How the World Works

Understand map creation: what each choice decides, which ones are permanent, and how the terrain you generate keeps charging you.

1. What the map decides
2. Land and water
3. Terrain is a price list
4. Where the people go
5. +1 more

Understand the cycle linking economic activity, public revenue, expenditure and transport investment.

1. How the economy fits together
2. GDP, population and development
3. Where public money comes from
4. What your transport network costs
5. +4 more

Understand how each transport mode is built, operated and tuned — road, rail, air and water.

1. Roads: grades, tolls and upgrades
2. Railways: track and operating lines
3. Aviation: airports, markets and subsidies
4. Waterways: ports, routes and ferries

Understand the city layer: what you are given to build with, and how to design a city inside it.

1. Land, allowance and no construction fund
2. Reading your city
3. Zones, floors and the people in them
4. Streets and corridors
5. +2 more