[Map Script] LandMasses

Sorry, but I'm uncertain about what you're saying. Are you able to create maps that are large enough for your liking, and it's just larger maps that don't work? Or are you still unable to create any maps at all? If it's the first then you probably can't create maps over a certain size due to the limits of your computer. If it's the second then I have no idea what the problem is.
Well, I can create map big enough for my liking (for now ;) , but can't create biggest ones.
About limits of my computer, I don't know. If it depends on video memory, it might be that civ developers did not expect 320MB cappacity. But ram(2GB) and CPU(c2d 6420) should be enough I believe. Also it might have something with OS on my desktop.
My laptop has much less resources, so lack of them is probably cause there.
So generally thanks for nice script :)
Feel free to remove my posts, as they are not much contributing.
 
DragonTempest:

The problem you were having may now be fixed.

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

Changes:

# Map Size:
#
# Introduced new "Min. Height" choice; 'Normal ratio of width to height'. This allows the user to select a width and an apporpriate height will be chosen so that the ratio of the map's width and height are similar to that generated in the Continent map script.
# The height chosen will be between 3/5 (0.6) and 5/8 (0.625) of the width - the minimum and maximum ratios used by the Continent map script (the ratio changes with different sizes).
#
# Increased the maximum value for the map width to 308 (from 240). This won't generate maps with a height of 240 using the 'Normal ratio of width to height' option but it allows that option to generate maps with an area equal to that of a 240x240 map.
#
# Lands:
#
# Reworked how continent-to-archipelago formations are generated.
#
# General Map Options:
#
# Removed Sealevel option (the one that's standard with most maps) since it wasn't doing anything.
#
# Removed standard 'Random' choice from all options. Introduced an alternative set of random options:
# - Continent Distribution: 'Random' will select from all available choices.
# - Continent Placement: 'Random' will select from all available choices.
# - Coastlines: 'Random' will select from all available choices.
# - Hills: 2 random options
# 1) 'Random' chooses between 12.5% and 34.5% of land to be hills.
# 2) 'Random highlands' chooses between 40% and 50% of land to be hills.
# - Peaks: 2 random options
# 1) 'Random' chooses between 0% and 14% of land to be peaks.
# 2) 'Random highlands' chooses between 20% and 30% of land to be peaks.
# - Mountain Ranges: 'Random' will select from all available choices.
# - Terrain: 'Random' will select from all available options except 'fantasy'.
# - Terrain Homogeneity: 'Random' will seleect from all available options.
# - Woodlands: 'Random' will select from all available options.
# - Resource Land Masses: 'Random' will select from all available options except 'custom'
# - How Many Land Masses: 'Random' will isolate resources to between 1 and (actual number of land masses - 1) land masses.
# - Strategic Quantities: 'Random' will select between 'few strategic resources', 'normal strategic resources', and 'many strategic resources'.
# - Health Quantities: 'Random' will select between 'few health resources', 'normal health resources', and 'many health resources'.
# - Luxury Quantities: 'Random' will select between 'few luxury resources', 'normal luxury resources', and 'many luxury resources'.
#
# Some options - usually because they are structured so that a random option is pointless or because the user is much more likely to have a definite idea on what they want from the option - do not recieve a random option. These options are:
# - Min./Max. Width
# - Min./Max. Height
# - Min./Max. Land Masses
# - Min./Max. Continents
# - Min./Max. Land Mass Buffer
# - Min./Max. Ocean
# - Flood Plains
# - Resources
# - Resource Tiles
# - Let Resources Clump
# - Print Map Details
#
# New option 'Print Map Details' so that option choices (including random selections) may be printed.
# - No: Selected options are not printed.
# - Yes: Details about the generated map are printed to C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Map Options. This file can be opened with Notepad. This file is overwritten everytime a new map is generated.
# Note that the selected option for 'Let Resources Clump:' is not listed.
 
HAte to do this again, but I t did it again.. I created a standard world and it work but it wasnt to my likeing... so I went back and did a Huge world (120x80) and it stalled out again.. sorry about being a pain.
 
What options do you use? If you're selecting any random options switch on Print Map Details to see what options have been selected.

