Welcome to the Atlas Project!
Current Version: 0.43 (1 Feb '06)
You might want to check out the Atlas Project's Homepage (http://atlas.junuxx.net/) for some extra screenshots, a complete changelog and documentation.

Atlas is a Java program written by me that is intended as a Map Generator for Civ 4. It will generate maps that are bigger, more varied, more realistic and more customizable than those from the standard map generator, giving the user control over every single parameter, and (optionally) providing a preview of the map as well.

Latest Additions:
- Added Number of rivers control
- Fixed a bug in the Gamespeed Tuner
- Fixed an endless loop when generating a 'Blank' map with Coastal Starts on
- Added confirmation dialogs when exiting or starting civ with an unsaved map
- Default number of start locations increased to 9

Current Status:
-Functional Beta. Atlas maps can be saved and give a good experience playing
- Nearly complete on interface features. The major absentee is the option to 'load' an existant map
- Although all map features are in, some are placeholders and not of target quality. For example, rivers and mountains need work.

Future Improvements:
Atlas is coming along nicely now. What still needs to be done is a lot of testing, balancing, improving and expanding.
Better mountains, hills and rivers are definitely needed. More presets and options are always good.

Limitations and troubleshooting
- Note that you need Java Runtime Environment 1.5 to run this program. This can be downloaded for free here (http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp)
- A warning! The fact that Atlas allows you to generate maps of up to 400x400, does not mean that you or anyone else will be able to play on such gigantic maps!!
- If you get an error, you can't get the program to run, or if you think my English is crap : Please let me know!

Quick Manual:

1)Download the zip at the bottom of this post and extract it
2)Double click on Setup_Atlas043.exe and follow the instructions
3)Start the program by going to Start->Programs->Atlas v0.40
4)Mess with the controls until you have generated a map you like
5)Press save
6)Copy the file Atlas.Civ4WorldBuilderSave from C:\Program Files\Map Generator to C:\My Documents\My Games\Civ IV\Saves\WorldBuilder. You can rename the 'Atlas' part of the file too, if you like.
7)Start Civilization 4
8)Click Single player, Play Scenario, choose 'Atlas' or whatever name you gave the file
9)The rest should be obvious :)

Now, a couple of screenshots:

1. The latest version, 0.43
http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/Atlas043_screenshot1.gif

Some screenshots of version 0.33...

2. The Save dialogue window
http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/atlas/Atlas033-saver.PNG

3. A look at the Misc tab
http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/atlas/Atlas033-Misc.PNG

4. This is the Game tab
http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/atlas/Atlas033-Game.PNG


I hope you like my little application. Please let me know what you think of it, and please check back soon for updates!

See ya,

Junuxx

See the Atlas thread on the Apolyton forums (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143569)
And the related MapView Project (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141622) by Gr3yHound
Finally, a link to the Official Map for Atlas 0.34 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146242)

Downloads of previous versions: 9243

Great idea! This has ENOURMOUS potential. I can just see it. Please work on it! We can't wait to see a finished product.

Some things I think would help:
1) In the end, add realistic terrain formations. Like, a real mountain range instead of peaks scattered everywhere. And on one side of that mountain range, there is a large desert (rain shadow effect).
2) The rest just fled my mind for the moment.

Great idea! This has ENOURMOUS potential. I can just see it. Please work on it! We can't wait to see a finished product.

Some things I think would help:
1) In the end, add realistic terrain formations. Like, a real mountain range instead of peaks scattered everywhere. And on one side of that mountain range, there is a large desert (rain shadow effect).
2) The rest just fled my mind for the moment.

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, mountain ranges and realistic geology and climate were on my mind as well. However, you will need different graphics for peaks for convincing mountain ranges ;)

<Edit:Removed screenshots. Newer screenshots are in the first post>

I'll see if I can add some plains or forest, and then I'm going to bed. It's 6:00 am over here... :blush:

Has anybody thought of an editor were it would have slidebars for lets say water, desert, grass, mountains, hills, etc. and then would have a preview that would change as you moved the slide bar, Like it is in worms?

That I believe would be a great map editor.

Well, I'm not sure about the slide bars, I was thinking of adjustable integer values, you know, with +/- buttons and stuff. But bars are possible as well.

I was thinking of options like this:
- Of course, terrain percantages
- Choice in resource abundance : Abundant, Normal, Enough, Sparse, Diverse
- more choice in Coastline, from fjords to delta
- 'Fortress Islands' : the coasts of the islands are almost always mountains, allowing just a single harbor town
- 'Rings': the map consists of several concentric rings of land, water, land, water
- More and better-value islands near continents (like Britain)

etc.

Added deserts and icecaps today, v0.13
I like the deserts my current settings give me. Reasonably sized deserts of one piece, at Sahara/Kalahari latitudes. I'll have to see what it does to gameplay.

I encountered a problem though. It seems the bmp-wbs converter needs 5 seperate bmps for height, forests, rivers, resources, and improvements. I;ll have to split up some of the things I've done. Besides, rivers promise to become rather complex.

I'd be very pleased with some comments on whether the applet works for you at all, and what you think of the maps it gives.

Junuxx :)

Yeah, terrain based on latitude/longitude would be nice. Along with deserts near the equator, try tropical jungles?
EDIT: After looking through the 0.13, some things:
1) make sure the land doesn't touch the polar ice caps
2) try adding lakes, maybe? Right now you have one-tile-large lakes, but those seem awkward.

Just to add some inputs, a good look at the atlas will show you two facts. Most deserts are bounded by the 30 degress to 70 degress latitude and either forms at the west coast of a continent or in the interior of a continent.

There are good geographical reasons for it with complicated explanations about cold ocean currents, the earth spin and tilt direction the dessicating effects of cold air causing deserts. And the rain shadow caused by mountains like Andes, Himalayas and Rocky Mountains.

This is a BRILLIANT idea! :goodjob: If it can somehow eventually be made into a fully customisable map generator, I'm sure it would be HUGELY useful! :) I don't know too much about these sorts of programming things, but I'll definitely try to help out on this project as well, wherever possible... even if only with ideas. ;)

Hey guys, thanks for the comments. Tundra, Forests and Jungles are up next.

@MSTK:
I'm not sure about land touching the polar caps. Why shouldn't it? Doesn't Greenland sort of overlap with the northern ice cap, while it also has a little grassland/plain on it's southeast tip?

edit: I think it makes sense to make the chance on polar continents smaller though, to represent the fact that the high latitudes regions are much smaller than the equatorial area ( on a globe).

You're right about the lakes, will do something about it. But it will be one of the last parts I think, because it's so related to rivers and rivers are difficult ;)

@Simmelan:
Of course I had quite a few good looks at the Atlas for this project ;)
The current algorithm spawns deserts in the interior of continents, bounded by indeed those latitudes you mention. Mountain range rainshadow is something I intend to do soon. That would be nice indeed
Thanks for the input anyway!

@Lord Parkin:
Why thank you! :) Ideas are always useful. For example, do you think polar caps can touch continents?;) And where exactly do forest grow? At the coast in temperate regions? In big chunks like the current desert, or more dotted all over?

tagged... unlike with cIV i'm waiting for the developer to actually finish ;p

@Lord Parkin:
Why thank you! :) Ideas are always useful. For example, do you think polar caps can touch continents?;) And where exactly do forest grow? At the coast in temperate regions? In big chunks like the current desert, or more dotted all over?
Hmm... polar caps touching the continents is a bit of a "personal" thing I think. It can be argued that either way is correct, depending on your opinion. ;) However, thinking in terms of gameplay purposes, I think that generally most people would agree that it's better not to have the polar caps touching the continents - because it can be severely restrictive to naval routes. (Also, keep in mind that maps in Civ4 - like all previous versions - are 2D projections of 3D spherical worlds. Thus, the polar regions get extremely stretched, making them far bigger in comparison to the rest of the map than they should be. So it's better to "undersize" the latitude of the polar caps than to "oversize" the latitude (ie, keep them to the very top and very bottom of the map, and at least a few tiles away from any major land masses). IMHO anyway. :)

Forest grows at pretty much any latitude, if I recall correctly. Not generally in the extreme North and South, but I'd say that to about plus or minus 60 or 70 degrees latitude, it's possible to have forests. Keep in mind though that forests generally shouldn't be in or near desolate regions (like deserts, or flat and bare strips of land like islands, isthmuses, and the tail ends of continents). ;) And also, generally speaking, the "forests" in areas near the equator are generally classed as jungles (because of the density of the trees and the rainfall, etc)... though not always. It depends on the climate of the area. ;)

Oh, forests also shouldn't be too thick in higher mountainous areas. (Hilly areas are generally fine though.) Overall, I'd say that forests should probably generally be dotted all over the place, but with some concentrated areas too. Just keeping in mind where not to have them (extreme N/S, mountainous and desolate areas, etc) should be fine, I think.

Well, looks like I've written a small essay there. :lol: Hope it helped you out somewhat, though. (By the way, if anyone else feels that I'm wrong on any of the points - as I may well be - feel free to correct me.) :)

- LP

If the land touches the polar caps, then it completely sections off two bodies of water. There is no way to get from one ocean to the other, because the waterways would be blocked. It'd be impossible to circumnavigate the globe or to even travel a circle along the coastline of your continent.

