What is wrong with these maps?

fdrpi

Prince
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Are there any normal ones? I have just spent an entire hour trying to start a game, and every time I did, when I checked the map in world builder, it was just an awful broken map.

- Every single time, the civs were either almost all on top of one another, or so far away you wouldn't ever see them until the second half of the game.

-And to make matters worse, 3/4 of the maps are all either desert or tundra.

-I am playing as the Ljosfar, and I didn't want to be on the coast simply for flavor reasons (flavor start on btw), and I started on the coast literally every time.

Everything is set to standard on the map settings.


I just wanted a normal, reasonable map to play a good game in.

Why aren't there any normal maps in Rise from Erebus? And what is going on with the map generation??
 
Hum.. I haven't noticed those sorts of problems in my games. What map script are you using?
 
yeah ... this buggered me as well ... though i never got to closer inspection because i stopped playing civ
 
Erebus continents is very water heavy because it has many continents (as the name would imply). Additionally, the map script is based around the fall from heaven world and contains a very high probability for tundra, due to the world freezing over and all that. For likely similar reasons there is a high chance for deserts as well. Plains are a rarity when running that script.

Mountain ranges tend to follow a pattern blocking off areas and isolating races into their own seperate little worlds, in addition to the high probability of breaking into another landmass entirely. Typically though they are connected by a tile or two of land (to compensate for the AI's inability to launch naval invasions).

Ahem.. anyway, if you want to fix the excessive tundra and desert issue, I believe changing the setting to reduced or minimal for thier respective elements will make for a more easily populated map. If you don't like how the game seperates the other civs, you are probably better off not using erebus continents. Run the Erebus or WorldofErebus map instead. Same mountainous concept but less likely to create seperate continents.

You may also want to try 'smart map' and force yourself to start inland.
 
For a long time, I had problem with the maps, too. I've gone back to using Erebus with 50% reduced mountains and the "Civ 4 starting plot finder". It generally has a large landmass, plus one smaller island, and reducing the mountains. There's still desert/tundra, but plenty of building space (and the Civ 4 plot finder makes sure everyone is spread out).

If you use "high cohesion" on WorldofErebus" or "Erebus Continents" and don't turn off deserts, they will compose most of the internal landmass.
 
Thanks!

Also, what does cohesion mean in this case?
 
Cohesion means that tiles of the same type (plains, grassland, desert, etc.) will be closer together. Less "random", if you will.
 
Cohesion means that tiles of the same type (plains, grassland, desert, etc.) will be closer together. Less "random", if you will.

Umm, no. IIRC, cohesion simply increases the chances of few large landmasses rather than multiple small ones. Yes, this has the effect of larger climate zones (larger sections of one tile type), but this is a sideeffect, not the goal.
 
@fdrpi
Actually the Erebus script was not designed to break the map, but it was particularly and successfully designed to increase playability of a map.

You might think that the generated maps are broken, while in fact they are more balanced than normal maps.
Balanced in a sense that typical AI weaknesses are overcome.

Lets just look at a few effects of the script

1) the script generates more coastal starts:
this is very positive for the AI as coastal starts mean more commerce, better connectivity of cities, more available world wonders (assuming that the capital is often the best city of a state and that the capital is located at the coastal starting point)

2) the script generates more infertile regions:
this is again very positive, especially for following reasons

- less effective city sprawl: RfE is not using the stability concept, hence there is no mechanism to prevent civs, which are placed in an area with lots of fertile area, to keep on expanding and finally to become a superpower due to mere circumstance.
With the current script the AI will still expand, but in a more balanced fashion. All civs have a fertile core but then can only expand into infertile wilderness.

- less cities and units overall: More infertile areas lead to smaller and less productive cities. This leads to less production of settlers and units and eventually it leads to less cramped maps. This is not just a boon for performance, but also fits well with the concept of FfH to benefit armies with few, but highly experienced units.

- flavour civs: In opposite to vanilla civ, there are some RfH civs which can strive even on infertile areas. Take the desert dwelling Malakim. Please note however that these flavour civs are very intelligently designed not to exploit deserts (or tundra), but rather to have less negative effects from settling in these lands. So more deserts do not necessarily mean an overpowered Malakim-start, but rather a more balanced start for all civs, including the Malakim. The same is true for civs which are supposed to start in the cold, like Illians and the Frozen.
Therefore infertile areas are actually less wasted than you might assume on the first view.

3) the script generates more chokepoints:
Apart from the obvious better gameplay (more fun) this effect also helps the AI in pathfinding. The AI has less options to consider and the chokepoints also tend to connect landmasses by a landbridge. The AI handles pathfinding over only land much better than pathfinding over land and water.

