Gameplay Basics: The Citizens

![The fine people of your fair city](docs/images/traffic_jam.png)

The citizens are the reason you have a job, mayor. Your goal is to make life better for them here than any other city in the region. That takes careful planning, crisis management, and most of all, learning what makes your people tick. 

##### Schedule
* Citizens follow a schedule; an ebb and flow to their day. They are not strictly bound to it, however.
* Most citizens will leave the home in the morning and return home at dusk. 
* You may still find citizens heading to work or the store in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. Night owls, as it were.

##### Behavior
* Citizens are willing to walk a short distance to get where they're going. But ideally, they would [[tools/toolTransportation|drive or take mass transit]] from source to destination. 
* Sometimes, they think they know better than the city planner, and may take favorite routes over what makes the most sense traffic-wise. It's your job to build a road network that mitigates these troublesome situations. 

##### Needs
* Citizens have needs, from the basics like food to the need for socialization and more. They will attempt to fulfill these needs while prioritizing their day job and fundamentals like sleep. 
* Citizens can become ill if they live in an area with a low [[heatmaps/hmHealth|Health]] score, in which case they will remain home instead of working or fulfilling their needs. You can add healthcare amenities to treat or prevent illnesses among the population in these areas. But addressing the root cause of the poor [[heatmaps/hmHealth|Health]] score may be preferable in the long run; consider focusing on reducing [[heatmaps/hmPollution|Pollution]] or other harmful metrics. 

##### Basics Menu
* [[basics/basicsCamera|The Camera]]
* [[basics/basicsCitizens|The Citizens]]
* [[basics/basicsZones|The Zones]]

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