[GS] So Many Mountains

[Zenstrive]

Do you feel that after GS, there are more mountains than usual, especially if you play on continents and pangaea? I had games where I quit simply because I found myself basically boxed by mountains and will only be able to make 4 or 5 cities inside the box while the AIs have wider spaces.

I love Island Plantes after GS precisely because of this. With added challenge of flooded and submerged lands of course....

 

[Depravo]

Definitely. The RNG created maps are much better now, IMO anyway.

However, with these more realistic mountain chains, tunnels need work. A simple matter of changing the rules so that you can't port more than (say) two hexes. There should be a move cost too.

 

[Bibor]

Get this lol... in one Inca start I had spots for like 2 cities, surrounded by mountains. There was one path, I think to another city spot and who shows up? Yup... say hello to KUPE.
No biggie, I say to myself, I can spare a worker turn on a tunnel, needed the erea score anyway. So I gloriously make one in the southern range to expand beyond my mountain chain... just to find... a 4 hex grasslands hills walley surrounded by mountains. No exit!

I'm sad now I didn't take a screenshot.

I think the small map generator is adding like 30% more mountains than neccessary.

 

[Tech Osen]

Definitely. The RNG created maps are much better now, IMO anyway.

However, with these more realistic mountain chains, tunnels need work. A simple matter of changing the rules so that you can't port more than (say) two hexes. There should be a move cost too.

I try to avoid putting multiple tunnels in one mountainblock because of this.

 

[Bradypus]

I love mountainous maps. It really adds a lot of flavor to city planning and combat. The only thing I miss from the map generator is islands between continents that can incentivize exploration and settling in a new world. Oh, and also a more even spread of city states.

 

[MrRadar]

Yes, and there are a lot more looping mountain chains offering quite a few of those +3/+4 adjacency tiles or better for HS and Campus.
As for tunnels, why a tunnel wouldn't be a sort of road, making that mountain tile passable, but preventing use of ranged combat by and against units on those tiles? This teleportation is a bit too surreal.

 

[Tyroq]

I've always played with New world age anyway to get more mountains and hills, now I might not need to. But I definitely love mountain ranges. They make maps more interesting and combat more strategic. I actually got the Sneak Attack achievement recently using a builder to make an Inca tunnel from one of the range in my territory to the other end right by Brazil and popped out my army in immediate position to lay siege to one of his cities! So much fun right there.

 

[Phoenix1595]

I love being hemmed in by mountains. Natural borders better represent IRL than the arbitrary culture-based ones in the game, where borders sometimes exist on open fields. It is easier to defend a border on a river, coast or mountain range, hence why so many follow these natural features.

In game, mountain ranges help me gauge how my expansion should unfold within my valleys, and decrease a lot of the forward settling I would otherwise have. Plus, the introduction of tunnels means the previous movement impediments of ranges are no longer an issue.

 

[Jkchart]

I love being hemmed in by mountains. Natural borders better represent IRL than the arbitrary culture-based ones in the game, where borders sometimes exist on open fields. It is easier to defend a border on a river, coast or mountain range, hence why so many follow these natural features.

In game, mountain ranges help me gauge how my expansion should unfold within my valleys, and decrease a lot of the forward settling I would otherwise have. Plus, the introduction of tunnels means the previous movement impediments of ranges are no longer an issue.

This! So much.

My Hungary game is a great example. To my north was my bestie, Eleanor (and we had a cultural alliance, so no issues there!) In between us was a thin but defined mountain range that split our large landmass into two continents peppered with mountain passes. I settled entirely south of that line, she settled entirely north of that line. It was a perfect border for me planning expansion, and we had no issues after the early game.

My Phoenicia game was another great example of using mountains as borders. My homeland (i.e. start position) was literally encased by mountains, with the exception of two mountain passes to the South, and the Southeast. The entire west coast, and the rest was all mountains. I had a well defined homeland where I was able to fit 3 cities (2 larger, one small hugged up against the peaks), and expand from. This meant I had little trouble with the Inca, who were on the opposite side of the mountain range, with Antioch (my ally) conveniently occupying a mountain pass directly between us (the easiest way for us to get to each other early game) as a nice buffer state. This allowed me to access the floodplains flowing from below the mountains and expand into the fertile river valleys below, though I did have to land grab early on those rivers to guard against Spain's expansion, but those rivers were a nice mark as well since I planted cities there and left most of the desert wasteland to them below.

In short, I love using natural features when I can to plan my natural expansion.

 

[Wizard-Bob]

I love being hemmed in by mountains. Natural borders better represent IRL than the arbitrary culture-based ones in the game, where borders sometimes exist on open fields. It is easier to defend a border on a river, coast or mountain range, hence why so many follow these natural features.

In game, mountain ranges help me gauge how my expansion should unfold within my valleys, and decrease a lot of the forward settling I would otherwise have. Plus, the introduction of tunnels means the previous movement impediments of ranges are no longer an issue.

Perfectly stated. Bravo!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I play a lot of Pangaea maps, and I have to say that Post-GS, the maps (at least around my start positions) seem to be all of one or the other: either I have mountain ranges all around me, or Tolkien's Lonely Mountain in one tile and the entire rest of my corner of the continent as flat as the proverbial pancake. I prefer mountainous starts, although they can be a pain if one was planning early Domination: the passes always seem to require a round-about trek to reach the intended target(s).

On the other hand, in one glorious Start I watched no less than three Barbarian Camps spawn within 8 tiles of my capital - on the far side of a mountain range that stretched clear across the continent. All I had to do was put one unit each in 2 1-tile-wide passes and go about my business utterly undisturbed . . .