Escaped a Death Spiral (Whew!)

I spent two thrilling hours clawing back to stability after I started dipping into cascading failures from running low on maintenance, diesel, coal, and electricity, and truck capacity all at the same time.

I was so close to an irrecoverable situation. Coming back from the brink of an actual game over required me to pause every building and rebuild my supply chains from the bottom up.

My solution involved making a 'diesel at any costs' mini factory with 3 basic distillers. (It solved the problem but shot pollution way up)

I also discovered the importance of centralizing and automating maintenance depots. I will always make sure to have excess capacity for maintenance going forward.

Maintenance and Diesel are the 'oxygen' that keep a run alive. Everything else can be built up as long as those two things can be made. Heck, a player could just trade wood and survive for a long time as long as they have diesel and maintenance.

I've only had the game for a few days and today's experience was definitely a "mistake," but it was also insanely fun and helped me realize that the heart of the game is about managing runaway growth.