Does "play now" generate random map or pick one from the stocks?

[tempuraki]

I just finished a game as the American, then I decided to try the Chinese, clicked on single player -> play now -> same options as last time except as Chinese -> begin... and guess what? Exact same starting location! I scouted the area with my units and everything in the 10 tile radius is exactly the same! I then restarted a new game and this time got a different map.

Has anyone run into this before? I thought maps are randomly generated, but this made me believe that the game just picks a stock map from somewhere? The only other explaination I can think of is that somehow the random number generator was reset and spitted out the same stream of random seeds and created the same random map...

 

[Stumpyguy]

I've had exactly the same thing when I first got the game. Me and my friend were playing together as the same civ (not touching hotseat until the patch), you get some interesting disagreements doing things this way. Man with the mouse nearest him= man with most control (almost got me to know all the shortcut key ) Anyhow, he went out, so I started a new game on play now, and although i was a different civ, exactly the same starting location on the same map. So i chose custom game, and it was the same again, chose same map type. Restartiung solved this, and havent had the same problem since. Probably generated randomally and saved in cache and cleared on restart. Although the map seemed very well designed, (for ex. I had a one other civ on my continent with the only tile between mine and his starting location a mountain, made for a fun war). This was a large continent we were on. Maybe there are many stock maps that are used. This map sound familiar to anyone (know noone will know for sure but I havent got the save file to give a more accurate description)

 

[Astax]

On custom I had same map roll more than once it was tiny continents. Funny thing is I ahd same map roll agian and agian with different number of opponents. The kicker is that the special resource tiles where different with mroe players. Also a lake tile wasnt there when I had 3 players instead of 2, which I found facinating. Sometimes the random seed can be preserved. I think it happens when you do soemthing like exit a game without ending it perhaps, or just close the application (Not sure what the exact circumstances are). Then if your settings are the same it will roll same map :/

All in all I played on the same map like 6 or 7 times. After which I retired from tiny continents for multiplay and use Duel balanced now, because the stupid continent map dissadvantaged one player. Of course I rolled one particular Duel Balanced map 4 times as well. With 1 v 1 and with 2 v 2, ladder yeilding different resource tiles, and I think a little different jungle distribution.

 

[Sadan01]

They both should generate a random map, in my experience.
FYI --> Take a look at this post for more info for dealing with problems like this:

A description on playing with settings..

You can also clear out the Civ4 game cache as I have heard that works too.

 

[Shillen]

This sounds like a problem with the "play now" option. I never use that option. I always use custom game and have never gotten the same map twice, nor have i seen a screenshot posted with the same map as any of my games. I've played 20+ games.

 

[Astax]

Shillen as I said it happens in custom aswell. There is no difference between the map generators. Problem is with the random seed being preserved or maybe reverting to a defualt seed if a crash has occoured. Random seed is kept in civ4 to discourage reloading, but it shouldnt be carried over to the next game.

 

[Calantyr]

I can confirm this. I have Civ4 installed on two computers at home (actually it runs without any crashes on my 700MHz machine, but every 20 mins on my 3 Gig. Slightly annoying. But anyway.)

The first time I played Civ 4 on both computers witch exactly the same settings I got the same map on both. Same map, same start position. Open up the world builder and same resources, etc etc.

Slightly odd to say the least.

 

[Shillen]

I can confirm this. I have Civ4 installed on two computers at home (actually it runs without any crashes on my 700MHz machine, but every 20 mins on my 3 Gig. Slightly annoying. But anyway.)

The first time I played Civ 4 on both computers witch exactly the same settings I got the same map on both. Same map, same start position. Open up the world builder and same resources, etc etc.

Slightly odd to say the least.

With play now or custom?

 

[Zhahz]

I mostly use play now and my map randomness seems just fine.