Question about Fractal Maps

[Marshall Thomas]

I've always played on huge, Terra maps with 18 civilizations. But even on emporer, the AI just doesn't send enough settlers to the "new world" to compete with a human player. So I've decided to switch map types. What are fractal maps like? If I play on a huge, fractal map with 18 civs- will there still be some islands or other territories to colonize once astronomy is discovered? I really like the idea of over seas colonies. It's not only historically accurate(especially for England, France, Spain, and Portugal), but it leads to many interesting situations and colonial wars. On Terra maps, it's just way too easy for the one human player to colonize at least half of the new world. That's a lot of cities- and once you have that many the game is basically over. My hope is that fractal maps allow for many historically accurate colonizations. Would anyone please offer some opinions on this? What is the difference between fractal and continents maps? What do you prefer? Thanks in advance.

 

[StarWorms]

I prefer fractal, although I am now trying the custom continents one. Fractal produces a few large islands, which I like. If there are 6 players I'd rather there were 2 islands with 3 on each or 3 islands with 2 on each. I did however play a game on fractal where 5 of the 6 were on 1 giant island and then 1 was left on an island of its own. On the last game, which I am still playing I chose custom continents, 6 players and 3 continents. On the downside, I got stuck with Montezuma but I think it should turn out to be a good game.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Even on Fractals there is little chance to have a colonization period. The only thing we can hope is a mod or a scenario in Warlords about it, like the absolutely genius one in Civ3 Conquest.

The only way to play a colonizatio nwould be to arrive on a new continent with backwarded civilizations. this cannot happen much as every civ is improving on its own.

Now it would be interesting to understand why America Indians were so backwarded in comparison of European countries, and translate that into the game.

It reminds me the Industrial era and the Antic Greece golden age: why did this happen? It would be cool to see this translated in term of game. But we would have to think about the real thing before. Any idea?

Without thinking to this, we could however imagine a kind a global golden age, affecting all the civilizations of a continent. Or we could imagine a communication factor, improving the tech research of every civ according to the number of civ it is in contact with. For example, if your civ is in contact with 4 other civs, the tech research is multiplicated by 4! (turn off tech trade eventually) It would sure backward an isolated civ and eventually make a colonization situation possible. What do you think?

 

[troytheface]

i read a post someone had about Fractal maps so i tried it out. I have not played anything else since. The formation and bonus distribution seem more realistic.

 

[Rambuchan]

I played a huge fractal map, with 16 civs or so, and found that everything you ever wanted in terms of colonial scenarios, as per the OP, took place.

Note: this was on a much lower level than my usual (prince rather than civ3 monarch) as it was only my second civ4 game.

 

[naterator]

fractal maps can be unpredictable. usually you get 2 or 3 large islands, all having 1 or more civs. i've seen a few "snakey pangea's" , even one that stretched all the way around the world, creating separate north and south oceans! my last one was me and elizabeth on a banana shaped island that was covered in jungle. spain had it's own island, and the other 4 were on the big island. i managed to circumnavigate the world in a workboat! i've seen a few maps where i could've started a colony or 2 on small islands, but it's not reliable. i try to colonize someone else's entire empire, not empty space, though. takes less working of the land afterwards.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I just learned that the simple fact to be in contact with another civilization in Civ4 was enhancing the research... So I guess that in harder difficulty levels, you could really reach backwarded civs on other continents particularly with fractals, unless it is you who are backwarded and you play an American Indian leader.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

If I play on a huge fractal map with 18 civilizations, would there be at least two large continents with several nations on each? I just can't imagine that there would ever be nine continents with two civs on each. Also how is a fractal map any different than a continents map? Thanks

 

[naterator]

perhaps this is what you're looking for?
i'd call fractal basically a crap shoot. you still might end up alone on an island, but you could also end up on a pangea. usually pangea fractals have unusual shapes with many chokepoints, unlike a regular pangea.

edit:
the link is from the original release, it's been changed in the patches. i believe that the old continents script is now called fractal, with the new continents script producing 2 big, ugly blobs of land.

 

[Naokaukodem]

With Fractal I usually get two continents and some isles. But it can be also several isles or a pangea. You can't say really, but what is sure is that is a lot more diversified that any other map: continent forms will be irregular, etc... with this you have the feeling of Civ2, what I like very much.

Now if you want 2 civs on each of nine islands, just try a large or huge island map with 18 civs.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Very occasionally on a fractal map, you will get a nation that has a large landmass to itself, but no contact with anyone else until optics, and thus will almost certainly be techologically backward.

This is as close as you can get get to a "colonization phase", but actually means a war often comparable to say Spanish vs Incas, although this scenario is relatively rare, as fractal more often than not produces 2 continents with very few islands.

 

[gdgrimm]

A couple of weeks ago, I started looking into fractal maps. What I did was start a fractal map game, went to worldbuilder to see what the layout was, then went back to the normal screen and clicked 'rebuild map'. This allowed me to quickly see how dozens and dozens of games would have started, without having to actually go through all the start screens.

I suggest doing something similar yourself, to make sure you like what you see.

Personally, I loved what I saw, and I won't play anything else again.

I saw some pangea like starts, with everybody on one contigious land mass and nothing but a few small, worthless islands elsewhere. I saw starts with 2 medium size continents and an equal spread of civs, but also with a couple of good islands that couldn't be reached without Astronomy. I saw starts with large land mass and all civs starting there, but one other land mass of reasonable size elsewhere (very similar to Terra). I saw starts that looked very archipelago-like, lots of small islands and land masses with each civ on their own, but some 'reachable' via galleys.

I even saw one start where if the player had started on the island, he/she still might have had a good chance of winning. There were about 4 large islands that could be settled with an Astronomy bee-line, which would have given that civ a much larger empire than any of the civs crowded on the medium sized continent would have by the time the slow AI got around to researching Astronomy.