What Does the "Seed" Do?

[Mirc]

I think so too. I was just answering to axehaxe's "hypothetical scenario".

 

[gmaharriet]

@axehaxe: No, it's about the max number of digits. And even if it was so.... I'm pretty sure you won't be able to play 9999999 games in your lifetime (assuming it has max 7 digits, don't remember how many it actually has).

The longest seed number I've actually seen was 9 digits, so that would mean 9,999,999 different seeds, and even that number would be multiplied by the number of "types" of world you can generate, such as "arid, normal, wet", "cold, temperate, warm", each of the 3 variations of land form "archi, continents, pangea" at 60, 70 and 80% water, and the 5 map sizes of "tiny, small, standard, large and huge".

If you multiply all the possible variations of those conditions times 9,999,999, you'd come up with an unbelievably large number of different worlds. I think I'll leave it to someone else to do the math.

 

[Mazeura]

It's just multiplication. 9,999,999*3*3*3*3*5= 4,049,999,595
Ouch, over 4 trillion different combinations.... *twitch*

 

[levi Limestone]

since learning that the same seed number gives the same map, Ive been entering phone numbers I most often use as the seed number. this helps me remember them

 

[Mirc]

^ But you also have to remember the map settings, or the map won't be the same.

 

[levi Limestone]

Has anyone done enough to crack any of the code? e.g "25 means more mountain" etc? it would be useful but would probably be so difficult as to make the enigma code look easy

 

[Snarkhunter]

Has anyone done enough to crack any of the code? e.g "25 means more mountain" etc? it would be useful but would probably be so difficult as to make the enigma code look easy

No, but I have started with 1, kept all the settings the same, & gone through the first, um, 117 now. There's a vague "family resemblance" I find between closely associated seed numbers. But it might be chance I suppose.

Also, I think I remember that the seed can be alphanumeric. So that would vastly increase the number of combinations. Certainly, it does not reject my attempts to use alphas in the seed number.

 

[Lamecodename]

Thanks this has helped me bigtime, I haven't played civ 3 in ages, I lost the disks and recently bought complete civ 3 on steam and I was gonna ask the same question