Customize World

[nickthehun]

Just a quick silly question: What do the different options on customize world lead to? I have a general idea except for with Age which doesn't seem to change very much.

Land Mass: Small, Normal, Large
Temperature: Cool, Temperate, Warm
Climate: Arid, Normal, Wet
Age: 3 Billion Years, 4 Billion Years, 5 Billion Years,

 

[Theov]

age means the landscape
3B is rocky, 4B is the world as you know it 5B is mostly hills and flat lands

 

[Tristan_C]

I cannot crack open the game files, so instead I took a peek at a bunch of maps at one point and it seems that contrary to conventional wisdom, 3 has fewer mountain seeds than 5. River seeds, the number of landmasses and the overall amount of land, as well as the forest, plains, and desert seeds, all appear identical.

 

[nickthehun]

Thanks Tristan C. The pictures on the customize page indicate that a young planet is rocky and it smooths out with age, but after 17 years of gameplay I just didn't see a difference.
Will the temperature setting affect terrain type (desert, grassland etc) and climate setting, the number of rivers, swamps?

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

age means the landscape
3B is rocky, 4B is the world as you know it 5B is mostly hills and flat lands

I am sorry to disagree but the age of the planet has no effect on the total number of squares with mountains or hills or any other kind of terrain type.

An older planet means that erosion has modified the soil for longer so you will get a more mixed landscape with smaller areas of similar terrain type (small desert regions, small rivers, etc.).
A younger planet means a less eroded planet so the result will be a planet where areas have more continuity - for example, a young planet will have bigger mountain areas than an older one as well as large deserts or wet lands.

However, the total amount of each terrain type is not affected by this option, just the way they are distributed throughout the map.

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

This subject was also discussed here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=417653.

 

[Theov]

I am sorry to disagree but the age of the planet has no effect on the total number of squares with mountains or hills or any other kind of terrain type.

An older planet means that erosion has modified the soil for longer so you will get a more mixed landscape with smaller areas of similar terrain type (small desert regions, small rivers, etc.).
A younger planet means a less eroded planet so the result will be a planet where areas have more continuity - for example, a young planet will have bigger mountain areas than an older one as well as large deserts or wet lands.

However, the total amount of each terrain type is not affected by this option, just the way they are distributed throughout the map.

alright

 

[Moosgruber]

It seems that the landmass selection is pretty random, when I select small, I sometimes get a small island and sometimes a huge continent. Is there any way one can influence this?

 

[Tristan_C]

It seems that the landmass selection is pretty random, when I select small, I sometimes get a small island and sometimes a huge continent. Is there any way one can influence this?

As you say, it's random. The options just push the odds around. Even large continent maps have their share of islands. There are generally 7-15 land masses on them.

I am sorry to disagree but the age of the planet has no effect on the total number of squares with mountains or hills or any other kind of terrain type.

An older planet means that erosion has modified the soil for longer so you will get a more mixed landscape with smaller areas of similar terrain type (small desert regions, small rivers, etc.).
A younger planet means a less eroded planet so the result will be a planet where areas have more continuity - for example, a young planet will have bigger mountain areas than an older one as well as large deserts or wet lands.

However, the total amount of each terrain type is not affected by this option, just the way they are distributed throughout the map.

That's definitely what it says when you go to customize world and press ALT-H.

I suppose I can see why a 5 map is rockier. The way the engine breaks up terrain appears to be subtle. Giant mountain range seeds are on all the maps regardless of age, and their size is definitely not affected by the age. There also appear to be seeds for tracts of forest, plains, desert, arctic. Their size, also, does not vary with age (but perhaps their frequencies vary with climate/temperature). However, whatever logic is there to make sure the planet doesn't resemble a patchwork quilt of solid seeded terrain, it appears to me to do more randomization on a 5 map than it does on a 3. So you will get mountains sticking up out of the grass, and random swamps and deserts jumbled together.