Sapience

Right, big jump from the build I had up before. Most of my time went into getting the village to actually live and work, then a long stretch of stability stuff so it all holds together.

The main thing: villages function now. Villagers go off and farm, mine, chop wood, and put up real little houses with a bed inside, not the dirt holes they used to call home. And the work doesn't quit the second you walk away, which used to drive me up the wall.

I got the trading going too. Villagers barter, pass spare food and blocks around between themselves, and a village can keep itself fed without you hovering over it.

The inner life side, which is the whole reason I built this, got a lot deeper. Every villager remembers you and hangs onto that through a save and reload. When one of them dies, the ones who were close actually grieve. By name. They'll go sit by the grave, and word of it moves through the village. Gossip runs both ways now. Be good to one villager and your name spreads on its own. Hit one and the whole town knows by morning.

Combat got fixed because honestly it was embarrassing before. A pack of unarmed villagers used to pile onto a single zombie and die in a line. Now they run for it. And guards quit wandering into the water or off a cliff while they patrol.

Then the boring but important part. A long performance and reliability pass. Big villages stay smooth, memory stays flat over a long session, and your world loads back exactly how you left it. Right before posting this I went through the whole thing hunting for anything broken and swept out a load of small stuff, like a block getting stuck showing a half-broken crack, or a villager muttering in its sleep.