Continent Maps - An Analysis

[Cort Haus]

Further to some recent discussions about maps I decided to look at, and post, 20 standard continent maps, together with the number of civs on each continent.

I did this because I seemed to be having a lot of isolated starts, and a lot of starts on continents with five or six civs out of the seven. What I had been missing was the classic civ 3 type continents map. Usually two large continents with about half the civs on each. Don't get me wrong - I like the odd isolated start, and it hardly ever happened in Civ 3 so I'm pleased that this happens now, but it seemed to happen too often.

Anyway - enough waffle, on with the data. The numbers refer to the number of civs on each populated continent. So 6-1 means a continent with 6 civs, and a continent with 1. I hope this is useful because it's taken ages!


Map 1 : 6-1


Map 2 : 4-2-1


Map 3 : 5-1-1


Map 4 : 5-1-1


Map 5 : 4-1-1-1


Map 6 : 4-1-1-1


Map 7 : 4-2-1


Map 8 : 3-3-1


Map 9 : 5-2


Map 10 : 5-2


Map 11 : 4-1-1-1


Map 12 : 4-1-1-1


Map 13 : 2-1-1-1-1-1


Map 14 : 5-2


Map 15 : 5-2


Map 16 : 4-3


Map 17 : 4-3


Map 18 : 6-1


Map 19 : 3-2-1-1


Map 20 : 7

[Aro]

Amazing research and info.
I'm not a statistical expert, but you’re right, it seems to happen too often...

[Senethro]

Has someone not been customising their game/map generator?

[Sirian]

Re: Continent Maps - An Analysis

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I had been missing was the classic civ 3 type continents map.

Civ4 Continents IS the classic Civ3 Continents. It is literally the same code!

Three things are different.

1) Sea levels are higher. In Civ3, they are 60/70/80. In Civ4 they are 70/78/84. That may be peeling a little more off the smaller continents than the largest one, so could be partially responsible.

2) Civ4 runs with fewer civs. Standard and smaller have one fewer civ per map size. Large and Huge have several fewer civs.

3) Civ3 maps are square, while Civ4 maps are more realistic, wider, with the poles chopped off.


The idea that Civ3 Continents always produced two evenly matched continents is nonsense. It did that only about one in five games. A lot of games were like some of your data samples that had half the civs on one big continent and the rest scattered on smaller ones. A lot of games had one continent bigger than the other.

I repeat, this is literally the same map generation code as Civ3. Continents is the one script I didn't get to touch because they didn't want it changed from Civ3!


- Sirian

[Sirian]

11 out of 20 had 4 or fewer on the largest continent.

Only a couple had more than 5 on the largest continent.

If you want two continents and for most of the time for them to be fairly even, you can get that from Custom Continents. One out of ten games there will have a 6-1 split, but most will be 4-3. You can try sampling that one, too, for comparison.


- Sirian

[Adagio]

I tried some tests with custom continents in the other thread, telling him that custom continents had what he was looking for, but he didn't respond to that

[Harovan]

Very good work Cort Haus!

The continents map is the bread and butter of civ games. It is the most realistic map setting (perhaps together with Terra), which is an important aspect for many people. It provides a good mix of direct border tensions (including early warfare), continental and naval exploration, geopolitical bloc-building (allowing continental alliances). Navies have a good reason to exist, albeit not as crucial as in archipelagos.

Think of me as an average customer, let's say a casual player with not too many time. If I sit down to play a game and I have chosen continents, I have the following expectations:

a) I don't want to be alone on the landmass. I would have chosen archipelago, if I wanted this.
b) If I end up alone anyway, which should happen at most rarely, I don't want to be in a one against all situation
c) I expect the same conditions for any other (AI-)civ. I.e. I don't want to be on a continent with all or all but one other civ, either. I would have chosen pangea, if I wanted this.

The following story is true:

In my christmas vacation (I didn't have any other vacation over the whole 2005) I wanted to play a nice marathon game on a large continents map, 9 civs. I was happy in anticipation of a good game, of some early border tensions, perhaps one or two skirmishes, of a nice exploration phase, maybe of an intercontinental invasion later (oh I love those!).