4) the script places civs at very different proximities to each other:
this is imho a side-effect of the "less fertile areas" feature, but still positive. This effect allows the AI to either expand undisturbed or to expand less, but trade more. Both cases lead to a more balanced AI development in total, meaning it is less likely that a superpower civ emerges which overwhelmingly dominates its surrounding. The best use of this feature for the human player is to play "from high to low". Thanks to this balance it is feasable to take over even the least developed civ after 200 turns but still have a chance of winning.
(I remember one of my most fun games was one, where I eventually ended up with an isolated tribe of Dwarves (after the last switch) living in some remote valley. I managed to turn this tribe into the tech and cultural leader, despite them originally still living in the stone age even after 200 turns. It was really enjoyable)

Naturally these are just my thoughts and I am quite certain that there are many more arguments in favour (but also disfavour) of the scripts.
Besides I didnt even start to talk about the positive optical and gameplay effects on the human player.
Hence judging even by my very small pros-list it seems to me that the erebus script is enhancing gameplay value rather than diminishing it.
In short, Erebus-maps are just awesome!

Just give it a try and you will experience the difference.
 
That's an interesting way of looking at it. As in, a really clever and creative way of thinking.

I still disagree, because the games just aren't that fun in my experience, but good points all the same.

But I disagree about your balance thing in point 3. If all but two civs are on top of each other, and the other two are super isolated, those two will be able to grow much more, whereas the others will have killed each other off, except for the conqueror of course.

And about infertile regions. I have been trapped to a space suitable for about 2, sometimes 3 cities. That is just not fun gameplay to be effectively boxed in to an area that small so early in the game.

Again, no offense intended. On the contrary, I am impressed.
 
@fdrpi
actually it is less creative than you might think, but I see were you are coming from.

See, around 10 years ago the whole gaming industry changed significantly. With the advent of Online-Gaming it became possible to attract a much larger number of players than ever before.
This lead to a significant change in game design in order to make games suitable for a mass-audience, which is not just large but also diverse. Diverse in terms of age, education, overall intelligence, taste etc.

After some trial and error a certain company, which is called after a weather phenomenon, hit the jackpot.
What is the secret to attract everybody from the farmer in Wyoming till some youngster in London to play WoW or Diablo?
It is constant rewards.

The principle of almost all new games from MMORPG's till Desktop Strategy-games is for you to constantly get more. More loot, better armour, more buildings, more resources, more troops, you name it.
Of course to this leads to a well known bottleneck in game-design, called power creep. In order to make the game still challenging, even after you got bombed with upgrades, you need a constant supply of new and stronger opponents or new targets.

One of the most refined examples for this concept is certainly the Elder Scrolls series, where they constantly supply you with new weapons, armour and skill points but also increase the power of even the most meagre skeleton almost at the same time. So at the end the difficulty level stays constant, while you still get constantly rewarded.
(you actually might call this concept ******ed. What is the point to constantly upgrade yourself, if it doesnt make a difference? But that is what the people want.)

Don't get me wrong, these concept are not new. They are as old as overall game design, but for the first time these concept are present in almost all games, and that is a new quality.

So I assume that you are used to this concept as well (it is the normal standard for you) and you miss these elements in the scripted maps of RfE.

Lets make another excursion to the past.
When I was in school we already had computer games, but they were not such a mass phenomenon as nowadays. There was however another game product, which was as popular as Onlinegames are today: Trading Card Games!

I played Magic the Gathering in those days and MtG has a radically different concept. MtG is not about who has the most stuff on the table, but it is about who can keep some stuff on the table. In MtG you don't win, because you put more cards on the table than your opponent. Quite the opposite it is very foolish to do so and you get quickly punished for such mistakes. You win, because you successfully managed to protect at least one of your cards.

What is the connection between Mtg and a map script, where you can have only 3 good cities and you feel cramped? Well, the point is that, if everybody else has only 2 good cities, then you are still in advantage.

You see only your own game position and you think it is bad, because it is less than what you are used to. But in reality your position is quite sufficient and it might even better than your neighbour's position.

Hence I advice you to try to play these maps before you judge the script...

... and hope I haven't bored you too much and that I made at least some sense.
But you know, it is lunch break and I also need to see something different than Financial Statements from time to time. :)
 
Now that is an exceptionally good point. Still, I wish they kept some of the map scripts from regular Civ IV in there, sometimes I like the simplicity.

But thank you very much Rod.
 
Now that is an exceptionally good point. Still, I wish they kept some of the map scripts from regular Civ IV in there, sometimes I like the simplicity.

But thank you very much Rod.

