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QUICKSTART
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GENERAL PRESENTATION OF
THE GAME SCREEN

Total Population
Percentage of inhabitants
in each sociocultural group

Budget:
Available funds +
monthly balance

Build Menu:
Provides access
to all the
elements you
can build in
your town
Mini-map and
Navigation
Panel
Advisor’s Menu: Global Information Panel:
Provides access to the Provides general information
global information about the town
panel, to charts and Detail Information Panel:
information displayed Provides more detailed
on the map information

Contextual Window:
Shows information about
the selected building

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GAME CONTROLS
CONTROLS ACTIONS
ESC Main menu
Left click Select + pick up elements
Right click Stop selection
ZXCV Move map
page up Zoom in
page down Zoom out
CTRL + Z Rotate Camera Left
CTRL + X Rotate Camera Right
Wheel click + move mouse Rotate Camera
Wheel up / down Zoom out / Zoom in

FIRST STEPS WALKTHROUGH

When the game is launched, click on Create Profile.
Then enter your name.
Click on “Temperate” to select it.
Click on “Rocky Lake” to select it.
Click on the Validate icon to start playing.

Once the map is loaded, click on a Buy icon. The dark overlay will
disappear from the area you just bought and the City Hall will
appear below the mouse cursor.

Click on the place you wish to build the City Hall.

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Build a road to the City Hall: in the Build menu, click on

Transportation and then click on “Two way street”.

The Road tool is now activated.

Click on the road in front of the City
Hall and drag a vertical line towards
the South. A green line will appear
showing you where the road will be.
Click again to build the road. Once
constructed, right click to exit the
Road tool. During the game, just
right click whenever you want to
exit a Building tool.

To build houses, click on

Residence/Single family residence
in the Build menu.

Click on the ground in front of the City Hall to construct 4 houses

- 2 on each side of the road you just built.

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Inhabitants now have a place to live, and will come rapidly to the city.
But they need a place to work, so we will now create 2 businesses.

In the Build menu, go to Business and

Industry/Blue Collars and select the first
Blue collar industry.

The Building tool is now activated.

Move the mouse cursor around the
map; you will see roads highlighted
in dark blue showing where the
building is recruiting.

In order to be able to recruit easily,

build the industry on the left of the
City Hall.

Once you have built it, the roads near the industry will be shown in
blue. This means the road is labeled “Blue Collar” and Blue Collars will
come in priority. Streets are labeled according to the number of
businesses that have been constructed on it. A street can be labeled
neutral or any of the 6 sociocultural groups.

The town in City Life must be balanced to develop. You must therefore
attract different types of cultures by offering different kinds of jobs. In
order to do so, create a business for a different sociocultural group such
as the Fringes.

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In the Build menu, go to Business and

Industry/Fringe and select the first Fringe
business.

Build the business on the right of

the City Hall.

After a short while, several icons will appear above the buildings.
These icons show you which problems to manage.

UNEMPLOYED ICON
This icon indicates that some inhabitants in the
designated house don’t have a job. The number
below shows the amount of unemployed
inhabitants from the house’s total number of
inhabitants (for example: 1/3 means 1 inhabitant
out of 3 doesn’t have a job).

EMPTY JOB ICON

This icon indicates there are jobs available in the
designated building,

Once you have created jobs for the different sociocultural groups, you
must fulfill the general needs of the population, and new icons will
appear over the houses.

SHOPPING ICON
This indicates that the population requires
shopping facilities.

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In the Build menu, go to General

Needs/Shopping and click on
Grocery Store.

Build the store near the road and

near the 4 houses you constructed.
The blue circle around it shows the
building’s range of impact.

An empty job icon may appear over the

Grocery Store as no one is working there at
the moment. Click on the Grocery shop to
see information about the building on the
top right corner of the screen.

First you can see its main culture. All City

Services buildings require workers from
specific cultures to be fully efficient. Without
workers, construction is only 75% efficient.
To be fully efficient, the Grocery store needs
a Fringe worker.

Information regarding costs is also provided: the cost is 40, and a

worker will cost 10. This means that the building will cost 50 when all
jobs have been filled.

Here you can see that City Services buildings only cost money.
Buildings which generate the most revenue in City Life are Houses and
Business/Industry buildings.

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Healthcare Icon
Once the Grocery Store has been built, the
icons above the houses will change into a cross
representing Healthcare.

To provide this service, go to City

Services/Healthcare in the Build
menu and click on Medical office.

Build it in front of the Grocery store,

on the other side of the road along
the houses.

