Continents

[Ram]

I've thought of something: how come, every time you play in 'continents' landscape, the two continents are perpendicular to each other (one continent on the right and one on the left of the map)? Even without arguing about the possibility of a three-continents world, why won't there be two continents horizontal to each other - streching from east to south, one above the other? This would be really innoative.
Which reminds me: I'm now playing in a game, where there are two continents - and in the larger continent (my civ lies at the smaller) there is a mediterranean-like sea - a big sea (with ocean squares) in the middle of the continent, with Gibraltar-like passing! This is really cool, and I was very surprised when I first saw it - I never knew that the Civ III map generator is capable of producing such complicated things!

 

[Chieftess]

I've seen games where one continent is over another. I had one where there was a circular continent in the north, and in the south was this stretch of land wrapping completely around the map!

 

[Ram]

Cool! Can you post a pic of it?

 

[Chieftess]

I don't have that save anymore...

 

[JonathanValjean]

Originally posted by Ram
This is really cool, and I was very surprised when I first saw it - I never knew that the Civ III map generator is capable of producing such complicated things!

Yes, the Civ III map generator deserves nothing but the highest praise. It is a marvel!

 

[china444]

I happen to think also the Civ3 map generator is a Marvel.
one time my land was like this:
L-land
W-water
wLLLLwwwwLLLLw
wLLLLwwwwwwLLL
wLLLLwwLwwwwLw
wLwwwwLwwwwLw
wLLLLLLLLLlwwLLLLL
wwwwwwwwwwwww

thin stretches ALL OVER!

 

[Strider]

I had one game where there was a huge lake in the middle of the continent and the lake had a small 7-square island in the middle of it. I thought it was pretty cool.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

the map generator get better the more average and the larger the map is (i.e. tiny archipelago with lots of land sucks, huge continents with all average is good.

Try the editor and create 362x362 maps - you'll be surprised!

 

[wilbill]

Originally posted by Ram
two continents horizontal to each other - streching from east to south, one above the other?

Had one like that several months ago with a passage between the continents no more than 4 tiles wide at any point. It turned out to be the most naval-intensive game I've ever played as Hammurabi (Southern continent) and I both decided to invade the other. At one point he had 4 or 5 carriers, 10 or 12 BB's, and loads of DD's and transports. I built a city on the coast that I didn't really need just to base bombers to keep his navy in check.
When the map generator outdoes itself with a really interesting world, I think the quality of the game turns out better because of the good map features.

 

[BiatchGuy]

yes, the map generator is AWESOME

a minor gripe I have though, is that "archipelago" maps with a lot of land end up being continents a lot of the time. Archipelagos are awesome.

 

[Bose]

One of the best games i've ever had was a huge pangea map, with 3 two tile choke points on it, two of them with mountains in the middle of them... made for interesting wars

 

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by BiatchGuy
a minor gripe I have though, is that "archipelago" maps with a lot of land end up being continents a lot of the time.

The map generator can run quite easily out of space with that kind of settings. You can circumvent this by increasing map size and decreasing the land percentage, e.g. instead of "standard + 60% water" choose "large + 70% water":

100 x 100 x 40% = 4,000 land tiles
120 x 120 x 30% = 4,320 land tiles

Amount of land is about the same but now the map generator has more room for the islands.

Or was large 140x140? Anyway the principle stays the same...

 

[Hygro]

I had a really, really cool map with one huge contenant with 3 giant lakes in it, plus many small continents in neat ring shaps and such.

On a somewhat related note, can you import saves into the map editor?

 

[Grille]

Originally posted by Pembroke

The map generator can run quite easily out of space with that kind of settings. You can circumvent this by increasing map size and decreasing the land percentage, e.g. instead of "standard + 60% water" choose "large + 70% water":
100 x 100 x 40% = 4,000 land tiles
120 x 120 x 30% = 4,320 land tiles
Amount of land is about the same but now the map generator has more room for the islands.
Or was large 140x140? Anyway the principle stays the same...

On the other hand, you can get a 3-continents map (std. size) map actually set to pangea.
But I agree, bigger maps are much more related to initial settings than smaller maps are.
(worst thing so far: no gems on standart-sized map)

 

[Renata]

I had a fun game where I had chosen random settings (8 civs) on a standard size map - turned out to be high water (80%). Anyway, all 8 civs were crammed into one continent running north/south on the eastern side of the map, with three medium sized (say 2-4 no-overlap cities each) islands scattered about the western half, all uninhabited. I had Germans and English breathing down my neck from the north and Persians and Greeks squeezing me in from the south. Pretty wild. I managed to grab six cities (about the average) at the outset - the Zulus only managed 4! - which I was pretty happy with, considering my jungle-choked capital. Still, it's the first (and only, to date) game I've played that required unusual measures to get the Forbidden Palace pop-up. I had to run a settler up north with my first galley, hoping to find an island to settle, which I did, and shortly after that a badly-placed English city flipped to me.

Wound up winning with 20,000 culture in 2020 or so, although I could have had any of the other non-histograph victories considerably sooner.

Renata

 

[Baleog]

Expanding on Lt. 'Killer' M.'s advice may I suggest 362*362, 80% water, archipelago. These have the greatest potential in my opinion for producing Earth like maps. I may post one or two later.

 

[farting bob]

i prefer pangea, 362x362 60% water, max civs.
every civ has lot sof cities, many civs never actually see the coast, let alone sail. i did once, and landed right on the coast. this gave me abig advantge when i got map making. just kept on making settlers and spearman, then shipping them to one of many partsstil not seen then build ships withthese cites andgo evenfurhter etc.
but my most intersting formation has to be one with a whole island litrally overed with jungle. germans started there and when i meet them, they were so inadvanced i just had to whipe them out!

 

[Baleog]

Here's such a map. To give an idea of the dimensions involved I'll post a picture of the south west island. This'll also show how the isolated civs aren't as bad off as in a standard sized map.

 

[Baleog]

(Probably most that rice and wheat won't be available till medicine or genetics, so they don't have it that good).