and your rubles. Don't worry. You'll get it back.... maybe

I like to start on the settings MEDIUM with eastern Europe with population because free labor and settings with people madness at hard and buildings and vehicles need fuel for added realism. Also fires down to normal because houses don't burn down that often..... right? I find cities on the edge, like literally hugging the border to look bad and cheap so find a good spot out in the country that looks like it works in the long term. I chose by the lake where the main oil deposits are for reference. This turned out to be a semi decent spot with drawbacks and I'll get to those. Towns should be how you want them to look. BUT DO NOT IMPORT PEOPLE. or at least not a lot. Very expensive and you have free labor in other towns just dying to work

!!!!! First thing first you need the following, and these are critical i feel like !!!!!!

COAL POWER PLANT
COAL MINE
COAL PROCESSING PLANT
and if you feeling bold and zesty
AGGREGATE STORAGE

This should be self explanatory . power is great for early game money and it provides your citizens with free power and your trains as well. I tried it first without a power plant and bought my power and my economy never recovered early game. Coal is also a great early game resource. its not the most expensive material but will make you good chunks of money when you are making nothing else. The storage I found very useful with all its extra connecting ports.
Along with coal you should get into the gravel industry. Gravel is almost useless to sell but it will cut the cost of building a tad for some extra money saving. This will help you a lot mid game.

Farms are tricky
they are very useful but can be a pain to manage.
Because bigger farms take longer to grow (why? i don't know nor care) you should have a combination of many small farms for consistency and large ones for the bounty. With crops you should make them into food and alcohol. Supply local shops to stop the importation of materials (to save money) and sell them. these are really good early game when exporting. DON'T be afraid to buy crops. you'll run into times where you don't have anymore. The cost of selling food and alcohol greatly outweigh crops so even mid and late game, you may still be importing them.
Meat is cheap to buy so don't worry about meat. that's optional especially since there is no easy way of exporting it. you can, just it's annoying

I like to use electric trains to transport everything as they run on free power and they can carry a lot of cars and thus, a lot of room for things. helps mid-late game. if you don't know how to work them, (I still don't) just use 2 different trains on 2 different rails. easy
Also whats important is work. have one bus start supplying people to your farms and factories and have one mini-bus dropping people off directly to your power plant, and ore processing plant, plus one regular bus and one mini-bus to your coal mine (because its far away) so they will rarely run out of workers and if they do then there is always a bus fixing the problem.

Construction office is key as well. because i settled on a very hilly lake (this is where its semi decent) it cost a LOT of money to level everything. get a Dozer and excavator and save money.

you should ideally end up with 5 million rubles and one million $. if you go lower than this, you playing with fire and you are *this* close to losing.

THANKS COMRADE FOR TIME
GLORIES TO MOTHERLAND!