You will then need somebody to work in the Grocery Store and/or the
Medical Office.

Now build new houses to welcome new workers and make the city
expand. To go faster, create an entire residential area instead of
constructing houses individually.

In the Build menu, go to Residence/Single family residence.

Select the House tool and place the cursor on the left side of the
road.

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Click and hold while moving the mouse to draw a green

rectangular shaped area. Use the mouse to draw an area for
around 16 houses (see image 1 below) and then release the
mouse to build the houses automatically.

Image 1

Do the same again on the other side of the road (see image 2
below).

Image 2

IIn the Build menu, go to Business and Industry/Blue Collars and

select the first industry. Build 4 on the left hand side.

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In the Build menu, go to Business

and Industry/Fringe and select the
first business. Build 4 on the right
hand side.

Construct an Electricity supply

building to help the city’s
development. In the Build menu, go to
City Services/Energy production and
click on Windmill.

Construct the building near the

lake. This will allow you to produce
Electricity and will balance the city’s
expenses.

In the Build menu, click on Transportation and then

click on “Two way street”.

The Road tool is now activated. Click and hold on the road corner
of the City Hall for about a second and then drag a diagonal road
to reach the corner of the residential area.

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Make your city grow. If some of the inhabitants are unemployed,

construct a building corresponding to their specific culture beside the
other employment buildings.

When there are 120 inhabitants you will be able to create bigger
houses.

In order to do so, go to Residence/Small residential

buildings in the Build menu.

Build 3 houses on the left diagonal road.

THE “SNIFFER”
When you build a house, you will
see an icon representing the
different sociocultural groups on
the upper right hand side of the
screen.

In the above example it indicates:

- Blue Collars are attracted
- Radical Chics, Suits and Elite are repelled and won’t come.
- Fringes are not attracted nor repelled.
- Have-nots may arrive.

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Do the same on the other diagonal

road of the map, on the Fringe side.

After a while, you may see an alert icon indicating

there is a cultural conflict.

When you zoom very close to the house you may see people being
harassed. This is what happens when opposites or incompatible
cultures live close to each other.

If the situation remains as it is, the inhabitants will be unhappy and will
leave the place.

There are several things which can be done to solve or avoid this
situation during the game:
- Create neighborhoods where only compatible cultures live together
(although this is not always possible)
- Build Security buildings to control cultural conflict (in City Services)
- Build Social peace buildings (in City Services)

At the beginning of the game you don’t have access to these types of
buildings, you must therefore construct your city with Blue Collars on
one side and Fringes on the other.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
General tips :
- Always build offices first to provide employment as this attracts
new inhabitants. Then build houses to welcome the new
population.
- Make sure to build at least the same amount of houses are there
are working places.
- Always take into account the cultural distribution in your city.
You need all cultures for your city to work well.
- As your city grows, make sure the traffic moves freely and
appears in green when displayed (in Advisor Menu/ Traffic &
Needs/Cars).

Sociocultural influence
When you build your city, make sure that enemy cultures are not
too close to each other or they will leave you with empty buildings
leading you to bankruptcy as you will still have to pay their
upkeep costs.

Cumulative effect of Basic Needs buildings

Be careful when you build your city as two identical Basic Needs
buildings don’t increase their impact on the population.
For instance: Shopping needs.

If you build a Grocery store in specific area, it will generate 20%

shopping satisfaction. If you build another Grocery Store in the
same area, it won’t provide any additional impact.

To satisfy Shopping requirements (and ultimately reach 100%)

you must construct different buildings such as the Supermarket
and the Shopping Center. This is the only way to satisfy Shopping
needs and attract high income cultures.

Meeting, not exceeding, expectations

Citizens show you their needs and what they are lacking via the
icons displayed on the houses. Build whatever is necessary to
meet their expectations. There is one exception to this rule: when
you want to upgrade the cultures in a specific area, check the
requirements corresponding to this sociocultural group and
provide them with what they need (as shown in the tutorial).

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Large buildings
Don’t try to build large buildings immediately. They are too
expensive and will not allow you to balance your budget. Wait
until you have a large city before you construct large buildings.

Large Needs buildings

These large buildings have a specific impact:
- Large security building (FBI office): does not generate security
but doubles the impact of other security buildings.
- Large education building (university): does not generate
Education but doubles the impact of other education buildings.

For more information please refer to:

- The manual
- The tutorial videos (During the game,
press Esc and then click on Tutorial)
- The in-game help

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NOTES

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