top wish: better landmass generation

[brianshapiro]

the algorithm seems worse in civilization 3 it produces continents in clumps and they never have interesting features. but even in the other games the landmasses would never approach the same look as how continents on earth actually are. maybe firaxis could look at the generator in simearth which uses plate techtonics. this is Important for the game even though it only deals with the map, because the map has strategic importance to gameplay

[Chieftess]

I think continents are already quite realistic, especially considering Civ2.

You've got valleys, mountain ranges, huge jungles/deserts, broad plains... Pretty good in my book.

[badams52]

Now that you mention it, the one type of terrail that I think is missing is the high plains or plateaus, like Tibet. With the current terrain types, mountains have no food, hills have too much production and maybe too little food, plains have too much food once you have rail and irrigation. I guess desert is the best terrain type in terms of production/food, but it just wouldn't seem right in terms of defense bonuses.

[Carver]

I'm usually happy with the maps. I play large, 4 billion year old worlds and get nice features like the aforementioned mountain ranges, plains, deserts and such. That's why I think 4 billion is best; if you go with 3 bill. you sometimes get islands that are almost all the same feature (I started on an almost all mountain island once), if you go with 5 bill. it's too random, you'll have plains with on mountain tile sticking up from nowhere.

[Willem]

My only beef with the maps is that I think rivers which flow through Plains should be bordered by Grassland. Sort of like Floodplain in the Desert, though not quite as severe.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

IMHO, the Civ3 map generator works far better than Civ2's.

One oddity though: generating an archipelago with 60% water usually results in a big (but thin) landmass. Ah well.

[Theseus]

I think that map generation is actually fairly sophisticated.

[justjake73]

Mountains appear on plains because, logically, rivers have to start in a higher elevation.

I choose 5 billion because there are too many mountains with younger maps. Several times I found with 3B or 4B that an Iron resource was placed in such a way that I would have to place a city on a Mountain tile to access it!

[star mouse]

Originally posted by justjake73
Mountains appear on plains because, logically, rivers have to start in a higher elevation.

What's wrong with a river starting in some hills?

===

One thing I wish could be added to CIV3, and that's the ability to import terrain generated by another application. In Sim City 3000, you could create a bitmap with certain attributes, and you could import that as the terrain. If we could do the same with CIV3, we could create terrain any way we want - real archipelagos, or each player starting on a continent that was exactly the same size, or maps where each continent was shaped like a letter in a word (so the world map spelt out a message).

[Boris Godunov]

Map generation in Civ3 is very good, IMO. Not only do they have fairly contiguous features, but the climates run the same equatorally, as on Earth.

[theNiceOne]

Originally posted by justjake73 I choose 5 billion because there are too many mountains with younger maps. Several times I found with 3B or 4B that an Iron resource was placed in such a way that I would have to place a city on a Mountain tile to access it!

What's the problem? Now you even get a use for the otherwise useless colony.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by justjake73
I choose 5 billion because there are too many mountains with younger maps. Several times I found with 3B or 4B that an Iron resource was placed in such a way that I would have to place a city on a Mountain tile to access it!

Aww ... where's the challenge of a 5 billion year old map where all the terrain is good city sites?

If you want a *real* challenge, try 3 billion, arid, cold. You'll get all the size-2 tundra cities, and the size-2 desert cities that don't grow until steam power. Finding uses for small cities is one of the greater challenges of CIV3, but you never learn these challenges if all your cities are size 25 and surrounded by grassland.

[georges bonbon]

The map generator generates too much jungle.

With a starting position in jungle, I quit.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by georges bonbon
The map generator generates too much jungle.

With a starting position in jungle, I quit.

Are you afraid of a little challenge..?

I always play random map, that way I have no clue what the map looks like... I like suprises

[The Pioneer]

Never really noticed anything that I did not like with the map. I think it works pretty well.

So long...

[metalhead]

Originally posted by star mouse


Aww ... where's the challenge of a 5 billion year old map where all the terrain is good city sites?

If you want a *real* challenge, try 3 billion, arid, cold. You'll get all the size-2 tundra cities, and the size-2 desert cities that don't grow until steam power. Finding uses for small cities is one of the greater challenges of CIV3, but you never learn these challenges if all your cities are size 25 and surrounded by grassland.

I beg to differ. The AI has a better chance of competing on good terrain. If you place the AI on bad starting terrain, they're never going to catch up - they just aren't equipped to handle it. The strategic superiority that a human has (or should have) over a computer player becomes more pronounced the worse conditions both sides are forced to endure. The AI seems to be best equipped to handle a world made entirely of shielded grasslands, with rivers everywhere. It is my experience that, the more the given terrain differs from this "ideal, " the more the AI gameplay suffers. A human can overcome a bad start, even while the AI enjoys an excellent start, and on Deity level at that.

[brianshapiro]

civ3 maps are usually large clumps or separated clumps with no interesting unique features. in the shape of continents this is what im pointing out its mostly boring.

but even at a deeper level take a civ3 map generated and put it next to a map of the earth and see how different it is , the civ3 generation system could never generate something to look like it could have been earth.

i was recently playing around with simearth and its a bit better , because many of the land formations are based on models of plate techtonics , craters, etc, but its still not too realistic

[georges bonbon]

Originally posted by ADG


Are you afraid of a little challenge..?

I always play random map, that way I have no clue what the map looks like... I like suprises

What are your statistics of ending (not winning) the game with a starting position in jungle?

[Adagio]

Unfortunaly I haven't had such a starting position yet, but the game is not about winning/losing... it's about having fun... and I have most fun, when being suprised...

[Be Quicker]

Originally posted by Vlad Antlerkov
IMHO, the Civ3 map generator works far better than Civ2's.

One oddity though: generating an archipelago with 60% water usually results in a big (but thin) landmass. Ah well.

Agree.

And also the Pangea setting results too often in a non pangean map. I once started games at large, 60% water, pangea, untill it really was a pangea (checking by retiring) and it took me 10 tries till the map was pangea (i.e. no continent like islands). Then again this kind of sloppiness is very charecteristic of CivIII.

[Alex]

Originally posted by metalhead


The AI has a better chance of competing on good terrain. If you place the AI on bad starting terrain, they're never going to catch up - they just aren't equipped to handle it.

You certainly have a point here. Bad starting positions may be a challenge for us, but are utterly disastrous for the AI.