Time and the clock

The province's clock runs from real time to a year every second. Whatever the speed, the same day step decides who is born, falls ill, marries, works and dies, so an outcome never depends on the speed you watch it at.

Playing and pausing

The province opens paused, at dawn on its first day. Space (or the play button in the top bar) starts and stops the clock. Step pauses and moves on one simulated hour. Rewind rebuilds the province at day 0 on the same seed and basis: the same people, the same history to come.

Speeds

Key	Speed	Simulated time a second	Mode
1	1×	a second (real time)	animated
2	10×	ten seconds	animated
3	1 min/s	a minute (the default)	animated
4	10 min/s	ten minutes	animated
5	1 h/s	an hour	animated
6	1 day/s	a day	time-lapse
7	1 wk/s	a week	time-lapse
8	1 mo/s	a month	time-lapse
9	1 yr/s	a year	time-lapse
0	30 yrs/min	half a year	time-lapse

The field beside the speed buttons takes any rate in simulated years a minute (0.01 to 100,000), for any horizon you like. The map's corner shows the speed actually achieved: a slow machine at a fast speed may fall short of it.

Animated (up to an hour a second): people walk the roads, drive, take the bus and the Hyperline, and hold conversations you can zoom into. Time-lapse (faster): only the daily processes run, and people are shown where their plan for the day puts them. Conversations and intruders happen only in the animated day.

Setting the scene

Click the clock in the top bar. Every jump moves the clock forward, and every day in between is still simulated, in full: only the animation is skipped.

Set the scene: go to a moment, jump forward, move to a season, or force the weather.

Go to a moment:

Moment	Goes to
Sunday service	The next Sunday at 09:00, as the congregation gathers
Fellowship	The next Sunday at 11:05, when the congregation mingles after the service
School morning	The next Monday at 07:30
Market day	Saturday at 10:00
Bible study	Wednesday at 18:30, at the church hall
Late night	01:00, when the province is asleep

Jump forward by an hour, six hours, a day, a week, a month (30 days) or a year (365 days); or pick a date and a time and press Go. The row of times under the time field (06:00, 08:00, 10:00, 13:00, 16:00, 19:00, 22:00, 02:00) sets one in a click. A single jump goes at most three years ahead; for longer, use the time-lapse speeds.

Season moves to the first day of the next summer, autumn, winter or spring, at 09:00. The season follows the calendar and the hemisphere of the climate, so this moves the date rather than faking the season.

Time only runs forward. To go back, rewind, which rebuilds the province from the same seed.

Forcing the weather

The same panel can force the weather, so you can watch the province meet a storm, a heat wave or a cold snap without waiting for one:

1. Pick a condition: Clear, Cloudy, Rain, Storm, Fog, Heat wave, Cold snap or Snow. Each loads its own figures (a heat wave is 38 °C by day and 24 °C by night, a storm 28 mm of rain in 42 km/h of wind).
2. Adjust the High, Low, Rain and Wind sliders if you like.
3. Tick hold until released to keep it day after day, or leave it to lapse at midnight.
4. Press Apply weather. release hands the weather back to the climate model.

Forced weather is an intervention, not an assumption: it is written into the event ledger, with the figures, so a run's history says plainly where its weather came from, and the clock shows a forced badge. Heat, cold and storms feed illness and mortality, and whether people go outdoors. The season is never forced: it always follows the calendar.