Thanks again for the input, Parkin and MSTK. :)

I took the time to code a decent User Interface, complete with installer and stuff. Had some version problems though, so the deserts are back to just the equator for now (instead of above and below it).

I would be happy if you could comment on how (/whether) it is working for you, both the program and the web applet.

Installation Instructions:
1) Download the .rar file. You need WinRAR to extract the files. You can download WinRAR here (http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm)
2) Copy the files in the .rar file to some temporary folder
3) Double-click install.bat
4) Start the Map Generator from Start\All Programs\Atlas Map Generator

Miscellaneous Notes:
1) The installer (install.bat) is for Windows only. But it doesnt do that much anyway, just puts the files in a Program Files folder and copies a shortcut to your Start Menu.
2) In the web version, the Exit button does not work

Web Version (http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/MapGenerator/AppletImage.html)
Downloadable Version (http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/MapGenerator/Atlas014.rar)

Big update! Now you can choose your map size! Must see! ;)

I can't get either version to work. In the case of the web version I tried IE and Firefox. Is it written in (a recent version of) Java? It might be that my version is outdated. All I can see when I visit the site is:
<head>
<title>
Atlas v0.13
</title>
</head>

<body>
<applet code="AppletImage" width="0" height="0"></applet>
</body>

I hope this helps in some way. It looks very cool from the screenshots and description.

Although I am pretty sure you have heard of it, wikipedia.org

Good place to go for data on things... well, basically it is a good place to go for anything! WikiRocKs!

I can't get either version to work. In the case of the web version I tried IE and Firefox. Is it written in (a recent version of) Java? It might be that my version is outdated. All I can see when I visit the site is:
<head>
<title>
Atlas v0.13
</title>
</head>

<body>
<applet code="AppletImage" width="0" height="0"></applet>
</body>

I hope this helps in some way. It looks very cool from the screenshots and description.

Of course this helps! I'd like to get this program to work for anyone :)
Yes, the program is written in Java, version 1.5.

You can download the latest runtime environment here (http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp). I hope that helps.

Another possibility is that your internet options or your firewall blocks Java applets, but in that case the downloadable version should have worked.

Whoa! Big big update, see the first post.
I managed to simply skip the need for 5 bmps by making my own WBS converter.

It feels good to see your settler and warrior walk around on a map that YOUR map generator has generated, even when the world they walk in is empty and resourceless ;)

The program actually has some use now. Previous versions were playthings only, but I hope modders can start using this now :)

If the land touches the polar caps, then it completely sections off two bodies of water. There is no way to get from one ocean to the other, because the waterways would be blocked. It'd be impossible to circumnavigate the globe or to even travel a circle along the coastline of your continent.

Personally, only small continents should touch the icecaps.

Nice work here. I'll be following this!

Minor fix in the installer: I forgot to update it to install the icon. This would give an error if not fixed manually, I guess. So now the first post has version 0.20b for download :)

Edit: I noticed a very weird bug. If you start the program, generate a map and then change to another window and come back, the layout will be a bit messed up and it will for some reason show a map with default settings instead of the last map. I have no idea what causes this, will look into it in the weekend.

great work....

but 1 thing...the installed does only work for copying not, creating the shortcut. imo the isntaller is useless and not needed at all. since i don´t use an englisch windows
copy /Y "Atlas Map Generator.lnk" "%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs"
doesn´t create the entry.

suggestions:
hm about the rivers....i think this is pretty difficult to create so i suggest you have a set of river structures you just place as-they-are until you come up with a way to make total randomly rivers.

as suggestion how to realize rivers i also have an idea:
randomize a number between mayb 3 and 10. (size)
create a river field and randomize a number between 1 and 8 (or 1 and 4 if theres no way to create angled rivers) to define in which direction the river wil go. You could say
1 2 3
4 X 5
6 7 8

or

X 1 X
2 X 3
X 4 X

and according to the result add a river field at the randomized direction. From now on only randomize 3 values so the river doesn´t go back and just goes forward, left or right. when you reached the size you have a structrure and you can add the river to a fitting place.

another thing:

for the all the integer numbers it would be great if they would make more sense. for example what does 3 mean or what´s 1 etc. mayb make it a numbers like "200" which would mean the continent consists of 200 tiles landmass or something. Or has a coastline of 200 tiles or something.
also it would rock if it would be possible to have different settings for different continents.

and as last:

then i got an idea how you could define the mass of ressources.
first go with 3 values that mean average ressource rate per 5x5 or 10x10 tiles. I suggest 1 value for luxeries, 1 for normal food bonuses and 1 for strategic ressources.

i hope you can use some of my ideas or i helped in any other way.

...

Thank you very much, Gr3yHound, for your elaborate comment :goodjob:

You have a very good point about the installer, I should have thought of the fact it will only work for people with an English windows version. I'll see if I can find the right command for creating a shortcut. For now, I will add a warning to the first post. For most people it won't be much of a problem to copy the files manually, anyway.

Rivers are implemented rather strange in Civ 4. A tile is marked as having a river on its eastern or southern border. The random-4 approach is a good idea, I think. But it should also make it possible to have a river split up, and it would be better if it somehow 'searched' the sea like real rivers.

The current method of continent generation does not allow for easy counting of tile size/coastline size. The size integer represents the number of iterations of the 'growing' algorithm from the continent's seed. Maybe I'll replace it with text options like tiny, small , normal, etc. instead.

Different values for luxuries, food and strat resources is a really neat idea. Thanks for that, I like to read constructive comments like this! :) :crazyeye:

Hey, one thing I think could help your maps look really real, at least as far as forests are concerned, is to consider continental drift. In other words, the same flora tends to originate from the same place - north america and europe have similar decidous forests because they were originally one continent, for example. So in general, I'd say it's better to opt for a few big forests and jungles rather than the odd tile dotted here and there.

Great work, btw, I can't wait to try it out tomorrow - after some sleep!

This is really a useful tool. It outlays the land for you. GOOD JOB! If only you could add a another part that could then randomize the layout of the content on the land. It crucial though to keep the two parts seperate, both for simplicity of coding but also to get a greater customization of the maps. (I.E. If you like a land layout you might not like the formations in it. So you could keep the same land masses or islands and further randomize the mountains until it fits your needs.) Do you follow what I'm saying. Don't change anything that you have done. Create a second part that loads the map and can alter the terrain based on like a seed. Like the other civ's seeds use to be on the map generator. The key though is to keep the land. Then you could by therory load Earth and keep the contenants in place yet move deserts, moutains and rivers around. That would be awesome!!!!

Perhaps a Generate Resource button that would keep the land and randomize the land type. I don't know Java but something like if square = Water do nothing, if square = land then for x = i to seed and put a loop to determine land land square type. I might be off here but the point is still the same.

I almost forgot. The maps come out upside down. Flaw or feature?

Can this program just make me a clear 200 x 100?

I realy would like a blank 256 x 128 world builder save map

Hey tbear2520 and Flash1, thanks, it's great to read more comments.

The seperate generation buttons are a very good idea, I put it in my sketch for the next version's interface. Thanks for mentioning the upside-downness by the way, I had not yet discovered that :D

Edit: I found out Civ uses a different coordinate system than I do. My (0;0) coordinate is in the upper left, Civ's (0;0) is in the bottom left :)

I will increase max size to 256x256 (or more maybe) Flash1, that's no problem.

Sketch for the next update attached, what do you think? :)
I fear the controls will look like a hopeless crowded mess...

<edit: removed sketch, actual new look added a couple of posts down>

Junuxx , You are doing a really awesome job, Kuddo's to you!!! A couple of things I really like are

1) The new clear terrain button - does this clear terrain but leave the position of the land? AWESOME - YOU ROCK! This will set you apart from all others.

2) The quick preview is way cool. No other one map generator I've seen has this. Again Kuddo's to you

I don't know the new feel but I really liked the ability to specify the number of continents and size. This feature allowed a lot of small continents which produced a more real like feel. Say a 150x150 with 25 continents of size 4, made some really cool maps. Where both land and sea would play a vital role during game plan.

Junuxx for King :king:

Several things to note,

1) Can the save button be made to auto number additional saves?

2) What about plotting start locations with a white dot? It wouldn't have to specify which Civ but only a dot. And I would leave this as optional. With a Clear Start Locations and Generate Start Locations. You could then tell if smaller islands would be populated. This would also need a number of players feature.

Not to sure about the 2) thing to note above, but worth thinking about

I can't wait to see it :D

Well, the clear terrain was your idea, so thanks to you :D

Something like this has been done for Civ 2 btw, but I don't know by whom, and I don't have the program anymore.

I want the save button to give the usual save dialog where you can name the file yourself, but I don't have any idea yet of how to do that. :D

Next version will be up later tonight ..

After lurking for, ohh, years, this thread has made me finally sign up.

I love your map gen program, it's awesome to see you doing this. One thing I'd like to see, is the ability, say a check box, to "hide the map". I know it sounds weird, but after having it build a few worlds back to back and settleing on the settings I like, I want the ability to generate a map using those settings without seeing it so it will be a surprise. Maybe a setting so that it can save it to your scenario folder or something..

Also, you might want to include a version that allows you how many "worlds" you want to create and then creates say 1-5 of them side by side so you get a better idea what the "average" world will look like with those settings.

All in all, excellent work!

