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# Agrarian Core Design Document
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## Purpose
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Agrarian is a persistent generational civilization simulator about rebuilding
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human society from the ground up. It starts as a grounded survival game and
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grows into stewardship, family, labor, trade, governance, technology, and
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legacy.
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The central question is:
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> What survives after you are gone?
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The core design goal is to make that question playable. A player's work should
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leave evidence in the world, affect other players, and matter beyond a single
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session.
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## Design Pillars
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### Civilization Is Built
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The world should not hand players a finished civilization. Players begin with
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hands, local resources, and limited knowledge. Tools, shelter, food systems,
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settlements, trade, governance, and technology are built through player effort.
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### Legacy Matters
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Progress is not just a level number. Legacy includes knowledge, shelter,
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stored supplies, land improvements, social trust, family lines, infrastructure,
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maps, records, and institutions.
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### The World Remembers
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Agrarian should avoid seasonal wipes as a design crutch. The long-term game
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should preserve meaningful history wherever feasible. If something changes or
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decays, that change should be explainable inside the world.
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### The Frontier Always Exists
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The map should grow over time through real-world terrain tiles. New territory
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creates room for exploration, settlement, conflict, opportunity, and fresh
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stories without erasing old territory.
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### Knowledge Is Progression
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Players should become more capable because they learn recipes, techniques,
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locations, seasons, risks, social relationships, and production chains.
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Character skills can support that, but knowledge should remain the heart of
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progression.
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### Real Place, Believable Pace
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Terrain, weather, day/night presentation, resources, water, elevation, and
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biomes should be grounded in the real Earth region represented by each tile.
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Travel and basic physical actions should stay close to believable real-world
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pace. The MVP gameplay calendar uses `4 real hours = 1 in-game day`, while
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sunlight and weather direction should still respect the represented region.
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### Hard Beginnings, Earned Ease
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The early game should be difficult, hands-on, inefficient, and a little
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fragile. Progress should make survival less frantic through tools, storage,
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shelter, food systems, domestication, teamwork, and infrastructure rather than
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making the world feel artificial.
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## Target Player Experience
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The player should feel like they are entering a real place with limited means.
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They should need to observe, gather, drink, eat, avoid exposure, improvise
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tools, build shelter, and learn the land.
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Over time, the same player should be able to look back and see a trail of
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meaningful change:
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- a safer camp;
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- a reliable water source;
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- stored food and materials;
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- better tools;
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- paths, markers, and local knowledge;
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- domesticated plants or animals;
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- trade relationships;
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- a settlement;
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- records, traditions, and inherited advantages.
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The emotional arc should move from "I might not make it through the night" to
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"what I build here may outlast me."
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## MVP Experience
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The first playable MVP is not the full civilization game. It is the smallest
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strong proof that the survival foundation, real terrain direction, and
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persistent world direction can work together.
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The MVP starts on the Ground Zero tile and should prove:
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- the player can enter the world after splash/startup and character selection;
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- the map is based on a real 1 km x 1 km tile;
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- the tile package can be served and verified from the tile server;
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- basic survival pressure works;
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- the player can gather resources;
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- the player can drink or collect water;
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- the player can craft at least one useful tool;
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- the player can make or use fire;
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- the player can build or use primitive shelter;
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- weather and time influence survival;
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- one meaningful death path exists;
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- state can survive restart;
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- at least two players can join the same server for a smoke test.
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The MVP should feel like the beginning of Agrarian, not a generic Unreal
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template or a generic survival sandbox.
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## Core Loop
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The first loop is:
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1. Observe the environment.
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2. Gather immediate resources.
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3. Solve thirst, hunger, warmth, and shelter.
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4. Craft better tools.
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5. Reduce risk through storage, fire, shelter, and local knowledge.
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6. Persist progress.
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7. Return with an advantage and take on a larger goal.
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The long-term loop expands into:
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1. Improve survival reliability.
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2. Domesticate plants and animals.
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3. Build durable infrastructure.
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4. Specialize labor and knowledge.
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5. Trade and cooperate.
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6. Govern shared spaces.
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7. Preserve legacy for successors.
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8. Push into new frontier tiles.
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## World Model
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Agrarian's long-term world is Earth-scale in intent. Tiles are 1 km x 1 km and
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can be added over many years. The game should not require all tiles to exist at
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launch. Instead, it should support a growing world where terrain data,
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metadata, packages, cache rules, and server delivery can mature over time.
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Important world commitments:
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- real elevation and terrain should guide playable landforms;
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- ocean depth, mountains, rivers, lakes, coastlines, biomes, and natural
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resources should come from real data where feasible;
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- tile packages should be versioned;
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- clients should cache tiles locally and redownload them when needed;
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- unused local tiles can eventually be scrubbed by cache policy;
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- player state must not be corrupted when terrain data improves.
