Random map generator

[EdCase]

Ok... I like to (as I did in CTP) double the gigantic map and # of civs...but no matter how i adjust relevant sliders I get a crazy patchwork of 1 or 2 square sized islands...It looks like a world with freckles Is it just me or has anyone else tried this with similar results?

[Ralf]

I never liked the CTP map-generator, but thankfully the CTP-2 map-EDITOR seems pretty effective and powerfull. I think we should have the ability to upload good handmade CTP-2 maps to Apolyton, so we can build up some kind of library of nice maps.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 25, 2000).]

[jkadabomb]

It seems the diverse slider and goods slider absolutely has no effect.

[EdCase]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 11-25-2000 04:26 AM I never liked the CTP map-generator, but thankfully the CTP-2 map-EDITOR seems pretty effective and powerfull. I think we should have the ability to upload good handmade CTP-2 maps to Apolyton, so we can build up some kind of library of nice maps. [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 25, 2000).]

Agreed ..but the ability to generate random ones would be kinda pleasant too


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I'm not paranoid I KNOW they're watching me
EdCase

[The Viceroy]

When will these game makers catch on, and stop using these horrible methods for map generation. You want my advice Activision, use Random smoothing technique .. its simple and effective for generating sea/land ..

1) allocate an array (x,y)
2) fill it with random numbers between (0 - 16 for example)
3) for each square on the map, add all the squares around it together (including the centre square), divide by 9 and put the result back in the centre again .. (for the side of the array, you can either wrap around or count as 0, depending on map style).
4) repeat that process 2-3 times, and pick a water level (say 0-3 sea, 4-7 flat land, 8-10 hills, 11+ Mountains ..)

You will discover you have a realistic map, if you play about with the water level and original 0-16 setting .. you get different results... the more you loop, the more you smooth

SIMPLE ..

All you need now do is write a few process's to determind rivers, tree's, tyle types etc.

[skorpion59]

quote: Originally posted by The Viceroy on 12-05-2000 07:27 AM SIMPLE ..

Terrific, and when might we see your map generating program.....

lol, I'll take your game then

my continents are too huge. Everything is connected! I dislike that. I want several big continants kinda like earth. but I'll take islands over one big gigantic landmass.

[Forever Newby]

Hey fellas , first post for me.
Im not too keyed up on how to mess with the code etc
I was wondering how to change things like...

Max player ammount
Max map size

Would it be possable to play 39 other Civs on an insanley large map?

[Dauphin]

quote: 3) for each square on the map, add all the squares around it together (including the centre square), divide by 9 and put the result back in the centre again .. (for the side of the array, you can either wrap around or count as 0, depending on map style). 4) repeat that process 2-3 times, and pick a water level (say 0-3 sea, 4-7 flat land, 8-10 hills, 11+ Mountains ..)

Your method looks remarkably like (simple) Digital Image processing.

Smoothing tends to produce blurring in images and this would translate to gradual terrain changes. There are similar techniques for sharpening - making abrupt terrain changes.
Diversifying terrain (that is defining how much sea, mountain, grassland etc you want) is equivalent to contrast enhancement in imaging. This is done by varying the size of your bins in step 4 (as you say).

It would be interesting to see the effects of Laplace transforms. In Satellite imaging it tends to show land countours...

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Pax Vobis.
[This message has been edited by Big Crunch (edited December 05, 2000).]

[Alpha Wolf]

I've been playing with the const.txt to some degree of success along with moving the sliders. I wanted a few large islands so i moved the slide 2 right for the Continents and 2 left for Water. i usually end up with a few large islands mixed in with numerous smaller ones. Now if I could just get it to stop making 75% of the middle of the map either plains or desert I'd be alot happier.

arghh I can't get it to stop making me on one huge continant! I just started another game with the same problem. everyone is adjacent to each other. I like navies (at least in civ2) and I can't even build one.

[MrFun]

For my current game, I'm playing as Russia and have created an impressive sized empire for my tastes.

I chose a random-generated map with a huge continent and small seas. I got what I liked.

Then if I feel like more numerous smaller continents or islands, I try my best with the sliders, sometimes to my disappointment.

[skorpion59]

It is not that difficult but it does take time. You have to modify ALL the map parameters though (meridian, percent, etc).

I haven't messed with this in the Production version yet, but before that I was able to get rid of most of the snow and desert, cut the plains way back and change the mountains to only have 3 or 4 mountains clumped together. Trial and Error and Determination.

[The Viceroy]

Big Crunch .. yes, I actually used the process once for that very reason (blurring images).. Ive not done so much in the image processing arena .. but I think next time they should talk to us before embarking on some rediculous process

I know it doesn't look very simple to non-coders .. but the code is remarkably small, and amazingly fast .. although, when I first developed it 10 years ago, I only had a Spectrum 128K it took hours to run a map of 100x50 .. but pc's today can run huge maps off in seconds ..


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"Wherever wood floats, you will find the British" . Napoleon

[Dauphin]

quote: I know it doesn't look very simple to non-coders .. but the code is remarkably small, and amazingly fast

Totally agree. I wrote a program in VBasic that does the blurring/smoothing bit (to black and white photos) in under an hour. And I'd never done that type of stuff before.

quote: Now if I could just get it to stop making 75% of the middle of the map either plains or desert I'd be alot happier.

It should be easy to get rid of too much desert plains or whatever with the technique The Viceroy has mentioned. I'm sure someone could integrate the technique into a map generator.

Is there a bitmap to map converter, I recall hearing something about that. If so, you can use something like Paint Shop to do it and forget about the generator. Although it might get tediuos

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Pax Vobis.

[Crustacian]

At least you didn't get a bunch of land masses conected by narrow strips of land to pass for an archapelago.