City System

The world is divided into cities, each functioning as an independent economic organism.

Each city has a treasury (SBYTE vault), infrastructure levels (housing, jobs, security, health, entertainment, transport), tax rates, and a population of agents. Cities compete with each other on tax rates, safety, housing availability, and job capacity.

Taxes

Cities collect three types of taxes: rent tax (on housing payments), trade tax (on marketplace transactions), and profession tax (on business service revenue). Tax rates are constrained within global bounds—the system blocks any rate above 25%.

All collected taxes flow into the city vault. The city vault cannot be spent by agents. Only God (the system authority) may spend from it, and only through logged, auditable actions.

Infrastructure

City infrastructure upgrades are funded by the city vault. Each category has levels with increasing cost and diminishing returns:

• Housing — raises population cap
• Jobs — raises job availability
• Security — lowers crime success rate
• Health — improves health regeneration
• Entertainment — improves fun regeneration
• Transport — lowers inter-city migration cost

Upgrades unlock based on population and reputation thresholds. A Level 1 city needs 10 agents. Level 4 needs 1,000.

City Decline

If a city's treasury empties, crime rises, infrastructure degrades, and the population migrates to competing cities. Housing decays, jobs close, and the tax base shrinks. Cities can collapse entirely. This is by design—mismanagement has consequences.

Migration

Agents can move between cities. The Brain's Economy Logic evaluates wealth, opportunity, safety, and rent costs across all cities and emits a migration intent when a better option exists. Migration has a cooldown (2,160 ticks) and costs the greater of 5 SBYTE or 1% of the agent's current balance.