V0.2: Food Decay & Improved Player Agency

Hi everyone!

V0.1 highlighted some issues with food accumulation. It wasn't a bug, but rather a side effect of cities constantly trying to out-produce their consumption, leading to unrealistic stockpiles of several thousand units:

To address this, I’ve introduced Food Decay:

• Storage Buckets: Food is now stored in different "buckets" based on its shelf life. Once the expiration date is reached, the food is removed from the inventory.
• Preservation Ratios: Different food types now have unique lifespans and preservation ratios. This makes consuming fresh food more efficient than long-term storage, adding a new layer of strategy.

Beyond the economy, I’ve overhauled all Action Panels to give players a better control over the simulation and a clearer understanding of their impact. The City, State, and Tile panels have also been upgraded to provide full transparency on every event occurring during a single tick:

Finally, version 0.2 squashes a lot of bugs. You can find the full patch notes below:

Gameplay:

- Farm split into 5 climate-specific crop buildings: Wheat Farm (temperate), Barley Farm (cold/dry), Corn Farm (warm/wet), Rice Paddy (hot/wet), Olive Grove (Mediterranean, produces Fruit). Construction blocked outside climate range. Each has 3 production methods (Stone/Bronze/Iron age)

- Food consumption reduced to 0.1 per person per month

- Animal carrying capacity increased 10x; wild herds now sustain cities for years rather than months

- Ranch Stone Age productivity reduced to 1.3x hunting; scales up to 4x by Iron Age

- Ranch animal regeneration driven by assigned workers and production method instead of a flat constant per slot

- Recruitment and Fortification are now independent per-city settings with separate automation toggles

- Food conservation per food type (Grain, Fish, Meat, Fruit, Wine) with 5 levels from Eat First to Store All

Simulation:

- Animals are a living population overlay; HunterLodge depletes the local herd, which recovers logistically

- Forest slots grow and shrink over time; Sawmill causes deforestation, TreeFarm accelerates regrowth

- War casualties and thresholds scale with military technology; per-city recruitment and fortification levels

- Colonization is policy-gated; Colonial Drive and Mercantile policies control expansion behavior

- City expansion: homeless population fills existing tiles first; new tiles claimed only when all are full

- Tech-gated city radius expands from core-only (no tech) up to radius 3 (Road Building)

Action Panels:

- All 5 panels (Buildings, Goods, Food, Military, Population) share a unified framework: Default category with Automate All/Lock All, custom categories with drag-drop city assignment, per-row Auto toggles

- Per-row Auto toggle: herb green when player-controlled, yellow when automation is active

- Search/filter fields in Buildings and Goods panels

- Buildings presets: Food Priority and Industry Focus as starter categories

- Employment weight tooltips show actual modifiers: Shutdown (0%), Reduce (-30%), Boost (+15%), Maximum (+30%)

- Population panel: four toggles for Tile Expansion, Colony Founding, Trade Colonies, Population Expulsion

- Order automation: per-category toggles let the automation manage order placement; all manual by default

- Orders no longer expire by time; expansion orders removed automatically when tile is acquired

- "Automation" refers to the player's rule system; "AI" refers exclusively to computer-controlled states

Goods Panel:

- Reserve Target and Trade Preference have independent automation flags per resource

- Trade Policy shown on a single row with its own Auto toggle, included in Automate All/Lock All

City Info Panel:

- Food stockpile shows expiry buckets on hover (<3mo, <6mo, <12mo, <24mo, 24+mo)

- Stockpile format: `Food 423 +106/m` with produced/consumed tooltip

- Population shows monthly change inline with green/red coloring

- Food consolidated to single bar with per-type color segments

- Tile Info shows buildings with count and worker tooltip

- State Info Economy section shows aggregate population/food with per-city breakdown tooltips

HUD:

- State Info Panel: AI profile shown on its own line with tooltip; player state shows a combo to switch automation profile

- Orders panel integrated into Tile Info Panel; removed standalone floating Orders panel

- Encyclopedia opens as a resizable, movable window instead of a fullscreen modal

- HUD panels fade to translucent when not hovered; opacity configurable in Settings -> HUD

- Speed range reduced to 1-11; date display interpolates smoothly between ticks

Bug Fixes:

- Monthly report no longer disappears after a few frames

- Fog of war no longer expands infinitely each tick