Loving Tectonic (version 3.17 maps)

[jkp1187]

Though it's supposed to simulate tectonic formations, I'm really not seing that much evidence of such on my world (as per attatchments). Still great maps though.

Huge, 18 civs, temperate climate, medium sea.

Gosh, those continents all look like they fit together (plate tectonics-style) to me....

 

[josephstalin]

I kinda do not like it. I put in all normal settings, tiny and it spit out an Antarctica-like continent and some small islands and that's it. I will stick to others.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Islands option gives too much water and not enough islands. The last game I played was random leader on islands, and luckly I got the biggest island. Like twice as big as anyone else with 4 very good cities and 4 not so great filler cities, and I nabbed the only uninhabitted island for like 5 more cities. So its kind of imbalanced.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

After playing around with tectonic islands, I've found it keeps giving me a couple of Japan-like isles and afew Cuba's, with far too much empty sea. Hard to play on standard size with 12 civ's! Earth-like 60% water seems to give me the most consistent balance that I like. If the abruptness of fertile land hard next to ice disturbs you, just take the ice option off.

Got a game going and found the tectonic feature works well for some strategic developments; though I found I could get similar results playing 'global highlands/ridgelines'.

I'm playing as Hannibal. Quickly wiped the Indians, got their holy Budda city.
Only me and Mongol mates are Budda. The noted infidels are all Hindu. The infidels are all constantly waging war on me. My Mongolian 'close friends' are allowing them to funnel through his territory to attack me with huge stacks. I repeatedly ask Ghengis to stop letting these hatemongers through, but he says they are all good religious friends (go figure!).

I can't handle constant war with basically all 4 of the Hindu zealouts. My traitorous friend won't help either, and with a vassal, is pulling away....
Then, after close map inspection, I see the enemy all have to funnel through this 1 square gap on the Mongol border. I immediately change from a passive home defence and beat them back to this vital pass. It is there I make my stand, with a stack of my best modern units on the hill, soaking up the waves and delievering me endless generals. Shame the AI has'nt bothered to bypass my hard crust and simply land troops by boat into my soft, gooey core!
But this tectonic feature shows how subtle it can influence game maps. Like in the real world, it helps shape and influence nations boundries. The odd single mountain tile can be ignored; is a waste of a productive tile to most players, or is probably a Holy Mt. But a wall of mountains, now that's another kettle of fish!

 

[SwordofStriker]

Yeah I love that there are actually a couple new map scripts out there that now have mountain ranges and will invariably leave you with very narrow choke points like the one in the pic above. The Creation map script is another good one.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Mountains organized into ranges is my favorite part of tectonics for that very reason.

 

[AngryZealot]

I'll have to play another game on this script, but my first experience was pretty good. I love the way it feels like a real planet instead of a bunch of randomly chosen tiles. That said, it feels too much like a real planet; the huge swaths of unusable plains are pretty annoying. Perhaps they could be beefed up with more food resources. I also found 7 elephants all bundled next to each other. That might be realistic in a way, but it doesn't make for good gameplay.

 

[Tatran]

Has anyone played using random hemispheres maps?

I'm playing 99% of the time this type of map with only the amount of continents (2-6) random with 11 civs.
Best map so far, not much tundra and ice tiles, there's a chance you start isolated (6 continents),
sometimes you need colonies and you always need Optics/Astronomy to discover the other continent(s).

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

So this script affects in no way the earthquake locations? It looks good and I will try it, but to bring in the actual tectonics mechanics into it would be cool.

 

[CMKMStephens]

So this script affects in no way the earthquake locations? It looks good and I will try it, but to bring in the actual tectonics mechanics into it would be cool.

I hadn't thought about it before, but my aforementioned tectonics game gets a hell of a lot of volcano eruptions.

 

[Jewman]

i dont like how it keeps giving me like 2-3 normal sized continents completely separated by tons of water.
and a few islands. a few of which are trapped in ice....
i like "big and small" maps much better. alot better.

 

[LDiCesare]

So this script affects in no way the earthquake locations?

No it doesn't. All peaks are located at plate borders or hotspots, though, so you could say volcano events are influenced by plate tectonics.
Apart from that, it's just a map script, it doesn't affect the game past the map creation phase.

 

[dowski]

Yep, this is a great script. I like the "random" earth generation and the 60% and 70% water variations. Like others have said, islands generates too few islands and too much water.

I haven't patched yet but I have been using it in 3.13. What changes are in the version included in 3.17?

dowski

 

[King Flevance]

I'm playing 99% of the time this type of map with only the amount of continents (2-6) random with 11 civs.
Best map so far, not much tundra and ice tiles, there's a chance you start isolated (6 continents),
sometimes you need colonies and you always need Optics/Astronomy to discover the other continent(s).

Cool thanks Tatran I just found this one recently. I used to play nothing but fractal, but it became a little too predictable for me I think. SO far I am liking alot of the maps I am getting.

Do you have patch 3.17 and tried out tectonics yet? Which do you prefer if so?

 

[Tatran]

Do you have patch 3.17 and tried out tectonics yet?

Yep and nope. The devastating barbarians are back, that's good, but
I'm worried about the new Global Warming system after reading some comments.
I've to roll a lot of starts to see if the Tectonics map is as good as the Hemispheres maps.

 

[Stoney the I]

is there a difference between the tectonic map script downloadable at this website and the one included in 3.17?

If so, i like it after trying the downloadable one, but i regenerate often to get rid of the really funky worlds that are to ....uniform in nature. i mean, come on, stuff like 20 by 25 squares of plains or forests? no rivers no hills just .... flat land. feels like yr playing in holland on a 1 to 1 scale.

if the 3.17 version is a bit different is it downloadable seperatly somewhere?
i dont want to patch yet since i modded a few things and i dont wanna do it again at the moment. (thesis in progress , no time and not in the mood for tedious XML editing as of yet)

 

[Bast]

The one thing I hate about this map is that there are too many plains and not enough rivers.

 

[NintendoTogepi]

The one thing I hate about this map is that there are too many plains and not enough rivers.

I've noticed way too many rivers actually. I got a city with 15 river tiles in a recent map.

 

[mike p]

I started a game last night using this script and didn't like it at all. Probably because the map gave me a 3 corn, one gem, 2 sugar start with copper in the third ring. Using Gilgamesh on Emperor this leads to quick dying German neighbors.

I quit fairly early and it also looked like the main continent wrapped all the way around the map. There was a small strait between ends of the continent, but you could still circumnavigate on foot.

I don't see the appeal of this map, frankly.

 

[dowski]

I started a game last night using this script and didn't like it at all. Probably because the map gave me a 3 corn, one gem, 2 sugar start with copper in the third ring. Using Gilgamesh on Emperor this leads to quick dying German neighbors.

I quit fairly early and it also looked like the main continent wrapped all the way around the map. There was a small strait between ends of the continent, but you could still circumnavigate on foot.

I don't see the appeal of this map, frankly.

You shouldn't rule it out too quickly. I'm sure you'll get some much worse starts that will make you happy.

dowski