More than anything, I'm excited by the idea that I'll be able to generate custom worlds with whatever ratio of terrain I want. For instance, the ability to make a large world, with medium oceans and mountain chains on the land, with a large majority of land covered by forests. This kind of micro tweakability would be great..

As you have probably seen in my map thread, I'm making a very large but accurate as possible earth map. Until the memory issues have been addressed, what is the biggest map you think is playable? I guess I need to increase my virtual memory, luckily I have a huge Hard Drive.

Hey guys, lets put some stars by this thread, cast your vote. Personally I rated it a 5.

Welcome Visceral Monkey, congrats on signing up :D

I agree that a "Hide Map" checkbox would be useful. Had thought of it, it's on the to do list (which is rather long ;)). Not sure what you mean by your next comment, you'd like to see the preview screen to show, say, 4 maps generated with the same settings simultaneously? Why not generate 4 sequentially then?

I'm really glad you like it. I'm having a great time myself programming it, playing around with the settings and having this great feedback from the community :)

@Flash:
I've been asking around on the forums what was the largest map people had actually played on, but I got little or not so useful answers. I *estimate* that for a map with big oceans 150x100 is okay for people with good pcs now. But I expect that performance of the game will increase with patches from Firaxis, and of course in a year or so, much better PC's will be available. So who knows, 400x400 might or might not be possible eventually. But just to give people the chance to play on a crazy world like 300x30, I raised the maximum x and y size to 400 ;)

@tbear2520:
thanx man! :cool:

And finally, a screenshot. This is what the interface looks like now, although much of the controls you see don't actually 'do' anything yet :crazyeyes:

All looks good. I will try it. This looks like a very good program. I can't get the BMPtoWBS converter to even run propery.

Thank you for creating a great looking program. I think I'll start with a 160 x 80.

Oh, What kind of file does this program create?
And one a map is created can anyone play it without changing files?

Oh, What kind of file does this program create?
And one a map is created can anyone play it without changing files?

See the first post ;)
The output file is called Atlas.Civ4WorldBuilderSave . You can rename it if you like, and to play you simply copy it to C:\My Documents\My Games\Civ IV\Saves\WorldBuilder , start the game and choose the scenario.

(edit : Alternatively, you can also double-click the Atlas.Civ4WorldBuilderSave file)

Thank you very much.

I got the BMPtoWBS thing to run but thats only good if you want to generate a map from a bmp. Oh and it takes a lot of work to modify large maps to take advantage of the features and bonuses and stuff.

Junuxx, I must say I really like the interface you have on this. The tab feature was a good call.

I know your doing a lot of work, so here's an idea for like version 2.

A load map feature would be nice. Say you make one, play it and wanted to shuffle the terrian types a bit but wanted to keep the land mass in order. If you have closed the program then you would have to generate new land.

Whatcha think?

Tbear2520

Don't worry to much about the loading of a map, the other features well make up for it. You can always just make another map.;)

Not sure what you mean by your next comment, you'd like to see the preview screen to show, say, 4 maps generated with the same settings simultaneously? Why not generate 4 sequentially then?

Just a time saving usabilty feature, something to consider down the line. In other words, you can easily just generate 4 maps or so and note how they turn out, or you could have it generate 4 maps all at once and display them side by side for comparison. Like I said, a minor thing and nothing I'd waste time on until much later maybe.

Okay, How does this project sound?
What if X = 10 plots per 20 degrees longitute.
What if y = 10 plots per 10 degrees latitude.
that would make a lot of cropping for sections but each area would be represented.
map would be something like 180 x 150

Flash1 lets try to keep this project in this thread and others in there own thread. Maybe start your own and post your thoughts there. I mean currently there are probably numerous people that might be interested in helping create an accurate version of the Earth. ;)

Thanks

Tbear2520

Sorry tbear2520,
I was lost in thought. As I looking over this map.

It's OK I think you ment to post on the Flash's Terra map forum. I posted a link you might want to look at there in regards to the Earth map.

Tbear2520

New version is now available! Try it, while I go get some sleep! ;)

Later guys, thanks for the creative support :goodjob:

I downloaded ver .21 and it's got some great potential. I think the main layout of the app is pretty much in focus now.

1) I would consider making the Generate Misc to be resources and not the Polar caps. The Polar caps could simply be an off/on check box. As for I am concered. Others might disagree though.

2) I love the X\Y Wrap, that feature this will be very nice for ensuring the map is playable in a round World based game.

3) I wouldn't worry to much about the size. With such a customized map I think the upwards of 150x150 is enough.

4) Can't wait for the mountains and forest to be generated. I think is crucial to be able to see them on the preview. Like you can the desert. Different colors of course.

5) You might do away with the number of islands box. The number of continents and number of islands are kinda one in the same. One or the other would work fine. The purpose of either is straight forward.

6) The speed of map creation and randomization is very impressive! Scary considering how long Civ4 takes to load them.

I can't comment much on the coastal features. I don't know if there up an working yet. I tried several different maps and didn't notice anything different between the types.

Don't forget Forest Ratio on the Terrain Tab!

Curios what the Terrain-Desert\Plain shape and Hill\mountain shape values will do.

As for rivers. I know there needed but I don't think it will be possible to view them on the map preview. Not a bad trade for a totally customized map. Unless of course you can think of a way to put them in.

I know there's a lot to digest.

All in All - All things said :hatsoff: you the man!

TBear2520

Hey TBear! Keep the comments coming :goodjob:

1) I planned to give Misc resources, starting locations ans polar caps. But maybe those need to be separate as well. Currently the polar caps generated are passable snow instead of the game's usual impassable ice. Good idea to give the user choice on that?

4) Yeah, it really is time for more terrains now. Don't think I'll have time for that today though. And if I do, I like to actually play the game once in a while, too ;)

5) I'm not sure about that. In some settings the islands seem not so important, but try a big map with a few (like, two) big continents. Having 0 or 30 islands is a major difference, and influences exploration and stuff greatly.

6)Yes, the time it takes Civ 4 is scaring me too :lol: I hope it's got something to do with the 3D-ness and all.

Anyway, big thanks. I need to make a credits section ;)

awesome job... Bu How does it affect the Hall of fame? Will the map size be RANDOM or STANDARD by default for example?

By the way this thread should definitely be duplicated or moved to the utility forum

Junuxx,
Question, How does your generator allocate resources and "goody huts"?
I realized I'm going to need some way to figure out how I'm going to allocate them on my maps.

@ Rhymes:
I will include something for the highscore size. It will give a map a default size type based on the number of plots. For example, a 30x120 map will get a 'Large' flag ( or whatever is appropriate for such a size, have to look into it yet).

Hm, yeah, the utility forum. Maybe you're right :)

@Flash1:
For now, you have to place them yourself. I'm going to finish land and terrain type generation first, then starting locations, then rivers, then resources, I think. Might take a while :)

Next version almost ready for release btw. With plains, forests and jungles! :)

it does not work....it wont installl...i have the lastest java and everything but still wont work

it does not work....it wont installl...i have the lastest java and everything but still wont work

I've actually got the same problem. Even went so far as to totally remove java, re-install it and re-install the program. Nothing. The shortcut in programs is just a blank square and nothing happens when I click on it. :(

Oh, that sucks. :(
And if you open c:\program files\mapgenerator and double click on Mapgen.bat?
Does that work?

If not, can you please tell me what windows version you have, in what language, and on what drive it is?

By the way, if your firewall or antispyware app comes up with something like the picture below, you should accept. it may be possible that your protection setting is very high, and that it blocks the script automatically. If it's not a directory name problem, I think this is the most likely cause.

awesome!!!!
did you know your projet made me write my own little open gl application to view maps. I m JUST done with the display stuff.

A screenshot is attached

still dont work....i have xp-sp2 aand english

still dont work....i have xp-sp2 aand english

Nothing? What exactly happens when you run MapGen.bat? If you open a command prompt, then go to the MapGenerator directory and start MapGen.bat, it might print an error message that can give me a clue.

did you know your projet made me write my own little open gl application to view maps. I m JUST done with the display stuff.
Gr3yHound, that is awesome! Are you planning on releasing that here to the masses? And if so, any idea when? Also, if you haven't done so, can you make a toggle to switch between displaying the height map, terrain map, bonus map, etc? Even if not, that looks really cool so far. :goodjob:

Back on topic: great job so far Junuxx! I've built several worlds with this so far... it's a great way to get started on a world quickly. I look forward to seeing how this utility evolves.

still dont work....i have xp-sp2 aand english

Same here. I currently have no firewall in place.

When I click the mapgen.bat file i get a quick dos box that pops up and then closes. So, I open dos from the start menu and run C:\Documents and Settings\me\Desktop\atlas\MapGen.bat and nothing happens, not even an error. If I run install.bat it re copies the files into the already created MapGenerator directory, but still, I cannot execute the file to start it.

Same here. I currently have no firewall in place.

When I click the mapgen.bat file i get a quick dos box that pops up and then closes. So, I open dos from the start menu and run C:\Documents and Settings\me\Desktop\atlas\MapGen.bat and nothing happens, not even an error. If I run install.bat it re copies the files into the already created MapGenerator directory, but still, I cannot execute the file to start it.

Thanks for the useful information :)

I now strongly suspect it has to do with the path variable for java.
You can add the path to your java directory to a certain collection so that other programs know where it's located.

