Seriously Civ 5! Desert and Tundra

[celticguard]

Map is Continents Plus, Huge. Temperature is at the moderate/standard setting. There is no excuse to continue generating maps where polar opposite tiles (tundra and desert) are separated by a few tiles. All of these screenshots were taken in a 15 minute period of reloading maps.

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[Glassmage]

lol I even saw Jungle right next to Desert.

 

[DudewiththeFood]

You would hate playing on arid where they do border. All I can say is Byzantium + Desert Folklore + Dance of the Aurora + Holy Warriors = A bigger Medieval army than a German Information (maintenance not included).

 

[adwcta]

Have you heard of the Gobi Desert? It's like 1 tile away from Siberia. So, one of the top 5 most famous deserts in the world, is next to one of the top 5 most famous tundras. Your maps look about right. ~3tiles space.

There's no excuse to NOT be generating these maps, if they're trying to semi-reflective of the earth works.

 

[caiman0815]

one of the driest deserts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert lies next to cold area of volcano Llullaillaco http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Llullaillaco_1.jpg

however, in CiV this happens far to often, so generally I understand OP. same with jungle to

 

[malitano]

You beat me to the gobi desert comment. Atacama is actually real far from any Tundra though.

 

[Exterminas]

Tuning down the Geology here:

I think the OP has a point from a gameplay point of view: Sometimes it feels like the game is just considering the immediate surrounding when generating a starting position. The idea that you'll have to expand to somewhere, preferably not a stark, empty desert or a tundra, sometimes seems to not be reflected properly in the map generation.

 

[seasnake]

It's the problem of tiles in a game, they geographically represent a ton of land, but an archer can shoot over two of them.

Agree, there are several northern deserts, even in Canada, that are a hop, skip and a jump from tundra. So it happens, it's just a matter of scale.

 

[7Horse]

Cold and Desert are not mutually exclusive.

Forrest/Jungle and Desert are.

 

[adwcta]

Cold and Desert are not mutually exclusive.

Forrest/Jungle and Desert are.

I mean, the jungles in west africa are practically 1 tile apart from the Sahara.
It all happens.

From a gameplay perspective, if you get locked in by tundra and desert.... you know what you have to do. As in history, when your land is bad, you go and take over your neighbor's better land. Viva Mongolia.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Most jungles would be deserts if not for intense rainfail. When you wind up with geographic features that cut off rainfall (like the panama isthmus that stopped rain over sahara) you go from jungle to desert lickety split. So having them near is realistic - as is deserts near tundra. Just because you have a desert doesn't mean it has to be 120 degrees year round, just dry. Look at the dry valleys of antarctica for example, which are cold enough to be tundra but recieve far less rainfall or other precipitation than other tundras and are somewhat like deserts in that regard.

 

[Optional]

Terrain generation is mostly based upon bands. In Civ 5's the equator is reserved for grassland and jungle, the desert bands is coded to be spawned somewhat away from there.
You can have desert spawn further away from the cold areas (by modding the bands), but then you'd bring it closer to this grassland/jungle band, and you'll probably see a lot more desert tiles appear right next to jungle. That's not satisfactory either.

 

[Dogmouth]

Technically, the two largest deserts in the world are Antarctica and the Arctic. The Arctic is right next to tundra.

Low rainfall and proximity to the poles go hand-in-hand. In other words, I don't find this odd at all.

Other deserts to consider: Karakum Desert, the Patagonian Desert, Gobi (mentioned by others), Colorado Plateau, and Kyzyl Kum.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Also... Mars! The planet Mars is a desert and it's cold.

 

[Pythakoreas]

From my limited knowledge of geography, tundra means ABSENCE of trees. I freaking don't understand why Forests on Tundra happen.

 

[celticguard]

Technically, the two largest deserts in the world are Antarctica and the Arctic. The Arctic is right next to tundra.

Low rainfall and proximity to the poles go hand-in-hand. In other words, I don't find this odd at all.

Other deserts to consider: Karakum Desert, the Patagonian Desert, Gobi (mentioned by others), Colorado Plateau, and Kyzyl Kum.

Fine then. If we are willing to accept a broad definition of desert, why not create an additional desert design to differentiate deserts like the Mojave and Artic. We already have different styles of grassland, why not desert?

 

[steveg700]

So, a tile graphic would make you feel better about getting a terrain shaft, eh? I think we all no why we can't have everything.

I'm also glad this forum exists to neutralize this sorts of complaint.

Let's all convene again in a week or so when someone makes it again hehe.

 

[Dogmouth]

Gobi, Karakum Desert, the Patagonian Desert, and Kyzyl Kum look like tradition deserts...

 

[celticguard]

I'm glad this forum exists to neutralize this sorts of complaint.

Let's all convene again in a week or so when someone makes it again hehe.

It's a legitimate complaint. In Civ IV, unless you were a very expansive empire, your civilization was usually associated with a terrain: Plains and forest, grassland and jungle, desert and floodplains, or tundra and ice. In Civ 5, as my screenshots demonstrate, you can have a tall empire (3-4 cities) that contains some or all of that terrain. When that happens my civ just feels like it lacks identity or character.

 

[steveg700]

I empathize and can totally understand why you'd want to discard that hand and draw a new one. Civ is, after all, a game of figuring out how to play the hand you're dealt. But sometimes you gotta know when to fold'em.