[GUIDE] Map scripts

[civplayer33]

oil should be in the subtropics and boreal climates

Just as a little note: Venezuela is a tropical country and has the largest known Oil reserves; other large reserves are located where forests used to be many millions of years ago but aren't anymore (see some of the Arab countries); Russia also has large Oil reserves and there the latitudes are again very different.
Since it seems that most Oil was generated from trees that lived 100s of millions of years ago, which is a time span that is large enough for plate tectonics to change entire continental shapes and locations, as well as climatic effects to change entire landscapes, it's not really that simple to make a rule about where the Oil should be.

/smart-ass out

 

[Kim Dong Un]

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.

I understand there is specific execution behind the island formation, but there were a few instances I saw in testing that were just flat out crazy. It's not enough evidence from just a couple games, so I'll give it another shot.

Thank you though, for tending to my nitpicking, and I look forward to having the resource issue addressed in the future! Will boot up a few games later to have a look at the tweaks and let you know.

 

[JMA2286]

Just as a little note: Venezuela is a tropical country and has the largest known Oil reserves; other large reserves are located where forests used to be many millions of years ago but aren't anymore (see some of the Arab countries); Russia also has large Oil reserves and there the latitudes are again very different.
Since it seems that most Oil was generated from trees that lived 100s of millions of years ago, which is a time span that is large enough for plate tectonics to change entire continental shapes and locations, as well as climatic effects to change entire landscapes, it's not really that simple to make a rule about where the Oil should be.

/smart-ass out

Not saying there would be no oil at all in the tropics, just that it would be in small pockets, like an odd Venezuela, Nigeria, etc. The subtropic and boreal climates are where the clear majority of oil is on Earth though, so it's a safe rule to make.

 

[civplayer33]

Not saying there would be no oil at all in the tropics, just that it would be in small pockets, like an odd Venezuela, Nigeria, etc. The subtropic and boreal climates are where the clear majority of oil is on Earth though, so it's a safe rule to make.

Yes, but it's not a huge majority; about half the countries in the top 15 proven oil reserves are not subtropical. I just hope that Oil isn't going to be clustered around certain latitudes too extremely.

 

[MorphBer]

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.

Stupid question incoming: so right now I replace the original Communitas file in the VP maps folder with this right? Is tehre a way to add it to the maps (by calling it communitas+ or something)

 

[JMA2286]

Yes, but it's not a huge majority; about half the countries in the top 15 proven oil reserves are not subtropical. I just hope that Oil isn't going to be clustered around certain latitudes too extremely.

It won't be too heavy, probably 70% subtropical and boreal, 30% tropical and temperate.

 

[tu_79]

I've tweaked your map settings to this, and finally I got a game where I could settle 8 progress cities (I was faster than my neighbours):

    mglobal.hillsBlendPercent        = 0.75 -- Chance for flat land to become hills per near mountain. Requires at least 2 near mountains. Default 0.45 (I like more hills near mountains)
    mglobal.coastScatter            = 0.06     --Recommended range:[0.01 to 0.3] Default 0.09
                                            --Higher values result in more islands and variance on landmasses and coastlines. (Having a bit less islands increases settling room in continents
    mglobal.riverRainCheatFactor    = 2.00    -- Values greater than one favor watershed size. Values less than one favor actual rain amount. Default 1.25 (There were too many small rivers)
    mglobal.fishTargetFertility        = 80    -- fish appear to create this average city fertility Default 60 (Still very few fishes)

        [GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {99, 65},

 

[Kim Dong Un]

I've tweaked your map settings to this, and finally I got a game where I could settle 8 progress cities (I was faster than my neighbours):

    mglobal.hillsBlendPercent        = 0.75 -- Chance for flat land to become hills per near mountain. Requires at least 2 near mountains. Default 0.45 (I like more hills near mountains)
    mglobal.coastScatter            = 0.06     --Recommended range:[0.01 to 0.3] Default 0.09
                                            --Higher values result in more islands and variance on landmasses and coastlines. (Having a bit less islands increases settling room in continents
    mglobal.riverRainCheatFactor    = 2.00    -- Values greater than one favor watershed size. Values less than one favor actual rain amount. Default 1.25 (There were too many small rivers)
    mglobal.fishTargetFertility        = 80    -- fish appear to create this average city fertility Default 60 (Still very few fishes)

        [GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = {99, 65},

Thanks Tu! Will try it out later.

 

[doublex55]

Any update for resource distribution?

 

[ryanmusante]

@doublex55 As in this?

