Welcome to the 1st preview of Rhye's and Fall RAND, a project that will try to offer something halfway between RFC and standard Civ.
Features being retained still have to be fully decided, but for sure stability, rise and fall, the UPs and the graphics enhancements are in.

Before that, the basic layer should be set. That includes terrain generation, continents generation, world size, civ starting locations, etc.
This first preview covers the first aspect. The rest will be revealed when it's done (in the mean time, suggestions are always welcome).


The only difference in terrains between RFC and normal Civ appears to be marshes.
It isn't all, actually.

As this is the typical result of the terrain generator in Civ:

http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ4/RAND/pattern.jpg

A pattern of mixed terrains, with 3-tiles deserts mixed with grassland, 1-tile jungle combined with plains, scattered peaks etc.
Compare it to the Sahara, to the Amazon, to Himalaya.

So, what's needed is a post-processing algorithm that:

1-extends terrain areas
2-form mountain chains
3-adjust latitude of the terrain types (moving grassland to higher latitudes)
4-adds marshes

This is done by some additional code, that adds some delay (like one more minute), but achieves all of the requirements.
Here's a quick peep:


http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ4/RAND/congo.jpg
What is this? Congo?


http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ4/RAND/egypt.jpg
Egypt?


http://rhye.civfanatics.net/civ4/RAND/siberia.jpg
Eastern Siberia?



See you next issue!

Amazing.:goodjob:
Are civilizations that aren't playable in RFC are in? (Celts, HRE, Sumer and such)

Very nice. I'm looking forward to more.

Awesome! =D

looks great, thanks rhye
would you be able to play it on the standard RFC map, so that civs would spawn in random places, like engalnd in the middle of siberia? cos that would be crazy!

The master at work, again!

But, why don't you use the Terra map generator standard with the CIV game. It generates a map that has some similarity with the real world. OK, it's not fully random, but if gives a new world, and civs could be placed in a similar way as RFC. Civs could have settlermaps that hav some similarity with those in RFC.

I'm very excited for this.

The master at work, again!

But, why don't you use the Terra map generator standard with the CIV game. It generates a map that has some similarity with the real world. OK, it's not fully random, but if gives a new world, and civs could be placed in a similar way as RFC. Civs could have settlermaps that hav some similarity with those in RFC.
I don't know about anyone else but I always found Terra very unsatisfying because it was too similar.

Sweet! This'll help pass the long summer hours...

Any estimates on a release date?

Hi ,


:hatsoff: just done with one thing and Rhye does it again !

:woohoo: an other great one , Rhye we the people love you :dance:


:xmassign: X-mas comes early this year , in the summer :D

Have a super nice day :)

Awesome, I can't wait :D

:goodjob:Amazing.:goodjob:
Are civilizations that aren't playable in RFC are in? (Celts, HRE, Sumer and such)

I was wondering this as well, an answer would be nice becuase I think that they should be included hands down.

:trophy:Keep up the great work Rhye!:goodjob:

So, I love the idea, but am I the only one who can't see the "peep"s? Like, are there screenshots there that I just can't see?

So, I love the idea, but am I the only one who can't see the "peep"s? Like, are there screenshots there that I just can't see?

Perhaps you are, I can certainly see the screenshots in Rhye's post.

Perhaps you are, I can certainly see the screenshots in Rhye's post.

Hm, well, I yanked the image links out of the page source (all being located at http://rhye.civfanatics.net/) and tried to bring them up as separate pages but Firefox is saying "the server is taking too long to respond," so I'll just wait and hope it works later :)

Exciting... 2 questions:
- Do we really need marshes?
- Will there be random core areas, and will new civs rise within existing civs borders (like America within England or France within Rome)?

Exciting... 2 questions:
- Do we really need marshes?
- Will there be random core areas, and will new cis rise within existing civs borders (like America within England or France within Rome)?

Hi ,

why not marshes , .... :confused:

dont you love them to block your enemy :goodjob:

Have a nice day :)

Dabur you really do like emoticons don't you?

Either way Rhye, smashing idea once again, and good luck with all the projects you're working on.

