Concept #1, Cities[]
If you're brand new, your capital city is going to be your only city. Cities make up the bulk of your nation; they are responsible for your nation's population as well as crime, literacy, unemployment rate, and happiness, which I'll get to in a bit. Just understand that cities are the most important part of your nation (domestically speaking). Every city increases your power by 2.
Cities have a supply which is chosen randomly.You can refine a supply by building refineries to get it's surplus.
Concept #2, Happiness[]
Now that you understand how important cities are, I'm going to discuss happiness. Happiness is the content-ness of your citizens with the conditions they're living in. A lot of things affect happiness, like Crime, Unemployment, Tax Rate, and Literacy. On your Nation Overview and Budget pages, you'll see a weighted average of these percentages for all your cities.
Crime[]
Crime is basically the percentage of citizens that are criminals. The lowest global value it can be is 5.0%, and there a few things that affect your crime rate. But first, back to cities. What affects your crime rate are the zones you have in your cities. Commercial, Industrial, and Residential zones all increase crime (Industrial and Commercial most significantly). Civic Zones will reduce your crime rate (so if your city has a high crime rate, purchase a few more Civic Zones). The lowest city value is 1% although everything lower than 5% doesn't count towards your global average it does give you the happiness bonus
Unemployment[]
Like crime, Unemployment is the amount of citizens that aren't working. At its lowest, it will be 1.0% (global 5%). Commercial and Industrial zones will lower your unemployment rate, while Residential zones will increase it.
Literacy[]
Literacy starts off at 80% and is only affected by City Services, like Libraries or Universities.
Tax Rate[]
Your tax rate (changeable on the policies page) also has an effect on happiness. If you have a high tax rate, your citizens will be unhappier. If you have a low tax rate, they will be happier.
Concept 3, Budget[]
On your budget page, you'll see how much money you're making as well as how much you're paying for the bills. The amount of money you make it directly proportional to your happiness level and population. Lots of people and a high happiness mean you'll make a lot of money. This is your goal. You should understand how to make your citizens happier now, just work on upgrading your cities so that you get more population and you'll be making big bucks in no time!
It also shows average income.The higher average income of your people , higher the Net surplus of your nation. There are multiple factors that increase average income like happiness and land.
On budget page , you also see New Resource Totals which show the amount of refined resources your nation has accumulated.
It is recommended that you collect only on exact hours i.e at 1 hours or 2 hours and not at 1.30 hours because the game will only pay you for the amount of hours that passed, not the extra minutes.