I rolled a map and after about 2 hours of playing realized, that I was alone. I was disappointed. The same happened on the next try again. No early skirmishes. I was angry. The first day of vacation was wasted. On the next day I rolled another map and 2280 BC, after several hours, had contact to 7 of 8 AI civs by 2280 BC. Another quasi-pangea! I was enraged. 2 days of vacation wasted for nothing. To pre-check in the world builder, what I get, is of course out.

Sorry Sirian/Soren - with all due respect - but those maps are not continents. I call them quasi-pangeas with one screwed civ. Whether this is me (in which case there is no early warfare) or another (AI-)civ (in which case navies are near pointless), does not matter. I am aware, that it can happen sometimes. But as it stands, it happens way too often. And it costs time to realize, that you did not get what you wanted. Valuable vacation time! Truth to be told, I put Civ4 on the shelf shortly after this and played HOI2 for the rest of my days off.

I don't want to rant. I try to be constructive. I sat down and defined, what I understand under a continents map. Note, that all conditions bear an implicit "if theoretically possible". It's clear, that with only 2 or 3 civs there is little room for variants. Let's say, the following shall be true for a number of civs >= 5.

1) A landmass is called continent only if it has at least one starting position. (defines the term continent)
2) Two different continents are at least that far apart, that contact can not be made before Optics. (it's not only about borders, it's also about contact and trade)
3) If two or more landmasses with starting positions are closer than that, they count as only one continent. (The "Britain clause", yes it belongs to Europe!)
4) The map has more than one continent. (excludes accidental pangeas)
5) There is at most one continent with only one starting position. (excludes quasi-archipelagos)
6) If there is a continent with only one starting position, there shall be at least two other continents. (excludes "quasi pangeas")
7) If there is a continent with only one starting position, it is equally probable for all civs to end up there. (fairness clause - i.e. if this happens and there are 7 civs, the probability for the human to end up there is 1/7)

If I apply these rules to Cort Haus' rolled random maps, I get the following results:

Map 1: illegal
Map 2: legal
Map 3: if there is a cultural or galley crossing between the 1-civ-landmasses, legal, otherwise illegal
Map 4: probably illegal (don't know where all starts are)
Map 5: illegal
Map 6: illegal
Map 7: legal
Map 8: legal (near perfect!)
Map 9: legal
Map 10: legal
Map 11: illegal
Map 12: illegal
Map 13: illegal (that's an Archipelago!)
Map 14: legal
Map 15: legal
Map 16: legal
Map 17: legal
Map 18: illegal
Map 19: illegal
Map 20: illegal

As it stands, about 50% of the maps are not what I would define as continents map. This is inacceptable, especially for somebody with not many time to roll different variants until he got what he wanted. I would truly appreciate, if the continents script go a revamp to give better and more often "continental" results.

It would also be great, if Highlands maps got at least one, better even 2 options of map wrapping (X or X+Y). Sirian once praised them as maps for good tactical warfare, more difficult than water maps, because you have no coastline to keep your back clean. And right is he! However, with the lack of map wrapping, this positive effect is negated. I don't need a coast line to keep my back clean, if I can use the map border or even a corner for this purpose. Plus, it just looks weird, if a lage mountain range ends abruptly and falls into a black abyss. As it stands, the highlands map is nothing more than a rectangular pangea without the option to build a navy. Make X-wrapping possible, and it will be better. Make both X and Y-wrapping an option, and it will be - in terms of tactic - unbeatable! Leave it as it is - meh, nice but could be better.

A short note about custom continents: While it is true, that the distribution of civ numbers is somewhat better there, they have another annoying property - they come in few pretty much predictable patterns. If I choose n=3 (more would be already archipelago-ish), such patterns are, for instance, 1 large continent on one of the halves (W or E) and 2 small ones on the other. Or A T-shaped continent in the north and 2 small rectangular ones in SW and SE. Or 2 small ones in NW and SE and a snaky one winding NE-N-center-S-SW. All these continents, including their island environment, are roughly rectangular - just generate a few and look at the minimaps and you will see whan I mean. This is a bit boring, you can after exploring your landmass pretty much predict, where the others are and roughly how they're shaped.

[Sirian]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Sorry Sirian/Soren - with all due respect - but those maps are not continents. I call them quasi-pangeas with one screwed civ.

