Simulating Evolution: Extreme Temperatures 

Simulating disruptive ecological events such as droughts, climate change, ice ages, disasters, etc. might help periodically food-rich regions to evolve builds that can survive harsher but more stable conditions. It might even be reasonable to use it as a way to keep your sim from crashing; ie: focus disasters on areas with high pop density.

With the temperature changes you could have so water bodies freeze over allowing species to temporarily traverse them. Perhaps some way to evolve more unique traits like eusociallity, burrowing, and flight. Also some more diverse food options like carrion, ants, eggs, and honey. I've said this in other comments but what you're making is incredible. I'm trying to get into coding and I have no idea how you accomplished this.

It’s amazing how many times I watch someone recreate Maxis’ SimLife and am fascinated each time because I always wanted a better/updated version.

this is such a underrated channel. keep up the good work

I've loved this evolutionary journey so far, and really look forwards to catching every vid as they drop next year too. Here's to many more years of this content 🎉

Factually one of, and personally the best evolutionary ecosystem simulator. The impacts of seasons, even when they only impact tiles, is just one example of how you continue to consistently amaze me with new additions & improvements. Amazing stuff.

Could the change in weather create land bridges? I.e, two areas are disconnected, but if it gets too hot some water might evaporate, or too cold it might freeze, allowing for temporary passage between islands?

First of all congratulations. This is one of the most captivating evolution simulations I've come across on youtube and it is beautifully done. Now, I realize suggestions for future improvements are plenty, but I was thinking that the avatar system might not be the best one to appreciate visually the diversity of each creature's stats and especially the continuities between related populations. Even though it requires sacrificing realistic depictions, attributing a single phenotypal characteristic expressed on a continuous scale to any given genetic parameter could be more helpful. For example the way stealth worked in the previous video allowed an immediate assessment of which populations invested in that parameter and which didn't, and it also allowed to guess the origin of a migratory population: if a new area suddenly showed translucent warthogs one could immediately conclude that they likely migrated from the population to the east which was more stealthy rather than the one to the west which was less stealthy. Similarly, just to make another example, creatures could come in two main colours based on speed with gradated variations in between two extremes, say red for slow and blue for fast (something similar to what Primer did in some of his earliest videos ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0ZGbIKd0XrM.html&ab_channel=Primer). The current system is aesthetically more appealing, but for example when a new population B arises from an older population A their respective appearances hardly allow to recognize their genetic connection and the graduality of this differentiation, as the system that assigns the avatars operates discrete classifications. Continuous visual characteristics could do the trick better when it comes to tracing relatedness and appreciating gradual changes over time.

you know it was really interesting to see that there was a repeating migration happening from the center of the map to the South-East corner of the map before dying off. looking forward to creatures being directly affected by Temperature that's gonna be interesting. anyway until then happy Christmas and New Year.

Glad to see the vid back up!

I would really love to see you add a gene that controls mutation rate. Especially as you create a more volatile ecosystem it would be interesting to see what populations evolve to tightly regulate their genes and which don’t.

Love this series :) Keep it up, it is facinating.

Super excited to see your next version.

You're doing a great job, fantastic video! Locking forward to the next one!

This is really cool I hope that you can add adaptations for creatures in relation to the environment, and add some kind of a plant that can grow in colder temps maybe make it grow slower as a way to balance the simulation

I love the content youve been putting out and I can't wait to see what you accomplish next year! From a data visualisation point - it'd be interesting to see meat split into active predation and scavenging. I'd love to know who is out there actively hunting and who is just eating whatever they come across on the ground.

So so much Love great video!!!

Yay!! More content!!

I absolutely love this series and am so happy every time you upload the next part!

I have no idea how it took me so long to find your channel. Keep up the good work 👍

Again, facinating stuff!

Very nice! As a fan of making and watching evolution simulations, this is one of the best!

Super exciting! So now I have no idea how this would work (since you've only had static landmasses) but it would be super cool to continental drift occur. Do you have any plan of this in the future? Again thanks for the wonderful videos!

Thanks for the videos. This type of work is fascinating.

He actualy did it lets go

It's nice to see that predation seemed more balanced in this

I find myself fascinated by this. Thank you for your hard work!

Watching these is always fun lol

really happy i stubled across this, this is awesome!

Thermoregulatory adaptations, like Crassulacean acid metabolism, gigantothermy, insulation, and blood radiators (elephant/jerboa ears, etc), would really help emphasize the impact of seasons, and could allow for dynamic biomes in response to a global temperature change if you get the plant code efficient enough. You’d need to model that investment in increasing the efficient digestion and consumption of plants is likely to exclude predatory meat eating, and vice versa, to get trends comparable to historical- otherwise I think we might get Wooly Badgers, rather than Wooly Mammoths.

Suggestion: Group them into packs, when the numbers exceed orders of magnitude. That should allow You to keep the simulation going if it climbs to higher numbers. For a bonus: Have a 'Herd' as next order of grouping. Great video!

I love your videos! You might not have a million subcribers, but you definitely deserve it! 10/10 :D

This is more exciting than most people think.

I can't wait to see how the simulation evolves next year! Do you have an estimate of when you think it could be ready?