Take a look at Sun's installation note, at point 5, to set it:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/install-windows.html

I really hope this will solve the problem :)

I have just attached version 0.22 to the first post. The class files are now packed in an executable jar file. This should prevent the errors some were having from happening.

oh holy ****....!!!!!
You are an awesome guy....!!

Gr3yHound, that is awesome! Are you planning on releasing that here to the masses? And if so, any idea when? Also, if you haven't done so, can you make a toggle to switch between displaying the height map, terrain map, bonus map, etc? Even if not, that looks really cool so far. :goodjob:

Back on topic: great job so far Junuxx! I've built several worlds with this so far... it's a great way to get started on a world quickly. I look forward to seeing how this utility evolves.

nah, just coded 2 days on it, but i´ll definately continue working on it, it´s a good project with personal motivation to raise my cpp skills and learn a bit opengl....

about the highmap stuff etc..i´ll do my best and try to add as much things as i m able to.
From earlier projects i know i can never stop going deeeper and make everything perfect.

but this is junuxxs thread

I wish I was better at Java or I would try to modify this, but I'm only a 2nd year-CS student. It looks great. What IDE did you use to make it? I use Eclipse because it's what my school uses.

I tried to import the .jar into a new project so I could look at the code and try to learn some things, but when I tried to look it only showed the function names and parameters (no code to show how the function works). How can I take a look at the code?

The new version with the .jar file works! Thanks.

Also, the new screen shot at the start of the thread showing what the custom map looks like in game is just awesome! You can really see how the forests and deserts look MUCH more real than in maps generated by civ4!

Some quick notes for future usabilty.

Have some presets that mimick the internal civ4 map maker when it comes to size. That is, small, large, huge, etc. Still allow people to create their own world size should they want, but having some presets people are already familiar with will make them feel better about using it.

One thing i'd really like to see duplicated here is the ability to define what kind of mountain ranges you might or might not want. If you've ever tried the higlands map, it gives you a few different options that can create anything from a few mountains here or there to complete mountain chains that span continents. Again, I think this is something that's probably already IN the atlas program in the ratio part, but using some predefined presets as a starting point for people would give them a better idea on how to tweak those numbers in the ratios.

@Gr3yHound:
Your tools seems really useful. Good work!
A function that would be nice is a file corruption check. Have you had any experience with tweaked WBSes that froze or crashed Civ4 when loaded? I had quite a few and it would be cool if a tool said "Hey, there's a tab missing on line 300" or "Terrain = TERRAIN_SNWO? What's that?" :D

@Rabbit_Alex:
Thanks. I'm only a 3rd year AI student myself, actually, and this is the first time I've taken it so far to be honest. I just tried and really learned a lot.
I wrote most of the code in Notepad, and some of it in JEdit. I'm not really into the fancy IDEs, really.
I'm not sure about releasing the source code yet. Some of it is really messy... Need to clean it up and comment it decently first ;)

@Visceral Monkey:

Ah, it finally works. That's great!
I'll add a couple of presets soon, it's a good idea :)

Junuxx, Looking really nice. Heres some points I'd like to mention

1) The terrain's of desert, forest, jungle, and plains works great. Once learning the color code it's very easy to read on the map that's generated. :) There well placed(generated).

2) Your plotting of land produces little pockets of water. This seams much more life like and can add some strategy in games with land wars. Cool stuff. You got the right mathematics put in on the generation process.

3) The polcar caps are showing up on top and bottom now. Very nice work.

4) I just have to add I am super siked by this whole project. :)

Some stuff I noticed that might need to be addressed.

A) I think this is a feature but when the focus leaves the map. Say to play Civ4, or copy the map to the civ directory and then you go back to Atlas the default map is back. Could you possibly load the Atlas.Civ4WorldBuilderSave map(if one exists)?

B) The mountains are not being produced but I don't see anything in the new features portion at the start of this thread. ;) Which kinda leads me to number D) below

C) As for the issues with the install stuff. A couple of things here for ya, the shortcut on the start menu should point to the .bat file in the map generator directory. The latest install didn't create that. No big deal but nice to have.

D) From everything I see though the application looks good. Only telling what features currently work and don't work seams to be an issue. So maybe changing the colors of the features that are currently not fully functional might eliminate that. Maybe a darker shade. I don't know if this is possible.

Good work! I have to get to bed now. Thanks for the props in the About! :)

Tbear2520

@Gr3yHound:
Your tools seems really useful. Good work!
A function that would be nice is a file corruption check. Have you had any experience with tweaked WBSes that froze or crashed Civ4 when loaded? I had quite a few and it would be cool if a tool said "Hey, there's a tab missing on line 300" or "Terrain = TERRAIN_SNWO? What's that?" :D


goooood idea! that´s the next thing i´ll do!

@Rabbit_Alex:
Thanks. I'm only a 3rd year AI student myself, actually, and this is the first time I've taken it so far to be honest. I just tried and really learned a lot.
I wrote most of the code in Notepad, and some of it in JEdit. I'm not really into the fancy IDEs, really.
I'm not sure about releasing the source code yet. Some of it is really messy... Need to clean it up and comment it decently first ;)


Can't wait.

It is a shame that naval units cannot navigate rivers. If they could, it would be neat to be able to add a Build Canal improvement which would then potentially allow continents to go from pole to pole without damaging naval play. The time and technology needed to be able to build the canal would be a reasonable approximation of the difficulty for ships until the Suez and Panama canals were built.

I'm guessing that this will have to wait until the mod developer pack is released !

Well, the program runs just fine for me, it creates maps, etc. It looks great! However, if I try to actually use the map it makes in Civ4, it crashes the game shortly after choosing the map. Anyone else having this issue? (btw, game runs fine on standard maps, just nothing this makes)

Well, the program runs just fine for me, it creates maps, etc. It looks great! However, if I try to actually use the map it makes in Civ4, it crashes the game shortly after choosing the map. Anyone else having this issue? (btw, game runs fine on standard maps, just nothing this makes)

Could you please attach the file it created, or e-mail it to me? Then I can check if there's something wrong with the file. It is possible, of course, that the map you created is simply too big. Note that a huge map normally is no larger than 104*64, and a huge Terra 128x160.

Version 0.23 is ready! Wrapping around the dimension(s) of your choice is in, as well as some presets. Functions that aren't implemented yet are now greyed out to avoid confusion.

Over 1400 lines/43 KB of code now!! :eek:

Anyway, see the first post for the new download :)

Very nice Junuxx, easy to use and easy to tell what is currently working and what's not. :crazyeye: 1400 lines of code :crazyeye:

Here's some things to note.

1) I noticed an issue with the refresh after reviewing the about. It leaves a display of a close up of the generated map from the left bottom part of the original map that is already created(after you close it). You won't notice it if you keep the original size. You can easily work around it by hitting refresh on the terrain. But what's wierd is that, say if your on a 150x150 then hit the about you exit and you notice it and then switch to a 25x25 and hit about and say OK. The map is still part of the larger 150x150. hehehe some sort of refresh\focus thing going on there.

I messed around a bit with the install and had some wierdness happening to me. I tried to use pkunzip and pkzip with the pkzip -r -p and pkunzip -d switchs but wasn't having much success. I then altered the link for the start menu and figured I would zip everything up and possibly create a install.bat to unzip it all in the mapgenerator directory. I don't know if it's the beer but I don't think so. I even tried the zip2exe thing with the -d -o. Winxp doesn't like any of it:mad: . Basically says it unzips it and then does nothing. And the names inside the zips were getting trunkcated with ~1 symbols(The norm...) I know that Visual Basic has a tool that will auto create install programs for VB applications. I wounder if something along those lines will work for Java.

FYI, in order to get the program to work I have to extract the files into the directory of the mapgenerator and run the batch file that calls the

start /min java Atlas

But it does work. ;)

Later dude

Tbear2520

Hey tbear,

First, a very important note: you don't have to extract the Atlas.jar file! It is an executable jar. To start Atlas you can simply double-click Atlas.jar. Mapgen.bat is no longer needed, nor included. I suggest you delete all the files from previous installs and try again ;)

Then on the refreshing issue. Good to know. It seems to be the same issue as with alt-tabbing and with pressing clear all first, then generate terrain. It goes back to the previous map.
The best way to get rid of the freaky lost map parts seems to be Clear Misc, Generate Misc. But I will look for a better solution.

What did you think of the presets?

It's GREAT!

Sorry for a stupid question but it's doesn't have any resource random generator yet, right?

Anyone with any ideas how I populate them randomly.

TIA

That's probably it then. I tried 200 X 150. I'll scale it down a bit and see if that works.

It's GREAT!

Sorry for a stupid question but it's doesn't have any resource random generator yet, right?

Anyone with any ideas how I populate them randomly.

TIA

That's right, resources are currently not placed. I'll add my to-do-list to the first post so people can see what feature are coming soon.:)

You can add resource by hand with the WorldBuilder. But that is quite a lot of work with big maps.

Junuxx, Sorry I had to get to bed on my last comment. Well I've played a little more with the controls and the presets work great.

1) You might want to put a medium in there and for sure a huge. A Huge that should mirror the exact size of the Huge outlined in the Civ4. This would allow for a basis of the size your creating. Exspecially when picking larger map sizes.

