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1 <head><title>Introduction</title></head><body>
2
3 <h1>Introduction</h1>
4
5 <h2>Foreword</h2>
6
7 Enter Micropolis and take control. Be the undisputed ruler of a
8 sophisticated real-time City Simulation. Become the master of existing
9 cities such as San Francisco, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro, or create
10 your own dream city (or nightmare slum) from the ground up. <p>
11
12 Whether you take over an existing city or build your own, you are the
13 Mayor and City Planner with complete authority. <p>
14
15 Your city is populated by Sims -- Simulated Citizens. Like their human
16 counterparts, they build houses, condos, churches, stores and
17 factories. And, also like humans, they complain about things like
18 taxes, mayors, taxes, city planners, and taxes. If they get unhappy,
19 they move out; you collect fewer taxes, the city deteriorates. <p>
20
21 The next few sections will explain the overall concept of Micropolis and
22 give information that will help you win Scenarios and design and build
23 better cities. <p>
24
25 <h2>About System Simulations</h2>
26
27 Micropolis is the first of a new type of entertainment/educational
28 software, called System Simulations. We provide you with a set of
29 Rules and Tools that describe, create and control a system. In the
30 case of Micropolis the system is a city. <p>
31
32 The challenge of playing a System Simulation game is to figure out how
33 the system works and take control of it. As master of the system, you
34 are free to use the Tools to create and control an unlimited number of
35 systems (in this case, cities) within the framework and limits
36 provided by the Rules. <p>
37
38 <h3>Rules</h3>
39
40 In Micropolis, the Rules to learn are based on city planning and
41 management, including: <p>
42
43 <ul>
44
45 <li>Human Factors: Residential space and amenities, availability of
46 jobs, and quality of life.
47
48 <li>Economic Factors: Land value, industrial and commercial space,
49 unemployment, internal and external markets, electric power, taxation,
50 and funding for city services.
51
52 <li>Survival Factors: Strategies for dealing with disasters, crime,
53 and pollution.
54
55 <li>Political Factors: Public opinion, zoning, and keeping residents
56 and businesses satisfied with your city and your performance.
57
58 </ul>
59 <p>
60
61 <h3>Tools</h3>
62
63 The Tools provide you with the ability to plan, lay out, zone, build,
64 bulldoze, re-zone, and manage a city. <p>
65
66 <ul>
67
68 <li>Plan: Mapping systems give physical and demographic overviews of
69 the entire city.
70
71 <li>Layout: Design living and working areas, road and transit systems,
72 and recreational areas.
73
74 <li>Zone: Set zoning boundaries for parks, residential, commercial and
75 industrial areas.
76
77 <li>Build: Place roads, rails, airports, seaports, fire and police
78 stations, sports stadiums, and power plants.
79
80 <li>Bulldoze: Clear forests for city growth, build landfill along
81 waterways, clear and re-zone developed areas.
82
83 <li>Manage: Using the mapping and graphing systems, gather up-to-date
84 information on traffic density, population trends, power grid status,
85 pollution, crime, land value, police and fire department efficiency,
86 and cash flow. Set the tax rate and funding levels for city services.
87
88 </ul>
89 <p>
90
91 But the most important Tool of all is the Simulator itself. Test your
92 plans and ideas as you watch the city grow or shrink through the
93 immigration and emigration of industrious Simulated Citizens. Sims
94 will move in and build homes, hospitals, churches, stores and
95 factories in the zones you provide, or move out in search of jobs or a
96 better life elsewhere. The success of the city is based on the quality
97 of the city you design and manage. <p>
98
99 <h3>Simulator Reaction Time</h3>
100
101 The simulator is a very complex multi-tasking piece of software. It is
102 constantly performing many checks, calculations, and updates, as well
103 as keeping watch on the mouse and keyboard to respond to your demands.