I dded a mapscript called "Communitas (rev)".
It guarantees Horse, Iron and Oil resources by default.
Default

-- Add mandatory Iron, Horse, Oil to every start if Strategic Balance option is enabled.
if self.resource_setting == 5 then

My tweak

-- Add mandatory Iron, Horse, Oil to every start if your Resource setting is Standard (Default).
if self.resource_setting == 2 then

 

[black213]

I think he refers to Communitas' very generous (other than fish) resource distribution.

 

[Rekk]

Even sparse communitas has more resources than a standard game (aside from fish).

 

[MorphBer]

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.

I tried this and there were alot of Mountains and deserts so there was very little space to settle. Only 1 try though and sweden and mongolia next to me (Austria) so I quickly abandoned that game.

 

[MidnightAfterglow]

Question / Feature Request: I use the Reseed! mod to preview maps and regenerate them until I get one that I like without having to back out to the main menu and sit through all the loading to reinitialize all of the mods and make a new game every time (easily about 5-10+ minutes worth each time). But when I attempt to do so with the Communitas script, the mod gives this error:

Spoiler :

I don't know what it means to "include the map into the VFS" and there is no .civ5mod file to edit (the mapscript has only a .LUA file as far as I can tell). Would one of you code-literate individuals be so kind as to explain what I need to do in order to allow Reseed! to work with the Communitas script, or "include it into the VFS" (whatever that means)? Would be greatly appreciated.

 

[civplayer33]

Question / Feature Request:

Don't know if this will work, but you can try setting the appropriate flag in the modinfo file of CP.
That means: go into your MODS folder, open the file "(1) Community Patch (v89).modinfo" in the "(1) Community Patch" folder and change the "0" in the line

    <File md5="450848E5D345F2D9155411567E7D5238" import="0">Mapscripts/Communitas.lua</File>

to a "1" (after the "import=").

 

[MidnightAfterglow]

Don't know if this will work, but you can try setting the appropriate flag in the modinfo file of CP.
That means: go into your MODS folder, open the file "(1) Community Patch (v89).modinfo" in the "(1) Community Patch" folder and change the "0" in the line

    <File md5="450848E5D345F2D9155411567E7D5238" import="0">Mapscripts/Communitas.lua</File>

to a "1" (after the "import=").

That did the trick. Thanks.

It has been quite a while since I've used this map script, but has Communitas always been so devoid of Jungle tiles or is this a new change? I re-rolled numerous maps with different climate settings (usually setting rainfall to "Wet" with "Temperate/Hot" temperature generates extensive jungle regions in other map scripts). Seems like no matter what settings I chose, there were only a handful of jungle tiles on the map, and most of those were restricted to chains of islands.

 

[civplayer33]

That did the trick. Thanks.

It has been quite a while since I've used this map script, but has Communitas always been so devoid of Jungle tiles or is this a new change? I re-rolled numerous maps with different climate settings (usually setting rainfall to "Wet" with "Temperate/Hot" temperature generates extensive jungle regions in other map scripts). Seems like no matter what settings I chose, there were only a handful of jungle tiles on the map, and most of those were restricted to chains of islands.

You're welcome; haven't used the new Communitas yet, as it's been updated in VP very recently (in the latest version of CP/VP). I did see some jungles with the old version, though.

 

[MidnightAfterglow]

You're welcome; haven't used the new Communitas yet, as it's been updated in VP very recently (in the latest version of CP/VP). I did see some jungles with the old version, though.

Indeed. The update is what got me interested in trying it again.

 

[tu_79]

Something I noticed is that other map scripts generate bigger patches of uninterrupted forest/jungles, while here, the geostrophic thing makes funny shapes near mountains. It's like mountains could dry up a region to the west and make it rain more to the east, which is very earth-like, actually, but prevents the whole area to be covered by the same trees. Maybe it makes harder to place three sawmills together?

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Something I noticed is that other map scripts generate bigger patches of uninterrupted forest/jungles, while here, the geostrophic thing makes funny shapes near mountains. It's like mountains could dry up a region to the west and make it rain more to the east, which is very earth-like, actually, but prevents the whole area to be covered by the same trees. Maybe it makes harder to place three sawmills together?

*Sighs* yes, the map is currently unbalanced for gameplay, but nobody wants to listen to me I guess. Even read the issues in the 2/17 thread about people already complaining they've had to restart games half way through because they discovered invulnerable Inca with 50+ mountains. Then you have the resource issue and too many snaky continents (plus user Black213 having to again suggest bumping land% to allow for more settling room with standard settings); now we apparently have lack of grouped jungle/forest...

I really want a proper Communitas, but until it's fixed there are going to be posts about people wondering WTH is up with the new Communitas update. I'm all for the realism attempt, and JMA has done fine work, but it's a fine line. Personally, all the other stuff is secondary to the resource issue (although some people like Swagolo enjoy it), but a poster had mentioned it would take a lot more work than they're willing to do to fix it.