Where Civilization 13 is heading. These are goals, not release promises; plans can change as work is tested.
Showing the latest saved progress. Linked development progress refreshes automatically when you open this page.
In progress
Smoother saves for persistent worlds
Save changed world and player state in smaller batches while gameplay continues, with safe recovery after interruptions.
Save compatibility, saved-round job restoration and overlapping-save guards are merged groundwork. Smaller save batches and complete interruption recovery remain under development; full-goal public availability is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Extraction survival
Explore dangerous areas, collect loot and return to a persistent safehouse. Extraction and survival shape what you keep between runs. Planned for in-game eras starting in 1943 and onward.
Safehouse and survival implementation is under review in a regular open PR; the mall raid remains a draft. Development changes do not establish a playable public release. Combined persistence, transport and recovery acceptance remain separate; public availability is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
A train home for your party
A planned shared train with a protected party compartment that stays safe while raid-docked, a party airlock and safe exit, normal hunger and thirst limits, and independent berths for selected players only. Planned for in-game eras starting in 1943 and onward.
The initial party-train layout is merged groundwork. Expanded compartments, airlock and survival rules, working transport, instanced saves and raid travel still need implementation and runtime testing.
Development progress
Planned
Industrialization: pipes, pumps and foundries
Develop industrialization systems with pipes, pumps and foundries.
A planned development goal; details may change as development and testing progress. Public availability has not been verified.
Planned
Real-time travel between hosted servers
Plan real-time travel between Civ13-hosted servers: safely unload a character from one server and transfer it to another. Requires compatible eras and persistence game modes, shared character identity and transfer ownership, protected inventory/state custody, destination readiness and recovery from interruptions to prevent duplication or loss.
A planned goal. Compatibility, transfer and recovery behavior still need design and testing; public availability has not been verified.
In progress
Geographic layers and elevation
Keep biome, optional elevation, room or shelter, and overlapping special regions independent. Preserve this geography through roofing, terrain changes and saved worlds. Elevation describes height; map z-levels do not represent altitude.
Optional coordinate-owned elevation metadata is merged, with existing maps defaulting to 0 metres. Temperature coupling, mountain profiles and precipitation consistency remain planned; public availability of the complete goal is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Snow shaped by local weather
Let snowfall build ground cover that can melt or be shoveled away while preserving the same underlying soil. Build on geographic and weather consistency instead of automatically replacing terrain when the season changes.
Weather-driven ground snow is merged with bounded native fixture evidence. Connected-client appearance and full-world acceptance remain separate; public-server availability is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Persistent world editing and map authoring
Keep zones and spawn points stable when created, moved, deleted or restored. Plan reviewed static-world exports to Civ13 map source, with a Civ13 mapper guide and checklist. Build on geographic metadata and safe persistence.
Zone and spawn-registry persistence is merged for the supported durable world profiles. Reviewed save-to-map export and mapper guidance remain work in progress; this does not establish a complete authoring workflow or verified public availability.
Development progress
In progress
Safe persistence and transfer foundations
Design shared save/transfer admission and durable custody records for safe handoffs between servers. Repeated or interrupted transfers must recover to one owner, and loading an older save must not resurrect a transferred character. This underpins hosted-server travel. Planned versioned domain records, stable IDs, explicit migration/validation and a transaction journal for custody and recovery may extend or replace native serialization; backend choice remains open.
Bounded interface design is underway. There is no working sharding service or verified public availability; handoff and recovery still require implementation and testing.
Planned
A small USA regional persistence pilot
Explore two small USA region slices with explicit routes, regional biomes and civil/daylight clocks over one authoritative timeline. Keep saves and lightweight route metadata while idle processes sleep; wake and validate a destination before travel. Depends on geographic, authoring and safe-transfer foundations, bounded resource admission and an explicit offline-simulation policy. Support optional launcher integration and direct/manual BYOND joining for non-launcher users and recovery.
Region selection, on-demand startup and safe idle shutdown are planned. A supported manual discovery/wake/readiness path is required before the pilot is available. Measure performance and recovery before expansion; no tested capacity, zero-overhead hosting or unlimited scale is claimed.
