Fractal Maps

[Piemaster]

What are Fractal maps exactly? I understand how all of the other map types work, but what is the scope of what I can get if I select Fractal?

 

[Mutineer]

anything, from thin spread pangea to a few separated continent or archinpelago.

You know what Fractal is?

 

[etherealcat]

I prefer Fractal maps for their unpredictability, but they aren't really fractals.

 

[TM Moot]

What are Fractal maps exactly? I understand how all of the other map types work, but what is the scope of what I can get if I select Fractal?

Suppose to be unpredictable but I often get one HUGE continent (say with 4/5 civs) and one smaller continent (2/3 civs)...

 

[aslindy]

I've been using Fractal for the past, say, 10 -12 games or so. At first they were always 2 fairly even continents with a smaller island, but the past 3 or 4 have been one long skinny continent and one dinky island (with no one on it).
My latest map was so long east to west, that the continent completely wrapped around the earth and overlapped, but was angled slightly so it wasn't a complete band. Kinda weird looking, yet interesting.
And all my maps are of the "small" variety, as my computer is way too slow on anything larger.
Amy

 

[Piemaster]

anything, from thin spread pangea to a few separated continent or archinpelago.

You know what Fractal is?

Um, nope

 

[kristopherb]

I've been using Fractal for the past, say, 10 -12 games or so. At first they were always 2 fairly even continents with a smaller island, but the past 3 or 4 have been one long skinny continent and one dinky island (with no one on it).
My latest map was so long east to west, that the continent completely wrapped around the earth and overlapped, but was angled slightly so it wasn't a complete band. Kinda weird looking, yet interesting.
And all my maps are of the "small" variety, as my computer is way too slow on anything larger.
Amy

can you post the map please

 

[billybgame]

This is what I've played, mostly, since I got the 1.61 patch. When I first bought the game, I was a bit dismayed that there was no "random" choice. That's all I ever liked to play in Civ 3. I like to be random in everything.

I have not played it enought, though, to see any trends. I think the first one I got, was a small world/Duel/2 civ setup. Finished that, last night, and did a new Fractal, and got one "wrapping" continent. And, not a big one, either, with 3 civs.

So, it appears random to me, like it implies/says.

 

[Piemaster]

This is what I've played, mostly, since I got the 1.61 patch. When I first bought the game, I was a bit dismayed that there was no "random" choice. That's all I ever liked to play in Civ 3. I like to be random in everything.

Me too. But now there is a random choice and one of the options that the random choice chooses from is Fractal.

So are we essentially saying that if you choose random, it randomly selects either continents, archipeligo, pangea or... er... random?

 

[kamigawan]

I usually go for fractal. The majority of the time I get one large irregular shaped continent, less commonly I see a smaller continent usually with one or two others on it.

For some reason I always find that fractal has larger patches of unworkable areas such as deserts and peaks (may be imagination) comapred to others such as continents. I also find that deserts and peaks appear more frequently as individual tiles in otherwise ideal locations.

I was also a little disappointed to find that fractal is entirely predictable regarding the climate rules, e.g., north pole -> equator = arctic-> tundra-> plains -> grasslands -> jungle

 

[Titus]

edited b/c my stupidity

 

[Mutineer]

Um, nope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

 

[aslindy]

can you post the map please

Here it is.
I am playing a hotseat game on a team with my daughter - her first Warlords game. We are winning so far.

 

[LosBlack]

Here it is.

interesting..what settings did you use (along with fractal) to generate this map?

 

[aslindy]

Here is the initial auto-save for the game.
Hotseat, 2 humans as a team, 2 computer players.
The humans are (Amy) Gandhi on Warlord, and (Erica) Isabella on Settler.
The map is Fractal, Small world, low sea level, Tropical climate, Ancient starting Era. Normal game speed.
And no Time victory.

Amy

 

[Iamdead7]

I just got one with on a standard map, and I got a nice large continent with 6 civs, and Catherine was on a large island off the coast (she was in contact with Cyrus, so she kept up in tech nicely)

 

[LosBlack]

Here is the initial auto-save for the game.

The map is Fractal, Small world, low sea level, Tropical climate, Ancient starting Era.

thanks! sadly, I don't have Warlords, but may try a few fractal rolls in a week or two. looks like a fun diversion from the seriousness of "normal" play.

i also didn't know you could play at different difficulties, that's pretty neat! maybe with that option, i can convince my buddy christo to play a little bit..

 

[Psyringe]

Thanks for this thread, which brought the fractal map script to my attention. I usually played on continents, but wanted more irregularity. The continents script is too much concerned with making the map "fair" for everybody. This is probably necessary in multiplayer, but I prefer variety over total fairness in that case.

 

[Soil]

Always play fractal myself... although that wikipedia entry hurts my brain. ;P

I like the randomness of the map too, makes it more believable than continents which is just two or more blobs of land. I would love a script that got all the variety of the real earth into a civ map.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Dug through my most recent games (huge/fractal) and here are some screenies of (5) different maps. I took 2 or 3 images of each world, showing how the continents connect together.







In this game, I started in the NW portion of the first image. I had that little blob of a peninsula cut off and you can (barely) see the Great Wall. Which you can see if you click on the first image and look at the high-res version.

Another thing to look at on the first image is the continental divide mountain range that almost cuts the continent in half. The only way around that long line of mountains was a single tile at the south end.