Terra
In build · 0.1.0
A civilization simulation in continuous time on a real sphere — no turns, no visible hex grid.
- cells
- 163,842on a real sphere
- tests
- 483determinism enforced
- lines
- 19,40570 files
- turns
- 0continuous time
Terra in short
Time can be paused or run at up to a year a second. Movement follows great circles over 163,842 cells, and the HUD says out loud what the current time scale simplifies. It is built layer by layer, with determinism required from the first file.
What works, and what does not
- Planet generation baked into a fast simulation grid, rendered as a smooth sphere
- A deterministic clock with pause and seven speeds, up to a year per second
- Continuous space: fixed-point spherical geometry, A* and smoothed routes
- Groups of people rather than individuals or abstractions
- Settlement, subsistence, knowledge diffusion and peoples with territory and borders
- Diplomacy and war (as continuous processes rather than turn states) is the next layer.
- Save/load, replay, pacing UI and alerts come after that.
- The economy and technology still stall around 4000 BC.
What had to be got right
Deterministic from the first file
Two machines given the same state and commands must reach bit-identical results. A test scans the sources and fails the build on any forbidden function.
Speed is bought with coarseness, not steps
The base tick is one simulated minute, forever. Faster speeds take longer strides, and each system declares where it becomes simplified — the HUD names it.
A sphere, not a board
The data grid is hexagonal but the picture is continuous: coastlines are thresholded per pixel, so no hex board shows through.
See it
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