Civilization 13

Civ13 (formerly 1713) is a BYOND game built on Space Station 13 code. It covers human history from the stone age to the space age, with persistent Nomads survival worlds as well as round-based combat (TDM) maps and game modes.

• Discord:
• Website: https://civ13.com/
• Player wiki: https://civ13.github.io/civ13-wiki (source)

Playing

You need Windows (or a Windows VM) and BYOND 516.1688, the version pinned in tools/byond/version.json.

With the Civ13 launcher (recommended)

1. Download Civ13.exe from the newest launcher-v* release on the releases page. It updates itself from then on.
2. Open it. If BYOND is missing or the wrong version, Set up BYOND offers the official installer. Then BYOND sign in with your own BYOND account.
3. Optionally sign in with Discord, which ties your connection to your Discord account (see Discord accounts). BYOND-only play works as before.
4. On the Play tab, pick a server and press Join.

Launcher details: tools/opendream-client/native/README.md.

With plain BYOND

1. Install BYOND 516.1688 from https://www.byond.com/download/ and register at https://secure.byond.com/Join.
2. Open BYOND, log in and search the hub for Civilization 13, or connect directly to byond://play.valzargaming.com:1714 (Gaia, the Nomads mainland).

New players should start with the wiki's New Player Guide.

The persistent world: regions

The Nomads server is a region group: several worlds that run side by side on one host and share one epoch and OOC chat. Each account has one home world; new characters start on Gaia and travel between regions by trail, train or rocket.

Region	What it is
Gaia	The mainland Nomads world (port 1714). New characters start here.
Rail Yard	The shared rail yard world that party trains run to.
Mars (Barren)	A dry settlement world, open from the 2026 epoch.
Moon	A lunar settlement world, open from the 1969 epoch.
Orbit	Orbital stations reached only by rocket; being built (plan).

How it fits together:

• scripts/shard-group/shard_group.py gives each region its own git worktree, build, config and saves, and handles setup, update, start/stop, epochs, travel and staged builds.
• Staged handover: an update is built beside a running region; the old world saves (holding only the level being saved), the new build loads that save and players reconnect to it, so deploys do not take the world down.
• scripts/gaia-host/ is the host service: the doorman (wakes sleeping regions, watchdog, low-memory eviction), freezing empty regions, and the routing relay (relay.py) that puts every region behind two public ports.
• scripts/windows/host/ has the Windows wrappers: status, start, stop, restart, deploy, stage, setup, epoch, freeze/thaw, unlock and more. Linux hosts call the Python scripts directly (scripts/gaia-host/civ13-host.service.example).

Design notes: connected regions and cross-shard radio.

Hosting a server

• Windows host (recommended): set up a region group with scripts/windows/host (copy settings.example.bat and group.example.json, run setup.bat, then install-host-task.bat). The launcher's Host server tab (shown when host.json enables local hosting) drives the same actions: status, start/stop, Save, update and restart (staged handover), build update, sleep/wake, epoch, lock-file cleanup and host config overlays (config.local.txt).
• Linux: run shard_group.py and gaia_host.py serve as a systemd service, or a single world with DreamDaemon. See the direct Linux local-test instructions.
• Local test server on Windows/WSL: docs/local-wsl.md.

The old INSTALL, INSTALL.py, scripts/launch.py and scripts/updateserver.py are retired; do not use them.

Building and testing

1. Install the pinned compiler. On Windows install BYOND 516.1688; on Linux or a cloud session run bash scripts/cloud_byond_setup.sh.
2. Compile: compile.bat or dm.exe civ13.dme on Windows, DreamMaker -max_errors 0 civ13.dme on Linux.
3. Run the focused tests for the area you changed (under tests/, each with its own README or runner).
4. Before pushing, run python3 scripts/agent_preflight.py all --write. It finds tests pinned to the files you touched, regenerates the crafting atlas and recipe audit index, runs the lint ratchets and every offline CI suite.

CI selection and the offline baseline are described in docs/ci-selection.md. Lint uses SpacemanDMM dreamchecker (SpacemanDMM.toml). Contributor and agent rules live in AGENTS.md and CODEX.md.

Agent control and MCP

• Agent control lets scripts and LLM agents observe and run a server over world/Topic: status, players, variables, admin verbs, messages and playable characters. It is off unless the host creates config/agent-control.txt, and each agent gets only the scopes listed for it. python tools/agent-control/civ13_agent.py mcp exposes it as an MCP server.
• tools/mcp is a local MCP server for source, compile and runtime tools, plus a read-only Atlas/docs reference server.
• BYOND Devtools is the companion toolkit for map work: inspection, static and in-game rendering, safe edits, diffs, prefabs, an MCP server and a VS Code map editor.

Contributing content

• Maps: the mapping checklist covers registration, areas, travel, spawns and save compatibility. Offline generators: procedural maps and the liminal room tool.
• Source API docs: docs/api/README.md.
• Player guides: update the wiki once a player-facing feature is merged and live.
• Scene capture: cloud-rendered stills.

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0; see LICENSE.