Choosing at the beginning¶

Before the first hour, two kinds of setting are chosen: the trigger and the stressors. Both have defaults. A game started without choosing gets degradation and neglect, and the city as the system pages describe it.

The trigger¶

One of six kinds, and it decides which events come from outside the city and how often. Choose crime, and cable theft and cyber attacks start arriving. Pumps without maintenance still fail more often, because the city’s own state sets those odds, whatever the trigger.

The trigger is not a script. Cable theft arrives at odds the trigger sets, on days nobody can predict. What it turns into depends on how dark the streets already are, how fast the network company reconnects, and whether the Palace presses it to. Two games with the same trigger part ways in the first week.

The stressors¶

The stressors are boxes that start away from normal. With stock in the warehouse set low, a blocked bridge empties the shelves in a day instead of a week. With maintenance spending set low, towers and pumps age faster from the first hour, which is degradation and neglect arriving by a second door.

Not chosen¶

The districts, the loops and the length of a term are the city, and stay as they are. Luck is not chosen either. Each game rolls its own dice, so two games with the same choices still start from slightly different cities.