Hi, I have been playing Civ for a while and really like it, but I am nearly always disapointed in the map sizes. I want to be able to play bigger maps. I don't care if they take longer to load later game. I have seen some of the Mods that deal just with map size and map options and while they are good, they don't appear to help me if I want bigger map sizes in other Mods (notable FfH). So I am wondering if I can change the Huge map setting to something about twice as big as what it is set to and not mess up the game. I have not done any modding before so don't know exactly how map size is coded. Will the game adjust the number of resources if I just changed the Huge map size? How about the Land break up? Does this all work off of a ratio or is it set amounts? I believe that number of Civs. is a set amount based on map size, but that is easy to change in Custom Game.

So to sum up.

1. Can I change the Map size of Huge to something greater?

1a. If so how?

2. Do resources, land masses, starting civ locations all work off of a ratio or preset number?

3. Uhmmm anything else I might need to know if I wanted to get bigger map sizes for mods that I play.

Thanks to anyone that can help me with this. Really wish that Civ would just put in an option to adjust map size in the custom game area. SMAC had a good one.

Try Carter's Earth map. He added a new size beyond Huge called Planetary. You can probably use that as a start.

No, I have seen plenty of maps/mods that offer bigger map sizes (well not plenty but enough to know that it is out there).

What I am looking at is a way just to change the Huge setting in existing Mods without breaking them. I am unsure if it is possible and was wondering if anyone could enlighten me about it.

Thanks though Gaius

you can add a getGridSize() method to override the world sizes to any map script you like. Look into Terra.py for a example. Note that each grid are actually 4x4 plots.

You don't need to go into python at all. Simply go to CIV4WorldInfo.xml in Assets/XML/GameInfo and change the numbers from there. It's a very simple thing to do. The lines you're looking for are:

(iGridWidth)26(/iGridWidth)
(iGridHeight)16(/iGridHeight)

with pointy brackets, not round ones. The numbers I've include are for the Large map size. Adding 1 to either value will add a number of tiles as the grid is based on blocks. I forget how may tiles are in a block.

The only problem is that if the map script contains defGetGridSize, as many of them do, it will override any xml settings.

There are 4 tiles in a block.

Hmmm OK, getting the idea, going to try Willem's idea real quick see if it works.

Guessing from the suggestions, but changing the Grid size will change the amount of resource right? This is based on some ratio that the game calculates based off of grid size and not some preset number, or atleast I suppose it is. Anyone know for sure about this.

Thanks for the info all. it is a big help

Guessing from the suggestions, but changing the Grid size will change the amount of resource right? This is based on some ratio that the game calculates based off of grid size and not some preset number, or atleast I suppose it is. Anyone know for sure about this.
The number of resources will increase if you increase the map size without any other changes. Resource placement is based on the number of available tiles (proper terrain/feature) among other things so by having more tiles you have more potential places to put resource and, as a result, more resources.

If you change the default number of players for a worldsize you may have unexpected results with random events as many of them are coded to use the number of default players for some crazy reason. This can have the very undesireable effect of a world with more civs crammed in it requring more cities for a number of quest events (such as build X of a particular building type).

The fractal generator for the standard maps will scale nicely enough with custom grid sizes with a few minor exceptions. User made scripts may or may not work right. As mentioned before many map scripts (including some official ones) override the grid sizes anyway so if it looks like your changes aren't working you'll have to edit the python mapscript.

Cool thanks. Got it to work changing the Huge size. Playing in a really big world now. Makes me really happy X*)

Thanks for all the help all