Once a city is founded, it will automatically begin extracting resources from surrounding spaces; the amount of spaces it can extract from is determined by the city's population size. The game automatically allocates the spaces a city uses and how its resources are maintained as the city grows, but the player is free to manage the city directly. This feature can be utilized to turn a part of the population into one of several specialized occupations; at the cost of having one less space from the city, these specialists increase gathering and production of the resources of their targeted specializations.