After looking through the kingdom-building rules, I have come to a few conclusions. They are important ones, I think. They're things I would have caught had I not been extremely ill during the initial kingdom setup sessions.
The core issue is simple: The kingdom at present is not sustainable. It will not be sustainable without major changes and streamlining, and it will most likely fall apart within a few turns unless changes are made. There are multiple issues at cause.
First, the city is laid out such that it consumes extra BP for being multiple city districts. It has been set up inefficiently and it is hurting the kingdom's finances. This likely would have been best set up in one area, it would fit as-is. I am not sure if we're allowed to do anything about that or not at this point.
Second, it's hard for me to get a complete picture because it seems some of my notes aren't full; I'm assuming some decisions were made when I was AFK for a few minutes during one of these sessions. Does anyone have a complete sheet of the kingdom's situation? Mine are definitely missing some data because when I talked with Max's player about stuff I was like "Wait, what? When did that happen?"
Third, DC 28 is just not possible to hit reliably with a kingdom posting +16 on its best trait, Economics. The saves need to come up significantly somehow (can any offices pick to affect Economics and/or Stability instead of Loyalty at this time? Please look into this and see if yours can), and/or the DC needs to come down. This may require abandoning some hexes until the kingdom is stable enough to grow again.
I'm treating this as fairly significant because it's my understanding any sort of "kingdom falls into anarchy" or "too far into debt" situation is treated as a TPK-equivalent in Kingmaker. This needs to be solved very soon, ideally by our next session or during it. Otherwise the campaign is likely going to come crashing to a halt.
If anyone has some ideas on what to do to address these concerns, or improve the kingdom's situation in other ways, feel free to bring them up.
I would cation you against panic at this point. When you say a 28 DC isnt reliable with a +16 I would reply, "So what?"
The thing of it is this is the very beginning. As the adventure progresses rewards and decision boost these bonuses and make them far more reliably met (if reading message boards serve as an indication). As it is, your first rolls gave you a 40% chance of success. Not too shabby for the first attempt at a check. If I were in Vegas I would love to roll with a 40% success chance at any game! Now of course rolling a 1 with that first roll was disastrous but so what! Its all part of the adventure. Sometimes things work your way, sometimes they dont and a kingdom that requires a bit of work and struggle sounds far more dramatic and interesting to me then a easy roll each and every go.
Just my two coppers.
In regards to making adjustments regarding districts or even hexes you can always work and rework that stuff.