In progress
An optional desktop launcher and shared connection core
Evolve the optional Civ13 launcher around a shared connection/update core, desktop GUI and retained CLI. Plan server/shard discovery and management, wake/load/readiness progress, compatible package selection and recoverable joining. Direct/manual BYOND connection remains supported; server-side authority governs admission, custody and transfers.
Packaged launcher/compiler version checks and observe-only instance-catalog contracts are merged groundwork. GUI, integrated shard management and automatic lifecycle control remain planned; process presence does not prove readiness. These additions have no verified public availability.
Development progress
Planned
Player-built crossings and rail routes
Make border crossings and rail travel depend on connections players have built. Join local rail and station connectivity into regional routes, with fresh route checks and destination admission before travel. Builds on regional travel and safe transfers.
Cached known connections do not guarantee a usable route. Safe outage handling is planned; travel through offline intermediaries needs later durable-transit design, not cache alone. Public availability is unverified.
Planned
Ocean voyages and offshore industry
Plan voyages across one or more ocean maps, connected map levels or regions, with offshore oil rigs players can build and maintain. Depends on industrialization, geographic layers, persistent world authoring and regional travel foundations.
Future Civ13 design scope. Routes and physical depth need explicit definitions; a map z-level alone does not establish depth or altitude. These additions have no verified public availability.
Planned
Submarines and pressurized underwater habitats
Plan player-built submarines and underwater habitats with pressure and atmosphere, power and ongoing maintenance. Builds on ocean voyages, industrialization, geographic depth metadata and persistence foundations.
Future design and testing are required for the combined habitat and vessel systems. Physical depth must be modeled explicitly, not inferred automatically from z-levels. Public availability is unverified.
Planned
A later advanced-era space game mode
Explore a separate future Civ13 game mode for launches and for building and maintaining satellites, space stations and settlements on the Moon or Mars. Depends on industrialization, geographic/environment metadata, persistence and regional travel foundations.
A later design direction, with no selected delivery date or verified public availability. Altitude and orbital or surface environments need explicit modeling; z-levels alone do not supply them.
Planned
Player-owned persistent expedition regions
Plan player-owned regions for ocean or continental expeditions, offshore rigs and remote factories. Players request a location, purpose, template, dimensions, native z-count and access policy for host approval within benchmarked resource limits. Region identity and saves survive idle processes. Depends on geographic, authoring, industrialization and safe regional-transfer foundations.
Future design only. A 300x300 map with 3-4 native z-levels is a requested example, not proven capacity. Initial dimensions would be fixed; expansion needs later approved offline migration. Public availability is unverified.
Planned
Character and inventory recovery when regions go offline
Plan separate durable records for characters and all nested belongings so an eligible player can recover into another live region after shutdown or an outage. Depends on authoritative custody, fenced ownership, departure reconciliation and compatible, authorized, capacity-ready destinations.
Recovery must prevent duplicate characters or cargo and refuse when custody cannot be established. Only durably written state can be recovered after fencing old ownership; heartbeat absence alone is insufficient. Unwritten changes are not guaranteed. Public availability is unverified.
Planned
Map capability profiles and measured resource use
Plan map profiles that initialize only required simulation systems and entities, such as submarine and pressure mechanics on supporting maps. Declare dependencies and save/transfer compatibility while preserving ordinary default compatibility. Investigate separate code/asset build profiles only after measuring actual savings and demonstrating migration/type-compatibility safeguards.
Design research is ongoing; memory savings and engine-specific behavior are unverified. Unsupported saved or transferred belongings must never be silently deleted. No runtime code/asset unloading or eager asset residency is assumed.
In progress
Procedurally generated surface, oceanic and cavern worlds
Develop configurable, reproducible maps across Civ13's surface biomes, ocean islands and future underground caverns, with coherent terrain transitions, resources, wildlife and safe starts. Preserve seeds, versioned generation rules and configuration alongside reviewed static DMM exports and metadata. Build on geographic layers, world authoring and safe saves; Pocket Stronghold remains a reference to investigate.
Offline surface generation and the oceanic-island profile are merged tools; cavern generation remains planned. Static DMM export does not establish native playability, survival resources or runtime save preservation. Streaming and larger worlds still need separate measured designs; public activation is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Smooth movement and interaction compatibility
Build on merged smooth human walking and diagonal movement. Extend collision-checked motion to prone/crawl movement and vendor NPCs, then pulling and other interactions without changing admitted speed or costs. Keep held crafting menus compatible, improve physical throw release behavior and preserve save, body-handoff and client preferences.
