Communitas map script

[albie_123]

@albie_123

We'll have to agree to disagree.

I think we are talking about different things.

Anyway I am not going to pursue this graphic thing for the following reasons:

1) Any graphic change would likely have to be made within CEP or make the simple Communitas Map mod into something other than a different map by including the database change in the package.

2) I am just going to go back to vanilla maps. Call me irrational but to me this look of atolls everywhere is just as jarring as the oases placement was earlier in this thread.
That 'graphical' situation caused a lot of discussion where it seemed everyone disliked it.
Atolls, which could be likened to the maritime equivalent of oases, don't seem to have the same impact, except for me.

So I will not hammer this point anymore.
A shame really, I liked the map up to that point.

Well, okay, fair enough, I'm just surprised you feel this way, since that's how it looks in real life.

For example, here's a relatively common example of a small group of islands off the coast of Croatia in the Mediterranean:

Spoiler :

Now, here's a map of Croatia itself:

Spoiler :

As you can see, there are plenty of isles all about the coast.

I chose Croatia because the isles are especially pretty but the entire Mediterranean is like this (Greek islands, anyone?)

The problem with oases in deserts is that oases are characterized by their rarity. Isles, on the other hand, are found on basically every single coast across the globe.

 

[mitsho]

@ExpiredReign There are "small islands" (1-3 land tiles with land ressources on it) and there are "isles" renamed atolls. I guess you just need to live with the graphic for now, not much we can do...

Depending on the scale, you can understand these isles as these Croatian Islands above (many small ones), but also islands like: Elba, the Channel Islands, Djerba, Gotland, Sylt, Lampedusa, Stromboli and the Aeolian Archipelago, Isle of Man, and I haven't even left Europe or gone to Greece yet...

So yeah, it's definately just an issue of jarring graphics...

 

[AndyWiltshireNZ]

So great map, and I've played about 20 games the last few days with it. But, any idea why 90% of them I start in the desert? I'm starting to get a bit sun burnt...

 

[shaken]

I generated and looked at about a half dozen maps last night and boy do they look pretty. I have to agree with ExpiredReign and some others that the looks of so many atolls is a bit much, so I look forward to the 20% reduction.

And, I actually think having that many atolls has had another side effect: the game can't find anywhere to place the Great Barrier Reef. In the half dozen maps or so that I generated last night, I couldn't find the Great Barrier Reef anywhere. Normally this wouldn't be so surprising since the Natural Wonders that spawn are random, but I've been playing with an edited AssignStartingPlots.lua that is set to (try to) spawn all 17 Natural Wonders, regardless of map size. Before trying out the Communitas map, I would see the Great Barrier Reef most if not all of the maps that I played with this change. I think that there just isn't a location for the Great Barrier Reef in the Communitas map because there are so many atolls. This is just conjecture though.

 

[albie_123]

Regarding the above post - anyone else seeing Uluru in every single game?

Also, unrelated, but Thal, your spot on Modcast was great! Always awesome to hear how a master works his craft, especially in regard to the community.

Where you said "the process of seeing other people playing what you've made having fun and having a good time is very rewarding" - from my own limited experience in modding (other games than Civ), this rings so true, and it's definitely the case with this mod that we're having fun and having a good time.

 

[Tomice]

Here's a Communitas map with the terra option. Terra starts the major civs on the largest continent (Eurasia).

If you play the normal Continents-style game, the Atlantic splits the world in two. Terra shifts the Atlantic so a third of the land is in one part, and two thirds are in the other part, more like Earth.

"Eurasia" on this map has 8 civs and 4 citystates. "Africa" and "Australia" have 5 citystates, and an isolated landmass has 2 citystates. The "Americas" have 5 citystates, 3 natural wonders, 2 of every luxury resource that appeared on the map, and many strategic resources.

Oh sorry, I didn't understand what you meant! I thought you make civs start on all landmasses east of the "Atlantic" ocean. I didn't get that you literally mean "largest continent".
In other words, the distribution algorithm I had imagined would have placed 12 CS's in the "Americas" instead of 5 as it is actually the case.

False alarm, sorry. Should have followed the golden rule: Test first, comment later
_________________

In other respects, this map improves naval gameplay so incredibly much, it's awesome! The sheer amount of islands, peninsulae, mediterranean-style bodies of water, alternative shallow-water passages,... really makes you want to have a decent navy. And when the seas start to crawl with ships from various nations, it adds a ton of flavor. Really, really good job!

 

[Thalassicus]

I replaced some isles with fish in the next version. Isles no longer appear near tundra, snow, or ice. More fish appear there instead. Tropical regions will look mostly the same, while polar areas have fewer isles. Hopefully this compromise is acceptable.

I also redesigned the vanilla fish-placement method to increase variety between cities. Places now favor land or sea. Areas with low land value will see more water bonuses, and vice versa. This will automatically balance any changes in isle frequency or other terrain variation in the future.



Also... when anyone would like something to change in the project, please give me a chance to consider options, instead of saying you will to go back to vanilla. I'm very reasonable and listen to feedback. I might not always respond right away, because of time constraints, but I always take things into consideration for future plans.

 

[shaken]

I replaced some isles with fish in the next version. Isles no longer appear near tundra, snow, or ice. More fish appear there instead. Tropical regions will look mostly the same, while polar areas have fewer isles. Hopefully this compromise is acceptable.

