[Map Script] SmartMap

[surt]

Get it from the topic main post.

# 8.3
# Tweak tundra, snow, desert picking process to make more likely on small maps.
# Add new separation override to allow absolute control of continent separation.
# More rivers sourced from hills if there are few peaks.
# Added options for central, edge, and corner sea to the ocean selections to
# generate that style of map. Particularly, if you enjoy the 'central sea'
# map style, you can now generate that with SmartMap.
# Tweak resource rates to make whales not quite so common, and to address other
# resource rate comments reported.
# Place resources in placement order to try to prevent good map positions from
# being taken by resources placed in wrong order.
# Added SmartMap New World placement option. This will prefer to place civs
# only on continents in the eastern hemisphere. This option will default
# to ordinary smartmap placement if there are not at least 2 continents, or if there
# is not a continent at least 90% of which is located in the western hemisphere.

 

[jray]

# Added SmartMap New World placement option. This will prefer to place civs
# only on continents in the eastern hemisphere. This option will default
# to ordinary smartmap placement if there are not at least 2 continents, or if there
# is not a continent at least 90% of which is located in the western hemisphere.

Cool!! I was just thinking the other day that it would be fun to play New World ("Terra") with your script. Thanks for adjusting the resources & rivers too!

Here's another idea, just in case you don't have a to-do list for 8.4 yet . Add a "variable world size" option that randomly picks either the requested size, one size smaller, or one size larger. You could have different options like 1 1 1 (to give a 1/3 chance of each), 1 2 1, etc., or even something like 1 2 3 2 1 (to allow size to change by 2 levels, making original choice most likely). I wonder if it might be possible to put the weights in an .ini file or something to increase the number of possibilities.

I just think it would be fun to have a slight chance that the world is either a little smaller or a little bigger than you expected!

 

[Bringa]

This continues to be by far the best mapscript out there. Thank you for all the work, surt (I haven't played a non-smartmap script in a very long time).

One question (although this may smack of abuse/cheese): do you think you could add an option to disable deserts? I remember another mapscript where you had the option to turn deserts into plains/grass (similarily for tundra).

 

[surt]

This continues to be by far the best mapscript out there. Thank you for all the work, surt (I haven't played a non-smartmap script in a very long time).

One question (although this may smack of abuse/cheese): do you think you could add an option to disable deserts? I remember another mapscript where you had the option to turn deserts into plains/grass (similarily for tundra).

I've been thinking about how to allow things like this. I dearly wish a map script could offer checkboxes in the ui, as it seems like a tremendous waste to offer a whole dropdown for something like this.

I'm considering putting a bunch of easily configurable options at the top of the script for people to edit if they want something somewhat unusual like this. Do you think that would suffice, or does editing the smartmap.py file a little bit seem like too much of a hassle?

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

Too much of a hassle for most of us.

 

[A Silly Goose]

I've actually been wondering if it's possible to use Python to create UI components for such things; you know, something like the Python Utility Library, but for UI-related stuff. Unfortunately, I can't really do more than wonder about it, since I have no knowledge or experience regarding Python.

 

[`DG`]

I've been thinking about how to allow things like this. I dearly wish a map script could offer checkboxes in the ui, as it seems like a tremendous waste to offer a whole dropdown for something like this.

I'm considering putting a bunch of easily configurable options at the top of the script for people to edit if they want something somewhat unusual like this. Do you think that would suffice, or does editing the smartmap.py file a little bit seem like too much of a hassle?

The only real reason why not IMHO is wether it's worth your time, assuming both that the options wouldn't make it otherwise. Some (i.e. those interested enough) having access to options is always going to be better than none.

Just needs the usual good documentation.

 

[jray]

One question (although this may smack of abuse/cheese): do you think you could add an option to disable deserts? I remember another mapscript where you had the option to turn deserts into plains/grass (similarily for tundra).

Nah, it's not abuse or cheese-- it's why Surt made such a flexible script for us!

One thing to keep in mind is that deserts tend to be required for Oil and Incense to spawn. (I think there may be other correlations too, such as Gold). When disabling deserts, we'd want some sort of workaround to get enough of these resources on the map.

 

[oljb007]

surt:

downloaded your map script cause i grew very quickly tired of "square-boring continents" Yours is awesome, however and forgive me if this has been answered as I haven't searched this thread thoroughly; but I have played two games on prince and the AI has just obliterated me. However, on the same level of play with standard normal maps I win! I am usually the biggest civ and near tech leader. With the smart map, however, I am am dead last in everything.

anybody else noticed this, surt?

also what was the conclusion about stone and marble, its everywhere. or can we set the resource distribution back to

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

I have also experience that sometimes. I usually play on noble with goody huts and resources on maximum to make things a bit easier for me, but it makes it easier for the AI too. Or maybe I'm just not good at the game anymore after I took a break from it.

 

[surt]

surt:

downloaded your map script cause i grew very quickly tired of "square-boring continents" Yours is awesome, however and forgive me if this has been answered as I haven't searched this thread thoroughly; but I have played two games on prince and the AI has just obliterated me. However, on the same level of play with standard normal maps I win! I am usually the biggest civ and near tech leader. With the smart map, however, I am am dead last in everything.

anybody else noticed this, surt?

also what was the conclusion about stone and marble, its everywhere. or can we set the resource distribution back to

If you don't like the smartmap resource distribution, there is 'standard' under resources.

