Much expanded Map Settings

[:) Smiley]

Originally posted in Civ2 creation, but someone suggested I repost here.

Change the gameplay without rules.txt meddling.

research fully completed, here are the results:

I now have in addition to the normal Arid, Normal, and Dry, added on Soaked, Downpour, Flooded, Monsoon, and Waterworld.

Temperature added on top of Cool, Normal, Warm: Hot, Sun Baked, Furnace, Nuclear Furnace, and Fireball.

Studies show there does not seem to be any limit to how many additional levels can be made, though difference above +5 isn't noticeable.

Setting it on the Waterworld and Fireball will get you continents covered with Grasslands, yet surprisingly few swamps and jungles. There are no deserts and few plains.

Setting it on Waterworld and Cool will get you a map that is again mostly grassland, with vast forests covering 30% or more of the land. There are no deserts and few plains. Not too many tundras or glaciers either. In fact, fewer than at Arid/Cool.

Arid Fireball will get you about 30% plains, 30% desert, and a good number of hills and a sprinkling of grassland and forest near the poles.

For reference, Arid Cool gets a map with lots of plains and a mix of the other types.


Practical applications:

Arid Fireball certainly makes for a more challenging game.

Increasing wetness increases Grassland, which makes cities build faster and the game go faster. May be good for multiplayer.

----

Land mass settings also increasable in similar fashion. Looks like the more land you have the greater % of the land is hills or mountains.

Land settings above +10 yields a map with a single, um, ocean, running up and down the map, and a polar sea on one of the poles. Highest tested setting +30. Higher settings seem to get more mountains at expense of other land tiles, and also causes contraction of single ocean.

The number of 1-3 tile lakes increases as the oceans shrivel up, but above land+15 or so, no further increases in landcean ratio.



Using advanced land settings at Archipelago mode tends to produce game crash. OK to use it at Varied mode, but you might as well use Continent as that is what you're gonna get anyway.

While we're on that topic, the Land Type setting can also be upped a few notches. Landtype+3 (3 steps above continent) will yield almost all land on one big continent, save a couple of islands.

Finally, Age can also be increased at least 5 notches, to which point oddities such as jungles surrounded by desert appear.

Also possible to tamper with Accelerated Startup settings, though even when notched to +4, with game starting at 800AD, neither your civ nor the other civs are any more advanced than the original 2000BC accel start.

Further monkeying around somehow got me a 5000BC accelerated start when I selected normal startup. This was not reproducible. Also was able to add an "other" category to the male/female selection, with the result of the game reading one line over. (so when I'm in despotism, it displays my country as a "kingdom".) Since took it out.

Finally, also added two new levels of competition. 2 and 1 civilizations. 2 gives a one-on-one duel, 1 works but aint much fun, 0 causes a crash, no surprise here.

For those who don't remember the original deity+ levels and barbarians+ levels, those are also included in the file.
You can have up to five notches above Deity, any higher and for some reason you automatically conquer the world at 4000BC.

Barbarians can only go up one more notch before you get a "Divide by 0" game crash due to the way the barbarian factor is calculated. Set it up three notches though, and you get a even bigger bonus... and there are never any barbarians except for those that come out of huts. Further notching up of barbarian modifier likely to have similar effect

[Hydey]

Interesting, with all that grassland their would be less sooking about crappy starts with no growth.

[rah]

Unless you're playing 2x production.

[Hydey]

you could do that if you are a bit soft

[rah]

But I was interested reading how it effected terrain. It might be useful to play with.

[Hydey]

I could lead to more even starts without anyone (Ming) getting shafted and starting on the rocky mountains.

[rah]

Wonder how it works on the smaller on continent maps. (39x49)

[atawa]

All grassland suck in 2x2x, waterworld and cool sound interesting though

[-Jrabbit]

Very intriguing.
Outstanding contribution if as advertised, Smiley.

[rah]

Originally posted by atawa
All grassland suck in 2x2x, waterworld and cool sound interesting though

Not all.
It's nice to have at least one shielded grassland next to that gold you just build that city on. The rest can be forest.

[atawa]

Why not build on the grassland instead?

[rah]

The free one food, the road bonus and the defense.

[atawa]

But growth to size 3 will take long time, I dont like to waste settlers building up a city.
(Unless its on another island and I need the trade)

[rah]

Once you're celebrating, spitting out a few extra settlers isn't that big a deal.
And I've never lost a city on gold to barbs early in the game. I have lost the city on grass next to it.

[Hydey]

Originally posted by rah
And I've never lost a city on gold to barbs early in the game. I have lost the city on grass next to it.

There you have some very sound reasoning to build on the gold.

[rah]

Losing one of your first few cities early in an MP game can be the kiss of death when you're playing with good opponents. Not always, but it can't help.

[:) Smiley]

Esepcially if it's one that controls Gold. Also physically staking out the gold prevents opponents from parking a unit on top of it, thus making the city useless even if it were defendable.

If you want lots of Gold though set the land mass to super super huge, you'll get lots of hills and mountains. Grassland may be in short supply though.

[rah]

Yeah, it's always fun if you can camp on somoeone's gold early with a warrior, prior to their getting monarchy. Every four turns that you keep them from getting monarchy, is huge.

[atawa]

Originally posted by rah
Once you're celebrating, spitting out a few extra settlers isn't that big a deal.
And I've never lost a city on gold to barbs early in the game. I have lost the city on grass next to it.

I usualy dont play with barbs and try and defend far away from my city's. The ocasional unit might slip through nut an army is quite rare.

Another thing is that you can easily build on high ground in 2x1x deity, in 2x2x king that will couse you to fall far behind in early expansion.

[rah]

Yes, raging is a bit different. It's tough to defend far away when that ship appears in that one square sea next to one of your cities.

[atawa]

Thats one of the reasons I regularly choose mapmaking as my first tech

[rah]

How does that help against those types of barbs?