Resource placement on different map scripts

[ExpiredReign]

I have raised this point before in a discussion about monopolies but I thought I'd provide some facts to support my stance.
Additionally this can be used to refute an oft mentioned fallacy about the Communitas map script.

I've created a Google spreadsheet that shows a modest sample of three maps for each of the following map scripts:
Continents (vanilla map script)
Continents++
Communitas

I then revealed the entire map via FireTuner and using the Monopolies UI to grab the total # of each strategic resource I then also counted each tile for that resource.
The conclusion I came to is this:
Communitas is a poor choice for Vox Populi considering the way resources are placed, especially with regard to their number in most cases.

Despite assertions by some that Communitas creates MORE resources, I found that it is closer to 50% of the number created by both Continents and Continents++.
Significantly though, and the main reason I have dropped it as my main map script, is the fact to get the same amount off resources you need to work twice as many tiles. This is because it caps the number of each resource available on each tile, 4 for Iron & Oil and 5 or 6 for Uranium & Aluminium.

If needed I can generate more maps and other scripts to add to the sample if you desire, though I doubt it will matter that much.

Planet Simulator, my current favourite, was not used but as it is based on Continents++ the figures should be very similar.

 

[Funak]

First of all, your spreadsheet is locked and can't be viewed without asking for permission .

Second, I've played a whole lot of communitas map and I've never had a game where I couldn't afford both factory and seaport with plenty of coal left to spend while on ovals and pangaea (don't play continents) I rarely have enough to build a building per city. I've also never suffered any iron or horse shortage on the communitas map, despite that happening every few games on oval/pangaea.
I'm not saying that you're lying, but with how many hours I've logged into both maptypes I can definitely tell that something is different. I guess it could just be the resources being more evenly spaced or something along those lines.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Fixed the link. Duh! must publish the spreadsheet to have it viewed. Damn Google changing things on me all the time.

I purposely picked the three scripts because they are similar map types. Ovals and pangaea aren't at all like Communitas so it's like apples and oranges. If your view of Communitas is based on a comparison to those scripts no wonder it's skewed.

BTW I also am not saying your lying, just that we need some quantifiable data to make a determination.

I'll run a few pangaea to see how they compare.

EDIT:
Just ran a few pangaea and they produce pretty similar quantities to vanilla continents, so not some much "apples vs oranges" as "green apples vs red apples"

 

[Estebanium]

I don't understand what your investigation shows? Isn't it also required to investigate different pre-settings for ressources? I for example always use "Don't scale ressources with players", because I like to fight and trade for ressources. So what is a problem for you, is normal for me.

 

[albie_123]

I'm really glad you did this, it does make sense to me personally. I've always felt that resources are considerably harder to come by in Communitas, unsure as to how anyone could have suggested otherwise.

It's still my favourite mapscript though, purely due to its awesome lakes, seas and mountain ranges.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I don't understand what your investigation shows? Isn't it also required to investigate different pre-settings for ressources? I for example always use "Don't scale ressources with players", because I like to fight and trade for ressources. So what is a problem for you, is normal for me.

Each map was generated with the 'Resource' option set to 'Standard'. It doesn't make any sense using different options because they all allow for changes in the same manner.

The problem is the default settings which most users will go with. Simply put the Communitas script does not generate the correct amount of strategic resources as the parent scripts it comes from (Continents -> Continents++ -> Communitas).

Just looking at iron, you will NEVER see a tile with more than 4 in Communitas but with the others it is not uncommon to see a cluster of 6* tiles within a city's range. Thus establishing, and maintaining a monopoly is much harder on Communitas.

I haven't tried that option but I'd imagine the same sort of issue exists. Communitas's "Don't scale with player" will produce much less than the other map scripts with the same option chosen.

My initial question posed in the previous thread was about how @Gazebo designed the monopolies and corporations. If he designed it based on the placement in vanilla scripts then the percentages are skewed against the player in Communitas maps, ie. you need to work twice as hard to establish and keep a monopoly with that script.

 

[wobuffet]

Thanks for the good work here, @ExpiredReign!

 

[notque]

I'd like to know how to get more luxuries to work with map scripts. Hellblazer's maps are very interesting and cool, but don't generate the additional luxuries.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I'd like to know how to get more luxuries to work with map scripts. Hellblazer's maps are very interesting and cool, but don't generate the additional luxuries.

Just grabbed a copy of those maps and the simple answer is they use custom lua files to generate the resources:
ContFeatureGenerator.lua
ContAssignStartingPlots.lua
ContMapGenerator.lua

The lua in the map generation would need to be edited to use the vanilla lua instead, but that will most likely break the entire process.

 

[Funak]

Just out of curiosity, I've noticed that the AI tend to do really poorly when dealing with weak 10-20 tile inland seas, they spawn by them and start filling them with worthless melee-ships. Also having a coastal capital tend to lead them to favor settling more coastal cities, and since these inland-seas count as coast, the AI gets shafted by spawning near them.

