[Map Script] LandMasses

TheDrin, I believe your latest version has some problems. I've created 4 maps and took 3 screenshots because my starting position was "at the end of the world". The script also takes ages to finish. It used to be somewhat slower than Firaxis' map script but now it takes >1 minute. During that minute it eats ~1MB of memory per second (which it nicely gives back when going to the main menu). Even going back to the main menu takes time now though!

Time for some screenshots I think.

If anyone else is getting the same problem - specifically generated maps containing only flat grassland - could they report it.

I downloaded the file that's uploaded to the civfanatics and ran it myself. There was no problem with it. It might be that the version you downloaded is corrupted in some way. What settings are you using? It might be that there are settings which don't work well together. Out of curiosity, when did you download this version? There hasn't been a new version since your previous posts in the thread.

I just downloaded it today, I didn't play Civ4 for a while (forgive me Lord ).

The settings I have are:

• Map: LandMasses
• Size: Huge
• Climate: Temperate
• Sealevel: Medium
• Era: Ancient
• Speed: Epic
• Min. Width: 128 Continents Huge
• Max. Width: No variation
• Min. Height: Normal ratio of width to height
• Max. Height: No variation
• Min. Land Masses: 2
• Max. Land Masses: 4
• Min. Continents: 1 continent per landmass
• Min. Continents: 5
• Continent Distribution: Randomly distributed continents
• Continents Placement: Normal continent placement
• Min. Land Mass Buffer: No overseas trade before Astronomy
• Max. Land Mass Buffer: 12 tiles seperation
• Min. Ocean: 50%
• Min. Ocean: 70%
• Coastline: Rugged
• Hills: Normal
• Peaks: Few
• Mountain Ranges: Ranges, clumped hills and peaks
• Terrain: Temperate, normal desert, normal plains
• Terrain Homogenity: Normal
• Woodlands: Normal jungle, normal forest
• Flood plains: Normal flood plains placement
• Resources: Standard - ignore resource options
• Resource Land Masses: Standard
• How Many Land Masses: Assigned to 4 land masses
• Resource Tiles: Standard
• Strategic Quantities: Normal strategic resources
• Health Quantities: Normal health resources
• Luxury Quantities: Normal luxury resources
• Let Resources Clump: Standard
• Print Map Details: No

I've been away for a bit but want to get back to you on a couple of things. First off, ocean basins have a topography of their own -- they aren't just what's left over after the continents have been built. In plate tectonics, the oceans sit on their own plates, which are shaped about the same as the continental plates but are not as high. Looking back at post #10, you can see how phony the maps at the top and middle look.

On the other hand, using rugged coastlines I have been able to get the offshore islands I've been looking for.

Hyronymous:
TheDrin, I believe your latest version has some problems. I've created 4 maps and took 3 screenshots because my starting position was "at the end of the world". The script also takes ages to finish. It used to be somewhat slower than Firaxis' map script but now it takes >1 minute. During that minute it eats ~1MB of memory per second (which it nicely gives back when going to the main menu). Even going back to the main menu takes time now though!

Click to expand...

I attempted to generate maps with the above settings. It did stall sometimes requiring CivIV to be closed. When it didn't stall the all-grassland maps weren't replicated but I expect that if I'd let any of the stalls play out that's what would have happened.

I found a problem. It may not be the problem that you experienced - it doesn't always happen - but it certainly is a problem that could arise when using the settings that you've selected. It's also the only problem that I experienced:

Selecting 'ranges' picks a number of continents to act as range generators instead of all continents or no continents. If the selected number is exactly 1 less than the number of generated continents the code enters an infinite loop.

This has been corrected and the fixed map script will be uploaded shortly.

I'd like to make a comment about a settings that you're using. This has no bearing on the problem that you experienced (or, at least, no bearing on the problem that I found).

Min. Continents: 1 continent per landmass
Max. Continents: 5

Click to expand...

Setting 'Min. Continents' to '1 continent per land mass' means that the generator ignores the selection for 'Max. Continents' - there will never be more than 1 continent per land mass. This also rules out the possibility of mountain ranges being generated since they rely on land masses containing more than one continent.

New version uploaded and available at the top of the thread.

Changes:

# Lands:
#
# Fixed an error that arose when the number of continents selected for generating mountain ranges (using 'ranges') was one less than the number of continents generated.

Charles Watkins:
First off, ocean basins have a topography of their own -- they aren't just what's left over after the continents have been built. In plate tectonics, the oceans sit on their own plates, which are shaped about the same as the continental plates but are not as high. Looking back at post #10, you can see how phony the maps at the top and middle look.

Click to expand...

LandMasses doesn't create tectonic plates and move them around. It begins with pure ocean worlds and grows each continent from a single tile. To implement oceanic plates would be to write a completely different map script. Sorry, but LandMasses will probably never contain this idea - I really can't think of a way to implement it. I believe Tectonics does this (though I've never looked into that script in detail so amn't certain).