2) I haven't played to test the X/Y axis but by the generation is looks like the lands position themselves to work. I plan on giving some detail to this portion over the weekend.

3) The Randomize doesn't seam to randomize the Wrap feature. This is probably a feature and probably left the way that it currently is.

4) Looking forward to the terrain portion to come into play. I feel that this will allow for the structure to test out the basis of the resources once they get in. Which to me is crucial but must come in it's own time. You don't put gas in a car before the engine. ;)

5) It's pretty odvious the difference in the Islands types and what they produce on the map, which is great.

6) What about seperating the presets in type. (I.E. Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gigantic Vs. Micronesia, Continents, Pangaea). There might be others you could put together. The whole ring, wheel and what not is not that big of a deal to me. I don't think in single player mode I have ever played one of these. hehe (Added comment... I think that a size preset should control the Horizontal and Vertical and a land type preset could control the other settings ;) )

7) The Pangaea isn't there. I think this one would be the easiest to create. With a layout of the land being a single large continent. Of course each one of these continues to complicate the land generation process. But I think by now it's a select source kinda of call in your code.

8) Oh yea Rivers, should be in place after the mountains and before resources. I think this will ensure that the layout conforms to gravity based principals.


I know that's a lot of stuff to comment on. Hope it helps having an additional perspective on this project. Sometimes I worry though my comments might be critical. I don't know the coding going on so if my requests or ideas prove to much at the current time, just say so.

The error I am getting while trying to run the .jar file is "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: C:\Program Files\MapGenerator\Atlas023/jar" Yes that's /jar and not .jar. It's a quick flash of a black screen. Now after some looking into it I found this

http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/24300/fid/165

What's your thoughts on this? Remember it does run from the batch file that declares the class.

Thanks Junuxx for your effort in producing a Quality map generator which should of shipped with Civ4. :beer:

Oh and the customization in this fashion has never been possible in any other Civ game. On NO map generator ever before have I seen the seperation of land and terrain. Granted I thought of it, it was you that put my idea to work. Awesome team work. Firaxis I am sure will take note of this and scratch their heads woundering why their team never did such a thing. You programmed it in one night, I think. Gamers rule! It shows that maybe Firaxis should expand there current Beta testers.

Tbear2520

Mine dowsnt work :(

If it doesn't work then just export everything, including unzipping the .jar file and from a command prompt change to the directory that the files are in and type

start /min java Atlas

Hit enter and it will launch. Note: You can put this in batch file in the directory where the app is located and then use a shortcut to launch the program.

Tbear2520

If it doesn't work then just export everything, including unzipping the .jar file and from a command prompt change to the directory that the files are in and type

start /min java Atlas

Hit enter and it will launch. Note: You can put this in batch file in the directory where the app is located and then use a shortcut to launch the program.

Tbear2520

I know im a noob, but it just opens the directory "C:\windows\java" please help a bit more :)

please disregard my post... i didnt have java installed :blush:

Now I got another problem... it opens and closes a dospromt mentioning something with an error... or something about it cant find "atlas"... it was too fast for me to read :)

:EDIT:

tried running multiple instances and got this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: atlas

Dont know if this error is because I got Danish setup, not english?!?

:EDIT:

Dont type: start /min java atlas... just use the shortcut that came with the map.... DOH!

:EDIT:

tried running multiple instances and got this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: atlas

Dont know if this error is because I got Danish setup, not english?!?


Well the error listed above about the "Exception in thread" is what I get when I try to run a .jar file. The way to get that to work is to uncompress the .jar file into a directory and copy this MapGen.txt file into the same directory. Rename the file to MapGen.bat and launch the MapGen.bat file. Hope that helps :crazyeye:



:EDIT:

Dont type: start /min java atlas... just use the shortcut that came with the map.... DOH!

Already tried that, doesn't work for me. :(

Tbear2520

Thanks a lot tbear, I really appreciate your useful feedback. You're critical, but in a good way ;)

1) Yeah, using all Civ's sizes sounds good. Currently the Default and the preset Big are Civ's Huge, and the preset Small is Civ's Small.

2) I tested playing a X/Y wrap and it seemed to work fine. Have you tried one yet?

3) Yep, it's a feature. Playing wacky worlds all the time didn't seem fun to me :)

4) Going to work on the terrain tonight!

5) Great you like it! I'll probably add some more options. Atolls, maybe.

6) I'd like to split them out but I'll have to make more room first... ;)

7) Pangaea should be in, I agree. But I have to redo the continent shaping first, otherwise "The Big Fat Round Blob" would be a better name. :D

8) Could you explain why rivers should be there before resources?

I think you're having problems running the program because WinRAR essentially seized the .jar extension. I think you can get around this by starting with the command "java -jar Atlas023.jar". Could you try if that works? I'll upload a temporary fix with an updated batch file and shortcut.

@toft:
Do I understand it correctly that you got it to work now? How do you like it? :)

Hello Junuxx

1) yea that new batch file with a short cut worked perfectly. Thanks :goodjob:

2) I am currently testing the X\Y wrap. I've noticed something but I must test it out to see if it's the map or Civ4. Of course some video stuff might be about some of the patches they are about to release. I'll post again with my find and details.

3) As for the thing about rivers before resources. Here is how I look at it. The resource for horses is more likely to be by a river\water source than not. While that detail is minor and can easly be tweaked. But also I think the spread of the land will be more life like. But in reality it doesn't matter much. Exspecially if in some way we can see the rivers on the minature map inside the generator(good luck). LOL I just see the resource dispersement as being more evenly and realisticly spread with the other things already being in place. Of course none of this or all of this could matter depending upon the code. If resources are generated on a basis of space between each resource rather than the lay of the land. So I guess it depends upon you and the code. Which way can you get it to work best. ;) For realism though I think that resources based on the lay of the land works best, with of course would also require some sort of calculation to determine even distribution. Which leads me to believe that this will probably be the toughest part to code. And in some aspects even distribution might not be desired. :crazyeye:

Thanks

TBear2520

Junuxx, OK, I have tested out the X\Y bit. Here's my findings. I almost hate to say this. The X (horizontal) works. Y (Vertical Doesn't). It's not your application though. It's CIV4 that doesn't like the Vertical wrap. Unless it's just my video card.

Scenario: I created a medium size map. With noted able land structure that could easily be identified crossing both the X\Y boundaries. Usually where the land crossed it at a given point where I could do my testing. So I started the game. Inserted tanks, bombers and a destroyer. On the horizontal (left-to-right) I had no problems crossing over. On the Vertical I had all kinds. The bomber couldn't even select the range to bomb. The whole south pole as it was was like the edge of a map. I could however move across it with both my tank and ship. But neither one left an uncovered area from a another unit's perspective. Then even centering and using my unit seamed almost as if I went into a secret area that I wasn't suppose to find or something along those lines. I never was able to see my tanks once they crossed. The destroyer though I could see and it would uncover on the big map but not on the main game field area. hehe

Looking at the maps that Civ4 ships with and the kind it can create. It seams only logical to ask if Y wrap should even be an option. You might just put a X wrap on or off.

My PC is a 3.4 Ghz Intel based processor with 1 Gig of memory and a NVIDIA Geforce 6800 Ultra with 256 megs of memory using PCIX. The monitor is a Dell2005FPW(20.5" Flat Panel Widescreen LCD 12ms responce time) Of course I also have two 160gig 10K RPM SATA drives in a RAID 1 array, and an external 80gig Western Digital Harddrive. So I don't feel it's my PC unless it's the video card because capitibility. It's possible I just haven't look into it, seeing how I haven't found an Civ4 map that shipped with game that has Y wrap.

TBear2520

Note: I think both X and Y should be able to wrap according to the BMP to WBS convertor manual. hmmm....

@toft:
Do I understand it correctly that you got it to work now? How do you like it? :)

Yeah I got it working... its good! Just hoped there would be some hills and mountains... can it really be that there is no mountains and hills?

:EDIT:

Just saw your note about the hills n mountains... sorry :P

Yeah I got it working... its good! Just hoped there would be some hills and mountains... can it really be that there is no mountains and hills?

:EDIT:

Just saw your note about the hills n mountains... sorry :P

I added snow, tundra and tundra forests last night. I'll put a new version up for download as soon as hills and mountains are done as well

hi everyone

after i was "falling" over that thread yesterday, being fascinated of this idea i decided to sign in here. unfortunately i only can join these discussions without trying out by myself - since situated in austria using a german windows. so there is my question: will there be a "german" version. would be great

anyway i´ll follow this project and will also be here with ideas if wanted ...

hope the best :crazyeye:

hi everyone

after i was "falling" over that thread yesterday, being fascinated of this idea i decided to sign in here. unfortunately i only can join these discussions without trying out by myself - since situated in austria using a german windows. so there is my question: will there be a "german" version. would be great

anyway i´ll follow this project and will also be here with ideas if wanted ...

hope the best :crazyeye:

Hey Sindelar,

Your german windows is not a big problem for the program, only for the installer.

I'll add a readme to the download that explains how to install manually.

wow that would be great

thx for your quick reply

Sindelar

Tbear,

Yes, I had the same graphical glitches, although the blackness seemedd to disappeared when I moved and zoomed around a bit along the border.
I think it's the game's fault, and I also thnk it will get fixed because Sirian said somewhere that there are additional mapscripts - maybe to download later, maybe in expansion pack- some of which are with X/Y wrapping.

