New Map Scripts

bardolph · Oct 24, 2007

I just discovered "Hemispheres," "Big & Small," and "Medium & Small" map generation scripts in BTS, and I'll definitely say that "Hemispheres" and "Big & Small" generate some beautiful looking maps. "Medium & Small" seems less exciting to me, since every map generated looks almost the same.

Here are my observations:

"Hemispheres" is a great improvement over "Continents," since it allows more variation than the ubiquitous "1 continent per hemisphere" configuration you get from Continents. What I would really love is to have 1 or more continents guaranteed to be a vacant "New World," similar to the Terra script.

"Big and Small" creates extremely beautiful maps, usually with a Pangaea-like main continent and tons of islands and archipelagos covering the rest of the world. It seems consistently to generate worlds that are circumnavigable through costal sailing alone, however, so no need to beeline Optics or Astronomy. I'm also skeptical about how well an island-based nation can survive under the current colony rules.

"Medium and Small" - meh. 2 continents, each with a giant broken island mass on the north or south end. Again, I pity any civ that starts on an island.

I was wondering how much y'all have played full games on these map scripts, and how was your experience.

JKWSN · Oct 24, 2007

I don't think I'll ever go back to anything other than Hemispheres set on random options - I honestly have no clue what I'm going to find and I like that.

It feels more like original Civ in the map generator and I get tired of just two continents

Willem · Oct 25, 2007

bardolph said:
"Big and Small" creates extremely beautiful maps, usually with a Pangaea-like main continent and tons of islands and archipelagos covering the rest of the world. It seems consistently to generate worlds that are circumnavigable through costal sailing alone, however, so no need to beeline Optics or Astronomy. I'm also skeptical about how well an island-based nation can survive under the current colony rules.

I don't find it as predictable as you're implying here. Yes sometimes things work out that way, but not always. It's become my favourite map type, giving me lots of variety. It also seems more natural than the rest. I quite often get maps that are quite Earth like, with 2 or 3 large continents and some smaller ones. Maybe you need to change the settings a bit more, using "Islands Mixed In" instead of the other option.

Pariah · Oct 25, 2007

I've found that Medium & Small sometimes acts like Hemispheres: gives 2 clusters of landmasses separated by 2 broad oceans, especially on a large or huge map. And there are usually more civs starting in one hemisphere than the other - which gives the less-populous hemisphere civs a definite advantage in expansion room.

Try Big & Small set to "massive continents." That tends to produce a single huge continent dominanting half the map, and islands filling out the rest. With maybe a relatively narrow ocean off one side of the continent. Whoever starts on that side has to discover Optics before exploring much out to sea; the civs on the opposite coast can start colonising islands a lot earlier.

bardolph · Oct 25, 2007

Pariah said:
I've found that Medium & Small sometimes acts like Hemispheres: gives 2 clusters of landmasses separated by 2 broad oceans, especially on a large or huge map. And there are usually more civs starting in one hemisphere than the other - which gives the less-populous hemisphere civs a definite advantage in expansion room.

Try Big & Small set to "massive continents." That tends to produce a single huge continent dominanting half the map, and islands filling out the rest. With maybe a relatively narrow ocean off one side of the continent. Whoever starts on that side has to discover Optics before exploring much out to sea; the civs on the opposite coast can start colonising islands a lot earlier.

I'll try this configuration. I've found that Medium & Small has almost no variation, but Big & Small is pretty awesome.

I really like the shape of landmasses in "Big & Small," and I really like the Old vs New World effect that you get from "Terra." If I can generate a "Big & Small" map with a reasonable chance of having at least one ocean-isolated continent with no starting civs on it, that would be ideal.

.

sydhe · Oct 25, 2007

The snaky continents setting in the Big and Small/Medium and Small maps tend to produce really long continents that run north and south. In Archipelago settings they'll often run east and west.

ezwip · Oct 25, 2007

I like medium and small. It forces you to have a navy. I do not like maps where a navy is not needed. The game goes far too fast and I just wipe out anything near me on any setting. The AI isn't bright enough to fight me on land. They need that element of suprise, forcing me to heavily defend my coastal cities.