Amazing.:goodjob:
Are civilizations that aren't playable in RFC are in? (Celts, HRE, Sumer and such)
I hope, at the very least, that the HRE is not in. I really don't want to see the Romans, the French, the Germans, and the HRE all in the same game. Just doesn't make any sense.

This looks great - One thing that comes to mind with the new algorithm is that resource trading is going to be important in RFC-R - Extended areas of one particular terrain mean that only certain types of resources are likely to turn up in each civ's territory. In order to get everything you need, you have to trade with others. Much more real-world like!

I hope, at the very least, that the HRE is not in. I really don't want to see the Romans, the French, the Germans, and the HRE all in the same game. Just doesn't make any sense.

How does it not make sense? The Holy Roman Empire, France, Germany and Rome(Italian city-states) all existed at the same time.

Germany didn't exist until:
- Prussia had absorbed enough neighbouring city states during the 1800s.
- Nationalism had developed.

By Germany I meant states like Prussia and Saxony. These 4 countries all existed during the Napoleonic Wars. I see what your saying though, even though Germany wasn't united at the time I still consider it to be a country.

Yay! I can see the pictures now.

I know you're still working out a lot of the details, but I still have a few annoying questions and comments :) :
1) I would love to see Sumer, the Native Americans, and Byzantium, if no others, added as playable Civs.
2) Eastern Siberia it very well could be, but it'd be upside down, since southern Siberia is actually pretty warm.
3) In RFC as it is now, cities go by the historic names of cities at their location (except in historical cases like Greece or Japan settling Argentina or whatever). In RFCRAND, this obviously will not be possible, but will we retain the city lists from RFC, or revert to the (less awesome) standard Civ4Bts lists?
4) Spawn times, will they be in the same order as normal RFC? Like, will we still have the same starting 4 (or 5, with Sumer?), and the Americans coming last, or will they be mixed up? I guess they'd have to be to preserve certain UPs? (Like Greece's and Egypt's?) In that same vein, will religion spawns go by the same timer they do now?
5) I had another, but I forgot... anyway, looks awesome and I look forward to playing! :D

**6) Oh right, I remembered. Will the various modcomps (the religions and the inquisitor come first to my mind) still be useable? If not, could you incorporate those religions and the inquisitor directly into RFCRAND anyway, since it will be less of an Earth Simulator at that point?

By Germany I meant states like Prussia and Saxony.

But most of their territories were in the Holy Roman Empire.

Well, Dynamic Civ Names should be in.

Looks amazing, but north of Siberia is a hill floodplain. Slightly odd...

Looks very interersting. Looking forward to more.

- Imagine Sibera upside down, as that kind of Egypt was rotated 45°

- I have no plans of adding new civs for the moment (would bring a lot of additional work)

- Dynamic Civ Names are in

- Spawn areas, terra maps and city names will be covered by some of the next previews. For this reason I'm not clarifying their details

^^^^

Teaser

You should look at Cephalo's "Perferct Earth Map Script". It produces great maps, at least if you play above standard size.

It has no marches though - (I may be wrong as I only use it on Warlords.).

It is compatible with mods - I use it to generate worlds for Total Realism (for Warlords).

It does work for BTS also. :goodjob:

what is that, the one that makes random worlds very similar to the Earth's shape? In that case, mmmm, I consider it a bit too much similar...

I'll make another suggestion to try the PerfectWorld script (I assume this is what Harrier means by "Perfect Earth"). Because it models rainfall and elevation, not just latitude, as things that determine the climate, it gives you a world where one part of it can be very different from another. In places you'll find sprawling deserts, dense jungles, interestingly-located mountain ranges, and so on. It makes exploration fun again.

It can be fun to tweak the settings. Myself, I've messed with it to produce less dense forests (too often I find large landmasses with forest on nearly every square) and more tundra and ice at the north and south of the map. You'll need to tweak it anyway to add marshes, which would presumably come from a certain combination of temperature and rainfall.

I second rspeer - and it is very varied, with realistic yet different maps.

From my experience, it seems to have enough tundra, though some more ice and obviously marshes should be added.

