What does not enough raw materials mean?

So there you are, playing Cities: Skylines, you have a booming city (or so you thought). You’ve noticed your city has tons of abandoned buildings popping up everywhere. When you click on one of those buildings, it says “not enough buyers for products.” 

This is a common issue that even I have experienced before, and I can tell you exactly what to do about this. Apart from “Not Enough Buyers for Products” in Cities: Skylines, I can think of many other common problems that may pop up in your game, such as the “Not Enough Raw Materials Issue” or “Too Few Services Issue.”

In this post, I am going to cover all of these issues for you and hopefully help you figure it all out so that you can get back to a booming city. 

Also Read: How to Use Heavy Traffic Ban in Cities: Skylines?

Table of Content show

How to Deal with the “Not Enough buyers for Products” Problem

The “Not Enough Raw Materials” Issue

Too Few Services Problem

Not Enough Goods to Sell Problem

Cause and Fixes

Not Enough Customers Issue

Causes and fixes:

Not enough Educated Workers

Causes and how to fix:

Conclusion

How to Deal with the “Not Enough buyers for Products” Problem

In industrial zones, it’s common to see “not enough buyers” for products in Cities: Skylines.  Your industries produce goods for commercial zones who are known as buyers. So when you come across this problem, you either have too many industries or don’t have enough commercial zones. Something may also be wrong with your export, and you will need to add more connections for this. 

To make a long story short, in order for you to avoid City: Skylines'”not enough buyers” issue, you need to look over your industries and make sure they have proper connections and make sure you have enough commercial zones. When I had this problem, it was because I didn’t have proper connections, so I fixed it, and the problem subsided. 

The “Not Enough Raw Materials” Issue

At the base of your specialized industries, you have raw materials. There are times where raw materials will get depleted. If you don’t have enough of those resources, this is something that can be imported. 

Now, the reason for this problem is simply because your industries aren’t able to get enough of the raw materials. What this means is that there may be some issues with importing. For this reason, you will need to fix the importing issues, or you will need to rebuild your specialized industry to a more generic one.

Too Few Services Problem

The problem with too few services is commonly found in office and industrial zones, and it may be a bit on the “confusing” side because the game isn’t clear as to what they mean by “services.”

The following are considered “services” in Cities: Skylines

• Fire station
• Public transportation
• Deathcare
• Police
• Education
• Garbage Collection
• Parks and Recreation

When you have this problem, look through the area and see what services are missing. When you find the missing services, go ahead and add them, and the problem should be solved. 

Also Read: How to Start a City in Cities: Skylines

Not Enough Goods to Sell Problem

This is a problem that tends to arise in commercial zones. In order to fully understand this issue, you first need to have an understanding of how the supply chain works. Your industries produce goods that are needed for your commercial zone to operate. If your industries aren’t able to produce enough goods, then those foods are imported. If, for some reason, those commercial zones don’t receive enough goods, then you’re going to face this problem. 

Cause and Fixes

• If you have traffic jams, then the trucks won’t be able to arrive on time. For this reason, you need to look into regular traffic management.
• For some districts, a heavy traffic ban policy may be applied, and this will prevent trucks from getting to your commercial zones. Try removing this policy if there is one in place and this should fix the issue. 
• If you have some other specialized industry, like forestry only, then the other goods will be imported and affected by the traffic issues. So what it all boils down to is the fact that you need to work on those traffic issues and create alternative ways to import, such as via a train station, cargo airport or cargo harbor. 

Not Enough Customers Issue

Another common issue that you may see pop up in Cities: Skylines is “Not enough customers.” When your commercial zone lacks customers, that not enough customers icon will pop up. This means you don’t have enough customers buying your services. The customers should come from either residential areas or from outside your connections, as tourists. 

Causes and fixes:

• You may have ignored the demand bars and put up more residential zones than you should have. In order to fix this problem, you will need to build more residential zones and avoid building commercial ones for a bit. 
• Another reason could be because your citizens aren’t able to reach your commercial zones. If this is the case, all you have to do is make proper public transportation. You will want to do the same for the tourists. 
• There could be a death wave. Sometimes, an extensive expansion can result in the natural death of multiple citizens (simultaneously), and they weren’t able to arrive at the shopping malls. In order to avoid this, you should expand your city step by step, without creating major residential areas all of a sudden. 

Not enough Educated Workers

This icon may pop up in your office and commercial districts. 

Causes and how to fix:

Office and commercial zones need workers that have different levels of education for obvious reasons. When you have worked that aren’t able to reach the needed level in the workplace, then this icon is going to appear.

• This icon may be popping up simply because you don’t have enough educated people. The solution to this is simple, all you have to do is build more schools and colleges.
• Transportation could be the problem. If you believe the cause is transportation, then you should arrange public transportation so that the workers are able to get to their workplace. 
• Education isn’t done in a day; this is something that takes time. If you have been developing your commercial and office areas at a rapid rate, then you may need to wait for the future workers to go out and get their proper education.

Conclusion

As you see, there are many problems that can pop up in Cities: Skylines. However, just like in real life, when there is a problem, there is a solution. Sometimes, finding that solution isn’t exactly easy, but if you work at it, you will come up with one. So, if you come across any problem in Cities: Skylines, don’t just scrap your city and start over; try to find a solution.

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