If my theory that the Communitas map script couldn't find any areas for the Great Barrier Reef is true, then this will likely mean that I'll see the GBR near polar areas because it won't be able to fit it into tropical areas. The GBR being in polar areas would be odd, I think. I'm not sure how far you've gotten in your implementation / testing of allowing the user to set the number of Natural Wonders, but it may be worth testing NaturalWonderCount = 17, and seeing where / if the GBR spawns. I will likely be doing some testing of this tonight, and with the new map script if it is posted before then.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

@Gothic_Empire
That's very odd. I don't have a clue how I'd figure out what might cause a weird terrain square like that. I haven't seen it happen in the hundreds of test maps I've created, so it's probably rare enough we don't need to worry about it.

 

[Qwynn]

I'm just glad I wasn't the only person bothered by the atoll being everywhere! Definitely feel the changes in the next version are going to be an improvement, mmhmm.

And I really do think it's a graphical thing. Yes, isles are everywhere in the real world like that, but something about just having so many of those little things spattered around the map was distracting.

Anyways, we shall see when the upload gets done. ;3

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Huge terra maps feel *way* too big. Thal, you mentioned that you had the terra setting increase the map size. Is this compounded in some way on a huge map? I tried a game with 16 civs and still had plenty of early expansion room.

 

[stackpointer]

Huge terra maps feel *way* too big. Thal, you mentioned that you had the terra setting increase the map size. Is this compounded in some way on a huge map? I tried a game with 16 civs and still had plenty of early expansion room.

The default sea level settings are at low. So if you feel there is too much land then try raising it. Or did you mean that the starting continent is too big?

Wait, terra increases map size? I guess that makes sense since you have all the civs on the same continent.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

I'll give it a shot with high sea levels and see if that's a significant difference, Stackpointer. =)

 

[stackpointer]

I'll give it a shot with high sea levels and see if that's a significant difference, Stackpointer. =)

No, you're right. Depending on how much the map size has been increased, the amount of land available could be increasing exponentially.

Here are the mapsizes from the code:

	local worldsizes = {
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = {40, 24},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = {56, 36},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = {66, 42},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {80, 52},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = {104, 64},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = {128, 80}
		}
	if Map.GetCustomOption(1) == 2 then
		-- Enlarge terra-style maps
		worldsizes = {
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = {52, 32},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = {64, 40},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = {84, 52},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {104, 64},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = {128, 80},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = {152, 96}
		}
	end

EDIT: It looks like Terra increases the map size by 43%. So each civ should still be working with less land than if you had started a non-terra map on huge. Do you feel like there's too much space to expand on non-terra huge maps too?

 

[Thalassicus]

I copied the map sizes from the Terra map script. I recommend playing on standard sized maps. Most computers can't handle huge maps.

I've seen the great barrier reef in several of my test maps. The problem is they designed its placement algorithm wrong, and I don't think maps alone can fix it. I did fix it for people using the full Cep mod.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

No, you're right. Depending on how much the map size has been increased, the amount of land available could be increasing exponentially.

Here are the mapsizes from the code:

	local worldsizes = {
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = {40, 24},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = {56, 36},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = {66, 42},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {80, 52},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = {104, 64},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = {128, 80}
		}
	if Map.GetCustomOption(1) == 2 then
		-- Enlarge terra-style maps
		worldsizes = {
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = {52, 32},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = {64, 40},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = {84, 52},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {104, 64},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = {128, 80},
		[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = {152, 96}
		}
	end

EDIT: It looks like Terra increases the map size by 43%. So each civ should still be working with less land than if you had started a non-terra map on huge. Do you feel like there's too much space to expand on non-terra huge maps too?

It's nothing that adding more civs won't fix. =) I think I just prefer crowded games.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Most computers can't handle huge maps.

Huh. Does it increase turn times or something? I've never really noticed a difference between huge, large, and standard aside from, obviously, the bigger maps having more stuff.

 

[Thalassicus]

Placing all major civs on one continent without increasing the map size can create capitals 5 tiles from each other, with no room to build new cities until optics. This happens if the main continent is less than about 25% of the total land area on the world. I saw it in about one fifth of the one-continent maps I created. This is why I use the larger map sizes from the vanilla terra map script.

Huge maps require more memory, and civ can freeze or crash if it encounters memory problems. This happened often while testing this map. While testing, I often regenerate the map, and if I regenerate a standard sized map 20+ times without exiting to the main menu it crashes civ, because it doesn't completely clear up memory between each regeneration. I even had it bluescreen my whole system once. It's more likely with huge maps. I suspect it could also happen if you save-and-reload a huge map a bunch.

 

[Qwynn]

I've actually found I crash significantly less now that I'm using the Communitas mapscript. Perhaps it's just optmized better than the original PW3 was, but even on huge I can play for hours at a time without encountering the crashes I used too.

And really, when I select huge as a setting, I want it to be huge. I often find the default maps too small, even on huge. :<

Communitas has a good size, though. Sometimes I even want bigger. Eheh.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Let me try and clear the air here. (I may have caused a stink)

@albie_123, @mitsho
Thanks guys but my comments were not made because I don't like, or know of, small islands. I do live in Tasmania!

[albie_123. Technically atolls are very different to islands but I'm not going to argue over that, just saying.]

It is just a case of the graphical representation.

@stackpointer
Thanks for the code.

@Thalassicus
Sorry I sounded off like that. I should have exercised more restraint.
I simply said it because I didn't want this map script to be bogged down in a pointless discussion about the number of atoll graphics.
I say pointless, because as far as I can tell, only me and @Qwynn had an "issue" with it.
So why should you have to spend time trying to appease two users when everyone else is fine with it.
You very nicely made mention of your 'time restraints'. That is precisely what I am on about. I tried to look at alternatives, as my posts will show, such as using resources instead or trying different graphics but came to see the effort involved for such a minor issue was unwarranted.

My end decision is in no way a slight against your work. You are exceptional in your skills. I will still use CEP and contribute in whatever way I can.

I will also now d/l the new map and see how it looks.