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Interesting behavior. 

One key thing I noticed was this; The tribes are expanding consistently while at the same time "waging"  a war.  

How? These states are involved in a multi-generational total war, but have the time, resources and interest to maintain colonization?  I think it would be key for the simulation to represent the deeper socio-economic aspects of warfare. To be in a state of war for pre-modern states is to push the systems and institutions of that state to its limit for one purpose. 

In reality, if a tribe were at war, men would be called forward, away from farms and hunting, building, colonizing, in order to fight. Warfare is expensive, and a very very uncertain state of operation for polities, all the energy and resources pent up from peace is put forth into a single concerted effort. Even then, victory is not guaranteed. The state which diverts too much effort from the war is very likely to collapse from defeat, and the state which can maintain a focused fight is likely to win. 

I think that the simulation should also represent just how considerable of an effort it is to wage war (when warfare is implemented), And just how random and unknown the results of that war can be. States collapse, culture changed, a golden age or a dark age, and not just for the polities involved in the war too. Warfare and its results are a ripple, cities burnt, trade routes closed or gone, people migrate, new technologies.  These changes are felt globally, even in pre-history. A single war, can be the ripple that leads to the collapse of an empire hundreds of years later, or an entire historical era.  For example, the rise of the Huns and their reputation combined with climate changes led to mass  migrations which led to the collapse of a decaying Western Roman Empire and therefore resulted in the dark ages until the mid 900's. That led to the creation of the modern European nations. 

Think of war as  part of a toolkit, an operational mode available to these polities to keep itself alive, to achieve a better state, and to maintain status quo.

Debatable. If anything, the religious wars, and decline of Byzantium as a result propelled Europe forward

I think this new error is actually quite interesting once you take in what exactly it means. 

Yes, the migration is absolutely too powerful and should be lowered, however for as much as one could say about the migration being too powerful, one could also say that factors which inhibit migration are too weak or nonexistent in some places (of course I'm speculating out of my ass so please take everything I say with a grain of salt). While that might seem like a tiny and useless difference, it actually does mean a lot for the simulation.

The best solution may not be to just fix expansion, but to give the simulation the counteractive tools needed to handle expansion in a realistic manner, especially when expansion goes AWOL. Ideally these counteractive factors are dynamic, and can work when expansion rates are returned to normal. 

What do I mean by counteractive factors? 

Well, what does it take for a (pre-agricultural) polity to expand? 

And before we can even answer that,  what is the difference between the first polity, and the disorganized bands which surround its frontier?

 Do the warriors of this society fight any differently than their neighbors the moment the polity poofs into existence?  Do they suddenly speak a different language? Survive through radically new tactics? Eat different food? Produce great works of engineering, or even solid housing?  

No. The only, only solid difference that should exist between the first polities and their disorganized neighbors, is that the society is now organized through a concrete leadership and is held together through a practical understanding of the relationship between tribal members and leadership. The leadership can exert actual control and have the respect/authority/power/resources to do so. That is the only key difference, but its the most important one.  Once a society reaches this point, it reaches terminal mass, they will begin down a series of innovations and decisions which *might* give that society the institutions, resources, and technology needed to facilitate organized migration, warfare and advancement.  

The key point, is that freshly baked polities don't have the toolset necessary for continued and organized expansion. Its not so much that they can't do any of these things, they definitely can, its just that when they do, its sporadic, and the more they do it, the society risks being overtaken by collapse, fracturing or more advanced neighbors. This is normal, but is not present or well represented by the simulation, and therefore you can have a hunter-gatherer society colonize and conquer the world in 100 years with not a hic-up or anything to slow them down. They get to do all of these things without the direction, institutions, technology and manpower needed, because they aren't really a factor at that point. 

The truth is, even if the expansion rates are wack, there should be a million things going wrong in this polity, that even if it managed to get half as far as it did, it should have fallen apart over night. There is no way a tribal council could manage such a vast stretch of land with vast amounts of people. A people who share no common identity, no common language,  a people protected by a state with  no standing army, and even if they wanted one, wouldn't even know how to maintain or pay one. Who would even run one? A village across the world would have no way to maintain communication with the non-existent bureaucracy, and even if the polity was smart enough to employ local governors to run a loose confederation, these governors would have EVERY reason to break away and run their own little chiefdoms the moment they got an office. 

This is a problem that gets exponentially worse the larger the backwards polity gets. It doesn't have the toolset to get that big, and it doesn't have the toolset to maintain it either. That is what I mean by counteractive factors. The limitations of politics, institutions technology and people. Only with considerable effort and societal advancements can these shackles be overcome and empires expanding many regions and surpassing local identities be formed. Yes, humans IRL don't need modern technology to form huge polities, it does make things easier. 

Of course its easy for me to say all this, and much harder for anyone to put it into code, and so with that I thank you for all your great work, keep it up!

Its ok, take a break and revitalize yourself. If you find the spark for Bronze Age again, go at it when you are ready, if not then move on! Ultimately this project is meant to be a work of joy for all, developer included and if its not for you, then there is no guilt or hesitance to be had. Take a break and enjoy life.