Oh this is very nice! Would this be able to work on lets say... C3C?

Changed plans, I released a new version although hills and mountains are not done yet. Hope you like it Sindelar ;)

@Portugal:
I fear it's not possible to make C3C maps this way. Those files are not plain text like Civ3 maps, but encoded.

well i´ll immediately have a look on it ..

thx for now!:cool:

hi Junuxx!

i think you´re doing some great job there. i was playing around a little bit, and it was very nice seeing your own world grow!

i´m looking forward to the next versions - and would like to help in any way you need - though i´m no programmer, i´m a quite good tester :cool:

so if there are themes like forrest locations or anything like that i might be some help

another qustion: did i understand it right that there will be mountains of different hights - and according to that different vegetation?

well thx anyway for your uploading the readme - wasn´t that difficult

I followed up to the install the bat file. When I go to open the generator through programs list, it just opens up more files that need to be unrared. After I unrar them, what should I do?

Hi again Junuxx

just wondering that i can´t see any options under misc. but there are some values there - is this a bug or a feature:eek:

anyway still trying out different settings makes addicted

Sindelar

@dreamcrusader:
Do you have Java installed? You shouldn't further unrar any files, the .jar file is the program.

@Sindelar:
What options do you see in misc? The misc tab is pretty empty for me..
That is, not in the version I'm working on. That's got checkboxes for 'show preview' and 'coastal start' on the misc tab.

Civ 4 implements hills (and forests) as a terrain feature rather than a terrain type. So there are grassland hills, plain hills, desert hills, etc. Makes it a bit more complicated... ;)

Thanks for the feedback!

hi,

i understand

i just wanted to know what there will be, since there are some values shown without telling what for

what i wasn´t able was to check the difference of coastal waves like wild or so - may be the fault of my gk though, cause i´m testing on a notebook - my wife is using my pc for playing civ IV .. :p

i´ll have a hard night to try

The coastal waters setting controls how much water is made 'Coast' (Galleys and Ironclads can only navigate coastal waters).

Normal means every square adjacent to land is coast.
Calm means the coastal waters extend farther into the sea, sometimes connecting to other islands and continents
Wild means the sea is rough and dangerous even near the shore. If you look closely you'll see that often a galley will not even be able to sail around its home continent.
Varied is, well, varied. Calm in some places, normal in most places and wild in some others. ;)

aha ok
thx

Say.. can peaks have ice/forests/jungle/hills on them? I'm not quite sure :o

Say.. can peaks have ice/forests/jungle/hills on them? I'm not quite sure :o

At least with my experience so far in map making, it's doesn't matter what's there. A peak is a peak, I haven't seen anything different from one terrain type to another as for terrain goes.

Tbear2520

Say.. can peaks have ice/forests/jungle/hills on them? I'm not quite sure :o


well it depends on the height of the peak - lets say about 1500meters you may see forrests as well - but there is also the glaciers over 2500meters the are seen in austria, switzerland, france new sealand, usa ...

jungle will not be found there at all i´d say.

and a hill on a peak? wouldn+t understand ...

have a nice day


Latitude appr. height of tree limit Notes
(m) (ft)
Sweden 68 ° N 400 1300
Swiss Alps 46 ° N 2100 6900
Wyoming, USA 43 ° N 3000 9800
Japanese Alsps 39 ° N 2900 9500
Yosemite, USA 38 ° N 3200 10500 Westsside of Sierra Nevada
Yosemite, USA 38 ° N 3600 11800 Eastside of Sierra Nevada
Himalaya 28 ° N 4400 14400
Hawaii, USA 20 ° N 2800 9000 low rainfall above Passat-Winds
Costa Rica 9.5 ° N 3400 11200
Kilimandscharo, Tansania 3 ° S 3000 9800

well - i found that under wikipedia,com

maybe it can help u

sry for how it looks like - lost the formating ...

I've seen peaks with temperate forests on them. Look a bit weird, but it's possible. Also, they can have ice on them too, but it doesn't change the look that much it seems.

Thanks for the comments on peaks. It's fun to see that you're all correct in a way.

Sindelar is right about the real world, but since Civ4 lacks a real height model I can't do much with the info. Aeric is right about what you normally see in-game I guess. Peaks can be forested or covered by jungle.

But not only does it hardly change the look, it also doesn't affect a peak's properties, as tbear points out. So I'll stick to just peaks for now. If it turns out it doesn't look very pretty, I can add mountain vegetation later.

Anyway, I finally have a complete color scheme (for the preview, that is).

Excellent tool, this is great. I'm having some trouble with it though.

It appears that its not updating the window enough. when i change something I need to click the area again to get the change to show up. Also when i generate a map... it does not show it. While it does generate it as i can save it a load it up, but i can never see what it looks like before actually playing in civ4. Any ideas on this?

Thanks again

Hey MadHatr,

Yeah, the updating/out of focus issue was quite annoying. Was because I have a solution now :D. It was the same problem that caused the heap to keep growing, eventually crashing the program (if you kept on generating like a hundred maps).
I'll put the new version up for download soon.

But you can't see the preview? That's rather odd, I haven't heard of that problem. Any other people having the same problems? I hope the problem gets fixed with the new version.

Other changes in v0.25:
- Hills!
- Optional map preview (toggle on the Misc tab)
- Readme file now includes a color legend

Junuxx, I just downloaded the .025 version. I don't have time tonight but with the upcoming holidays, I should be able to give it a good look over. Keep up the good work. :goodjob:

Tbear2520

hi junuxx,

was rather busy the last days - and will now check ur new version - will report :-)

Excellent, let's see more!

Can the Atlas be used to generate random resource placements on an already created scenario map. I've made a premade map, and would love to sprinkle the resources at random rather than placing every single one.

Can the Atlas be used to generate random resource placements on an already created scenario map. I've made a premade map, and would love to sprinkle the resources at random rather than placing every single one.

At present it doesn't place resources at all.;)
But it is the next thing I'm going to add. Loading existing maps is a bit more down the list though.

Yay! You finally got it to work :)

Thanks for the reply. Can someone give me a link to install Java?

Thanks for the reply. Can someone give me a link to install Java?

It's in the first post ;)

http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp

Thank you for your help. I appreciate it

http://www.bindig.net/dunno/tap_10000.jpg

omg!

http://www.bindig.net/dunno/tap_10000.jpg

omg!


hehe i took a screenie of a forum with 1337 threads..
anyway GJ Junuxxx.com

Junuxx, Hope you've had sometime to relax this weekend. Well I have done some reviewing of the .25 version. Which I must say I like to see several of the new features coming in. It's amazing the power of this tool.

1) What control are we going to have on the mountain placement. The maps I have produced seam to spread the hills out pretty evenly(meaning only several hills group together and then this covers the entire land). Will the mountain shape have a group option and a evenly option?

2) I started to appreciate the idea about the hide preview option.

3) The start near coast waters is a great idea. Is there a way to randomize the start location without having to re-randomize the terrain. Currently that is the only way I found to do it(Meaning you can't just restart the same saved map to have a new location(Civ4 feature :mad: ). Also with the coastal waters turned on the start location appears to be only around the poles. With Coastal waters turned off this doesn't seam to be a problem. With coastal waters turned on I haven't been able to produce one yet that started off, off of the icecap\tundra area, around 10 tries and several different map types.

4) Is it possible to maybe put a white dot on the map that would symbolize the start location, and then a way to regenerate that location?

5) As the complexity continues to increase on the map view, a possible alteration to the view might be desired. Kinda along the lines of the map preview idea. Like turn the view of things off or on. Like Trees, desert, hills, so on and so forth. Maybe a tab might be in order with a bunch of check box's that would represent each color (terrain\resource\start location).

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, but I wanted to leave a good message and not a two liner.

Additional note: I found an interesting piece in the file Planet.Civ4WorldBuilderSave

SyncRandSeed=20781619

Civ4 config ini says this about the above

; Random seed for map generation, or '0' for default
MapRandSeed = 0

; Random seed for game sync, or '0' for default
SyncRandSeed = 0

I wounder what it means by Sync. Sync with what?


Tbear2520

Hey all!
I did relax a bit this weekend, but I'm going to work hard on a releasable next version tonight :)

Thanks tbear for your very useful comments.
some responses:

1. The hill (and mountain) placement part is pretty primitive, nearly random. I'll improve on it when some other important functions are in place.

2. Good to hear that :) It wasn't a difficult change but it did force me to reorganize the program in a much more memory-friendly way, which was a good thing too.

3&4. I'm sorry to report than in version 0.25, starting locations are in no way saved in the WBS file. Any starting locs you got on the maps were chosen by the game. I realize I should've greyed out the control. The current version represents them by a red dot, and "Generate Misc" regenerates starting locations and resources only. Does that sound okay or is a seperate resource/starting location generation a lot more desireable?

5. Definitely a good idea. Put it on the list ;)

I think Game sync is the random seed used in combat and so on. The one affected in Civ3 with the "preserve random seed" toggle.

@GreyHound: awesome screenshot :lol:

"Generate Misc" regenerates starting locations and resources only.