If Earth is analyzed, you find there are four continents (in civ terms): Eurasia-Africa, Amercas, Antarctica, Australia. There are some regions of significant islands: East Indies, Greenland/Baffin/northeast Canadian Islands, West Indies, Madagascar, Japan, Britain.

Start a Continents map at Large size with the Earth's exact dimensions: nine civs on a Large map. What happens? Two get put in Americas, seven on the uber continent.

It may be your perception of continents that is out of synch. All twenty samples from the first post are reasonable continental layouts. Even the last one, which put all seven civs on a super continent, has an Australia and two Madagacars, plus a subcontinent in the north that is akin to Africa. We call Africa its own continent, but in civ terms it's attached to Eurasia.

And in no case does the Continents script put a realistic number of small and tiny islands out there. Small and tiny islands got added in some measure to most oceanic scripts. I certainly added them to Pangaea, Terra, Islands, Custom Continents, and Ring/Hub/Wheel.


If you want a script that produces two nearly even continents, that's doable, but let's not pretend that it is natural or realistic. Most of Earth's land is bunched up in one place.


- Sirian

[yin26]

Just a little tip unless and until there is a "fix" -- please ignore if you object to it or already do it: Just open the World Builder on Turn 1 to confirm the map is set how you like. Now, I realize this does away with a great deal of surprise, especially concerning neighbors and where to search for expansion, but that is still likely better than two days' vacation wasted.

But put me down for more map control come X-pack if not sooner! Go Sirian!

[Adagio]

Originally posted by yin26
Just a little tip unless and until there is a "fix" -- please ignore if you object to it or already do it: Just open the World Builder on Turn 1 to confirm the map is set how you like. Now, I realize this does away with a great deal of surprise, especially concerning neighbors and where to search for expansion, but that is still likely better than two days' vacation wasted.

But put me down for more map control come X-pack if not sooner! Go Sirian!

If I had the MiB memory eraser thingy I would

Ok, if I had such thing I would probably play poker against my self to learn the game

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Adagio
If I had the MiB memory eraser thingy I would

But then, after you erase your memory, how would you know if the map is how you wanted it?

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by Sirian


If Earth is analyzed, you find there are four continents (in civ terms): Eurasia-Africa, Amercas, Antarctica, Australia. There are some regions of significant islands: East Indies, Greenland/Baffin/northeast Canadian Islands, West Indies, Madagascar, Japan, Britain.

Start a Continents map at Large size with the Earth's exact dimensions: nine civs on a Large map. What happens? Two get put in Americas, seven on the uber continent.

It may be your perception of continents that is out of synch. All twenty samples from the first post are reasonable continental layouts. Even the last one, which put all seven civs on a super continent, has an Australia and two Madagacars, plus a subcontinent in the north that is akin to Africa. We call Africa its own continent, but in civ terms it's attached to Eurasia.

And in no case does the Continents script put a realistic number of small and tiny islands out there. Small and tiny islands got added in some measure to most oceanic scripts. I certainly added them to Pangaea, Terra, Islands, Custom Continents, and Ring/Hub/Wheel.


If you want a script that produces two nearly even continents, that's doable, but let's not pretend that it is natural or realistic. Most of Earth's land is bunched up in one place.


- Sirian

I fully agree...and don't forget it is game with a more then adequate continent model (in my humble opinion off course).

If we all had a lot of money we could of course ask that the engine starts with earth continents of a billion years and let the engine recreate the continental shift (i.e. for instance the earth as it looked 500 million years ago) It would be cool and realistic but not necessary to let me enjoy the game...

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Hmm.. Interesting. I was having the same "problems" with continents. Which is why I went to custom continents, so I could set the number.

I hate being alone on a continent, and I also hate having all the other civs cluttered up with me on the same one.

It's much better on custom continents. I usually play with a total of 11 civs and set custom continents to 6 (the max).

However, even in that case, I'll usually still end up on a continent with 4 or so other Civs. Which means there's quite a few continents out there with nobody on them at all.

[Arrian]

My expectations are a little different that Sir Ralph's.

To me, 3 of the 20 maps clearly fall outside of my personal range for what I expect from a continents map (1, 18, 20). Two others are questionable (3, 4). The rest are a-ok.

-Arrian

[Aro]

Map #1 and #4 are exactly the same.