I third. PerfectWorld (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=239982) is the best map script in my opinion. It creates very realistic landscapes, without necessarily making worlds shaped like Earth. We should look into integrating it.

I love the idea of RFC on a random world. Couple observations:

I would love to see the ignored civs (Korea, Sumeria etc) to eventually be added. Naturally it would be work for later versions, but would make this RFC RAND more unique from the RFC vanilla.

Also would love if eventually we could get random spawning as well. Not sure Rhye if this is in the plans or not, but too often we anticipate not only the location of spawning civs, but also the timing. Not knowing who, when or where the spawning would take place would be really cool, and make for a totally different experience every time.

I love the idea of RFC on a random world. Couple observations:

I would love to see the ignored civs (Korea, Sumeria etc) to eventually be added. Naturally it would be work for later versions, but would make this RFC RAND more unique from the RFC vanilla.

Also would love if eventually we could get random spawning as well. Not sure Rhye if this is in the plans or not, but too often we anticipate not only the location of spawning civs, but also the timing. Not knowing who, when or where the spawning would take place would be really cool, and make for a totally different experience every time.

This is the exact same thing I've been hoping for in the above posts. I thought that spawning would be random anyway because I love the idea of not being able to predict spawns(Mayans never knew when the Aztecs would spawn, Arabs and Turks etc.) If Rhye won't add those civs then I'll help someone else do it, same with spawn areas.:p

RFC concepts with a custom mod it seems to me quite "strange" but it could be interesting. Good luck for this project.

And what about a Rhye's and Fall of Colonization?

To those who want the other civs: more civs = slower game.

So...

To those who want the other civs: more civs = slower game.

So...


Completely agreed. One advantage of a random game of course would be setting world size and total number of opponents. These features would also make for a "different" experience than normal RFC.

Naturally, we would want more civs per world size than vanilla Civ.

Seeing what some people say, I'm wondering about what exactly will this RFC Rand be:
- will it be like RFC, with the same leaders, the same goals, the same things happening at the same dates, but on a different map, or
- will it like like an epic game of CIV with the addition of stability, unique powers, plague, random respawns..
?

I've tried this "PerfectWorld".
After seeing the results, I came to the conclusion that it's not necessary to merge it with the mod, for two reasons:

1 - terrain and feature placement, which seem much better than the normal one, look similar to what I've done and shown in this preview.
2 - my continents placement has different prerequisites - RFC needs more than 35% of land, which is a lot, to contain many civs in a smaller (and faster) map. Tweaking Terra I've achieved this, and I can ensure a minimum distance between continents. Instead, with PerfectWorld, that distance is ensured only for lower ratios (up tp 25%). Try changing that number, and you'll see "bridges".

In Preview 4 (i think), it talks about all the cool improvments like stability will be lowerd if the vikings build a city in egypt etc. is that for RFC RAND or the update thats coming in September(:sad:)??

It's clearly for RFC RAND.
Normal RFC already has that mechanism, but it's hardcoded to Earth regions. The tricky thing was to reproduce this on a random map

oh ok. But i didn't know the egyptians get a bonus with desert and rivers?

?? (10 chars)

you said in ur 4th preview for RAND

I think what Rhye was trying to say in preview #4 is that Egyptians will almost always spawn near a flood plain due to high modifiers, not that they get a bonus. Correct me if I'm wrong Rhye.

ah, certainly.

Are the same agricultural penalties going to apply to the Egyptians, Malians and Ethiopians, even though they may never see a floodplain?
Also, is Mali going to get its economic stability cut in half again due to its UP?

they WILL see floodplains

I mean, what if I found my Ethiopian cities AWAY from those cursed floodplains? :lol:

it's gonna be the same as RFC, but stability maps are created from terrain (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=284449)

So in a way RFC RAND allows you to recreate history on a diffrent world

Forgive me for jumping into this late, but what I understand is there won't be additional civs like Sumeria? I haven't played RFC, is Sumeria there? :confused:

Sumeria is not in. But Gilgamesh is.

Awww, well at least Gilgamesh is in. Thanks.