Is there too much desert in Civilization?

[siredgar]

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like there is way too much desert in the Civilization series. Is there really that much desert in the world? It doesn't seem proportional. Maybe it's because I like to play with mostly European civs, but I seem to get a lot of desert and there's no deserts really in Europe.

Is there an adjuster for the climate? I wish there was an option for only temperate climate.

I don't frequent the boards often, so I don't know if this has been mentioned already.

Anyone know how to adjust the climate?

Thanks.

[Joseph]

Re: Is there too much desert in Civilization?

Originally posted by siredgar
I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like there is way too much desert in the Civilization series. Is there really that much desert in the world? It doesn't seem proportional. Maybe it's because I like to play with mostly European civs, but I seem to get a lot of desert and there's no deserts really in Europe.

Is there an adjuster for the climate? I wish there was an option for only temperate climate.

I don't frequent the boards often, so I don't know if this has been mentioned already.

Anyone know how to adjust the climate?

Thanks.

Yes. Way to much, plus Ice and Snow.

[Jaybe]

I don't know so much about smaller maps, but on huge maps I do not feel there is too much desert. Especially if you consider it also including other unusable terrain. There are large swaths on the earth that are "useless" to human in terms of meaningful commerce, production & population.

[Virdrago]

Is there really that much desert in the world?

Yes there is. Many parts of Africa, the American west to Mexico, Arabia, much of central Asia, western South America, most of Australia... Europe's the only continent without a desert. Even Canada has one.

When you start a new game (it may only be on custom game), there's a temperature adjuster - normal, tropical, arid, cold, and something else. It may be what you're looking for.

[Blake]

I think a lot of people fail to realize just how much of the earth is covered in desert. About 25% of the planet is covered in desert, and 40% is arid.

I believe that the Tropical setting has less desert. There are also other possible map scripts to use which have more variables you can adjust, for example Smart Map, but I only play with the standard maps, usually temperate.

[wodan11]

Actually Europe has several deserts. They're just not very big.

Wodan

[proviisori]

Originally posted by Blake
I think a lot of people fail to realize just how much of the earth is covered in desert. About 25% of the planet is covered in desert, and 40% is arid.

Heheh... I guess those precentages are for landmass.
If you take oceans into account, the precentages are much much lower.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Blake
I think a lot of people fail to realize just how much of the earth is covered in desert. About 25% of the planet is covered in desert, and 40% is arid.

But in the default game, 32% of the map is Desert. So yes there is too much. I've reduced mine to 25% and the maps come out much better IMO.

[Willem]

Originally posted by siredgar
Is there an adjuster for the climate? I wish there was an option for only temperate climate.

If you go into your Assets/Python folder, you'll find a file that deals with map creation. I forget the name of it right now. If you open it up with any text editor, like Notepad, you can find the percentage values for Desert towards the bottom of the file. You can also adjust the latitude that Tundra/Ice appears at as well. In my game I've reduced Deserts to 25% from 32%, and raised the Tundra/Ice latitude one full point. I also reduced Jungles by 10% because I felt there was too much of those as well.

Be sure to save the altered file in your Custom Assets folder, not the default one.

[Provost Harrison]

I wish there was actually something you could actually do with deserts - they are just wasteland at the moment...although I suppose the same applies to the arabian peninsula...

[sjm]

I did the same as Willem a long while back, and I find the maps much better (i.e. more playable). I reduced the percentage of desert quite a bit, and reduced the latitude at which tundra and ice appear quite drastically. This has the largest impacts on crowded maps.

Decreasing the latitude of ice and tundra is a great help to the AI, who otherwise often ends up situated in a vast expanse of ice and snow with nowhere to go. Because only the uppermost portions of the map are now ice and tundra, the AI can still always expand, even if it gets stuck right near the top or bottom of the map. It's no longer such a trek to fertile land.

In a sense it's just like ending the map at 80N instead of 90, and getting rid of all the unusable portion of the map - which, given Civ's mercator projection maps, always end up being much too large anyway.

[Dis]

hey now, some of us live in the desert. We are called desert rats.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by sjm
I did the same as Willem a long while back, and I find the maps much better (i.e. more playable). I reduced the percentage of desert quite a bit, and reduced the latitude at which tundra and ice appear quite drastically. This has the largest impacts on crowded maps.

Decreasing the latitude of ice and tundra is a great help to the AI, who otherwise often ends up situated in a vast expanse of ice and snow with nowhere to go. Because only the uppermost portions of the map are now ice and tundra, the AI can still always expand, even if it gets stuck right near the top or bottom of the map. It's no longer such a trek to fertile land.

In a sense it's just like ending the map at 80N instead of 90, and getting rid of all the unusable portion of the map - which, given Civ's mercator projection maps, always end up being much too large anyway.

Yeah, that is true, it is the AI that is disadvantaged by those horrible polar regions - we can stay clear of them (or restart very quickly if stuck in the middle of ice) - the AI does not have the same luxury...

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Willem


If you go into your Assets/Python folder, you'll find a file that deals with map creation. I forget the name of it right now. If you open it up with any text editor, like Notepad, you can find the percentage values for Desert towards the bottom of the file. You can also adjust the latitude that Tundra/Ice appears at as well. In my game I've reduced Deserts to 25% from 32%, and raised the Tundra/Ice latitude one full point. I also reduced Jungles by 10% because I felt there was too much of those as well.

Be sure to save the altered file in your Custom Assets folder, not the default one.

Do you remember the file name? Is it in another folder? Do I right-click and open with text editor?

Thanks in advance.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Yeah, that is true, it is the AI that is disadvantaged by those horrible polar regions - we can stay clear of them (or restart very quickly if stuck in the middle of ice) - the AI does not have the same luxury...

Would add a cruel twist to the game if the AI could restart the game

"Isabella has decided to restart - you will now be taken to the new game screen"

Asmodean