Environment
On the right side, you'll find a map with various tabs. By clicking on the respective icon, you can activate an overlay on your game view to analyze the environmental states.
Nature
This overlay highlights areas of nature and human settlement. It is particularly important for animals to have enough space to maintain their health.
It will help you find special buildings or locations (production, ore, water, etc.).
Heat
This overlay displays the temperature of the environment. In hot conditions, both citizens and animals can seek relief in cooler areas beneath trees or close to water.
The heat will also affect which plants can grow where and how well.
Water
Here, you can gauge the water levels in the earth, which helps in deciding suitable locations for crop growth and the placement of wells, among other considerations.
Where the water level is higher than the ground level in streams, rivers or ponds, the water is accessible to animals and humans.
Surface water can flow freely, while groundwater flows slowly through the earth.
Dirt / Pollution
This overlay is particularly useful to identify critical areas, as it visually represents waste generation. To maintain a clean settlement, it's advisable to construct waste pits a short distance away from residential areas. This overlay helps you pinpoint such critical areas and manage waste effectively.
At the same time, the dirt is used by the plants and provides additional growth if it is in the ideal range for a particular plant.
Note that dirt is washed away by the surface water and is also slowly transported through the soil with the movement of the water.
Tips:
- Spread it evenly in many cesspits. don't let it accumulate too much.
- Cesspit will slowly decrease dirt
- Too high concentration of dirt causes sickness, in both animals and humans
- Too high levels also get washed into the ground and everywhere around by rain and rivers - need to check watermap and waterflow - and will spread into other areas of the map
- Animals generate dirt
- Humans generate dirt
- Farms consume dirt (and also make the environment around dirty) by fertilizing fields
- sweeping stations move dirt from the area to cesspit
- Deleting cesspit will put dirt on the ground, it doesn't disappear