[GUIDE] Map scripts

[JMA2286]

I played around with new settings and made some more adjustments.

1) Changed the degrees to latitudes to 90 and -90 from 70 and -70. Turns out my degree latitudes for the 4 regions were right, but the total latitudes were not. Whoops, American geography at its finest. I also brought in more accurate tundra and arctic/antarctic latitudes.

This makes a big difference: 70 range was 31% tropics, 18% subtropics, 39% temperate, 12% ice. The 90 range is now 24% tropics, 13% subtropics, 36% temperate, 26% ice. There is a lot more cold land, which can vary even more depending on how far north and south the land spawns in. The scarcity for ideal climate will make warfare even more likely.

2) Bumped up fish fertility by 20 from 40 to 60. This made fish spawn more often, consistently.

3) Bumped up desert and jungle spawn percentages, but for jungle to be more likely than desert. This is the best way to get the intended biodiversity, because I experimented with increasing feature % and that actually eliminated deserts completely. The minimum temperatures make it so that the range of jungle and desert spawns are limited, and also that tropical jungles take precedence over subtropic deserts. We don't want Brazil to look like the Maghreb right?

 

[black213]

I played around with new settings and made some more adjustments.

1) Changed the degrees to latitudes to 90 and -90 from 70 and -70. Turns out my degree latitudes for the 4 regions were right, but the total latitudes were not. Whoops, American geography at its finest. I also brought in more accurate tundra and arctic/antarctic latitudes.

This makes a big difference: 70 range was 31% tropics, 17% subtropics, 39% temperate, 11% ice. The 90 range is now 24% tropics, 13% subtropics, 36% temperate, 31% ice. There is a lot more cold land, which can vary even more depending on how far north and south the land spawns in. The scarcity for ideal climate will make warfare even more likely.

2) Bumped up fish fertility by 20 from 40 to 60. This made fish spawn more often, consistently.

3) Bumped up desert and jungle spawn percentages, but for jungle to be more likely than desert. This is the best way to get the intended biodiversity, because I experimented with increasing feature % and that actually eliminated deserts completely. The minimum temperatures make it so that the range of jungle and desert spawns are limited, and also that tropical jungles take precedence over subtropic deserts. We don't want Brazil to look like the Maghreb right?

Do you think increasing the amount of land with your settings would cause anything out of the order? I appreciate your effort but I prefer having the land percentage around 40%.

 

[JMA2286]

Is there a Pangaea map option? I forget if there is one in Communitas.

If not, one of the global edits you can make to the file is land percentage. Earth has 29% land, but if you want to add more go for it. The reason I did it like that is because:

• Realism is the theme I'm going for. If Earth had 60% land, I'd put that as the setting.
• More water means navy matters more than it would on Pangaea
• There's enough land on Eurasia (37% of total land) for land warfare to matter still. The map actually cannot spawn land until it reaches that threshold for Terra. I'd try that out if you haven't already.
• Terra means colonization and protecting trade matters more too. Can't win diplomatic victory without at least doing an impression of the British / Spanish Empire
• Tradition / Artistry / Rationalism has more value on a Terra map too. Can't really justify that when there's a huge frontier for everyone.

 

[tu_79]

Is there a Pangaea map option? I forget if there is one in Communitas.

If not, one of the global edits you can make to the file is land percentage. Earth has 29% land, but if you want to add more go for it. The reason I did it like that is because:

• Realism is the theme I'm going for. If Earth had 60% land, I'd put that as the setting.
• More water means navy matters more than it would on Pangaea
• There's enough land on Eurasia (37% of total land) for land warfare to matter still. The map actually cannot spawn land until it reaches that threshold for Terra. I'd try that out if you haven't already.
• Terra means colonization and protecting trade matters more too. Can't win diplomatic victory without at least doing an impression of the British / Spanish Empire
• Tradition / Artistry / Rationalism has more value on a Terra map too. Can't really justify that when there's a huge frontier for everyone.