Pariah · Oct 26, 2007

bardolph said:
I really like the Old vs New World effect that you get from "Terra." If I can generate a "Big & Small" map with a reasonable chance of having at least one ocean-isolated continent with no starting civs on it, that would be ideal..

I'm not sure if you can guarantee any large, empty landmasses on a Big & Small map. But I've yet to try a Terra map in BtS. Will be interesting to send a spy to the New World, and see how it can influence those big barbarian cities you find...

bardolph · Oct 26, 2007

Pariah said:
I'm not sure if you can guarantee any large, empty landmasses on a Big & Small map. But I've yet to try a Terra map in BtS. Will be interesting to send a spy to the New World, and see how it can influence those big barbarian cities you find...

Well, my next game will probably be "Big & Small," "Normal Landmasses," "Islands," "Separate Island Region," Huge Map. I rather liked the maps generated by this. I also noticed that on maps smaller than Huge, the proportion of land to water is much different (much less ocean).

Now that I think about it, I like the fact that most of the world is connected by coastline. It prevents the dreaded "isolated start" situation in most cases. Also, I noticed that these maps usually have a vertical swath of ocean in one region, meaning that you must research Optics if you want to race for the circumnavigation bonus.

Since a single game usually takes me 1-2 weeks to finish, I need to plan each game carefully

Nestorius · Oct 26, 2007

I noticed Big and Small is nice if you like starting positions in the tundra while one civ on the other side of the world has the majority of grasslands and all the copper and horses.

bardolph · Oct 26, 2007

Nestorius said:
I noticed Big and Small is nice if you like starting positions in the tundra while one civ on the other side of the world has the majority of grasslands and all the copper and horses.

I guess it's pretty clear who's "Big" and who's "Small" in that scenario, eh?

LlamaCat · Oct 26, 2007

what are poeple's recommendations for the best map to generate a world with at least 60%+ land and 40% or less water. I've always found in every game there is just too much useless water. I don't prefer the specific maps like great plains because those are just all land and do not have the globe view. I would like something like big and small but with a lot less water.

SlightlyMad · Oct 26, 2007

LlamaCat said:
what are poeple's recommendations for the best map to generate a world with at least 60%+ land and 40% or less water. I've always found in every game there is just too much useless water. I don't prefer the specific maps like great plains because those are just all land and do not have the globe view. I would like something like big and small but with a lot less water.

Have you tried altering the sea level setting? I think even medium is generally land-heavy with most scripts, but if you really want space to spread out, low can be huge. Personally, I like it set to high to a more earth-like feel. I think my Hemispheres script really shines in that setting as well, as the fractal landmass generation routines tend to just make amorphous blobs if you give them too much land to generate.

I don't recall if B&S and M&S maps actually obey that setting though, not all of the map scripts do.

Silence101 · Oct 26, 2007

Hemispheres is my favorite - love the maps that I get with it.

I still play Terra maps every once in awhile - started a new one just the other day. It seems cooler than I remember... I don't know if they revamped the script with BTS maybe? In any case, if you want and empty continent, it's a decent script.

I tried M&S a few times and could never get a map that I liked.

B&S is one of my favorites - though I like Hemispheres a bit more, B&S gives some cool maps. I think my biggest issue with it is that I always seem to get rotten starting positions. I had a cool game a few weeks ago with the script where I started on an island chain and ended up spawning my Civ over about four different mid-sized islands before I had to resort attacking anyone. (I was able to settle about 10 or 12 cities myself which is way more than usual.) The city locations weren't optimal in most cases... weren't terrible either, just ok.

bardolph · Oct 26, 2007

Silence101 said:
Hemispheres is my favorite - love the maps that I get with it.

I still play Terra maps every once in awhile - started a new one just the other day. It seems cooler than I remember... I don't know if they revamped the script with BTS maybe? In any case, if you want and empty continent, it's a decent script.

I tried M&S a few times and could never get a map that I liked.

B&S is one of my favorites - though I like Hemispheres a bit more, B&S gives some cool maps. I think my biggest issue with it is that I always seem to get rotten starting positions. I had a cool game a few weeks ago with the script where I started on an island chain and ended up spawning my Civ over about four different mid-sized islands before I had to resort attacking anyone. (I was able to settle about 10 or 12 cities myself which is way more than usual.) The city locations weren't optimal in most cases... weren't terrible either, just ok.

