Do mine eyes deceive me...

[Terser]

...or has the terrain distribution been altered with 1.17f?

Pre-1.17f I would typically chose a four million year old planet. Start the game and my settler would begin within visual range of desert or jungle maybe one out of every five times.

Now it seems like I have jungle at nearly every starting location, and desert shortly beyond. I just finished doing approximately 15 new starts and in all but 3 of them I started with a jungle square within view and a whole patch of it waiting for me in the unexplored black. I tried switching to a five million year old world...no dice--I found no discernible difference between the two ages...

In fact, it seems that in the games I've played thus far that while luxuries and strat resources are more plentiful the terrain itself is "meaner." More flood plains, more desert, more jungle, more hills, and a whole lot more plains.

I hope I'm mistaken. If I'm not, then I hope even more that the Firaxians don't view this as a remedy to certain civs being shafted with worthless starting locations (nothing but jungle, desert, or hills). We need to make jungles and deserts more feasible as starting locations (through oasi(plural?) and bananas, for example) rather than spreading the misery around.

Hope I'm wrong.

[Altuar]

world's age determine how hilly its going to be, jungle/desert ratios are determined by climate. Dont confuse the two, and remember that "thine" eyes can and will decieve you often.

[Dis]

world age will affect diversity. 3 billion years should give you larger mountain ranges, bigger deserts, and bigger jungles. While 5 billion breaks these up a bit.

And of course warm and wet will produce more jungles.

warm and dry will produce more desert

cool and dry will produce more tundra

cool and wet will produce more ?- not sure about that one.

[Dis]

It does sound like you have the warm setting

You need to specify more settings than just 5 billion years old.

warm will produce more deserts and jungles along with plains.

[Terser]

Originally posted by Altuar
world's age determine how hilly its going to be, jungle/desert ratios are determined by climate. Dont confuse the two, and remember that "thine" eyes can and will decieve you often.

From the manual:

Age

This parameter determines how long ersosion, continental drift, and tectonic activity have had to sculpt your world.

3 Billion Years: This option yields a young, rough world, in which terrain types occur in clusters.

4 Billion Years: This option yields a middle-aged world, one in which plate tectonics have been acting to diversify terrain.

5 Billion Years: This option produces an old world, one in which the tectonics have settles down somewhat, allowing erosion and other natural forces to soften the terain features.

I think when the maual speaks of "terrain" it means everything: not just elevation, but plant cover as well. A dry world will tend to have a lot of desert and plains. If it is a young dry world the deserts will be clumped together and the plains will be as well. If it is a wet world it will tend to have more grassland and jungle; an old wet world will have grassland and jungle intermixed.

I just ran another 20 or so test games. I have a gnawing feeling in my gut that something is up. My maps look more like the crazyquilt ones from Heroes of Might and Magic III than the realistic ones I got pre-1.17f. No vast deserts, nor huge swards of grassland. Just a plains square here, a desert square there, hills everywhere. A dot of grassland...

[Terser]

Originally posted by Dissident
It does sound like you have the warm setting

You need to specify more settings than just 5 billion years old.

warm will produce more deserts and jungles along with plains.

My settings (double-checked each and every time I restart):

Large Continents
Normal Climate
Temperate
Four Billion Years Old


I've tried three billion and five billion years old also. Ditto. I'm sure that I'm seeing more desert sqaures than before--it used to only appear in large clusters but now it's seeded in grassland in almost every game I've started.

[Pyrodrew]

Quilt It

I haven't tested this yet, but I hope this 'Quilt Pattern' was not their idea to solve Desert & Jungle being so bad simply by scattering these tiles about.

[Dis]

I still can't figure out why there are no swamps.

I hated swamps in civ2, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be there.

[Terser]

Re: Quilt It

Originally posted by Pyrodrew
I haven't tested this yet, but I hope this 'Quilt Pattern' was not their idea to solve Desert & Jungle being so bad simply by scattering these tiles about.

That is exactly what I'm afraid of. I really don't think I'm imagining this, but I'll be thrilled if someone can tell me with reasonable certainty that I'm wrong...