104 When you load in a city, give the simulator some time to compile its
105 data and update the maps, graphs, population levels, etc. Some of the
106 other times when the simulator lags behind you are when powering zones
107 and updating the city services map after installing police and fire
108 stations. <p>
109
110 <h2>The Goals of Micropolis</h2>
111
112 There are many goals to be pursued and reached in Micropolis. <p>
113
114 <h3>Scenarios</h3>
115
116 Each of the eight included scenarios is actually a game in itself,
117 with an unlimited number of ways to win -- or lose. <p>
118
119 Each Scenario is a city which is either the victim of horrible
120 planning or about to be the victim of a natural disaster. After you
121 load in a Scenario, you will have a limited amount of time to correct
122 or repair the problems. If you are successful, you will be given the
123 key to the city. If not, you may be ridden out of town on a rail. <p>
124
125 If one strategy doesn't work, try another. There are a million stories
126 in each city, and you write them. <p>
127
128 <h3>Your Dream City</h3>
129
130 Perhaps the main goal of Micropolis is for you to design, manage and
131 maintain the city of your dreams. <p>
132
133 Your ideal place to live may be a bustling megalopolis, lots of
134 people, lots of cars, tall buildings: high-energy, high density
135 living. Or it may be a small rural community, or a linked group of
136 small communities providing slow-paced country living. <p>
137
138 As long as your city can provide places for people to live, work, shop
139 and play, it will attract residents. And as long as traffic,
140 pollution, overcrowding, crime or taxes don't drive them away, your
141 city will live. <p>
142
143 <h1>Getting Started</h1>
144
145 <h2>Micropolis Requirements</h2>
146
147 Micropolis requires an Intel processor running the Linux operating
148 system, with the X11 window system installed, a 16 bit deep color graphics display,
149 a kernel with the shared memory option enabled,
150 and at least 32 megabytes of memory. <p>
151
152 <h2>Micropolis Features</h2>
153
154 <h3>On-Line Help</h3>
155
156 You can get help on the Micropolis user interface, by pointing the mouse
157 at anything mysterious, holding down shift, and clicking the left button.
158 The Help window will pop up, giving instructions and useful hints on how
159 to use the controls. <p>
160
161 <h3>Multiple Views</h3>
162
163 You can open up any number of animated city maps and editors at once. <p>
164
165 <h3>Pie Menus</h3>
166
167 Micropolis features pop up "pie menus" for quickly selecting city editing tools.
168 Pie menus are radial menus with their choices in different directions,
169 and they're very fast and efficient to use.
170 Since you change editing tools quite often while building a city,
171 you can save much time and effort by using the pie menu shortcuts
172 instead of the moving back and forth to the tool pallet.
173 <p>
174
175 <p>
176
177 <hr>
178 <p>
179 <h2>Micropolis, Unix Version.</h2>
180 This game was released for the Unix platform
181 in or about 1990 and has been modified for inclusion in the One Laptop
182 Per Child program. Copyright &copy; 1989 - 2007 Electronic Arts Inc. If
183 you need assistance with this program, you may contact:
184 <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Micropolis">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Micropolis</a> or email <a href="mailto:micropolis@laptop.org">micropolis@laptop.org</a>.
185 </p><p>
186
187 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
188 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
189 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at
190 your option) any later version.
191 </p><p>
192
193 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
194 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
195 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
196 General Public License for more details. You should have received a
197 copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If
198 not, see <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/</a>.
199 </p><p>
200
201 <h3 align="center">ADDITIONAL TERMS per GNU GPL Section 7</h3>
202
203 </p><p>
204 No trademark or publicity rights are granted. This license does NOT
205 give you any right, title or interest in the trademark SimCity or any
206 other Electronic Arts trademark. You may not distribute any
207 modification of this program using the trademark SimCity or claim any
208 affliation or association with Electronic Arts Inc. or its employees.
209 </p><p>
210
211 Any propagation or conveyance of this program must include this
212 copyright notice and these terms.
213 </p><p>
214
215 If you convey this program (or any modifications of it) and assume
216 contractual liability for the program to recipients of it, you agree
217 to indemnify Electronic Arts for any liability that those contractual
218 assumptions impose on Electronic Arts.
219 </p><p>
220
221 You may not misrepresent the origins of this program; modified
222 versions of the program must be marked as such and not identified as
223 the original program.
224 </p><p>
225
226 This disclaimer supplements the one included in the General Public
227 License. <b>TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, THIS
228 PROGRAM IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS," WITH ALL FAULTS, WITHOUT WARRANTY
229 OF ANY KIND, AND YOUR USE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. THE ENTIRE RISK OF
230 SATISFACTORY QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE RESIDES WITH YOU. ELECTRONIC ARTS
231 DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES,
232 INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY,
233 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY
234 RIGHTS, AND WARRANTIES (IF ANY) ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING,
235 USAGE, OR TRADE PRACTICE. ELECTRONIC ARTS DOES NOT WARRANT AGAINST
236 INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE PROGRAM; THAT THE PROGRAM WILL
237 MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; THAT OPERATION OF THE PROGRAM WILL BE
238 UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT THE PROGRAM WILL BE COMPATIBLE
239 WITH THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE OR THAT ANY ERRORS IN THE PROGRAM WILL BE
240 CORRECTED. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN ADVICE PROVIDED BY ELECTRONIC ARTS OR
241 ANY AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY. SOME
242 JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF OR LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED
243 WARRANTIES OR THE LIMITATIONS ON THE APPLICABLE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF A
244 CONSUMER, SO SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS MAY
245 NOT APPLY TO YOU.</b>
246 </p>
247 </body>
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