Cramped start is an Authority start in my book

 

[JMA2286]

Cramped start is an Authority start in my book

Yep, let them settle for you then take it from them with buffed soldiers lol

 

[Kim Dong Un]

@JMA2286 After playing a couple games, I can say that I enjoyed your changes to Communitas. Only thing I'd have to say is that it heavily favors a Tradition/Authority start. Due to the reduced land, civs seem to be sitting around 4 founded cities (standard size) throughout the first half of the game, when they would normally be around 5-8. This hurts Progress and early expansive play, and gives way to some imbalance. Maybe a slight nudge to something like 35% land would be sufficient, but if not, then can you tell me exactly how to increase the land percentage, or if it would cause any other problems or imbalances?

 

[tu_79]

@JMA2286 After playing a couple games, I can say that I enjoyed your changes to Communitas. Only thing I'd have to say is that it heavily favors a Tradition/Authority start. Due to the reduced land, civs seem to be sitting around 4 founded cities (standard size) throughout the first half of the game, when they would normally be around 5-8. This hurts Progress and early expansive play, and gives way to some imbalance. Maybe a slight nudge to something like 35% land would be sufficient, but if not, then can you tell me exactly how to increase the land percentage, or if it would cause any other problems or imbalances?

Hey, I was going to say the exact same thing!!

There's just room for 4 cities per civ, but VP is balanced for around 6 cities per civ. This way, Progress civs get to settle 8 to 10 cities before clashing. I like the shapes, I like the hot/cold distribution, but I got little luck with mountain chains, everything looks too plain.

 

[black213]

@JMA2286 After playing a couple games, I can say that I enjoyed your changes to Communitas. Only thing I'd have to say is that it heavily favors a Tradition/Authority start. Due to the reduced land, civs seem to be sitting around 4 founded cities (standard size) throughout the first half of the game, when they would normally be around 5-8. This hurts Progress and early expansive play, and gives way to some imbalance. Maybe a slight nudge to something like 35% land would be sufficient, but if not, then can you tell me exactly how to increase the land percentage, or if it would cause any other problems or imbalances?

If you open up the script file and scroll down just a bit, you'll see a line responsible for land percentage. Adjust number to your liking, I played around with it and ended up with 40% personally.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

If you open up the script file and scroll down just a bit, you'll see a line responsible for land percentage. Adjust number to your liking, I played around with it and ended up with 40% personally.

Thank you. Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary when you bumped it to 40%? Or is it smooth sailing from there? It's 40% land in vanilla communitas is it not?

 

[black213]

It's close to original values, slightly less. Didn't see anything peculiar happen

 

[tu_79]

I think it is better to just change map size. This way, proportions are still like Earth alike, but there will be more space. Most maps have an inline where it says how many tiles X*Y have each map size. We need to increase this by 50%, so we could increase each coordinate by 22%, roughly.

 

[JMA2286]

Yep, I would go to Large map size and it will be better. Standard makes it where Old World Terra map is very Authority and Tradition heavy.

Of course, if you do Continents then you don't have to worry about it, because each hemisphere will have plenty of space with 4 civs.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Yep, I would go to Large map size and it will be better. Standard makes it where Old World Terra map is very Authority and Tradition heavy.

Of course, if you do Continents then you don't have to worry about it, because each hemisphere will have plenty of space with 4 civs.

So you're saying I should try Large Communitas, but still using just 8 civs (standard)?

 

[tu_79]

So you're saying I should try Large Communitas, but still using just 8 civs (standard)?

Beware, some variables depend on map size, so playing a large map selecting 8 civs will not behave the same as an enlarged standard map.

I think it's just better to modify this:
function GetMapInitData(worldSize)
print("GetMapInitData")
local worldsizes = {
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = {38, 26},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = {54, 36},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = {66, 44},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {76, 50},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = {84, 56},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = {92, 62}
}

by these values, extracted from PerfectWorld3 mapscript:
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = {42, 28},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = {50, 36},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = {60, 42},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {80, 56},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = {100, 70},
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = {120, 84}

This is roughly 30% bigger, so instead of 4 cities, there should be room for 5.

 

[JMA2286]

I didn't think of simply expanding the map slightly, that's actually a good solution. Going a full size bigger is definitely too much, I'll work on implementing that right now.