Anyways to the question, where in the process is it determined if a body of water should be a lake or an inlandsea? From my observation the cap seems to be 9 tiles of lake (10 tiles makes a sea), but I'm mostly wondering if it's something that needs to be changed on map-level or on main-mod level.

Also Ovals tend to always get frozen north and south seas, and since that area is fairly big (and navies not being able to move properly tend to confuse the AI) I was wondering if it was possible to just remove all ice from a mapscript (I'm aware that I could do this ingame with IGE)

 

[IcyAngel]

Each map was generated with the 'Resource' option set to 'Standard'. It doesn't make any sense using different options because they all allow for changes in the same manner.

The problem is the default settings which most users will go with. Simply put the Communitas script does not generate the correct amount of strategic resources as the parent scripts it comes from (Continents -> Continents++ -> Communitas).

Just looking at iron, you will NEVER see a tile with more than 4 in Communitas but with the others it is not uncommon to see a cluster of 6* tiles within a city's range. Thus establishing, and maintaining a monopoly is much harder on Communitas.

I haven't tried that option but I'd imagine the same sort of issue exists. Communitas's "Don't scale with player" will produce much less than the other map scripts with the same option chosen.

My initial question posed in the previous thread was about how @Gazebo designed the monopolies and corporations. If he designed it based on the placement in vanilla scripts then the percentages are skewed against the player in Communitas maps, ie. you need to work twice as hard to establish and keep a monopoly with that script.

I prefer smaller stacks, personally. Not much strategic depth to settling on a cache of 8 uranium, the sole source on your continent, and keeping the fort. I'd much rather multiple civs have the opportunity to get strategic resources, since they are so strong and can help you get back into the game. And if you want a monopoly so bad, ready your weapons!

But that's just me.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Just out of curiosity, I've noticed that the AI tend to do really poorly when dealing with weak 10-20 tile inland seas, they spawn by them and start filling them with worthless melee-ships. Also having a coastal capital tend to lead them to favor settling more coastal cities, and since these inland-seas count as coast, the AI gets shafted by spawning near them.

Anyways to the question, where in the process is it determined if a body of water should be a lake or an inlandsea? From my observation the cap seems to be 9 tiles of lake (10 tiles makes a sea), but I'm mostly wondering if it's something that needs to be changed on map-level or on main-mod level.

Also Ovals tend to always get frozen north and south seas, and since that area is fairly big (and navies not being able to move properly tend to confuse the AI) I was wondering if it was possible to just remove all ice from a mapscript (I'm aware that I could do this ingame with IGE)

The definition for a lake is in the DLL side of things. IIRC it is a global define that is 9 or less contiguous tiles of water.
Technically it could be changed, but I'm not sure it is needed.

 

[Funak]

The definition for a lake is in the DLL side of things. IIRC it is a global define that is 9 or less contiguous tiles of water.
Technically it could be changed, but I'm not sure it is needed.

I do realize that changing it to maybe 19 or even 25 would make some starts a whole lot stronger, but after watching NotQue's AI vs AI matches it's really clear that these inland-seas are destroying the AI. (also with the lakes capping out at 4f 1p with an aqueduct they aren't exactly so powerful that they'd break the game, at least I don't think so).

Seriously we still haven't seen a single civ spawning near an inland-sea ever winning a match, it's like a crazy statistic.

 

[vyyt]

This is an interesting topic. I never really thought too much about the logic behind the resource placement and distribution in different map scripts. I used to play on the Communitas map exclusively and my experience was that I was always swimming in strategic resources in contrast to the standard map scripts.

I suspect the reason is that I like huge crowded maps and Communitas adjusts the number of resource sites to the number of players differently from the other scripts. I switched to the PlanetSimulator and while I usually get enough horses I always get only very few iron sites. I always have to think hard if I focus on Canons or Frigates, I never have enough iron to create both strong fleet and artillery - which is fine and fun to me.

The main reason why I abandoned (temporarily?) the Communitas map was that with my settings, the continents were too close to each other, often separated just by a very long 1-tile wide stripe of sea. So there was no Terra Incognita and no need to race to the ocean-faring advanced ships. A related problem was that if a rival civ founded a city on the shore of the stripe dividing the continents, they cut off the passage, often locking you to some sort of inner sea. I never tried lowering the number of civs, but I suppose it would help me with this problem, as I have not seen such complaints by other users. Apparently, huge crowded settings create strategic resource disbalance as well.

I quite like the PlanetSimulator, but what I don't like about it is the numerous worthless 1-2 tile islands in the middle of nowhere. I have to say I quite enjoyed exploring and finding juicy locations with resources for new settlements in Communitas. I rarely feel this same kind of excitement with the Continents and other standard scripts.