A good test for a climate change model would be to implement volcanos. I think they'd be the easiest to implement to put a prototype model to the test. Add a biome, have the map generator spawn one, and make an event for it. The good thing about climate is that usually it takes alot of time to notice differences, and those differences create a greater shift over time. This means you could for example, have the simulation iterate the climate model every hundred years or longer, and anytime an important event happens, such as a volcanic eruption, the model can be updated instantly, and for a some time be updated annually before returning to equilibrium or the default conditions.

 If you can get that to work then you might have a solid framework for a climate model and can implement more climate events before adding a fully dynamic system down the road. Cheers!

How do tribes/peoples priorities shift as they adopt a more sedentary and "civilized" way of life? Pre-agricultural , hunter-gatherer societies are rather consistent in behavior and focus, being find food and day-to-day survival.  Warfare is sporadic and may become ceremonial. Land is not sacred, nature is, and is not worth holding to the last man in most cases. Hence these peoples can scatter like flowers in the wind and be not much worse off for it, what prompts these peoples to fight, to migrate and to live on any land is if there is food or not. if there is any attachment to a region, this attachment is trumped by the need to survive.

Contrast this with agricultural societies,  the quality of land and ability to fight for it and take from others is vital to success, even within family units, there is a tense competition to hold on to your crops, animals and status to avoid starvation. Warfare is widespread and becomes more destructive as urban centers take root, the land becomes the homeland, a center of origin, the city/village becomes the core of survival and so these peoples are usually fiercely protective and a sense of permanence is central to their existence. Cities will burn and people will die before they would dare surrender their lives to another group or the courses of nature. Civilization is marked by both immense catastrophe and unimaginable leaps in technology and potential, and what encapsulates this the most is organized, state run warfare. 

Aggression, though still based on biological motives, attains a more abstract and complicated state of existence, a process which advances as civilization does.  The question is, what systems, or systems could encourage and represent this complicated process within the simulation? How does one represent the will to conquer the rival city in honor of a god? or intense instinct to protect ones homeland in the face of utter destruction rather than logically surrender and be spared? What of the leadership? How could the simulation handle a tyrannical king, or a mad ruler leading bands of men to pillage and destroy his rivals? Not that everything must be shown in meticulous detail, but aggression is both more irrational and based in biological pretenses than the simulation could possibly show at this stage.

Civilizations collapse, and rebirth, sometimes even after hundreds of years. Even though the fields grow wild and the buildings turn to ruins, an idea is born, and the people still remember the old days, and speak the old language. Will they remain in there ruined land? flee to the mountains and hope to return? or be exterminated? While polities and states wither and birth themselves in the world, something deeper remains. There are key and profound differences in aggression, culture, and motivations in an agricultural peoples versus hunter-gatherer people.

Also, one of the most basic and important motivations for migrations in any society civilization or not, is the climate. The entire basis of the simulation is flawed, (for a good reason as its not easy to do right and can be costly on performance) in that there is a stable and unchanging climate. There will always be the same amount of land to farm or hunt on, ice never recedes and the forests will always be there. The dubious nature of our own existence begins with the slight, long-term (sometimes abrupt) shifts in climate, and a more accurate model could be made if a climate system was added, I think migrations and the choices tribes have to make will become more emergent in nature and interesting. 

Good work, and I hope anything I have said has helped

Wonderful, looks very organic and pleasing. I know others have been suggesting a (typically) stone keep/castle for defensive works. If you are thinking about adding some, perhaps a more pleasing and fruitful endeavor would be to implement motte and bailey fortifications, or earthen hill fortifications such as the Celtic oppidum or the mounds of Cahokia. These varieties of earthworks would fit particularly well with the graphic design and goal of this generator.

Your hard work is inspiring, I'm glad you're keeping with this beautiful, one of a kind project

Also keep in might, areas such as Oceania were uninhabited until quite recently, so migrations don't need to pancake the world instantly in order to be accurate

Good luck homie, theres no other program like this, I hope this becomes yuuuugggeee because I've always wanted a proper migration simulator. Much love

Good stuff, looks fantastic. The only major thing I'd say is really missing is the human aspect of regions/borders. Assuming the regions in-game are areas that are discovered, named,  categorized and outlined by the polities who discover them, it seems strange that they can map out an entire region far beyond not only the borders of their polity, but can even map out regions generally uninhabited/uninhabitable. I point this out not because its a huge flaw, but rather because it highlights some possibilities. 

For one, the region exploration system is not dynamic (as far as I know). Once a polity happens to touch a cell that is not contained within an already defined region, the algorithm outlines a new region, names it according to the language of the discovering polity (I think) and thats that. That region will never shift, never change, the name remains the same even as the people who inhabit it come and go and even as their understanding of the region in regards to the greater world increases, the region will always be the same. This does not reflect how human beings regard regions/territories in the real world. 

We define our regions according to a myriad of factors other than bio-geographic properties, for example we define regions by the culture of the people who live there in comparison to those around them, to the history of that region and for political reasons (often territorial claims or plain logistics (I.E regions that are absurdly large are difficult to manage at a certain technological ability)). All of these factors change through time, they are by nature dynamic, irrational, but also useful and interesting. 

