User Guide

Cities are the residences of your population,the sources of tax dollars and cultural devel-

opment, and the homes of your scientists. Each city organizes the development of the

area surrounding it, harvesting nearby agricultural produce, natural resources, and

potential trade goods,then converting these resources into food,industrial production,

technology, and cash.

One way to measure the success of your civilization is by the number and size of cities

you control.Larger cities collect more taxes,conduct more scientific research,and pro-

duce new items faster.Civilizations with small numbers of cities and small city sizes risk

being overrun by larger, more powerful neighbors.

You can acquire new cities in a few ways. Most frequently, you build them with Set-

tlers. If you are aggressive, you can conquer the cities of your neighbors. Occasionally,

your exploring units will discover a minor tribe that elects to join your civilization. If

your culture is dominant,a neighboring, culturally weak city might be swayed by your

city’s cultural influences and spontaneously leave its civilization and convert to yours.

Finally, there’s propaganda; it’s one of the less ethical tools of diplomacy, but it can be

quite effective in bringing cities under your rule.

The City Display

The primary tool you use to monitor and control your cities is the City Display. This

display opens whenever you found or acquire a city, or you can double-click on any of

your cities to open it. To comprehend the City Display, you must understand the

symbolism it uses.Take a look at the City Display while you’re reading—it’ll make things

a lot clearer.

Cities arose when populations banded together and began using planned agriculture to

produce the food to feed themselves day to day. Often, there were sufficient leftovers

to store for later use. Once food storage developed, not every citizen had to produce

food all day,which allowed some people to specialize in producing other goods and serv-

ices.Eventually,cities accumulated enough surplus food and goods that they could trade

their excess with nearby populations.

To represent a city’s population, the game maintains a Population Roster. Each citizen

(a little head) stands for a segment of that city’s population.The roster displays both cit-

izens who labor on the land around the city and citizens whose specializations produce

other effects.The Population Roster tells you how large your city has grown, who’s

happy and who’s not, and the nationality of each citizen (you’ll find lots more details