It doesn't work for me either. When you press F1, it does activate. But after you end the turn, pressing F2 and/or F3 only temporary turns on the cheat. The values never change in-game. I wasted a bunch of turns/time creating and recreating.
I have the same version 1.0 S3. RLD release. However, that shouldn't matter much since this is probably checking for memory holding values for the dust and influence. I assume it only works because because the starting values change by some specific amount the first turn of creating a city. However, relying on users to manually get the exact variable by following a precise sequence is a bad idea, imo. If we could enter the values, sure it could work, but who knows what actions/inputs could affect how the values are stored.
Would it not be easier to make a save game editor?