Distant Multiplayer Start 1.04

9/2/2018: Mod has been updated for full compatiblity with the latest version of the Civ VI base game, and the Rise & Fall expansion pack.

ABOUT THE MOD
This mod rearranges the starting positions of the human and AI players, to spread the human players apart.

When I am playing multiplayer Civ VI, I like it when the human players have some time to grow their civs before meeting each other, rather than starting close together and being forced into an early confrontation. This mod was built to satisfy my own desires - and perhaps yours

It is recommended to read this documentation before running the mod, as it contains important details such as compatibility with other mods.


INSTALLATION
If you are running Civ VI in Steam, it is recommended to subscribe to the mod on Steam Workshop instead of downloading it from CivFanatics: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=948411364

This way you will automatically receive any updates to the mod.

Otherwise, the mod can be installed by clicking 'Download Now' on this page and extracting the zip file to your 'Mods' directory. For Windows users, this will usually be "C:\Users\<your name>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Mods".


HOW TO TURN IT ON
A new 'Distant Human Start Positions' checkbox will be present on your Multiplayer Game Setup screen, allowing you to enable or disable the mod for each multiplayer game.


HOW IT WORKS
Initial starting positions are generated for all human and AI players by Civ VI as normal. At this point, the mod steps in and analyses all possible combinations of x starting positions (where x is the number of human players) to find the combination which is most spread out. Human players are then swapped into those starting positions before the game starts.

Source code is visible here: https://github.com/kevincoghlan/distant-multiplayer-start/blob/master/DistantMultiplayerStart.lua


INCOMPATIBLE MODS
This mod is incompatible with any mod which overrides the 'AssignStartingPlots.lua' file.

Examples:

• The 'Yet (Not) Another Maps Pack' (YnAMP) mod.
  
  
• Any 'better starting positions' mod. This includes the various community fixes for the 'too close together' start positions bug introduced by the Fall 2017 Civ VI update. (Note that this problem has apparently been fixed by Firaxis in the November 2017 Civ VI update)

Running the mod alongside an incompatible mod will break the functionality of one mod or the other, since only one version of the 'AssignStartingPlots.lua' script will be applied by the game. It is recommended to only enable one of these mods at a time. This can be done by clicking 'Additional Content' on the Civ VI main menu and then enabling/disabling specific mods.

It is possible to verify that this mod is working by examining your Lua log file, as described in the 'HOW DO I KNOW IF THE MOD WORKED?' section at the bottom of this documentation.


SUPPORTED MAP TYPES
Typical map types such as Continents, Fractal, Pangaea, etc. should all work fine with this mod.

As you would expect, the mod has no effect on special maps where all civilizations start in a fixed position, such as 'True Start Location Earth'.

Some custom map packs may be incompatible with this mod, as described in the 'INCOMPATIBLE MODS' section above.


SUPPORTED PLAYER CONFIGURATIONS
The maximum number of players supported by Distant Multiplayer Start is the same as the number of players officially supported by the Civ VI base game: twelve players in total, including both human and AI players.

The current version of the mod will disable itself if more than 12 players are present. This is a safety measure, as the current version of the mod was not built to handle that number of players. The complexity of analyzing so many starting position combinations could potentially lead to a game crash.

In the future, enhancements may be made to allow the mod to handle more than the officially-supported 12 players.

Also, at least one AI player must be present for the mod have any effect, since the mod works by rearranging human and AI players to increase the distance between the human players.


LIMITATIONS
In order to achieve maximum distance between the human players, the mod ignores the terrain starting bias that is normally applied to some of the civilizations.

For example, Russia is more likely than other civilizations to start the game in tundra terrain. But with this mod enabled, Russia might be swapped to a different starting terrain if this is necessary to maximize the distance between the human players.

If terrain starting bias is important to you, you may prefer not to use this mod. Alternatively, you could restart the game until all players are happy with their starting terrain.

(It is interesting to note that several civilizations, such as Germany, have no terrain starting bias.)


HOW DO I KNOW IF THE MOD WORKED?
After you have started a multiplayer game with the mod enabled, you can check the Lua.log file to see if the mod has taken effect. On a Windows machine, this log file can be found in Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Logs.

If the mod has worked, and if you are the host of the game, you will see log messages similar to the following (search the log file for 'DISTANT MULTIPLAYER START'):

Code:

Map Script: Creating start plot database.
Map Script: START OF 'DISTANT MULTIPLAYER START' MOD LOGIC
Map Script: Human Player 1 found: CIVILIZATION_KONGO
Map Script: Human Player 2 found: CIVILIZATION_ROME
Map Script: AI Player 1 found.
Map Script: AI Player 2 found.
Map Script: AI Player 3 found.
Map Script: AI Player 4 found.
Map Script: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Map Script: Initial starting plots, before the mod makes any changes:
Map Script: Human Player 1 starting plot index: 1385
Map Script: Human Player 2 starting plot index: 2709
Map Script: AI Player 1 starting plot index: 2747
Map Script: AI Player 2 starting plot index: 637
Map Script: AI Player 3 starting plot index: 903
Map Script: AI Player 4 starting plot index: 657
Map Script: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Map Script: Finding the most distant starting plots...
Map Script: Most distant starting plots: 2709, 903
Map Script: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Map Script: Checking if any of the most distant plots are already occupied by human players...
Map Script: Plot 2709 is occupied by a human player. This player does not need to be repositioned.
Map Script: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Map Script: Number of human players to be repositioned: 1
Map Script: Reassigned starting plot 903 from an AI player to a human player.
Map Script: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Map Script: Final starting plots:
Map Script: Human Player 1 starting plot index: 903
Map Script: Human Player 2 starting plot index: 2709
Map Script: AI Player 1 starting plot index: 2747
Map Script: AI Player 2 starting plot index: 637
Map Script: AI Player 3 starting plot index: 1385
Map Script: AI Player 4 starting plot index: 657
Map Script: END OF 'DISTANT MULTIPLAYER START' MOD LOGIC

FUTURE ADDITIONS
The mod has already gone through several iterations, with improvements made each time. New features may be added to the mod in future, or improvements upon existing features.

For example, special handling for teams is under consideration as a new optional function. This would allow teams to start close to each other, while also starting far away from other teams.


And finally...

I hope you enjoy the mod! Feedback is very welcome in the discussion thread.