I have just one complaint about Civ 4. There, seemingly, is not an option to choose that would allow for a Map with stuctured topography, as in Civ 3. No matter what map type I select, it seems as though Desert, Plains, Grassland, Jungle, Forest etc. seem to just be "tossed" into the map.
I have not been able to find the 3 million, 4 million or 5 million old world generators as there is in Civ 3. I know I could, simply, go into the map editor while in my game, but it takes a long time to edit that aspect of the map, one square at a time.
Has anybody seen this issue?
What are your views regarding this?

Thanks,

Zenith Omega

Write the map scripts to your liking since you seem to have an idea what you want. I like the Terra script. It gives pretty good results.

You can write the map scripts? How do you do that? I am sorry if that is a stupid question, but I do not have a clue how to do that...

Yeah where are the scripts!?!?

One thing that annoys me is when there is a 1 tile choke point, and the map generator places a mountain on it :crazyeye: It has happened in both of my regular games.

wouldn't the shoreline option create something along those lines? I haven't examined it, but you could also check out the thing on the main page that explains the map types (I posted this in another thread to remind someone a second ago), here's the link:

http://www.civfanatics.net/downloads/civ4/guides/sirians-map-script-guide-v01.zip

Note: this is a repost from the map guide sticky thread, since Zenith Omega 3 made the same complaint there and also in this separate thread.


Jungle, Desert, Grassland, Plains are seemingly just "tossed" onto the map. There is no structure to where they are placed as was in Civ 3.

The majority of the maps all use the same terrain generator, and it is essentially unchanged from Civ3.

There's a strip of pure grassland across the equator, thick with jungle.

There is a stripe of pure ice at each pole, and a strip of pure tundra between the ice and the temperate zone.

There is a northern and a southern temperate zone, and each is set to a mix of grass, desert, and plains. The ONLY change from Civ3 is that the patches of grass, desert, and plains are smaller and more intermixed. You can make them larger again, to make the game "more realistic", but it will lead to some civs being put in nasty desert regions and having really craptastic lands to play in, while others will have cities with 20 grassland apiece, and one city to the next being essentially identical in terrain.

I made the call to reduce the terrain patches in size, to better balance the game. In general, where there was a choice to make between "better gameplay, less realism" or "worse gameplay, more realism" I chose the former with no regrets.

You can have the "realistic" maps you want, and without all that much work -- though you will have to modify things, or wait for someone else to do it. See the stickied map guide thread.

Take a good long look at the Earth map, though. There is a massive desert stretching from the western Sahara all the way through the heart of Asia. The entire eastern half of the USA is pure grassland. Sometimes realistic can be boring! Civ4 is moddable so that you can have what you want, though, and I hope that you get it. Fun is where you find it! I'm proud (in this instance) to have sacrificed a little realism for a lot of gameplay, for the casual user, but also proud that those who want something else can get it, with a little elbow grease applied.

Good luck with your pursuit.


- Sirian