I'm not saying you should create an advanced sociological model of human behavior before you alter how regions behave, but rather a  system should be put into place to account for the dynamic and changing nature of human borders put upon the world, and also the limitations of early human exploration. 

Regarding regions, when a region is first explored and settled by a polity, it should still of course be defined by bio-geography,  for this is what said polity will be worried about and therefore will be how they categorize the region. Then as the next phase of civilization begins, and small yet numerous polities start to compete for land, the focus of the people is now who lives where, for how long and what polity to they belong to.  As such the regions borders begin to shift (and in accordance with adjacent regions) to match cultural borders. This reflects the changing nature of peoples understanding of the regions in which they live. This change should be more gradual (not tens of thousands of years, but not a few months either). As tribes migrate to and from this region it may split, as the more ferocious tribes carve their corner of the region, over time the neighbors should consider it to be its own region, and should that ferocious tribe settle down and cooperate they and the land they live on once again reincorporate into the region. 

This dynamic behavior can be attributed to sub-regions with regions being a little more grounded in geography, however I do think sub-regions should be able to their own regions which can begin incorporating other sub-regions depending on certain factors. 

Whatever the specifics are, regions and sub-regions shouldn't  be a static backdrop as they reflect the understanding of the people who live within them, and their should be a basic exploration mechanic to reflect the time and organization needed to map out the world.

Have you thought about reaching out and getting a few extra hands to help? That might do the progress some good

I'd say improving on the migration simulation itself should come before aesthetic/quality of life updates, so its probably best to get the ocean/wind currents nailed down to improve that seriously lacking part of the simulation before getting to other things. 

Is there somewhere we can easily submit crash logs and bugs?

Can't wait for the new update, its been a long time coming! 

Nice! Go get that bread king

Nice! Hope you get more contributors!

Great to see progress!

 Would it be possible for polities to want to form their borders according to region borders in order to make polity expansion somewhat more rational? So as a basic precursor to more advanced behavior, polities will reach a stage in which they care more about regional conquest rather than 'mindless' expansion, in which they will pull together resources to conquer or colonize specific regions. It'd be interesting to see how regions could be utilized to step into more complex and intelligent routes to expansion on part of the polities. Perhaps regional expansion could be the first thing to filter tribes from 'empires', in that the first distinction is a change in the goals of conquest, in which tribes sporadically expand, but empires want to dominate regions, and that the empire will decide were to expand based on the average attributes of a region. So for example an empire will look at all adjacent regions, then decides to NOT invade a region with a higher rate of arability, due to the fact that a more powerful empire controls the region, and instead the empire decides to invade a more isolated region inhabited by weaker tribes. 

Anyways good job!

Good to hear! Keep up the great work dude.

Also: I love the new features for editing world maps, but the options that we used to have, like setting the bast altitude/sea level is painfully missing, for instance,  even with the altitude adjusters that we have now, it still takes way too much time to create a mountain planet. Just as a request, can we get the older generation options (even for loaded height maps, setting the sea level right off can help so much since loaded heightmaps sometimes have issues with that) and then we can edit the world? 

Note that I'm suggesting ideas not considering your current plans, so sorry if they don't help or are implausible:

1. Bureaucracy/Organized Administration/infrastructure- This discovery is not necessary for polities to form,  but if a Polity wants to expand its size. I.E administration cost may cover how much population a polity can manage, while this discovery manages how far in size the borders can be maintained, therefore a High Population, Large state cannot hope to maintain unity unless they have discovered Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy cannot be discovered unless the polity has knowledge of Agriculture, and at least 5% of the population farms, the level of Bureaucracy within a state is determined by the Bureaucracy level of the Primary cell of the leading faction, or if possible the capital. Bureaucracy levels can exist in Non farming polities which may happen to succeed from its parent faction, however the Bureaucracy will rapidly decline, causing the territory to collapse. If the level of Bureaucracy is critically low,   the rate of clan creations and Independence will skyrocket, increases rapidly over time until the Bureaucracy is large enough to maintain the state borders.

2. Colonial Administration- Colonial Administration is necessary for Polities to directly colonize or incorporate land beyond lets say 3 tiles or a proportionate amount of Kilometers. In order to discover Colonial Administration, Polities must be capable of Agriculture, have a Bureaucracy, have a large amount of social organization, population above 50,000 and a certain, but high level of ship technology. As the level of Colonial Administration increases, so does the chance and range of colonies increase. Note that colonial administration is not required for human populations to migrate, but rather for polities to make large overseas conquests. Additionally, Colonies are managed by clans which will be generated to control the new land, making independence within a colony realistic, so a  clan halfway across the world cannot declared independence and somehow own half the land in the colony. When a colony achieves independence, if there are significant amounts of natives (foreign populations that have a high rate of prominence within the newly independent colony) the colony will get an event which allows them to change its language/culture to that significant native population, buttt, if there are significant amounts of populations from the original polity (colonizer) then they may leave the newly independent colony.

Please keep up the good work, I will try to think of new ideas, god speed Dr.