If the seperation is to much then thats fine. But with the seperation of resources and starting locations it would give a greater degree of control ;)

But I think the question is the code. If the start location is presented souly on the resource location then this might be easier to just enterlock the two.

Tbear2520

Uploading the newest version in a few minutes!

I must say it's a BIG update. :D
What's new in version 0.30:
- Mountains
- Starting Locations added, with adjustable number of locations and minimum distance
- User control over tundra size, mountain amount, hill/mountain amount
- Presets split up in size and style
- Added an easter egg! Go find it! ;)

I'm now at 2133 lines of code in total, and doubting what to do: start adding resources or play a game of civ 4 for a change? Hm...

Been away on Holiday and just tried out the newest version.

Awesome!

I was thinking while away for Turkey day and thought up a few new features some people might or might not want to see when you get the other basics down:

Planetary Anomalies: I know there are some people who want a civ game to always play the same, that is they want to memorize a strategy and stick with it. However, as we all know, geography and random chance plays a huge role in how empires rise and fall. As for random chance, there isnt much we can go with that on a map generator. Geography though is a different beast. I'd love to see a feature that can add different map anomalies if the user requests them.

For instance:
Mountains and mountain ranges in oceans. Nothing usable, but lone or multiple peaks poking out in the vast oceans.

Impact craters: Large circular craters on land where in the recent past there might have been an asteroid or comet impact. You could set the severity and number of said impacts.

Random terrain in weird places: I know they were working on a fantasy map type that did this, but I'm thinking something on a smaller scale. Say a forest that shows up in the middle of the desert, or an ice flow in the middle of the ocean, etc. Or in a related version, the entire map is done in shallow water except for huge areas of deep water, were there may or may not be hidden lands.

The whole idea is to add mystery and chance into the map generation process. Of course, some people would never like this, so it could be an option.

Something else to think about adding: The ability to save your map settings as named pre-sets so you could just select them in the preset list. I suppose you could do that now by just loading a saved map you liked and generating a new map off those settings, but you get the idea. People could also trade pre-sets for the really good ones..

I'm now at 2133 lines of code in total, and doubting what to do: start adding resources or play a game of civ 4 for a change? Hm...


I would be willing to sacrifice a decent number of black goats in favor of the adding resources option.

I am not going to sacrifice my firstborn though :D

http://www.geocities.com/darkking_69/messed_display.jpg

There thats what I usually see. I've tried some other java apps and they seem to work fine. I'm on my labtop, its a p4 3200, 1GB ram, ATI x600, Win XP SP2.. so yeah no idea why this is not working for me. Is there somewhere i can tweak java settings?


Anyways the problem continues say if i were to minimize or put another window over this one. than go back I would see nothing. Kinda sucks cause i really like what im hearing about this tool and want to make some maps :D

The only realism issues I can see from the (few) screenshots in this thread is that the contenents tend to be all of similar shapes - slightly off-circle, but generally round sploches. That is to say, it looks like it was "grown" from sprinkled seeds, rather than developed over eons by plate tectonics and erosion.

But still, very good work! :)

@Visceral Monkey:
Thanks for the ideas. I had thought about impact craters, but not all of these features. It's a good idea, but resources have top priority now. :)

@MadHaTr:
Thanks a lot for the feedback. I haven't seen this problem before. Can you tell me which Java version you have installed? You can check this in the Control Panel or by opening a Command Prompt and typing 'java version'.
It should be version 1.5.0.
I can't think of any other possible reasons at the moment, hope this works :)

@Merak Spielman:
Yes, I know, the continent shape are terrible and blobby. There's a to do list in the first post, and 'improving continent shapes' is already on it. And yep. they are indeed grown from sprinkled seeds at the moment ;)
Thanks :cool:

Anyway, I'm now working on a website for the project, with some more documentation and screenshots. :)

I might have to choose another name for my project. "The Atlas Project" already exists as a group of stock market analists, it seems: www.atlasproject.com

What is wrong with....

www.atlasproject.org

Seems more appropriate to me :)

Oh, it's not that I want the .com URL, it's just that me and them using the same name for our projects might be confusing.

@Merak Spielman:
Yes, I know, the continent shape are terrible and blobby. There's a to do list in the first post, and 'improving continent shapes' is already on it. And yep. they are indeed grown from sprinkled seeds at the moment ;)
Thanks :cool:

Somebody else has a random map... Fallblau. And it seems pretty good. Perhaps you two should combine efforts?

Check out some of his randomly generated maps in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3280370&postcount=11). from this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137476) thread.

I'd suggest you two join forces, doubtless you have both thought of things the other hasn't, and it's not like the mod community is in competition with each other... :p

Well... I have seen what Fallblau is doing, and while it's good work, it's quite different from what I am doing. Fallblau created a python script that essentially gives some different input to the map generator the devs have written. I am making an completely independent map generator. So we're not really doing double work, and only slightly in competition.

Anyway, I made a website for the project. It's not quite finished but I'd like to show it to you anyway. Please take a look here (http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/MapGenerator/)

ok well i can't open the window from control panel... and in cmd i get an error..

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>java version
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: version

i uninstalled and reinstalled and still have the same errors.. so its a good possibility that my java is the problem.. no idea what to do. so... while i can still generate maps... i have to actually play em before i get to see em. and i can't use either of your 2 other menus.. i'll have to look on the java site sometime to try and come up with a solution.

MadHatr, sorry, the command is "java -version".

Junuxx the website is cool. I like the simplicity. Got to go for now. I'll give additional feedback on the ver .30 once I have time to play with it. ;)

Tbear2520

Junuxx

Please forgive me if this request has already been raised. :blush:

Would it be possible for you to permit Atlas to create an all terrain map (such as "Great Plains") or at least to allow for a bigger single continent. :king:

As you can guess, I don't really like having too much water in my maps. :mischief:

I answered your question on Apolyton, since you seem to visit and post there more than here ;)

Version 0.31 is done. Several smaller changes and fixes, see the first post. :)

@tbear: Thanks. I'm looking forward to your feedback.

You know I really can't wait for the resources to come about now.

1) Thanks for the seperation of the size vs layout on the presets ;)

2) The size vs layout is nicely connected. Take Pangaea as an example. You choose the type and click Generate Land and walla you have a nice Pangaea. You then alter the size and the variables alter to the correct number for that preset size. :goodjob:

3) Concern though on the number 2 is as mentioned by Merak Spielman, it looks blobby. (You know that already though) So could some of the mathematical logic in the existing civ4 python scripts help change this.

4) The terrain functions are great! Is it possible to through in an age factor for the land, this could function as a way to group mountains and forest and other things more together? Like the older civ's use to have.

5) The generate misc appears to work but difficult to see. Hope some additional map view options can help eliminate this. You select generate misc and you see a dot here or there appear but its hard to tell all of them that appeared.

6) Icecaps being a seperate option was the right choice. And the ability to increase this number makes for great options in scenario ideas. However increasing the number to say 40 for a more ice land kind of map generates pillars of ice that seams to stretch into the middle of the planet. Could this be changed by making the formula run through a different calculation method. The age of land idea listed above might help in this.

7) Here's a neat one. Generate the misc first and you can then see the red dot's. What do those mean? (I'd still like to be able to see the map views being a different option ;)) Are they starting locations? I believe they are because if I turn off the coastal start they don't appear at all. Which needs to be addressed as well. Also I choose 18 and could only count 15. maybe I was wrong or blind though. Anything is possible ;)

8) Which leads me to the Manual. I like :goodjob: Using an index with links is the proper way to do that. You might think about using pdf995 to create a pdf instead of using a doc. Install pdf995(google it) and then alter your Doc file and print to the pdf995 printer. This will create the PDF. Keep your original to be able to alter it for future manuals.

9) Could you make the exit button write the existing setting to a file and then reload them on start? And if config.ini does not exist have it load the default ones(from the default command button) Which I am starting to appreciate. ;)

10) As for the map view I think an easy way to lay this out would be a check box next to each terrain type. You wouldn't need another tab just maybe extend the window size a bit.

Got to go for now. I know I need to look into the coast line stuff a little closer. I think I was noticing something in Civ4 on the map but not sure until more testing can be done. My weekend though is gone, going out of town. ;)

Overall Good job your really pulling some great things off in the creation of this. Your handle will live on through the ages of Civ. :goodjob:

Tbear2520

Thanks tbear.
'Generate Misc' currently does nothing but placing the starting locations, which are represented by, indeed, red dots. When there's not enough land the algorithm might fail to place all the requested starting locations. Have you noticed the dosbox in the background now gives some statistics? It might say something like this:

-------------------
New 40x24 map...
Land Percentage: 88.85416666666667%
Placing starting locations (coastal start is false):

Failed to place 13 starting locations.
Placed 4 starting locations
Map generated in 0.115694592 seconds!


So that explains why there are sometimes less red dots than requested starting locations. Your point 9 is a good one, will try to incorporate that one shortly.

Finally, I wanted to let you all know there's a way to have resources, goodies and rivers on Atlas maps, using the in-game cheats! Enable the chipotle code, press ~ and type Map.generateGoodies, Map.generateBonuses and Map.generateRivers to make your map complete.

Until Atlas adds these itself, you can use these commands to make Atlas maps playable :)

Finally, I wanted to let you all know there's a way to have resources, goodies and rivers on Atlas maps, using the in-game cheats! Enable the chipotle code, press ~ and type Map.generateGoodies, Map.generateBonuses and Map.generateRivers to make your map complete.

