Any way to avoid "gimmicky" maps on Custom Continents?

[Wheem]

I like playing on Custom Continents with the number set to random so that I never know up front how many continents there will be, whether or not I'll be isolated (which I sort of like), etc...However, I seem to frequently get "gimmicky" and unrealistic maps, which annoy me

For instance, a number of times now, I'll have 3-4 "normal" continents in the northern and southern hemispheres, along with one massive "belt" around the equator. It's usually 4-7 tiles from north to south, and often only about 5 tiles from reaching itself on the eastern and western tips.

Other times, I'll have a nearly perfect "cross" continent smack dab in the middle of the map, with the continents in the corners being squared or right-angle shaped.

There have been some other times where one continent would have a straight-edged coast running from north to south that connected at both poles, making it impossible to sail around.

Is there any particular way to avoid such "unrealistic" maps, while still keeping the number of continents pretty randomized? (I have Warlords, but not Beyond the Sword...yet)

I just don't like playing a map that seems more like a game of Tetris than Civ 4

 

[azzaman333]

Hemispheres would be your best bet, unfortunately its only in BtS.

 

[Byrath]

I highly recommend SmartMap.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=154989&highlight=smartmap

 

[Blinking Joy]

Just play CivDos! The first and the best.

 

[Nelgirith]

Hemispheres would be your best bet, unfortunately its only in BtS.

I totally agree with you. Hemispheres is one of the greatest map scripts I've seen.

 

[snipafist]

I highly recommend SmartMap.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=154989&highlight=smartmap

I tried that out, and I didn't care for it at all. It had little 1-tile clumps of jungle randomly scattered across the equator and other terrain oddities. I think I'd kill for a map script that wouldn't start you off near a gigantic desert/tundra and still placed resources and terrain features sensibly.

 

[weregamer]

Yes, none I've tried suits me perfectly. I really like the land shapes and options on Planet Generator (dowload from the mods area), but I stopped using it because it does some screwey things that it shouldn't, most especially putting Jungles on Plains. But if you can live with that, or are willing to make a quick pass with WorldBuilder to fix it at the beginning of every game, it is pretty nice.

I also have the subjective impression that the Terra standard generator is working better for me in BtS than it was in Warlords, but I don't think it was actually changed.

 

[Wheem]

Thanks for the replies, I went ahead and bought Beyond the Sword yesterday, and the hemispheres map-type surely does seem better so far.

I still may play around with some mods in the future, but for right now the vanilla hemispheres map seems to suit me well.