In the Cold War, the Industry buildings from the World Wars Era begin to lose profits, some of them need to be demolished to save money, while others will be needed to supply the new cold war industries.


(Screenshot is from the modern era)

*1st: Be Self Sufficient. Only import what you have to. Mining materials are very expensive to import and waste your trade ships. Build your own mines and use the Geologic Survey Edict to keep them running longer.
*2nd: Determine what industries to keep.
Industries I recomend keeping...
-Steel Mill: Use it to supply the Car Factory, which brings in around 10k per 1000 units
-Cannery: Great to keep if you have plenty of Wharfs, Pineapple farms, and Coffe farms. Note, I prefer to only supply the Cannery with Pineapples and Fish. In the Cold war your population should end up nearing 1000 people, and if nessesary, your Cannery supplies can be diverted to keeping your population from starving to death in a food crsis. That may cost money at the time, but its cheaper than all of your factory workers dieing from starvation
-Lumber Mill: Keep it to supply the furniture factory. In the Modern Era furniture isn't as profitable, so its more of a one use building
-Textile Mill: Cloth may no longer be one of the most profitable exports, but the textile mill is worth holding on to if you still have Llama ranches and Cotton plantations. In the modern era this building will provide cloth to the very profitable fashion company

What I recomend removing...
-Jewelery Factory: Good to have if you can supply your own gold, but if you don't have gold don't waste the money importing it.

The key to surviving the cold war, go all the way oil! Build as many oil wells and refineries as you can and secure trade deals to the superpowers so you can start working on citizen happiness and saving money for the jump to the modern era. HIGHLY RECOMENDED!

Also I highly recommend building Car Factories, they are extremely profitable, but you need steel and Bauxite to produce them. Remember to not mine for bauxite untill you reach the cold war. HIGHLY RECOMENDED!


(Screen shot from Modern Era)

The furniture factory is profitable for a little while, but later you may want to remove it and send it's workers elsewhere

Tourism is profitable, but extremely expensive to begin. Wait for oil money to come so that your not bankrupted by the ridiculous prices of hotels. Build a little bit in the Cold War, and fully expand in the Modern Era

Pharmacuticals are an awesome industry to get into, for 20k you get a building that produces exports without having to supply it with inputs. HIGHLY RECOMENDED!

As your production increases, you won't be able to export everything at one dock, so expand your docks to at least three right away. After a while expand to four, and when you have plenty of profits but your export rate is decling, add two more at a different location (I'm talking across the island), because the slow export rate is probably from overloaded docks and traffic.


This is my main harbor. I did not do this, but have more than one road to the harbors to ease traffic. (screen shot from modern era)


My secondary harbor (screen shot from modern era)

Make sure you upgrade your trade ships at the dry dock so they can carry more cargo and each dock will then provide two trade ships

Power Plants
Soon you will need alot of electricity on the island and the regular power plant won't cut it. First build automated uranium mines and then construct a nuclear power plant. Then demolish the old power plant(s) to ease your budget

Build lots of teamsters offices or your exports wont even see the docks!

Airport

When you have some more cash, and tourist attractions build an airport to increase the amount of tourists on the island. An objective will come up and it will pay you to have an airport, and it comes up a few times in the era so take advantage of it


(Finally a photo from the Cold War era)

To reach the Modern Era you must build either a nuclear program or the space program.
I recomend the space program because it will really help with research in the modern era.

But before you build one of the two, you need to prepare for the economic crsis you will most likely encounter when you reach the modern era.

I recomend
*Remove and replace obsolete buildings such as grocers and catholic missions
*Build up the tourism industry
*Work on building new highways between your industry centers and the docks (What i call two roads that are parralell to each other and one square apart, they really help with reducing traffic)
*Build plenty of farms to ensure your population will not starve to death during the economic crisis and make matters worse
*Build a small number of hospitals and cathedrals to keep your people happy and healthy
*Save between 300k and 500k before jumping to the modern era, this will give you plenty of money you need to adapt your economy.
*Scam the repeating rewards objectives (such as the airport objective mentioned earlier)
*Don't switch to the modern era untill 1989, and wait till you have the cash and your people are happy and well cared for. (I entered the modern era in 2014)
*Carry out lots of trade deals

If you have done all of that then you are ready for the modern era