Each player is also dealt a hand of cards.
Suns are beneficial and normally played on oneself.
A sun may bring a bumper harvest or trade center which boosts population, a pied piper who tempts people away from other cities, or a home improvement like sewers or city walls which boost population and help keep out the rats. The rat cards bring death and destruction to other players' cities. Rats may be disasters like droughts or famine which kill outright, even more destructive like fires and earthquakes which kill and destroy improvements, or wars which pit two other players against one another in a struggle that brings woe to both. At the start of the game the world is enjoying an age of prosperity. On their turn each player rolls two dice and consults a small chart to see how many peeps have arrived in their city this go.