Better Exploration Age Map Generation

[tman2000]

Overall I would prefer an exploration age that is more scenario driven, but for that to be possible the map generation has to be improved, which is what I'm proposing here.

Current pain points:

• Distant lands are too settled. I want to explore a wilderness comparable to early Antiquity scouting. I want places to actually settle, while I struggle to be able to trade with civs there. I want independent powers to contend with as I did in early Antiquity
• There was, in history, such a thing as an overland ocean (the steppe) that functioned in absolute parallel to sea routes for exploration.
• There is a difference between New World exploration and Old World exploration, with an East Indies/West Indies dichotomy. There are parallels and differences between both. In fact, New World exploration intersected in profound ways with Old World. For instance, Spain's silver trade from Peru to the Philippines, including its American food imports (potatoes), revolutionized Ming China, creating a booming economy and unprecedented population growth.

I would solve these pain points by creating a "Three distant lands" map generation, which can expand to five.

These are:

1. Euro/Med
2. China
3. Americas

Euro/Med ought to be defined as:

• Navigable rivers in deserts
• One or Two large inland seas (with forced ocean outlet)
• Half desert, half temperate forest

China as:

• Two very large navigable rivers with smaller navigable rivers at random
• One tundra area
• One temperate or jungle area
• large border desert
• large sea coast

Americas as:

• large temperate area with one very large navigable river
• half plains, large tundra border
• Latitudinally separate jungle area with mountain borders

Each should spawn historically appropriate civs, with a "historical or random" distant lands cluster setting in the menu.

There should be:

1. One "maritime" distant lands
2. One megacontinent separated by a large steppe/desert/mountains in either the North or South
3. Latitudinally opposite the steppe, a hemispherical ocean

Thus, for three distant lands, one is totally separated by ocean, two are separated half by steppe, half by ocean. In antiquity, the steppe is full of "barbarians" (not independent powers) who spawn in with intensity in proportion to how far you travel deeper into the steppe. They will attack less aggressively if you stay away, but will be a mindful nuisance for border civs. Trying to make it to "China" in antiquity will be a streamer cheese that most people shouldn't be able to do.

Civs will be clustered with their historical neighbors BUT there will be a second setting for "historical based cluster locations". While there will be a Mediterranean, China and Americas, and while you will be clustered with historically appropriate civs, you can still randomize

1. Whether say American civs spawn in the American region or Chinese or Med.
2. The relationship between these (i.e.: China can spawn in the maritime distant lands, while Mediterranean and American geography will spawn with a connected steppe)

On larger maps, the geographic clusters expand to five, adding:

1. India - Jungle/mountains/desert/archipelago
2. N/S Americas division, with North America receiving an equitorial isthmus/archipelago border.
3. South America receiving a large navigable river and some desert/tundra in a narrower strip of land

Of course, these additional distant lands clusters can spawn anywhere. The distant lands template will receive a coastal position between the Steppe and the middle ocean, while the maritime distant lands will divide in two. India must be on the middle ocean coast, but all other clusters can exist in either the East/West megacontinent axis, or the North/South maritime axis. You can have an inland sea "North America" or jungle/amazon "China".

On 5 cluster maps, some civs are flexible in their historical position. Abbasids can spawn in India or Med. Siam can spawn in the China cluster, or India.

On a 3 cluster exploration spawn, one cluster will be post-plague, the other cluster will be "barbarian infested". So, classically, if you play a Med civ in exploration, the maritime distant lands might have the Shawnee and Inca, but both will start with minimal population, one settlement as "post-plague" with minimal, dispersed independent powers. The China distant lands will start with half of China's former settlements being now converted into strong independent powers. This however, can be totally randomized.

We are, I suppose, leaning into colonialism and assuming that for exploration age civilizations to be triumphant, they're dealing with stacked cards versus the rest of the world. However, we can experience alternative scenarios where a health Americas colonizes a plague-reduced Europe. Or, we can totally randomize everything and have Shawnee, Spain and Chola colonize the Normans and Inca.

 

[tman2000]

I forgot Africa because it complicates the Steppe/Middle Sea thing. Having thought about it, it's not that bad.

Africa should be part of the Med in a jungle area past the desert. In the 6 cluster map, it should connect via desert to either:

1. Med's desert
2. China's desert (North or South), in which case it can blend into India via jungle along the coast.
3. North America's isthmus, where it will now be deserted instead of jungled (how S. America or China would connect)
4. South America with just a large desert separating two jungles.

 

[Phrozen]

Historically African exploration by European powers was limited by lack of navigable river networks and unlike the Americas: disease. There were parts of Africa unexplorable and without human settlement due to things like sleeping sickness and it wasn't until technology improved that these areas became habitable.