Now this is interesting...

[dexters]

Originally posted by Jaybe
John, Snoop is referring to creating a new random map in the game he will play, not with the editor.

Snoopy, don't forget the 512 city absolute limit in the game, ...
and (ahem!) how's that "major" project you were working on with your friend ronald (nudge, nudge ). I have games going on on both sides of the fence, too.

512 for each civ or for all civs?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Theseus
On a separate note, one of these days / years we'll play another big demo game (I mean BIG... like PTWDG or ISDG), and it might be interesting to use a truly huge map.

Where were you when we voted on the map size, dammit!

Let's just start one. The PTW Big Huge Demo Game.
(or Huge Big Demo Game to avoid copyright issues)

It actually adds some new strategic elements to the game.

The entire world does not become part of a team as the city limit is reached.

Logistics are altered as the travel distance to your opponent is increased, sometimes there may be 20-30 tiles of unclaimed land to the enemy border. This would make outpost and scouting patrols more valuable.

You would be far more likely to have to establish distant colonies on strategic resources or luxuries. And leave a garrison to defend them.

It would just be a different dynamic animal.

It shouldn't be too much of a strain on computer memory as there are only 8 civs possible.

Sign me up.

[vmxa1]

I think it is fitting that you would have lots of unused spaces (tiles) in that sort of map. If you fly over America it is basically an emtpy land. A few very large metros and not much in between.
Canada is even less populated.

[Sheik]

I think it is 512 for all civs.

How long did it take your computer to generate the map? What are your computer specs.

[Konquest02]

Originally posted by Sn00py

I'm going to have a go at it with 15 civs, but not on this map, I don't want to play a map I have already seen.

You might want to make a mod where the only thing you change is the map size. That way, you get randomly generated maps that you have never seen and you can play the way you like'em!

--Kon--

[Konquest02]

Originally posted by Sheik
I think it is 512 for all civs.

How long did it take your computer to generate the map? What are your computer specs.

I just generated one. It took me less than a minute. I have a P4 2.4 GHz with 256Mb of RAM. A good machine , but no longer state of the art...

Here it is. I am pretty impressed with the map generator. I think it created Civ-heaven... Look at all those cows and bonus grasslands!!!

--Kon--

[vmxa1]

Just tested the map timing it was less than 10 seconds with huge map 15 civ before I was looking at my settler.
Is that what you are talking about?
This was on 3.06GH Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB. I say 10 seconds as I turned to look at the clock and turned back and it was done.

[bobbo008]

here, I play HUGE maps all the time. if you want all of the land to eventually be taken up, you're going to need to make your map a little less than 300x300 (assuming its the standard 70% water, i believe, whatever the standard is)

there's nothing worse than, in the middle of your great rise to power, its halted by "too many cities". here's a couple screens of a 360x360 game of mine a while ago:

[Harovan]

Let's do some maths. We have a 512 city cap, and each city uses 21 tiles. That's a maximum, which will hardly be reached, but we assume it works. So all 512 cities use maximum 10752 tiles. Now, if a map has 70% water and 10752 land tiles (for convenience we neglect coastal tiles), it has total 10752/0.3 = 35840 tiles. If it's a square map, the size would be about 268 x 268. This means, every map larger than 268 x 268 tiles will without any doubt trigger the 512 city cap and is therefor useless to play with the standard rules. In fact, since cities usually overlap a bit and use coastal and sea tiles too, this treshold is even less, perhaps 240 x 240 or even 220 x 220.

