Map generator needs more randomness

[narmox]

I often play continents, standard sized map, epic + noble. Now for about 4-5 times so far, on 3 different computers, I've had the same same same map! Same starting positions (but not necessarily the same civs/leaders).

I don't play with random seeds or anything like that. Just "Play now!" and my favorite map settings.

Why is the generator not so random Lol it was a bit unfair in that multiplayer game when I realized what map I was playing on and knew where all the resources would be, all the other civs, all the good/bad city spots...

EDIT: ok I just noticed a similar topic a few posts down... Moderators merge please, or delete, or whatever you see fit

 

[Kolyana]

The resources are the same, too? Nothing is random? (except for the civs???)

 

[Colossian]

I think the bonus resouce option is useful.
1. shortage
2. average
3. plenty

 

[narmox]

Kolyana: yep, everything is exactly the same except the civs. Well except the 1st and 5th time, I had the japanese to the west and the russians under Peter to the north east.

 

[Psyringe]

This is a known bug. The maps are supposed to be random and will be random once the bug is fixed. Currently afaik it's unknown what exactly is causing this bug, as some people seem to encounter it quite often, while others never see it.

 

[Sadan01]

There is a workaround (I think in part or all from Sirian himself - I could be wrong however. I am easily confused at this time of year ). And that is to check the CivilizationIV.ini for this:

; Random seed for map generation, or '0' for default
MapRandSeed = 0

Make sure it is set to 0. If it already is set to zero, then the only other workaround (that I know of) is to manually type in a random mix of numbers (6 to 8 should do it) each time you want to generate a map. There was a thread sometime ago about this and I can remember that someone posted and advised that they changed the seed option to a number of their choice, started a game, exited, edited the seed back to 0 again and from then on when starting a new game, got random maps once again. Not promising that this is going to work but worth a try.

Hopefully fixed in the patch forthcoming.

Edit: Just saw this (dont know why I didnt before):

I don't play with random seeds or anything like that. Just "Play now!" and my favorite map settings.

There is no such thing anymore as turning off the random seed. It is always set to on (preserve in game). The only change you can make is in so far as the map seed used. Check the setting I posted above.

Edit 2: Here is the post Sirian made regarding this problem: Sirian's Wisdom

 

[MarcAntiny]

I often play continents, standard sized map, epic + noble. Now for about 4-5 times so far, on 3 different computers, I've had the same same same map! Same starting positions (but not necessarily the same civs/leaders).

I don't play with random seeds or anything like that. Just "Play now!" and my favorite map settings.

Why is the generator not so random Lol it was a bit unfair in that multiplayer game when I realized what map I was playing on and knew where all the resources would be, all the other civs, all the good/bad city spots...

EDIT: ok I just noticed a similar topic a few posts down... Moderators merge please, or delete, or whatever you see fit

I haven't had quite the same bad experience but I've had the same map once and for the record I was the same leader and I was using custom settings adding more opponents on a large map. I started in the same spot and had all the same opponents... so you can guess that I won this map in record time... lol...

 

[Kolyana]

Sadan01, thank you for posting this out ... I'll be checkign for this seed and 'resetting it' if required.

 

[narmox]

There is no such thing anymore as turning off the random seed. It is always set to on (preserve in game).

Thanks for the info.. and btw, what I meant by "I don't play with random seed" was "I don't mess around or change it, it's always set to 0"

 

[Traxis]

What happens when you use 'Custom Game' rather than 'Play Now'?

 

[Sadan01]

Just to explain further about the "random seed" and about what I said yesterday regarding not being able to turn it off: You can turn "off" or change the map seed, by the MapRandSeed option in the CivilizationIV.ini file. If you change it anything other than 0, you have essentially turned off the random map seeding that occurs (when working normally and not subject to the bug).
However, as in Civ3 battles, you could save and reload a game when the "preserve random seed" was turned off to get a different result, you cannot do this in Civ4. This option no longer exists. Sorry for the vague post earlier - and I just felt I needed to explain it a bit better. So to summarise, you can turn off/on the random map seeding via the .ini file but the preserve random seed (for battles in particular) can no longer be "tweaked".

 

[abbamouse]

On another note, they need to add a random map type that selects between pangaea, continents, and archipelago. I miss not knowing the general world type

 

[narmox]

What happens when you use 'Custom Game' rather than 'Play Now'?

I'm not saying I always get the same map, I do get variety, just that I saw the same map 4 or 5 times so far, on 3 different computers. Note that one of the times I got the same map was a multiplayer game - would that count as custom game (since you get all the same options as Custom, rather than the simple Play Now options)

 

[Acceptable_Loss]

On another note, they need to add a random map type that selects between pangaea, continents, and archipelago. I miss not knowing the general world type

Here here ... although some of the custom map setting such as twisted axis almost allow you to do this