I'm not sure about the latest version, but in 1.23 you can use the original maps (either change the .ini file to allow public maps (it does by default, at least in my version) or copy some of the "vanilla" maps to the RfE public maps folder).
 
Spoiler :
@fdrpi
actually it is less creative than you might think, but I see were you are coming from.

See, around 10 years ago the whole gaming industry changed significantly. With the advent of Online-Gaming it became possible to attract a much larger number of players than ever before.
This lead to a significant change in game design in order to make games suitable for a mass-audience, which is not just large but also diverse. Diverse in terms of age, education, overall intelligence, taste etc.

After some trial and error a certain company, which is called after a weather phenomenon, hit the jackpot.
What is the secret to attract everybody from the farmer in Wyoming till some youngster in London to play WoW or Diablo?
It is constant rewards.

The principle of almost all new games from MMORPG's till Desktop Strategy-games is for you to constantly get more. More loot, better armour, more buildings, more resources, more troops, you name it.
Of course to this leads to a well known bottleneck in game-design, called power creep. In order to make the game still challenging, even after you got bombed with upgrades, you need a constant supply of new and stronger opponents or new targets.

One of the most refined examples for this concept is certainly the Elder Scrolls series, where they constantly supply you with new weapons, armour and skill points but also increase the power of even the most meagre skeleton almost at the same time. So at the end the difficulty level stays constant, while you still get constantly rewarded.
(you actually might call this concept ******ed. What is the point to constantly upgrade yourself, if it doesnt make a difference? But that is what the people want.)

Don't get me wrong, these concept are not new. They are as old as overall game design, but for the first time these concept are present in almost all games, and that is a new quality.

So I assume that you are used to this concept as well (it is the normal standard for you) and you miss these elements in the scripted maps of RfE.

Lets make another excursion to the past.
When I was in school we already had computer games, but they were not such a mass phenomenon as nowadays. There was however another game product, which was as popular as Onlinegames are today: Trading Card Games!

I played Magic the Gathering in those days and MtG has a radically different concept. MtG is not about who has the most stuff on the table, but it is about who can keep some stuff on the table. In MtG you don't win, because you put more cards on the table than your opponent. Quite the opposite it is very foolish to do so and you get quickly punished for such mistakes. You win, because you successfully managed to protect at least one of your cards.

What is the connection between Mtg and a map script, where you can have only 3 good cities and you feel cramped? Well, the point is that, if everybody else has only 2 good cities, then you are still in advantage.

You see only your own game position and you think it is bad, because it is less than what you are used to. But in reality your position is quite sufficient and it might even better than your neighbour's position.

Hence I advice you to try to play these maps before you judge the script...

... and hope I haven't bored you too much and that I made at least some sense.
But you know, it is lunch break and I also need to see something different than Financial Statements from time to time. :)
Minor necro here....Nice post fine sir. :salute:
 

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Another big necro!

One of the most refined examples for this concept is certainly the Elder Scrolls series, where they constantly supply you with new weapons, armour and skill points but also increase the power of even the most meagre skeleton almost at the same time. So at the end the difficulty level stays constant, while you still get constantly rewarded.
(you actually might call this concept ******ed. What is the point to constantly upgrade yourself, if it doesnt make a difference? But that is what the people want.)
THIS IS NOT TES SERIES! You are talking about TES IV Oblivion only, and this is the concept most shun upon by most of TES series fans!
 
Another big necro!


THIS IS NOT TES SERIES! You are talking about TES IV Oblivion only, and this is the concept most shun upon by most of TES series fans!

The concept is good, it just did not been implemented in an efficient way. If you check the FCOM:convergence mod for oblivion, the creator of the 4 biggest overhaul worked together to make them compatible and they kept the idea. Imposing a minimum and a maximum level for each enemy. It worked very well, the game was still "leveling" with the player but the player would no longer be able to become the arena champion at level one and past level 40 the bandit weren't equiped with daedric equipment.
 
@Deon : technically morrowind worked like that...
however it's true that the skellis and rats don't stay late game with improved str, and but if you wander in the same part of the island, the early game skellis and rats are replaced by stronger units when you become stronger, but the principle is the same; as soon as one unit becomes too easy for you, it is replaced in the same area, so you have the impression of progressing : you kill rats easily, but in fact, wandering through the same place is still as "hard" as early game.
 
Doesn't change the fact that rubber banding by scaling gear, without switching out the enemies, is much more immersion-breaking and boring. Morrowind was much better than both Oblivion and Skyrim in that regard, even if it did happen there as well.

But then, Morrowind was also a much better game overall, so I guess my impression of it might be coloured a bit by that.
 
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