I think I understand why AssignStartingPlots.lua misbehaves the way it does. The fallback code consistently uses this logic, where X increases as you pass more validity checks:
Code:
if(validity test fails) then
bValid = false;
else
local iFallBackScoreTemp = X;
if (iFallBackScore <= iFallBackScoreTemp) then
pFallback = pTempPlot;
iFallBackScore = iFallBackScoreTemp;
end
end
The apparent intent is to choose the plot that passes as many checks as possible, if it's not possible to pass all of them.
I think the <= comparison is the root cause of the problem. The game checks plots from best (very fertile) to worst (arctic wasteland). Using <= to check the validity score means that the game will keep updating the fallback when validity scores are tied between two plots. Roughly speaking, that means it will choose the
worst possible tile that hits a given validity score. If the problem is that there is not enough room left between civs, it will effectively throw the remaining civs together in the arctic.
If my suspicion is correct, then probably the easiest fix is to replace all of those <= tests with < tests instead, and increase all of the X scores by 1.
hopefully someone will reupload it.
