10 lines
3.7 KiB
JSON
10 lines
3.7 KiB
JSON
{
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"id": "climate",
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"name": "Climate",
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"category": "world",
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"summary": "A physics-based climate simulation where temperature, moisture, and atmosphere evolve over time, reshaping terrain and ecology.",
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"body": "Climate in Magic Civilization is not a static backdrop. It is a continuous simulation driven by real physical principles, computed in the Rust simulation engine that serves as the game's source of truth. Temperature and moisture are the two primary axes that classify every hex into a biome. The climate specification defines an ordered rule list where conditions are evaluated top to bottom and the first match wins: saturated moisture on warm lowland becomes swamp, extreme elevation with freezing temperature becomes ice, hot arid conditions become desert, and so on through dozens of rules that produce natural-looking biome distribution.\n\nThe atmosphere itself is a dynamic system. Starting conditions range from Modern Earth (21% oxygen, 420ppm CO2) through Lush (30% oxygen, low CO2) to the extreme Primordial Earth setting where oxygen is near zero and CO2 and methane are dominant. Under primordial conditions, only underground or sealed civilizations can survive the early game while life slowly evolves the atmosphere toward habitability. Each terrain tile contributes to atmospheric exchange through its albedo and evapotranspiration values, creating feedback loops between land cover and climate state.\n\nClimate change unfolds through multiple mechanisms. Deforestation raises local albedo and reduces evapotranspiration, drying out the surrounding region. Industrial activity can increase atmospheric CO2. Volcanic eruptions inject aerosols that temporarily cool global temperatures. These changes are not cosmetic overlays but actual shifts in the temperature and moisture values that the biome classifier reads, meaning sustained environmental damage can permanently reclassify terrain from productive forest to barren desert.\n\nThe world age setting controls how long the climate and ecology simulation runs before the player enters the game. A newborn world has undergone only 5,000 evolution ticks, producing ecosystems no higher than tier 4 with sparse, immature biomes. An established world runs for 30,000 ticks, reaching tier 8 ecosystems with well-developed forests and diverse fauna. A mythic world has evolved for 120,000 ticks, producing abundant tier 10 old-growth ecosystems that represent geological timescales of accumulated ecological maturity. The disaster setting interacts with world age during this pre-game evolution, determining how many catastrophic events occur and how severe they are.\n\nThe Coriolis effect, driven by the planet rotation speed setting, influences atmospheric circulation patterns that distribute heat and moisture across the map. Higher rotation speeds create stronger wind deflection, concentrating moisture in certain latitude bands and creating drier conditions in others. These planetary-scale physics produce the familiar pattern of wet equatorial regions, dry subtropical bands, and cold polar zones without any of it being hand-placed.",
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"design_notes": "The climate system exists to make the world feel consequential. When a player clear-cuts an ancient forest for production, the climate simulation ensures that decision echoes forward through drying soil, shifting biome boundaries, and reduced carrying capacity. The world pushes back against exploitation, creating a tension between short-term industrial gain and long-term environmental sustainability that mirrors real civilizational tradeoffs.",
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"related": ["terrain", "ecology", "world_generation"],
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"tags": ["climate", "temperature", "moisture", "atmosphere", "biome", "albedo", "weather", "simulation"]
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}
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