Here's something to take into account, sleep. Some creatures will have to sprend most of the day doing nothing

You almost made rabbits at the end! Haha cant wait to see what this grows into

You should also add a stat that influences how many children they get in one pregnancy

Amazing video series! Idk if you already implemented it, but I think you should include at least two more factors for animals, rest periods (aka how long do they sleep) where they can spend a round or more sleeping and conserve energy a lot of carnivores sleep most of their day, it would also help animals in colder regions as they can eat less and sleep more and the ability to gain stores of food, aka that they not only eat when hungry but to have more fat on them maybe an expansion to their hunger and the ability to move their food priority upwards. Additionally idk if you did that already but meat should give more calories than plant matter, mainyl because it takes less energy to digest and is directly helpful, but also because unlike the plants we eat most herbavores eat plants that are not very nurishing like grass, especailly when you substract the energy needed to digest the food meat is a much bigger plus. So maybe adjust the calories given by each food source too and see what happens it should lead to much more diversity in strategy (if you didnt do it already)

This couls evolve into a mod for dwarf fortress

i love watching your videos

Your side note about carnivorous pandas actually is pretty funny, given pandas are the PeTA of the animal kingdom - Natural carnivores that picked up a diet of bamboo for some dumb reason.

soomething that may help with more migration, to access bigger parts of the map (and help in extreme environments): depending on perception value a creature can also see tiles that are further away and choose to go there if it makes caloric sense.

Always wanted to make something similar to this.

Maybe you could incorporate the fact that different food sources have different effort/reward values, cows have to spend their whole day eating, but tigers need to catch only one animal per week for example. meat has a higher nutritional value but is risky to acquire while herbivores take a safe but time intensive route. Also it would be very cool if you could get the predator prey population curves to naturally evolve.

Very few evolution simulators impliment plant evolution, which is very important. Anti-nutritive compounds, in particular, drive a huge amount of specialization in herbivores and make omnivory or predation more viable .

Evolution of migratory behaviors would also be rather fascinating to see

In the future do you think you'll ever consider procedural sprites?

Hi, I just found this project and I love it! I’m just curious what tools you used to build the visual simulation?

Fell asleep to this last night, not a critique I'm actually restarting today cus this was interesting

This is such a cool program, will it be available once you "finish" it?

The seasonal cycle is waay too "seasonally" extreme, like the poles literally disappear and become 25% of the world just a few dozen ticks later, but it was intentional, so i accept it. Some global warming simulation would be cool!(at least to prevent your computer to crash from a creature population explosion)

My first time watching one of your videos, and simulations. So got some ideas for next year. It sounds like you set it that coldness only effects plant growth. However, even in the most coldest places, there are still forests and animals. This is became a 'Tree', is not just a 'Tree', but like humans an animals, has different traits, effects, dna, ect, ect~. So even in the Tundras of the north and south, there should still be plenty of forests. Just a different kinda forest, with different trees designed to grow in the cold instead of just the heat. And being a different tree/plants, it could require a different kinda animal to eat it. One that is more adapt to the cold, but less to the heat. So eating it could effect the animal, making it more comfortable in the cold, and not like the heat as much anymore. This could cause 'Herb' like animals to split off into different zones they like or dislike, some in the middle where it's warm, while others in the cold cause they like the cold better. And having less food in the cold, they could digest food slower, and need less of it to get full. But, the effect only effects the Herb, so Predators can still roam the map to eat the animals without getting trapped in specific biomes cause of who they eat. ^ Just an idea to throw out there.

Love you’re videos i have been watching since 1k subs❤ I have an interesting idea: add intelligence (brain) they can find ( things ) and if they’re smart enough they can use it example: they find a cave if they’re smart enough they enter it and get protection for some turn and more also this can implement the ability to swim if they’re smart enough or hide on trees many more thing’s its complicated to make so it probably will take some time to balance it but yeah GL with making intelligence

You should consider making seasonal periods much longer to allow creatures to both settle there and leave there as migratory creatures. Excellent work though!

Yep very fun

Since you have seasons, maybe you can transfer over to using Köppen climate classification

Maybe add the ability to swim? Currently islands are completely disconnected from the remaining part of the map. Creatures should be able to move onto the water and the mainland. And fish are currently non-existent. Excited to see what version 1 and 2024 will have in store for us and you!

Unsure if someone has asked before but have you made your code open source or (understandably) have you kept it private? I'd love to have a look at it and run some simulations myself. If you do have a private repo I completely understand, and I'm excited to see what comes next. I really enjoy your videos on this!

You could over many turns change the terrain to see how enviromental change affects the population

Where do you get your assets? Do you make them yourself? If so, that's awesome!

I would love to see evolution of ground area depending on animal behaviour patterns.