Would you mind doing a test?
1) Can you switch CivIV over to windowed mode. I'm used to debugging in that form so that I can x out of it if it stalls.
2) Go to the Civilization IV, configuration settings file found in either
C:\Documents and Settings\x\My Documents\My Games\Civilization IV
C:\Documents and Settings\x\My Documents\My Games\Warlords
Make the following edits:
HidePythonExceptions = 0
LoggingEnabled = 1
OverwriteLogs = 1
SynchLog = 1
RandLog = 1
MessageLog = 1
(These options are either 0 or 1 so you shouldn't have any problem switching back).
3) Run LandMassestest found here. It works exactly the same as the current version of land masses but it should give a decent idea of where your game is stalling.
4) If the game stalls while generating a map, use the upload account that comes with your civfanatics username to upload the Pythondbg file found in either
C:\Documents and Settings\x\My Documents\My Games\Civilization IV\Logs
C:\Documents and Settings\x\My Documents\My Games\Warlords\Logs
5) If Pythondbg is too large to upload enter it. If most of the file is made up of
'j =
integer'
then don't bother about uploading - just say so.
 
I have no idea what's going wrong for you DragonTempest. The map generation stalled a lot earlier in the process than I expected it to. If you wished I could ask you to do a series of tests like the above one to pin down the exact point where the problem occurs but I couldn't guarantee that knowing where the problem was would mean that I would be able to fix it.

If you want I can put back up an earlier version of the script (the last few updates haven't added a great deal in terms of what maps look like). Alternatively - you say that it will generate a single map but won't generate a second map in a single CivIV session - you could continue to end and restart CivIV.

Edit: As an aside for any maps that you happen to generate in the future; you were selecting 3 continents and 6 land masses. This is equivalent to selecting 6 continents and 6 land masses since the map generated will always have at least as many continents as land masses.
 
I find the land masses and continents confusing altogether, mainly because you cannot set the resource spread accurately enough in my opinion. Wouldn't it be easier if you introduced a Continents setting where players choose the amount of continents and then introduce an option to either have "solid continents" (1 landmass per continent) or "random continents" (1 or more landmass per continent).
 
I think that you (and you may be the second person to do this so it may not be clearly expressed in the early posts of this thread and in the read me) have mixed up what continents and land masses do.

Land masses are formed when multiple continents are close to each other. It is not the other way around. A land mass is a body which is, assuming a large enough seperation, isolated from all other land. A continent can be placed right next to another continent so that it may be impossible to tell how many continents have been generated on a particular map. The decision for this naming scheme is that Europe, Africa, and Asia are all considered to be continents but the three combined are considered to be a land mass.

However, I'm not sure if this explains away your dislike of the resource spread. I'm quite happy to include ideas suggested by other people. Custom resources options and the increased likelihood of continent-to-archipelago formations were both originally suggested to me in this thread.
 
I think I get the gist now but it remains confusing as there seems to be a possible overlap between continents and landmasses. If you just had a continents option together with an option to "clump continents (randomly)", would that result in the same generated maps?
 
Yes*. The option to determine the number of landmasses is essentially the option to determine how many clumps of continents are generated.

*Assuming that for 'Continent Distribution' the user selected 'randomly distributed continents'.
 
Yes*. The option to determine the number of landmasses is essentially the option to determine how many clumps of continents are generated.
You see, that's the confusing part ;). The maps look beautiful, they really do, but I'm not always sure if what I specified is what I thought of.
 
I'm with you Thedrin, I don't understand the confusion...

Landmasses are just that, masses of land, made up of continents. For example, Europe and Asia are continents - but they're joined into a single landmass = Eurasia. And in reality, Africa is also joined, while Indonesia and Austrailia are close enough to count as the same landmass, so you could say that there are only two inhabitable landmasses on Earth.
 
In fairness, I'm sure most people are used to each isolated mass of land being refered to as continents since thats the standard [and long running] name of such land types in the Civ series.

I'll see if I have time at the weekend to go back over some of the notes. In particular, the opening post of this thread has very little information.

The maps look beautiful, they really do

Thanks you.
 
