The settlers arrive with fire, language, and inherited instincts—but no finished building recipe. Their first walls may leak, collapse, or teach the next generation what enclosure means.
Layered terrainEvery tile has elevation, soil depth, clay, sand, groundwater, mud, sediment, ice, vegetation, roots, deadfall, and moving surface water.
Genetic livesMetabolism, strength, perception, curiosity, cooperation, spatial reasoning, fertility, immunity, and decision biases recombine and mutate.
Cultural evolutionIndividuals remember resource sites, gain skills, invent plans, imitate successful builders, teach ideas, and sometimes lose knowledge when its carriers die.
Built massWalls rise from leveled foundations, roofs catch and shed rain, materials weather differently, fires spread through fuel, and collapses leave physical debris.
Land useAgriculture, wells, workshops, storage, masonry, and repair practices arise from accumulated experience and pressure rather than a player-placed technology tree.
Your roleYou cannot order a house. Alter weather or terrain and observe how settlement choices, genes, knowledge, and the landscape answer one another.