Any chance to add some MP option or version? Also some civs started of very isolated which is fun and flavorful, but quite boring in MP.
Sephi, I'll send you a PM on this in a day or two to see if you want to test it. I have redone the starting plot code completely (more on that in a bit) and I now have some possibilities regarding placement in MP games.
The new starting plot selection code is substantially faster than the old version. Previously this process too between 30-50 seconds depending on the map and now it takes about 1 second per player (faster on smaller maps). So even with all of the bells and whistles turned on it's generating large maps with 9 players in about 45 seconds for me, or about twice as fast as before.
What I do now is completely ignore yield values as defined in the XML files since I don't have to worry about supporting a wide range of mods like I would with a base Civ4 map I can make some very safe assumptions about the terrain values. The process now is much less complex, I cycle through every land plot that isn't a peak and record the data for that plot and the 24 surrounding plots (terrain type, plot type, bonuses, etc). This has the advantage of automatically culling low value plots like small islands and plots with too many peaks nearby so I no longer need to check for those cases.
Finally, each player runs through the full list of available plots and assigns a value to them based on their defined preferences compared to the plot's stored data. Once a player picks a plot they mark the surrounding plots as invalid for subsequent players to chose, the distance this covers depends on the civ's defined neighbor value. Anyway, it's fast because I build the surrounding plot data once per plot instead of assigning one value once per plot and then evaluating the surrounding plots again once per player.
The good news is that the results are MUCH better at the same time. For example, in 10 tests as the Malakim every single start was a on riverside plot in the desert, not just near river but actually ON the river.
Now, the fun part is that this allows me to expand starting plot selection rules easily. I can adjust plot values per player based on the physical location in the world for example. So it's possible to define a civ preference for 'north' and they will value plots towards the north end of the map more than otherwise equal plots in the south. So, imagine if you will taking two civs with identical preferences and having one prefer northern placement while the other prefers southern placement. This will work exceptionally well for some civs like the Doviello, I can use this to place them in the northern section of the map without burrying them deep in the tundra. Other possibilities include using the distance from the map center or edge, altitude data or even temperature and rainfall. Since these can all be applied in addition to the normal preferences it means that they'll always have a decent starting location and if possible they can be placed in a specific region of the world, no more cheap hacks using bonus types (which doesn't really work on single continent maps anyway). And, speaking of bonuses, yes I can do the same thing for bonus placement... might be fun to encourage mythril to apear closer to the map's center, iron closer to the edge, bananas in the east, dye in the west, etc.
So, expect 2.50 to be released very soon and with it some new (better) starting locations and less time staring at the 'Initializing' window when you start the game.
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
I evaluate every potential start, ignoring flavor entirely, for food, production and commerce using values from XML and including the bonuses already placed. I actually start with every possible city plot on the whole map, fliter out all of the ones that are too close and then delete the worst half of them. Once I have that list of decent city locations the civs run through those and pick the one they like most based on their flavor preferences. Each time a civ picks a start location they effectively delete all of potential starting plots around them (modified by their neighbor value). This last step can potentially remove some very good starting locations but since proximity is so important I want to make sure everybody has enough room to expand at least a little.