If the AI is crushing you, that is harder to explain. Smartmap does only 2 things that I would think could possibly affect this:

1) The maps are slightly larger, based on the assumption that smartmap uses more ocean than a normal script. If you are using less ocean, you may be offering the AI more land to work with.

2) The resource distribution. It may be that the AI is making better use of the way resources are distributed (in particular, if you are not using one of the clump happy/health options, it could be possible that the AI is taking some significant advantage of that). I would recommend trying either 'standard' resource distribution, or the clump healthy & happy option to see if your problem goes away.

 

[jray]

If the AI is crushing you, that is harder to explain. Smartmap does only 2 things that I would think could possibly affect this:

I think there are more possible reasons, and that they're positive ones . I've noticed that even small variations from the vanilla Civ4 map script can have huge effects on strategy. It's chaos theory in action.

First, what SmartMap settings are you using? Not that this matters a whole lot, because even the default SmartMap settings (especially pre-8.3) are quite different than a vanilla script. The terrain is generally more favorable, resources are distributed more equally and clumped a lot less, etc. Surt summarized some of this in the previous post. You can set things like terrain, features, and bonuses to "standard" within SmartMap to revert back to vanilla script behavior.

Even with a vanilla-esque game, you can just have lously luck! Maybe that's what happened in those 2 games of yours. Most noticeable in the bad luck category is bad starting position. Let me tell you about my current game as an example: I started out with only three resources in my capital's fat cross, two of them spices and incense (both worthless until Calendar!). England started out with FIVE CLAMS in its fat cross, plus 1 or 2 land resources (can't remember which), and it has Fishing as a starting tech! This happened with the "Clump Both" setting, which lets the vanilla script handle happy/health resource placement. I have seen similar things happen in standard vanilla games too.

Anyway, IMHO it's awesome to get such variation. It helped me recognize certain ruts that I had gotten into with my strategy, since the vanilla game doesn't challenge you to vary as much. Now I can go back to vanilla games and do much better than before, because of things I've learned on SmartMaps. Yeah, there have been plenty of times I've been pounded into dust within a few centuries on a SmartMap, but even then I learned a few neat things as I took some crazy chances while casting myself into extinction. There are other times I had great starts and dominated the world like nobody's business! But mostly I've had games in between where some interesting new quirk presents itself that challenges yet another aspect of my "solid" strategy.

 

[AvianAvenger]

Just wanted to say supperb map script , i set everything to random and got the most insane looking map ive ever seen, it was absolutly brilliant.

I was getting sick of the standard average looking maps.

Most noticeable in the bad luck category is bad starting position.

...offtopic but anyway, my worst bad starting position was in the middle of the antartic... with a few hills and a small river. about 3 patchs of grass. all i could do was watch the barbarians come across the ice feilds which i was surounded by and destroy any progress i had made... never the less it was one of the most memorable games ive had to date.

 

[gunnergoz]

I like the map generator but the fact is that I'm tripping over marble and rock at every turn. How does one tone that down? The AI's are killing me by jumping on that resource with greater efficiency than I can muster and then getting all the early wonders...

 

[oljb007]

thanks for the feedback.

I may try changing some of the settings back to "standard" but as jray has mentioned it does challange you to "adapt" I am by no means going to stop using this script as it is awesome.

I'm goign to try it again.

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

Hey surt, I have another suggestion. I started a game as the England (fishing, mining) but the map put me in the middle of the tundra with no ocean in sight, so my free Fishing technology was useless.

Could you add an option so that you can choose if you start on the coast or not? Maybe have 1 option so only you the player is guaranteed to start there, and the AIs start in random spots, another option so that you are guaranteed to start inland and the AI starts in random spots, an option so that everyone starts inland, and another option so that everyone starts along the coast.

 

[Mortador]

Hi,

I've been playing CIV 4 for a while now. Although I enjoy very much the scenarios that are included in the game I woud appreciate at this point to be able to play my own customized map. For instance I am moslty interested in playing very HUGE custom map (ex. 256 by 256 size map).

I am sure that some of you out there already know how to modify the necessary XML files in order to play with that kind of map. Could someone help me by telling me the name of the XML files I have to modify in order to play a 256 by 256 map for example.

Thanks for anyone who could help me on this.

Mortador

 

[surt]

Hi,

I've been playing CIV 4 for a while now. Although I enjoy very much the scenarios that are included in the game I woud appreciate at this point to be able to play my own customized map. For instance I am moslty interested in playing very HUGE custom map (ex. 256 by 256 size map).

I am sure that some of you out there already know how to modify the necessary XML files in order to play with that kind of map. Could someone help me by telling me the name of the XML files I have to modify in order to play a 256 by 256 map for example.

Thanks for anyone who could help me on this.

Mortador

You can do this with smartmap. Set the override width and height to exactly what you want.

Otherwise, if you prefer to use the civ scripts, you need to create a mod containing Civ4WorldInfo, and edit that. Also, you have to edit some of the scripts, because they override the world info (usually in a method called getGridSize).

All in all I think using smartmap is a lot easier.

One thing to note, is that a 256x256 map in civiv takes a lot of memory. You probably won't be able to play on such a large map unless you have 2gb of memory.

 

[Mortador]

To Surt,

Thanks for the info , I will try it as soon as I can. I already downloaded your Smartmap utility.

Mortador

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

Surt, did you take my idea about coastline/inland placement into consideration?