Regional ecology and recovering wildlife

The overworld tracks the health of the local land separately from the creatures currently on screen. Prey, predators, hostiles, vegetation, forest cover and disturbance use hidden regional indices. These are not head counts. Hunting, gathering, felling trees and some building actions can change the local conditions.

Local changes take time

Ecology updates on each 25-turn boundary while you are in the overworld. The world is divided into regions 24 tiles across. Each update simulates a five by five group of regions around you. Vegetation and forest cover can recover towards the biome's capacity, while prey and predators affect one another. Disturbance and the recent-kill pressure also fade.

How ecology affects encounters

For the species the ecology system tracks, their group's population relative to the biome baseline changes their spawn weight. The multiplier stays between 10% and 300%. It does not set the number of creatures already alive. Ecology can also change the general creature allowance, between half and one and a half of its earlier value. Weather, safety, distance and other spawn rules still apply.

A quiet valley can recover

Prey and predators below their biome's capacity gain a small recolonisation amount during an update. A region that reaches zero population can therefore recover. Moving away does not simulate every distant region continuously. Regions left without updates for more than 2,000 turns can be discarded and later return to their biome baseline.

Tipping points and the narrator

After updating a region, the game checks six tipping points in order. Each has its own conditions and cooldown. Only the first eligible event changes that region during the update. Different regions can trigger events together, but the narrator shows at most one ecology message per update and can queue the others. A delayed message can describe a change that has already happened.