All the screen shots in post 10 were generated so as to more easily explain the affects of the different coast defining options - not to provide a representative sample of the types of maps that could be generated. More specifically the first four chose '12 tiles of seperation between land masses' for 'Land Mass Seperation'. I never play with this setting; it's only there for a form of completeness and results in great restrictions being placed on land mass shapes. The final two images were generated using 'no overseas trade before astronomy' (7 tiles of seperation) which provides far greater freedom for land mass shapes and - should I ever get around to overhauling the opening post - will be classified as my recommended setting for people who want to play with isolated continents.

I'm happy to see you were able to isolate an error from my report, Thedrin. Also thanks for the tip on the settings I use, as you see I'm still confused by the land masses / continents stuff .

No problem. If there are further issues let me know.

One thing I forgot to mention about your choice of settings:

Resources: Standard - ignore resource options

Click to expand...

Selecting this causes land masses to ignore all further resource options. You'll need to select 'Custom - activate resource options' to make use of the following (though you've set the majority of them to mimic standard settings);

Resource Land Masses: Standard
How Many Land Masses: Assigned to 4 land masses
Resource Tiles: Standard
Strategic Quantities: Normal strategic resources
Health Quantities: Normal health resources
Luxury Quantities: Normal luxury resources
Let Resources Clump: Standard

Click to expand...

Specifically, 'assigned to 4 land masses' will have no affect. Since you set a maximum of 4 land masses I assume you wanted resources to appear on all land masses. Setting 'Resource Land Masses' to 'No isolated resources' (after activating the resource options) would be a more effective way of doing this.

What options should be used to create realistic and atleast explicit archipelagos? I keep getting boxy coastlines, even with rugged.

Try Rugged coastlines with snaky continents.

BobTheTerrible said:

Try Rugged coastlines with snaky continents.

Click to expand...

He wrote "even with rugged". Please try reading properly before commenting in a somewhat harsh way.

Hyronymus said:

He wrote "even with rugged". Please try reading properly before commenting in a somewhat harsh way.

Click to expand...

I know he already said rugged, I was restating to use the rugged option and to also include 'snaky continents'; in my experience that tends to produce more archipelagos than just "rugged" with, say, 'normal continents.'

And I don't see how you took my comment as harsh? I was only trying to help him.


To OctopusOverload: I should also add, that you also need to make sure that the # of sea tiles between landmasses should be relatively low, probably between 4 and 7 (or less than 4, if you don't mind having some very ill-defined continents). If you have too many sea tiles between the landmasses, islands tend not to form off the coast of continents, because they have nowhere to form while keeping the "x tiles between landmasses" rule.

Octopus Overload:
What options should be used to create realistic and atleast explicit archipelagos? I keep getting boxy coastlines, even with rugged.

Click to expand...

How large a map are you creating, how many land mass do you want to fill out this map, and how much ocean do you select?

Rugged (and rougher) coastlines are only designed to make use of unused water tiles - water tiles that are not required to form barriers betwwn land masses. If you want more archipelago like forms you'll need to increase the amount of water tiles that aren't required for forming barriers between land masses. There are at least 4 ways you can do this:

1) Increase map size - larger map means more water,
2) Decrease distance between land masses - less water required to seperate land masses,
3) Decrease the number of land masses - less water barriers required,
4) Increase the percentage of ocean - more water.

Don't put distance between land masses to any greater than 7 (what I would use). It can be less if you don't mind trade between land masses before astronomy. Even if you set it only to 6 tiles between land masses I suspect that only some technological trade between land masses would occur.

Also, the current implementation of the coastline options is very crude. I don't believe that completely archipelago maps can be formed. I'm currently working on an idea (haven't begun the implementation yet) to increase the versatility of these options so that (hopefully) complete archipelago maps can be formed.

Hey,

would you mind if I make a version of your map script that imports my FhF flavor module and post it into my thread (see my sig)?

Go ahead. I don't mind.

BobTheTerrible said:

And I don't see how you took my comment as harsh? I was only trying to help him.

Click to expand...

Bad day at the home office, sorry.

As promised in the fall from heaven flavour mapscript mod thread, here is my error report. Mad you some nice screenshots with my settings and the two python exceptions I got. After map generation I'm able to play, but there is no water at all on the map.

Another thing I noticed. If you activate "Print Map Details" I'm getting a lot more Python Exceptions. Seems your script is looking for some folder on my computer in the standard civ4 path, which doesn't exist.

Thanks Jean Elcard. I found the sources of those problems.

As for 'Print Map Details'; it does work for me - it's supposed to create the file if it's not there in the first place. The only reason I can suppose for why it's not working is that you have moved CivIV from its standard location meaning that it might not be able to create file but that is only a guess. I don't know enough about reading and writing files to be able to talk about them confidently.

New version uploaded and available at the top of the thread.

Changes:

# Lands:
#
# Fixed an error that arose when only one continent was to be generated.
#
# Resources:
#
# Fixed an error that arose when 'Resources' was set to 'standard - ignore resource options'.

thedrin,
i've a problem with the newest version (30/06) of landmasses: everytime (i tried several times with different settings) i create a map, only grassland with small lakes is created. i know this error has been reported before, but i thought you've fixed it. perhaps you can take another look?

btw.: i use your script a lot and like it very much. thank you for your efforts.