Nicely done! If you might consider an enhancement request, I would like to see better defined ocean basins with rounded coastlines and a scattering of islands.
 
What's an ocean basin exactly? As far as I can tell (from a brief check on wikipedia) it's simply a region of deep ocean with no predefined surface shape. Would you be able to give me more detail? The same goes for rounded coastlines; would you have an example of what you are interested in seeing?

Islands:

I'm assuming you mean islands placed in the middle of oceans and distant from all other land - not the type of islands that are generated off the coasts in one and twos or whole archipelagos but completely isolated regions which are not large enough to host a starting civ.

Such islands would be a difficult inclusion to make while keeping other important features. Oceans are generated by building up land masses while ensuring a minimum seperation between land masses is maintained - oceans are the left over gaps between land masses. I consider the minimum distance very important because it has a strong affect on how a game plays out - when trade between land masses can begin - and I want the user to be able to maintain control over this aspect of map generation. Placing islands in the middle of oceans would take that control away from the user.

Alternatively, creating islands in the middle of ocean and then enlarging the ocean so that the minmum distance between lands is maintained would greatly restrict the variation in land mass shapes that are generated. The map script's more varied land mass shapes (if I may be so arrogant as to make that claim) are the result of land masses growing into more territory than they will finally occupy and then removing coastal tiles until the required land percentage has been met (the coastline setting defines the amount of extra growth). By creating enlarged oceans to shelter isolated islands from too-early expansion, the land masses will have less tiles to move into and the variation in land mass shape will be greatly reduced.

However, there may be a way to introduce uninhabited, isolated island groups using existing options. The following is untested and may prove to be inaccurate:

[Edit: I've done some testing and the resulting comments are included in the next post]

Select a large number of land masses and a large number of continents - possibly as much as possible of each. Then select 'randomly distributed continents'. Lastly, set coastlines to 'rugged'.

Two of the options selected; 'randomly distributed continents' and 'rugged' will give very differing results over multiple map generations so the final map may not always be to your liking. 'Randomly distributed continents' will often see the generated land masses range in size from very small to very large with a few middle sized land masses. Rugged coastlines should often reduce the smallest land masses to tiny island groups but what happens to the other land masses is more difficult to predict.

Depending on what other options are selected, this should often result in a number of inhabited land masses at the beginning of the game, some uninhabited archipelagos, and some uninhabited land masses of significant size. The problem will then be to figure out specific settings that reduce the number of uninhabited settings of significant size to the desired amount (though I'll suspect that to frequently generate isolated archipelagos you'll need to select a large number of land masses).

If you make your way back to the tenth post in this thread you'll find a number of images. The bottom right hand image shows an archipelago formed from a large land mass. This was achieved with 3 land masses and 7 continents and only a slight unevenness in the distribution of continents ('evenly distributed continents' was selected but the continents could not be divided equally among the land masses resulting in one larger land mass).
 
The above suggestion for generating isolated island chains doesn't work as well as I thought [when a minimum seperation of 7 tiles is selected]. Generating a large amount of land masses drastically reduces the ruggedness possibilites of a map. Since the entire idea is based on using the increasingly more rugged coastline options that proves to be a major problem.

The results are improved for smaller land mass numbers, say 3 to 5, while keeping the continent number high.
 
In fairness, I'm sure most people are used to each isolated mass of land being refered to as continents since thats the standard [and long running] name of such land types in the Civ series.
No reason to encourage such behavior though ;) :goodjob:
 
I was able to get another copy of Civilization 4 and after all the installation and removal of the previous installation, it worked. in context, Iam now able to play your map scripts, and I love it!.. Only problem now is that my machine is soo slow while playing, or rather calculating the moves of the computer players. I have posted this in another forum but no one has replied back to me. Sad.
 
How much RAM do you have?

Up until recently RAM (512MB - minimum requirements I believe) was the main problem I had with playing CivIV. Using this map script would take up a lot of my RAM meaning that the game would be slow from the start. I installed FreeRAM XP Pro which automatically clears RAM everytime more is needed. If the slowness is due to a lack of RAM then FreeRAM would automatically activate as required - briefly making the game extremely slow but soon returning it to a faster speed than when it initiated.
 
Top Bottom