What rules have to be changed, to make larger maps useful? The city cap can't be raised. We could limit terrain cities can be built on. For a start, tundra and desert could be excluded as city locations (additionally to mountains). Now could somebody say, ok, I plant forest on the tundra in order to settle there. This would make it necessary to forbid settlement on forest as well, and for the sake of logic, on jungle too. Want to settle on forest or jungle? Chop or clean it first. The OCN should also be raised a bit, perhaps doubled. The reason is, that the AI stops building, when the OCN is reached. If we assume we play with 16 civs, 32 x 16 = 512 seems ok, but there will always be civs boxed in, or eliminated early, which creates a surplus, which would favor the human player, because he's the only one who neglects on the OCN. To fiddle with the OCN has also influence on corruption. And the tech rate has to be vastly increased. On a 360 x 360 map, the tech rate has to be about 5 times the rate on a huge (160 x 160) map. That would be 2000, IIRC (huge tech rate = 400? No access to Civ3 right now). But as far as I remember, the maximum accepted tech rate is 1000.

[mimi]

Ok - pretend I'm asking this question (oh, wait, I am asking this question...) and try to be very simple in your explanation. i.e. leave mathematical formula out if possible.

When you (the royal you - any of you, not you specifically) talk about the 300x300 map, is this the size that the game generates when you select huge? So if I choose this size, eventually my game will crap out 'cause of the 512 city cap?

On a huge, each AI civ will only build the optimum city max (which is???) and this will prevent hitting that cap as long as the player does not go above this number either? If the AI stops when it hits the max number, is that only for that civ - i.e. if Greece and Egypt has the optimum number (whatever that is) and then Egypt gets wiped out, will Greece then try to build the extra cities made available by Egypt's elimination or will they not since they are already at their max?

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by mimi
When you (the royal you - any of you, not you specifically) talk about the 300x300 map, is this the size that the game generates when you select huge? So if I choose this size, eventually my game will crap out 'cause of the 512 city cap?

The "normal" size for a huge map is 160x160 IIRC. They are modding that size to play on a bigger map. I honestly can't imagine playing on a size that big because of turn lag time late in the game. It's bad enough on huge maps as it is now and I have a fair computer (it's only two years old. ).

I would say that if you want to play on a map that large then the city cap should be able to be modded as well.

[bobbo008]

"the size would be about 268 x 268"

i believe, since each square represents 100 square miles, that that is about the actual size of earth. i think i heard that hear, but dont feel like checking the exact stats

...or do we also need to compensate for the bulge at the equator... damn...

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Who says you want all the land taken up? That's so unrealistic. I know of very few actual real life wars where every square inch of land on the planet earth was a participant in the combat.

Even today there are vast stretches in the Amazon, Saharra, and Siberia that are not blanketed with massive cities.

Playing a Huge map with 8 players (even the modded Huge I use of 300x300 with 24 civs) leaves lots of uncovered area where enemy forces maneuver their expeditions into your homeland.

Even after the discovery of Railroads you still have transport issues on a map in this situation. I've often build a long railroad line across unclaimed territory to get my troops to the front only to have the AI sever it in spots with their mobile forces.

[Dominae]

It's the same map generator for Huge maps as it is for Tiny ones.

The only reason Huge maps "feel' better is that the higher number of tiles allow better "resolution" for each geographical feature, such as deserts, mountain ranges and so on. The same is true of Achipelago maps: ever notice how Standards-size island maps look horrible, while Huge ones look good? It's just that the islands in Huge maps look more like land masses instead of two or three tiles in the middle of nowhere.

It does not "feel" like the smaller maps incorporate geographical features, but that's just because a band of jungle will be 5 tiles wide instead of 30. Playing the game a lot, even on the smallest maps, allows you to predict the location of terrain features with some regularity.

A way of "tricking" the game into putting more recognizable features in smaller maps is to set the World Age to 3 billion years. This increases the size of the features, thereby creating worlds with seemingly endless expanses of bumpy, flat or overgrown terrain.

Although I admit I like the look of Huge maps better, they certainly do not make for better gameplay. I find that the starts are either too good (see Kon's screenshot) or very poor (stuck in the middle of a gigantic jungle).

It's too bad that the Standard size for maps does not produce "pretty" worlds. But this is unavoidable. I got used to the "choppy"-looking worlds a long time ago, because I knew that it was pointless to get hung up on something like this, in what is otherwise a fun game.


Dominae