I think using temperature to strictly limit plant growth is the wrong way to implement things. Just because an area is warmer or colder doesn’t change plant growth, it mostly effects which plants grow there. A warm climate might have dense rainforest while a colder climate still has a dense taiga. The lower temperature does not mean less plant life until you get to an extreme where plants really can’t grow at all. In your simulation it appears that there is essentially only one kind of plant life (leaves, grass, etc. but all universally effected by temperature in the exact same way) so having it fluctuate with temperature is going to negatively impact your sim, you should either dampen the effect that temperature has on reducing available food in temperate areas or add a second type of plant that prefers the middle latitudes to maintain a more standard food availability and also allow for additional complexity in the species by diversifying their plant food source preferences

In real life, many if not most animals in temperate/boreal climates hibernate, or at least reduce their activity levels during winter as a direct response to lower food accessability.

To allow the cold zones to support life couldn’t the animals have some sort of sense that winter is coming and then have the opportunity to hibernate or migrate? I’d feel that would allow for the species to adapt to the harsher environments.

Let's gooo!

this is so cool you should make the simulation playable by viewers

Would it be difficult to add an "autosave" after a set number of rounds?

Maybe have some creatures protect their young by having the young follow them?as a behaviour trait maybe?This will also come with the liability of finding food for the young or maybe the parent could make milk to feed the young by using its own energy?

This is the most fascinating nature/evolution simulation I have found on RU-vid thus far. How do you simulate reproduction? Can anything mate with anything? Do you separate species? Or have you made the (reasonable) abstraction of a-sexual reproduction?

Definitely a good idea, but it seems like it needs some fine-tuning. The entire simulation was pretty samey. Still cannot wait for very rare, but major geography changes in landmass!

I kinda wish the cold effect was a little less white, it's a bit too hard to see the enviroment below. Also, I really love your videos!

I think your creatures need some good benefits from specializing in a nieche to diversify and occupy biomes

They be getting seizures over there lmao

does this simulate resource depletion? if so, do the places that are consistently depleted take longer to replenish?

Add birds and reptiles

Maybe a thing that should also be implemented is gradual climate changes

Make things get hungrier in hoter/colder temps?, give the ability to swim but it costs more food? link East and West side of maps?, meat gives more food then plant?, add disease that culls large clusters to help stop population explosions?

Maybe you should simulate without that much graphics. I'm excited for what comes

Perhaps add extinction event like a ice age or a meteorite

have you seen the bibbits ? i imagine you guys would have quite an interesting conversation

This video : Gives a whole new perspective to that phrase in the holy books the final generation ! Think about it a training model for souls . The final generation being giving a light body and moved to heaven ? We are inside grand theft auto 911 !

Maybe you should add bad or good recessive genes and diseases

I think summer and winter were too similar in the snowy areas. I live in norway and while we are covered in snow now we do also get 25 degrees in the summer

Just a pedantic nit pick… but when the earth is tilted in the winter and summer it’s not a different amount of sun hitting the earth. It’s that it’s the same amount, spread over a larger area. Has nothing to do with the actual video though so feel free to ignore me lol

To keep from overpopulation crashing the computer, and the focus of animals driving towards one working build in a stable region, give plants a means to defend themselves. In our world plants will develop waxy surfaces, thorns, toxins, bright colors, odors, and more to attract a specific species or repel other species. Giving the plants a way to evolve might result in even stable climates to be more unstable and drive change in the animals... when the living plant is sometimes hostile, focusing on meat or dead/decaying plants may be the better option. Maybe plants in colder environments grow slower but develop richer nutrients or some way to preserve resources through the cold. Our real world does that with plants creating dense seed clusters or fruit to give offspring a boost to survive the temperature swing, and some plants develop ways to go dorment to survive winters. There are also other plants that develop some means such as flowers or odors to attract animals to help spread seeds. I guess what I'm saying is maybe the next step is to introduce evolution into the plants.

Aaaaand... I go to watch the next video and find out you're already doing what I commented on the previous video. :p

Nice

This is great but one problem with this simulation is we can't see how creatures adapt. All i see is same boar with small scale variations.

I noticed that you use hexagonal tiles, but the world overall is a rectangle. Have you considered switching to a hexagonal world? It would also be closer to our real planet where the equatorial latitude is biggest, whereas this simulation has equal space at every latitude.

You could also implement birds or humans, with a tendency to move as far away as possible

Could there be a way to simulate hibernation?

If you want to simulate evolution better you could have some plants better for the cold and allow over time plants to slowly mutate to better fit there environment, aswell you could have some animals that are better suited for different temperatures allowing for the north and south not being empty as there are penguins in real life

I don't wish to nitpick but since it's a simulation I thought it important to bring up the fact that tho we tend to think of herbivores as strictly vegetarian, that's simply not true, deer, sheep and cows etc have been known to eat meat like birds, snakes and even suck on bones to get important nutrients, so a 0.0 calculation I would say is inaccurate.

How can i get my hands on it

good luck

Imagine getting number 42 😂

Why not run the simulation in a compute shaders?

why did you private the video the first few minutes after it released?

Is dam good. My suggest for making more diverse and Endurance world Is add the insect. Insect have tò use a very small quanity of food, High ratio of re production and small dimension. This probably bring a lot of omnivora feed only of that and left tò the real carnivori the task of hunting big erbivors. That probably can be a help for the simulation for sustain itself in Life. This Is the best advice i find ti suggest you. Season Is ok

What would you give at advice to someone who wants to start such a simulation project with limited programming knowledge.