Hemispheres is great (my current game is Hemies), but I'm not terribly fond of having isolated clusters of civs racing to Liberalism and Astronomy for half the game. That's why Terra is much more exciting: it gives a chance for everyone to duke it out before the big New World expansion phase kicks in. I just wish there were more cool-looking broken island chains in Terra. That would be perfect IMO.

Well, my next try will be B&S (Normal Continents, Islands, Huge, High Sea Level) and I'll see how it goes.

SlightlyMad · Oct 26, 2007

Hmmm, it might be relatively easy to add an island chain layer to terra. I've never looked at the script before, but I'll check it out this weekend and see.

Silence101 · Oct 26, 2007

I'd be interested in playing that kind of Terra map - I don't know anything about editing map scripts though.

Lightwave · Oct 26, 2007

Before I got BtS, I read here that many people liked Big & Small, but I have been somewhat underwhelmed. I like a more "Earth" feel with a few bigger oceans but still some separated continents. I experimented with using the "high" sea level setting, but it increases the "Snaky" effect. I also increased the map size to Large even though my laptop can't handle it in late game eras in order to help reduce the "Snaky" effect. I guess overall it is still the best script that I have seen, but it does leave something to be desired.

With that said, I did examine several of the others, and I liked Hemispheres somewhat better in certain ways, but the continents are laid out in "checkerboard" fashion. I basically know that I just have to head due north or one of the compass directions. If not for that, I think I would really like it; but as is, it is kind of a map-breaker to me.

Terra would be great except everyone starts on one big land mass. I know that is the Eurasia-analogy, but I like some variation in the continents even so.

I am a programmer of sorts, but I do not have time to get into the map scripts even though I might actually enjoy it. I may try downloading a few maps, the Lord willing, and maybe even upload a few interesting ones of my own creation. I have a few map theme ideas that are interesting to me at least.

Silence101 · Oct 26, 2007

Lightwave said:
With that said, I did examine several of the others, and I liked Hemispheres somewhat better in certain ways, but the continents are laid out in "checkerboard" fashion. I basically know that I just have to head due north or one of the compass directions. If not for that, I think I would really like it; but as is, it is kind of a map-breaker to me.

That sounds like the complaint I had with the Continents script. I'm surprised to see you write this though - I thought Hemispheres was a huge improvement. The continents in Hemispheres are a lot more varied in their shape I think, but to your point, I think they still are generally more vertically shaped as a whole... meaning that you wouldn't sail south to discover a new continent - you'd sail east and west. Still, all things considered, I think Hemispheres gives the most realistic looking maps overall.

Edit: I've also noticed on Hemispheres when you play with more than two continents, the map layout becomes very checkered like you were saying. With just two continents through, it looks good.

bardolph · Oct 26, 2007

Lightwave said:
Before I got BtS, I read here that many people liked Big & Small, but I have been somewhat underwhelmed. I like a more "Earth" feel with a few bigger oceans but still some separated continents. I experimented with using the "high" sea level setting, but it increases the "Snaky" effect. I also increased the map size to Large even though my laptop can't handle it in late game eras in order to help reduce the "Snaky" effect. I guess overall it is still the best script that I have seen, but it does leave something to be desired.

With that said, I did examine several of the others, and I liked Hemispheres somewhat better in certain ways, but the continents are laid out in "checkerboard" fashion. I basically know that I just have to head due north or one of the compass directions. If not for that, I think I would really like it; but as is, it is kind of a map-breaker to me.

Terra would be great except everyone starts on one big land mass. I know that is the Eurasia-analogy, but I like some variation in the continents even so.

I am a programmer of sorts, but I do not have time to get into the map scripts even though I might actually enjoy it. I may try downloading a few maps, the Lord willing, and maybe even upload a few interesting ones of my own creation. I have a few map theme ideas that are interesting to me at least.

There is actually quite a big difference between B&S when generated on Normal vs Huge size. The results on "Normal" give a tangled mass of islands with no real oceans, but on a Huge map, it ends up being very Earth-like (admittedly with much smaller oceans).

Hemispheres with an odd # of continents (3 or 5) is pretty nice, since one of the masses is usually double-sized.

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