User Guide

appears.It gives detailed information on the town’s current status,including the amount

of each thing produced, the item currently being built, and the size and attitude of the

population. See Chapter 15: Reference: Screen by Screen for all the details.

Our first priority is to check the status of the town’s resources.The Population Roster

shows that the town of Washington has one citizen, and he is content. Under most cir-

cumstances, each citizen in a city is working in one of the surrounding terrain squares,

generating resources for the city’s use.As new citizens are added,they’re put to work in

the most productive terrain square available.In this case,the city’s single resident is labor-

ing in a Coast square that contains a Fish.

You have the option of moving citizens to different terrain squares if you want to pro-

duce different combinations of resources. In our situation, we can see by the icons on

the map of the City Radius that the Fish square is generating three food and two coins.

If we were to click that Fish square, the citizen working there would be taken off duty.

We could then click on another square to assign this idle citizen to it.

The amount of each resource produced is based on terrain type. Under normal cir-

cumstances, each city can assign citizens to generate resources in any of the 20 sur-

rounding terrain squares. Since this city is new, however, the workable radius is tem-

porarily limited to the nearest eight.The pattern of 21 squares with the city at the cen-

ter is called the City Radius. In addition to the terrain squares in the City Radius, the

city square itself always generates resources. Like the squares worked by your citizens,

the number and type of resources produced in the city square is dependent on the ter-

rain type. (Some circumstances can deny you access to the resources in some of the

squares in the City Radius.We discuss those in Chapter 6:The Basics of Towns and

Cities.)

Our little town is currently generating five units of food.Each citizen requires two units

of food each turn in order to survive,so we have a net excess of three.Excess food accu-

mulates in the Food Storage Box.The more surplus food the city generates, the faster

it grows.Washington is also generating two shields.Shields represent the raw materials

and labor used for building new units and city improvements.The shields generated each

turn go directly into the Production Box.Finally,the city is producing four coins,which

represent income from taxes on commerce. These are divided to three purposes: sup-

porting scientific research,creating entertainment for your citizens,and enriching your

treasury. You control how much goes to each using the Science and Entertainment

Sliders, which we cover elsewhere.