Trigan Emperor
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2015
- Messages
- 438
I tend to play themed games, selecting civilizations from geographical and cultural groups (often using mod civs), such as:
- European only civs
- ancient Mediterranean/Near East civs
- East Asian civs
- Middle East/North African civs
- African civs
- pre-conquest American civs
Ideally, I like to use maps that reflect the terrain of these civilization groups. I also like to use "globe-like" maps, in so far as that they have horizontal world-wrap and polar regions at the North and South.
There are a couple of map scripts I like a lot that have themed environments:
Frontier - "A single continent scattered with mountains to simulate the rough environment of the frontier" (It's actually selectable for pangaea or large continents)
This is one of my favourite map scripts and I think it works great for East Asian civ games, African civ games and pre-conquest American civ games.
Sandstorm - "a harsh world composed primarily of desert with smaller patches of plains and grassland" (selectable for pangaea or continents)
This arid map is great for Middle East/North Africa civ games.
Unfortunately, there's no similar map that works well for a European civ game. With the current game maps, there'll always be instances of, say, the Germans living in a jungle or the Austrians in a desert.
The more I play the game, the more pernickety I get about having my games feel authentic and currently I've stopped playing European civ games as there's no Europe-like map to play on (and I'm not counting the one that uses Europe's land forms and randomly generates the terrain as I want a truly random map).
So I would like a map script that does the following:
i) Attempts to simulate the climate, environment and terrain of Europe but has randomly generated landmasses.
ii) Is globe-like in that it uses horizontal world wrap and has polar regions in the North and South. Alternatively, it could have a tilted axis, with an expanded North Pole and not using the southern hemisphere, similar to the Tilted Axis map script from the standard game.
iii) Has a single-continent/Pangaea option. An additional Continents/Large continents option, like the Frontier and Sandstorm maps, would also be nice.
iv) Is playable at all map sizes.
As to the specifics of terrain:
- no jungle
- no or next to no desert
- perhaps slight increase in tundra at poles
- more marsh
- more forest
Ideally, these resources should be removed from play (I don't know whether that's done in mapscript or whether it needs a mod):
Bananas
Bison
Cotton
Spices
Ivory
Incense
Sugar
Silk
Cocoa
There is also consideration to be made about how to amplify a Europe-like climate into a global map, while trying to keep some climatic coherency. I think that the climatic bands from North to South in a regular Earth-like map are:
Arctic/Polar (North Pole)
Tundra
Temperate
Arid (Tropic of Cancer)
Tropical/jungle (Equator)
Arid (Tropic of Capricorn)
Temperate
Tundra
Arctic/Polar (South Pole)
A tilted earth map would be most realistic, as it'd just be replicating the top three of these bands:
Arctic/Polar (North Pole)
Tundra
Temperate
Creating a "whole world" Europe-like map, with Northern and Southern hemispheres, would require a bit of climatic manipulation. I'm not a climatologist, but I'd guess the climatic bands could be something like:
Arctic/Polar (North Pole)
Tundra (maybe with a bit more forest than is generated in the regular maps)
Temperate (grassland and wooded)
Plains (Equator) (less woodland)
Temperate (grassland and wooded)
Tundra
Arctic/Polar (South Pole)
I have no modding ability to make a map script so I put this out there in case anyone else thinks such a map would be a useful addition to the map script roster.
Potentially, I am speculating that existing map scripts might be able to be altered in some way to, for example, remove instances of desert and jungle tiles. Pangaea, Pangaea Plus and Tilted Axis might be candidates for such an approach.
- European only civs
- ancient Mediterranean/Near East civs
- East Asian civs
- Middle East/North African civs
- African civs
- pre-conquest American civs
Ideally, I like to use maps that reflect the terrain of these civilization groups. I also like to use "globe-like" maps, in so far as that they have horizontal world-wrap and polar regions at the North and South.
There are a couple of map scripts I like a lot that have themed environments:
Frontier - "A single continent scattered with mountains to simulate the rough environment of the frontier" (It's actually selectable for pangaea or large continents)
This is one of my favourite map scripts and I think it works great for East Asian civ games, African civ games and pre-conquest American civ games.
Sandstorm - "a harsh world composed primarily of desert with smaller patches of plains and grassland" (selectable for pangaea or continents)
This arid map is great for Middle East/North Africa civ games.
Unfortunately, there's no similar map that works well for a European civ game. With the current game maps, there'll always be instances of, say, the Germans living in a jungle or the Austrians in a desert.
The more I play the game, the more pernickety I get about having my games feel authentic and currently I've stopped playing European civ games as there's no Europe-like map to play on (and I'm not counting the one that uses Europe's land forms and randomly generates the terrain as I want a truly random map).
So I would like a map script that does the following:
i) Attempts to simulate the climate, environment and terrain of Europe but has randomly generated landmasses.
ii) Is globe-like in that it uses horizontal world wrap and has polar regions in the North and South. Alternatively, it could have a tilted axis, with an expanded North Pole and not using the southern hemisphere, similar to the Tilted Axis map script from the standard game.
iii) Has a single-continent/Pangaea option. An additional Continents/Large continents option, like the Frontier and Sandstorm maps, would also be nice.
iv) Is playable at all map sizes.
As to the specifics of terrain:
- no jungle
- no or next to no desert
- perhaps slight increase in tundra at poles
- more marsh
- more forest
Ideally, these resources should be removed from play (I don't know whether that's done in mapscript or whether it needs a mod):
Bananas
Bison
Cotton
Spices
Ivory
Incense
Sugar
Silk
Cocoa
There is also consideration to be made about how to amplify a Europe-like climate into a global map, while trying to keep some climatic coherency. I think that the climatic bands from North to South in a regular Earth-like map are:
Arctic/Polar (North Pole)
Tundra
Temperate
Arid (Tropic of Cancer)
Tropical/jungle (Equator)
Arid (Tropic of Capricorn)
Temperate
Tundra
Arctic/Polar (South Pole)
A tilted earth map would be most realistic, as it'd just be replicating the top three of these bands:
Arctic/Polar (North Pole)
Tundra
Temperate
Creating a "whole world" Europe-like map, with Northern and Southern hemispheres, would require a bit of climatic manipulation. I'm not a climatologist, but I'd guess the climatic bands could be something like:
Arctic/Polar (North Pole)
Tundra (maybe with a bit more forest than is generated in the regular maps)
Temperate (grassland and wooded)
Plains (Equator) (less woodland)
Temperate (grassland and wooded)
Tundra
Arctic/Polar (South Pole)
I have no modding ability to make a map script so I put this out there in case anyone else thinks such a map would be a useful addition to the map script roster.
Potentially, I am speculating that existing map scripts might be able to be altered in some way to, for example, remove instances of desert and jungle tiles. Pangaea, Pangaea Plus and Tilted Axis might be candidates for such an approach.