 

[Mad Madigan]

Vyyt,

It sounds like we both like to play with similar map settings, and I have run into similar issues. I also use Communitas map pretty much exclusively, but my problem hasn't been that of resources (I generally find just enough iron/horses/coal/etc to be able to build the units/buildings I need but not so much that I never have to worry running out), but of terrain generation. I also like playing with extra-crowded maps (Epic, Large maps with 14-16 Civs and double that number of CSs), but Communitas is pretty random about its Deep Ocean rifts. Sometimes it works out properly and there's a true pair of Deep Ocean rifts that cut off half of the Civs from each other till Caravels or Astronomy (meaning that half of the AI is pretty much free to do it's thing until running into the other half in the mid-game eras), but other times the rifts are small or filled with islands that allow for Shallow Oceans vessels to make the trip to the "new" continent. I have experimented with Ocean Depth and Rift Width but it still sometimes doesn't work as expected.

Still, sometimes Polynesia show up in the randomly selected civs and it doesn't matter even if the Ocean Rifts are generated properly, so I've given up on trying to make it work right. The important part is the generation of Strategic and Luxury resources, and Communitas seems to produce just enough that with a crowded map there are inevitable resource wars or strategic trade deals. Which is exactly what I want. I shouldn't be able to prosper in a bubble, and I don't want the AI to be able to do so either.

 

[vyyt]

Sometimes it works out properly and there's a true pair of Deep Ocean rifts that cut off half of the Civs from each other till Caravels or Astronomy (meaning that half of the AI is pretty much free to do it's thing until running into the other half in the mid-game eras), but other times the rifts are small or filled with islands that allow for Shallow Oceans vessels to make the trip to the "new" continent.

Yeah, it seems we enjoy very similar settings and what you describe pretty much matches my experience. I do not know what the max number of civs is for Large maps, but if you try the max number (with the RAS mod) and either the Terra type (= the one when all civs are on 1 major continent and another major continent is empty) or higher sea level, you may experience the extreme case of narrow ocean rift when the map looks like a huge Pangaea cut in half or sometimes even thirds by a very long 1-tile narrow strait ... or you could call it a 1-tile wide river (ok, flowing from ocean to ocean)

So what settings do you recommend? Civ number a but below max and 2 Pacific rifts? I tried high sea level, but then the continents were too narrow and curvy, which was hindering the military AI and the battle fronts were too narrow, which was making the game easier. I think I was often getting satisfying results with huge, 18 civs (max is 22), 14-ish CSs, normal sea level, normal humidity, normal continents, but I cannot remember the ocean rift setting. And of course the epic speed (so that my games can last for at least 2 months, hehe).

As for the resource quantity, I probably should not have said I was swimming in resources, but I always had just enough to build all the units I needed. But it did not create any tension or need to go to war for the resources and make strategic decisions about what to use the resources for. But the Communitas maps are beautiful and fun, I always felt excited when my caravel discovered a new uninhabited island or continent and there were several great city locations with various resources and the shape of the land mass was great for defense or a harbor or just looked nice and natural.

 

[notque]

Feels like a lot of our map complaints are fairly similar. Perhaps we need to work together on a VP map?

 

[Growth]

Just to be clear and sure, VP is designed to work best balance wise and all that (Pantheon, etc) on "Standard Resources" right?

 

[Funak]

Just to be clear and sure, VP is designed to work best balance wise and all that (Pantheon, etc) on "Standard Resources" right?

Something has to be used as a base for balancing reasons, and standard does seem like a reasonable place to start.

 

[heinous_hat]

You can disable Communitas' resource distribution routine by setting overrideAssignStartingPlots to false (line 47). The game will then default to whatever is in the More Luxuries folder (presuming you don't have yet another copy of AssignStartingPlots.lua hiding somewhere... watch out for that).

That should provide resource distribution similar to what you get from other maps that don't use custom methods. That is...however Barathor has it in More Luxuries. Gazebo has not changed this file, so I presume the balance overhaul is based upon that method and not Thal's custom methods included in Communitas. I'm a little uncertain at this point as to what's "official" since everyone plays and gives feedback from different maps.

You could also try the drop in replacement for AssignStartingPlots from More Luxuries Deluxe (here) , which attempts further improvements at balancing resource distribution, especially to city states, start locations and such. Barathor hasn't touched the project in a while, but the beta seems solid. I've updated it to place Bison since the last Firaxis patch... see the attached file. Use it as a direct replacement for the same file in More Luxuries\lua folder.

In shutting off the custom ASP scripting in Communitas, you lose some features that involve resource distribution specific to Communitas (and CEP in general), but much of that is addressed in Barathor's scripts. Look at lines 6329 to 9538 in communitas.lua (use notepadd++ or similar to collapse the function bodies into a list) to get an idea.

I think at some point in the near future, we should look into authoring an update for assignStartingPlots that reflects all of the gameplay changes that have come about.