Updated the base map sizes by adding 30% to the base map size, and 40% to Terra sizes. There's a 30% bonus you get to the total map size for doing a Terra map in the original file, but I moved that over to the base while still adding slightly more than base for Terra.

There should be a lot more map now. Might need to be dropped down actually let me know how that works for yall.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

There should be a lot more map now. Might need to be dropped down actually let me know how that works for yall.

Yea just tried it, I think it might be a bit too big now for standard size. All good though, maybe just a tad smaller. Sorry, I'd adjust it myself if I knew how.

Edit* - After testing on a few more game starts, I realize that too much land is being used on unnecessary 1-3 tile islands that are essentially being spammed all over the map. The land distribution is off, in that sense.

Spoiler :

I also realized why I stopped playing Communitas a while ago, and that is because of the overly abundant resource distribution. Even with sparse resources turned on, I noticed no difference. This is truly my main gripe with this mapscript, and ultimately is the reason why I'll just stick to Continents if the resources problem can never be addressed.

 

[vyyt]

Yes, @ExpiredReign tweaked the map script long time ago and it should have been using the standard resource distribution, but I have serious doubts about it.

This and the maze of 1-tike wide channels between the continents on more crowded maps (is this still happening?) were the main reasons why I stopped using Communitas long time ago.

Seeing itsi being worked on again, I am intrigued to try it again.

 

[civplayer33]

FWIW I'm using the Communitas from the November VP version and resources, especially Aluminum, Iron, Uranium are kinda scarce and Oil isn't exactly overabundant either; I had to expand aggressively multiple times to get what I needed (first for Iron, then for Aluminum and Oil). Just one data point though.

 

[tu_79]

Yea just tried it, I think it might be a bit too big now for standard size. All good though, maybe just a tad smaller. Sorry, I'd adjust it myself if I knew how.

Edit* - After testing on a few more game starts, I realize that too much land is being used on unnecessary 1-3 tile islands that are essentially being spammed all over the map. The land distribution is off, in that sense.

Spoiler :

View attachment 515405 View attachment 515406 View attachment 515407 View attachment 515408 View attachment 515409 View attachment 515410

I also realized why I stopped playing Communitas a while ago, and that is because of the overly abundant resource distribution. Even with sparse resources turned on, I noticed no difference. This is truly my main gripe with this mapscript, and ultimately is the reason why I'll just stick to Continents if the resources problem can never be addressed.

I think this can be tweaked here:

function GenerateIslands()
    -- A cell system will be used to combine predefined land chunks with randomly generated island groups.
    -- Define the cell traits. (These need to fit correctly with the map grid width and height.)
    local iW, iH = Map.GetGridSize()
    local iCellWidth = 10
    local iCellHeight = 8
    local iNumCellColumns = math.floor(iW / iCellWidth)
    local iNumCellRows = math.floor(iH / iCellHeight)
    local iNumTotalCells = iNumCellColumns * iNumCellRows
    local cell_data = table.fill(false, iNumTotalCells) -- Stores data on map cells in use. All cells begin as empty.
    local iNumCellsInUse = 0
    local iNumCellTarget = math.floor(iNumTotalCells * 1)
    local island_chain_PlotTypes = table.fill(PlotTypes.PLOT_OCEAN, iW * iH)

Change this
local iNumCellTarget = math.floor(iNumTotalCells * 0.5)

EDIT.
I see a global variable that might be related:

mglobal.coastScatter            = 0.09     --Recommended range:[0.01 to 0.3]
                                            --Higher values result in more islands and variance on landmasses and coastlines.

Maybe lowering this, reduces islands.

About island having that many resources, that's intended.

 

[JMA2286]

The script builds island chains like how it is in SE Asia and the Pacific, so that's pretty Earth-accurate IMO.

The resources is something I'd have to work on for a bit before updating, because ideally I want to make it where resources spawn in the right climate. For example, oil should be in the subtropics and boreal climates primarily, horses in temperate and subtropics, iron and coal primarily in hills, coffee in the tropics, etc.

In the meantime, this file has 15% more land on standard map settings and 30% more on Terra. I had a feeling 30% and 40% was too much, and that appeared to be the case.