our Population Advisor keeps track of your city's population over time, and presents his information on three graphs.

The first graph that you see, labelled “Population – History,” simply shows the total number of people in your city over time. Each bar represents the population at the end of a month. If your city is growing, the bars should rise pretty steadily from left to right.

Click the small window labelled “Society.” The large graph changes to show your population's current composition by income. Low income citizens are on the left, and rich citizens are on the right. When your city is new, most of your people are tent dwellers, and the highest bar will be well to the left side of the graph. As time goes on and people's fortunes improve, the highest bar should shift gradually to the right. This is useful to try to ensure you are not creating an unequal society with a few very wealthy people and a mass of poor; such a social mix is bad for the city mood and could lead to crime. Try to have a more balanced social mix.

Click the window labelled “Census” to call up a graph showing your population's composition by age. This graph is useful for planning how many schools and academies you'll need, and seeing how many of your citizens are of working age. Also use it to predict how many citizens are about to retire, which can alter the economy of a city dramatically, since retired people no longer work, yet they continue to consume food and other goods and services.

Under the main graph you can see how much food is in the city granaries, how many food types your people are eating, whether people want to enter or leave your city and how many immigrated or emigrated last month.