FAQ

Welcome to the Smogtopia FAQ! Here's some info about how the game works.

At the highest level, this is an MMO about urban design & civilization collapse.

Your job is to create a great city. A city that attracts citizens from other cities. Citizens are picky — some prefer low tax rates (which will leave you with less money), and some prefer higher-levelled jobs (which will be expensive to develop.)

All cities are beholden to pollution. If there's enough pollution in the world, citizens start dying. It's very expensive to remove pollution from the world. However, it's also expensive to build clean power sources.

Getting started

The quickest way to get started is to build some roads, some huts, and a coal plant. That will start a loop that will give you energy, money, and will attract citizens to work at the coal plant.

Buildings

Buildings are the main thing you have control over. Buildings requires some amount of resources (area, money, energy, steel, sulfur, etc) and will generate other resources. For example, roads will generate area without requiring anything.

Some buildings require workers to operate. If they have enough workers of the right level, they will start operating (turn green), and start generating resources. For example, coal plants require money, area, and 5 level 0 workers. Once they start operating, they will generate 2000 energy, -10 health, and 30 pollution.

Demolishing

Removing a building will return a portion of money to you, but not the full cost of the building.

Citizens

Citizens are independent agents that will try to have the best life they can. There are a few things they will try to optimize for:

• They want to work in a job that fits their education level. Read more about education below.
• They like lower taxes.
• They will move to another city if there aren't enough jobs at their level in your city, or if there isn't enough housing.
• They will die if there's no housing available anywhere, if there's too much pollution, or if they get too old.
• Things a citizen can evaluate a city on:
  • Health
  • Sprawl
  • Pollution
  • Fun
  • Tax Rate

Citizens all have different preferences. Some weigh tax rates more importantly than others, but some prefer cities with a high fun level or low sprawl level.