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## Time And Weather
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Agrarian separates gameplay calendar pacing from real-world environmental
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context.
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For the MVP:
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- gameplay calendar target: `4 real hours = 1 in-game day`;
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- day/night presentation should mimic the represented real region;
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- weather should come from or map toward the represented real region;
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- time and weather should affect survival pressure.
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For the long-term game:
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- crops, livestock, aging, pregnancy, spoilage, disease, healing, soil
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recovery, and seasons should use the Agrarian calendar;
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- skill and infrastructure should improve efficiency, yield, quality,
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reliability, and capacity;
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- natural biological time should not be shortened casually just to make
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progression faster.
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## Survival Philosophy
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Survival should be grounded and legible. Players should usually understand why
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they are in danger.
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Core pressures:
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- thirst;
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- hunger;
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- cold and exposure;
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- injury and damage;
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- weather;
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- darkness;
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- limited carrying capacity;
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- unreliable early fire and shelter;
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- inefficient early gathering.
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Death should be possible. Starting over should hurt. The cost does not need to
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be fully generational in the MVP, but it should be enough for survival to
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matter.
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## Progression Philosophy
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Progression should favor capability over abstraction.
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Better players and communities should gain:
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- better tools;
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- better shelter;
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- safer water;
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- more reliable food;
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- storage;
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- preserved materials;
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- local map knowledge;
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- recipes and techniques;
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- domestication;
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- infrastructure;
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- labor specialization;
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- trade;
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- governance;
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- inherited advantages.
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Skills should not turn the game into a speed-run abstraction. They should make
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players more competent inside a believable world.
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## Multiplayer And Society
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Agrarian should support cooperation from the foundation. Even the MVP should be
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validated with at least two players joining the same server.
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The long-term social direction includes:
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- shared labor;
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- trade;
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- land use;
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- family and inheritance;
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- records and agreements;
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- settlement governance;
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- conflict and consequences;
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- community value around AGR without pay-to-win mechanics.
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The game should make cooperation powerful without making solo survival
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impossible at the start.
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## Economy And AGR
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AGR should have both in-game and real-world community value, but it must not
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become pay-to-win. Economy design should come after the survival and persistence
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foundation is stable.
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Early economy design must protect:
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- fair access to survival;
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- no loot boxes;
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- no fragmented DLC model;
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- no purchasable dominance;
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- clear separation between community value and gameplay fairness.
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## Non-Goals For The First Playable MVP
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Do not block the first playable MVP on:
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- full Earth-scale streaming;
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- polished public release UX;
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- Steam or Epic launch setup;
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- complete farming and livestock systems;
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- complete family/generation systems;
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- full economy or AGR utility;
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- mature settlement governance;
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- polished final character art;
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- full real-weather provider integration;
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- complete sunrise/sunset astronomy accuracy.
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## Design Risks
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Primary risks:
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- too much realism can become tedious;
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- too much compression can break the core identity;
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- real-world terrain can become a data pipeline project before the survival
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loop is fun;
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- persistence can preserve bugs if data contracts are weak;
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- economy and AGR can damage trust if introduced before gameplay fairness is
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clear;
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- scope can drift into the long-term vision before the MVP is playable.
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Mitigation:
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- keep the MVP narrow;
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- make each system prove one playable thing before expanding;
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- document data contracts early;
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- separate prototype content from real game content;
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- preserve build and restore paths;
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- test with real players before adding more breadth.
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## Current Design Decisions
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- Ground Zero is the first MVP tile.
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- The MVP tile is 1 km x 1 km.
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- The MVP gameplay calendar target is `4 real hours = 1 in-game day`.
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- Day/night presentation should mimic the represented Earth region.
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- Weather should map toward the represented Earth region.
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- Real-world travel pace remains a core commitment.
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- The public tile endpoint currently uses `maps.agrariangame.com:18080`.
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- The first tile server runs inside the dedicated `Agrarian-TileServer` VM.
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- Unused Unreal starter variants have been removed.
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- ThirdPerson and LevelPrototyping content remain temporarily while still
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referenced by current player Blueprint and prototype automation.
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## Follow-Up Documents
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This core design document intentionally leaves detailed implementation to the
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next foundation documents:
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- technical design document;
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- multiplayer/networking design document;
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- persistence design document;
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- Earth-scale terrain/tile streaming design document;
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- economy and AGR design document;
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- art direction, UX/HUD direction, coding standards, Blueprint standards, and
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asset/folder naming standards.
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