Regular walking/diagonal smoothing, prone/crawl motion and throw-source clearance are merged source changes. Vendor NPC motion remains a draft; held crafting-menu compatibility is under review in a regular open PR. Pulling and broader interaction acceptance remain incomplete; public availability of the combined goal is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Authoritative line of sight
Explore Civ14-inspired geometric occlusion for walls, doors and openings, with a per-player view that preserves the HUD. Apply authoritative visibility to information and actions, including hover, examine, targeting and agent observations. Keep illumination separate and distinguish large artwork from physical blocker footprints.
The disabled same-level read-context core is merged groundwork, not a working visibility renderer. Gameplay adapters, hidden-information protection, reconnect/save restoration, visual acceptance and measured costs remain incomplete; cross-level expansion comes later. Public activation is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Lighting for oversized sprites
Develop lighting coverage for large trees, shadows and other artwork that extends beyond its root tile. Preserve ordinary light propagation, darkness, weather, fullbright cells and special sight rules, separately from authoritative line of sight.
The disabled composition prototype is merged groundwork. General rendering issues and connected-client acceptance remain unresolved; source and fixture checks do not establish production appearance, memory savings or public activation.
Development progress
In progress
Authored-room escape mode
Plan a finite escape scenario assembled from original authored room families with validated connections, clearance, discovery, service objectives and escape routes. Default to in-game year 1990 with an explicit early-1990s equipment, prop, crafting and research policy. Reuse geometry contracts without inheriting expedition or colony state.
Design, offline topology/manifests and renderer-audit source are merged groundwork. The initial static room layouts were rejected and are being revised; the newer renderer study is also not an approved design or gameplay screenshot. Native export, period-policy enforcement, mode integration and playable acceptance remain pending.
Development progress
In progress
Powered-gateway exploration and colonies
Plan a separate Backrooms expedition scenario: deliberately power a gateway, survey authored rooms, carry finite supplies and establish a persistent colony. Power loss closes crossings while preserving residents and construction. Default to in-game year 1990 with period equipment rules; require safe admission, return/rescue and paired world persistence.
The default-disabled power/identity foundation is merged; the separate expedition design remains a draft. This provides no playable gateway or colony mode. Physical crossing, paid supplies, rescue, period-policy enforcement and full-world save integration still need implementation and testing; public activation is unverified.
Development progress
In progress
Diet, preferences and food discovery
Plan understandable diet balance and learned character food preferences, with useful energy benefits from varied meals and meaningful recipe lineage. Build on private character discovery notes and accessible winter/underground foods. Extend Crafting Atlas resource discovery without revealing hidden tastes; keep ordinary survival practical.
Winter turnips, underground plump helmets, learned berry-smell notes and direct Atlas resource search are merged supporting work. Nutrition bonuses, hidden tastes and discovery beyond those notes remain planned. Validate reachable food variety before penalties; full-goal public availability is unverified.
Development progress
Planned
Compatible runtime and selective JIT research
Research a compatible 64-bit runtime and selective just-in-time compilation for suitable workloads. Keep Civ13 behavior, persistence and tooling compatibility central; require reproducible correctness and performance evidence before considering adoption.
High-level research only. No production runtime replacement, performance gain, supported capacity or public availability is established. Backend choices and adoption remain open.
In progress
Windows server bot integration
Develop isolated Windows startup support for the server management bot.
A draft implementation is under review. It has not been activated or verified against a live Windows server.
In progress
Discord social integration
Prioritize optional Discord Social SDK integration through the launcher companion: presence first, with friends, invitations and joining subject to later review. Keep ordinary BYOND play independent of the launcher and preserve server-authoritative admission and transfer checks.
Managed transport, native SDK-adapter and Windows host/provider source are merged groundwork, with production startup still unwired or disabled. Real SDK runtime acceptance, distribution terms and end-to-end integration remain gates; live presence, friends and joining are not established.
Development progress
Merged code can still need testing and a server update. A goal becomes “Available” only after public availability is separately confirmed. This page tracks selected milestones, not every fix. Progress is saved automatically every six hours; roadmap goals and completion requirements are reviewed by maintainers.
