Are maps random?

[Diadem]

I just had the exact same starting position for the third time. I'm not really complaining, since that particular start has 5 cows, stone, iron and wheat in my city's fat cross, but still, it seems to kind of defeat the purpose of 'random'...

Every time the same map settings (doh) and also the same difficulty. Different civs though, and different rivals, though in the same locations.

And yes, I have the latest patch.

[Axxaer]

I'm not sure about this, but if you want to ensure randomness then try using the Atlas project:

http://home.student.uva.nl/jeroen.kools/atlas/index.html

It is very good at what it does.

[General Ludd]

I've gotten the same map twice before.

[Enigma_Nova]

I've gotten the same map 3 times before.
Continents / Medium sea / Temperate, Bismarck vs. Mao with a little annoying one tile lake positioned so you can't quite build a canal through the middle of the continent

[rjwoer]

Strange that you are receiving the same maps and using 1.09. I've heard there was a bug with 1.00 that prevented true randomization.

My understanding is the game should produce a unique map every time one is created, and I believe a different starting position goes along with that.

[GodSpawn]

They didn't actually say that they were using 1.09 when the got the duplicates... Doesn't mean they weren't of course.

[LDiCesare]

There's a random map seed in the .ini file that you could change if the random number generator keeps spouting the same thing. You'd have to change it from 0 to something different every time, though.

[Enigma_Nova]

It wouldn't surprise me if Civ has a static seed instead of seeding itself with system time.

[Diadem]

And there I go again. The same map.

Settings: Great Plains, small map size, monarch difficulty.

I've gotten this map with different civs, and both in normal and in OCC games. But each time with the same difficulty.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
It wouldn't surprise me if Civ has a static seed instead of seeding itself with system time.

It's been that way since Civ3, to prevent the exploit of saving before going to battle (or popping a goodie hut) and then reloading if you lose or get a bad result. It is far too tempting to reload after a losing battle if you know it might end up differently.

Civ3 had an option you could enable where you could have it use a different seed each time if you wanted to be able to exploit the RNG.

[Diadem]

I understand using a static seed. That's pretty logical.

But why not generate the map using a random seed and then (using this random seed) pick a static seed to use during the actual game.

Shouldn't be too hard to program.

[Enigma_Nova]

Mapseed = Rand(1000);
MakeMap(*Gameseed)
Indeed it isn't hard to have 2 different random number generation methods.

[Hauptman]

there is most DEFINATLY a set number of maps, I have had repeats of maps on more than one occasion. This is however on multiplayer, and i did host the games, and they might have been the same "play sesion" so its possible i guess that it just saved the randomness of the map.... hmmm....

wandering away now.

[Forwarn45]

The config file includes this option, at least for 1.09:

"Random seed for map generation, or '0' for default
MapRandSeed = 0"

[Bill3000]

Yeah, there's like, what, 65535 maps? Seeds are still deterministic and therefore are not random technically.