Making Eco More Environmentally Dynamic

Hello Termar, thanks for your suggestions. I have provided them to the team for consideration. Unfortunately you posted the content of your suggestion as a comment and added multiple suggestions into a single submission - both significantly impede the ability of other players to vote on them, as they cannot find the actual content of the suggestion (especially once there is more comments) nor vote on singular points as this tracker intends. I'm hence closing this submission. Please feel free to create new submissions, but put the suggestion text into the actual submission description field and ensure that you only put one suggestion per submission, so people can vote based on singular features / improvements instead of a whole bunch of partially unrelated features / improvements at once.

Hello to the Eco development team and the entire community, First of all, I'd like to say how much I enjoy Eco. It's one of the very few games that truly makes players think about the long-term consequences of their decisions. The balance between economy, ecology, and cooperation is what makes the game so unique. I'd like to share a few ideas that, in my opinion, could make the simulation even more immersive. I completely understand that these suggestions would make the game more complex and that they may not match everyone's vision for Eco, but I personally enjoy gameplay that reflects real-world challenges as closely as possible. 1. Heating and cooling buildings It would be interesting if houses required heating during cold periods. Players would need to install heaters and provide them with fuel or electricity. Likewise, if CO₂ pollution became severe enough to raise global temperatures, buildings could eventually require air conditioning. This would increase electricity consumption, and certain cooling technologies could even rely on refrigerants with environmental impacts, creating a feedback loop. I think this could lead to fascinating political debates and societal choices between comfort, energy production, pollution, and environmental protection. 2. Seasonal cycles Adding seasons could create entirely new logistical challenges. During winter, outdoor farming could become impossible, forcing players to anticipate food production and build up reserves before the cold season arrives. Greenhouses would suddenly become extremely valuable, allowing year-round food production at the cost of significant energy consumption. An idea that could make this even more interesting would be to have opposite seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres. This could naturally encourage international trade, with northern cities importing food from southern cities during their winter, and vice versa. 3. Better interaction between livestock and agriculture It would be great if livestock interacted more directly with farming. For example, animals could graze on fallow fields, helping maintain them while naturally fertilizing the soil. This would encourage mixed farming systems instead of treating livestock and crop production as completely separate activities. 4. Fertilizers with meaningful trade-offs Fertilizers could provide higher crop yields but at the cost of increased pollution. This would create another interesting economic and environmental dilemma: maximize production for short-term needs, or reduce pollution for the long-term health of the ecosystem. 5. Soil fertility and crop rotation Another idea would be to introduce soil degradation. Repeatedly growing crops on the same land could gradually reduce soil fertility (or increase soil pollution), decreasing yields over time. Players would then be encouraged to rotate crops, leave fields fallow, or adopt more sustainable farming practices to preserve long-term productivity. I believe mechanics like these would make agriculture feel much more strategic and realistic while encouraging cooperation, planning, and environmental management. Overall, what I enjoy most about Eco is when the game asks players to solve realistic problems rather than simply optimize production. I realize that not everyone shares this preference, and I understand the importance of keeping the game accessible and enjoyable for a wide audience. Still, I wanted to share these ideas because I believe they could deepen the simulation and create even more meaningful decisions for players. Thank you for all the work you've put into Eco. It's already a fantastic game, and I'm excited to see how it continues to evolve.