Yea baby, way cool. I knew there was some additional things like this after I was looking around at the auto turn forum you had commented on. I just haven't researched it enough. Thanks for info that will help. ;)

Also I did notice the Dos box. I wasn't sure if I just missed that before or not. I know in the early version is was just blank. I found that it was neet. I was woundering what all you were using that for.

Tbear2520

java version "1.5.0_05"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_05-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_05-b05, mixed mode, sharing)

well, this is fantastic! But is thar not a utility? wrong forum
:goodjob:

OK, just to clarify for my neophytic mind... the maps generated by this utility are not actually playable directly in-game because there will be no resources? I want to use this so I can make a broud outline of a desired map type... and then immidiately play it against the AI.

Thanks!

@MadHaTr:
Ok, it's not a version problem then... I've been looking for Java settings that could be causing the problem but no luck there, either. Next thing I'm going to try is making all the component alignments explicit, maybe that will help :confused:

@stgelven:
Thank you. I guess the thread could be moved to the utility forum. Then again, it also involves user-created maps :)

@jpinard:
You're right, no resources are currently included. There's two things you can do:
- Let Civ's default algorithm add resources, goodies and rivers by using the cheat console
- Wait a few days until I've added resource generation :)

Version 0.33 is finished, and it generates resources!!1!!1!11 :D

I actually played and enjoyed an Atlas-generated map tonight! The lack of rivers and goodie huts makes for a start that's a bit slower and more difficult than usual. Also my program picks starting locations that seem to be a bit worse than normal. But I caught up anyway and won a Diplomatic victory in 2015 :cool:

I'll put the new zip in the first post :)
Junuxx


by the way, have you discovered the easter egg/tribute yet?

by the way, have you discovered the easter egg/tribute yet?

No I've looked but the easter eggs have always been hard for me to find. Sometimes I couldn't find Microsoft's Easter eggs with instructions. hehe Click three times in flag color ##### then click here and there and then nothing.\

But anyways I like the resources, nice addition. One thing though, the generate land should clear the existing resources.

I love the drop down for size and layout. Also could we get a zoom in feature. When you create a large map say 75x150. Just as an example. Then populate it the information is to small to tell what's what. Exspecially if there is alot of land. Good job on the placement of resources.;) :goodjob:

The Game tab is a nice addition. It shows the end will be fully playable ;). By chance will you be putting in a load map option?

Hello Junuxx,

I have tried the v0.33. Hope you will put the suggestion into the next few versions.
1. Proportion of resources to land mass. I have tried a couple of maps that are 128 x 80. The bonuses between cities are more space out than the normal games. On the other hand, the map.generatebonuses has the same problem!

2. Odd placement of bonuses. Whales and fishes in the deep sea (which reflect reality) but has no game value. Rice in the middle of a forest. Pigs in the tundra (do they have pigs/boars in Siberia?)

3. Would be nice if we can specifiy the percentage or number of each type of bonuses (a la civ3 editor).

4. Also had some runtime error but which disappeared after I deleted and re-install altas.jar. (not very helpful here, but just to let you know)

But it is really a great job! cannot wait for further improvements!

Hey fanatics,

@tbear:
To see the easter egg, try setting size to 'Impossible' ;)
A load map function is on the to do list for 0.40, but zooming will be difficult I think. Can't promise anything ;)

@Simmelan:
1. They are in proportion to land mass. Most land resource is placed once per (200 plots*land percentage), and some crucial ones like horses, iron, coal and oil a bit more. But you might be right that there aren't enough. I will soon add a Resource Abundance control so you can have as many resources as you like.

2.Yeah, I know. It's a cumbersome job to do, figuring out resources and terrain. I did a test game and corrected some silly things, like silk out of the forest and rice on hills. But feedback like this helps me find this stuff sooner. :goodjob:
By the way, I think I've seen rice in the middle of forests quite some times on normal maps?

3. As I said, I will add a abundance control. For every resource would be cool, but then again, I don't want to clutter the interface.

4. Hm. What kind of error? :o

Thanks both!! :)

I've updated the website and it now contains a very extensive change/download log.

Hey fanatics,
I did a test game and corrected some silly things, like silk out of the forest and rice on hills.


Rice on hills. Look at the Earth scenario near the Chinnese Tibet border. There is a rice on hills plot, so this may be a feature and not a glitch.

Okay, but actually, I think it looks really bad :o :D

I agree it looks silly. However terrace farming on hills, even for rice has been a part of agriarian practices for thousands of years.

haha...building farms on hill rice should take 3 times as long as usual rice farms. ;)

Is there any plans to import maps that are already made? In particular: I have a map that I have made myself, but I don't want to have to put in resources. Is there a way to import the map and generate the resources through the Atlas Project?

Well if someone design a nice graphic for ahill terrace farm , THEN I might allow rice on hills again ;)

Anyway, version 0.34 is finished. LOTS of improvements and addition. I'll update the first post shortly. A complete changelog can be found on the website (http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/atlas)

wohooooooooo!
MUST.....HAVE....NOW......!!! *crazy look*

Made some last-minute fixes. 0.34b now! :)

Junuxx, Very nice! I like the Atlas Project logo when hiding the map ;)

The project is coming along very nice. A couple of suggestings I would make is

1) Obviously loading a map option would be sweet!

2) Prehaps a built in legend with a highlight option. Would make much easier locating what resources are where. A good example of this would be in perfmon. Goto Start - Run and then type perfmon and hit enter. Next click the Light Bulb icon along the top bar. Then select the various counter and watch the highlight switch. It makes for a great way to quickly view detailed things.

3) Everything looks really good. I think you can countinue to polish things up a bit to make it even better but the application is taking a very nice form.

4) Is it possible to make the save button remember the last directory you saved too? Possibly in an .ini file

Where are the rivers? or is rivers next on your list?
it would be handy if i didn't have to added in rivers manually for each map.

Rivers are the only map features still missing. They're the most difficult, too ;)
I have a couple of important exams in 2 weeks, so I think that apart from some bug-fixes and the like, I am not going to work on Atlas a lot the coming weeks.
But rivers will eventually be added, for sure.

Nevermind Junuxx, i´ll cover for you
the next version of MapView has full support for rivers, bonuses, improvements so you can add rivers in just a second since the placement system is 100% idiot-proof =)

gj Junuxx, take your break and get ready for yor exams, trust me, i know what i m talking about, that´s more important atm.

Junuxx, Very nice! I like the Atlas Project logo when hiding the map ;)

Thanks. The logo was in already in the previous version but I forgot to update the installer to copy it :D


2) Prehaps a built in legend with a highlight option. Would make much easier locating what resources are where. A good example of this would be in perfmon. Goto Start - Run and then type perfmon and hit enter. Next click the Light Bulb icon along the top bar. Then select the various counter and watch the highlight switch. It makes for a great way to quickly view detailed things.


I didn't check this out until right now, but I agree that this is a very useful interface. I could try it, I'll give it a thought.


3) Everything looks really good. I think you can countinue to polish things up a bit to make it even better but the application is taking a very nice form.

4) Is it possible to make the save button remember the last directory you saved too? Possibly in an .ini file

It's looking good because of great feedback like yours!
I'm currently looking into using an .ini.

Junuxx :)

Version 0.35 is now available!
I'll post the changes after I get some sleep. :)

Version 0.35 - Release date 14/12/2005
- Added fertility and productivity ratings
- Added resource abundance control
- Added layout presets glacial, deluge and sealess
- Added memory recommendation
- Improved starting locations to consider resources
- Improved resource placement, no more wine in jungles
- Improved text output
- Fixed issues with resource toggles

Atlas035.zip (69.4 KB, 4647 views)

Wow, what happened? Where did all those 4647 downloaders come from? :confused:
And no one dropped a line? :( ;)

Sorry Junxxx,

Fairly busy this season, haven't got around to testing out v.035. Will see if have some spare time this weekend...

Anyway, keep up the goood work.... eagerly anticipating the release of the module with rivers generation...

hey fellow!
can we expect an update sometime? =)

would you mind leaving me a icq msg once you get on the pc again. I´d need some motivation for mapview again, mayb we can push the 2 programs again.

Greetings and a happy new year

Happy new year to you too! :)
I haven't had much time for Atlas, with the holidays and such, but I'll definitely go back to it in a week or so.

I am however proud to reveal a small change... The Atlas hompage can now be found at http://atlas.junuxx.net :cool:

Great script. I'm waiting on rivers before I can use it in a game though. Also, have you considered clustering resources and terrain a bit more than the game currently does? Other than tundra and jungle, the terrain seems completely random. It seems to place a single huge peak in the center of a vast plain. I would like to see more earth-like maps where there are mountain ranges and some resources are located in certain areas, like oil and the middle east. Hope you will be updating soon!

Mr. Kools,
Great job with Atlas Initiative, my brother and I have been making maps for each other with it lately and are very satisfied. We supplement the lack of rivers and resources for Green mode manually.

I rarely speak and ask, as I mainly find answers to my questions and dilemas by lurking through threads. However I have encountered a problem no one yet adressed. It is the conflict between set number of game turns within Atlas, which allows maximum speed of Epic, and patch version 1.52, that inc