The Map ???

[Keygen]

I would like to see a map that will:

a) Give equal opportunities for growth and expansion to all, more or less.
b) Not isolate players.
c) Provide the necessary means for faster growth (e.g. lot of rivers and resources)
d) Make naval units and buildings/wonders something useful and not simply a waste of time.

I do not care what type of map that will be as long as it contains the above characteristics, and that is what we should argue about and not which one has been played less times or is the coolest...

[Beta]

Snaky pangaea.

[Aidun]

Snaky natural or something with independent smaller islands. At least with lots of water.

[GeoModder]

Tested a bit, and Fractal map with low sealevel gives mosttimes quite nice maps. Several continents in a snakelike pattern, but big blobs of land an in most cases close enough to one another 2-3 plot straits to enable early contact by boat or border linking.
Fractal/cold/medium sealevel often gives similar landlinked maps, but of course with more water.

[emperor]

Absolutely pick the map first before the civs. In my case at least, civ choice is heavily dependent on the map type I know I'll be encountering.

Size - The natural sizes are balanced fairly well in my opinion. Thus with 9 players a Large map would be adequate (though Huge with a high sea level would also work equally well).

Type - Fractal would work well, or Terra could be nice. Snaky continents are quite cool too, so that could work. Pangaea's a bit 'old' for me, but I'd be willing to do it if everyone else is. I haven't heard of this Planet Generator before, but it looks like it could be a nice option as well.

Would we have a 'map moderator' to look over the map beforehand and ensure that it was 'balanced' (eg no teams on a lone unreachable island or something)? If we have the moderator, then we can be a lot more free about the map choice since we know we won't be getting unfair (and unfun) maps.

Originally posted by RobWorham
I'm pretty sure you can wrap in two and four directions with Warlords on the flat maps.

Yes, with Warlords, you can choose to wrap most maps in any way that you wish.

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Playing around reloading some map types and ran into some interesting patterns on tilted axis. About one in every 5 regenerate on tilted, low sea level, massive continents, yields something like this:

One continuous hunk of land around the planet...

About 1-10 yields a more uniform hunk of land:

I'ld much prefer either of these to a standard pangea

Incidentally, when choosing Fractal you will occasionally get a similar 'hunk' of land extending around the entire planet, but in the horizontal direction.

Originally posted by SFADAMS44
I like the idea of terra. Gives a pangea start so everyone can meet and fight over land, but also gives something to race for. Usually terra maps give resources only found in the new world.

From experience of the Terra games I've played in multiplayer, the new world is almost irrelevant to the outcome of the game. Pretty much everything is decided in the old world. Still, it's fun to have the extra land to settle later on.

[Addled Platypus]

third party bw making the map?

[polarnomad]

Perhaps it is time for a poll on this.

[RobWorham]

Yes, lets get this important aspect of the game sorted!!

[Nugog]

Originally posted by polarnomad
Perhaps it is time for a poll on this.

Everything else flows from this.

A poll!

[FeMme]

Yes, a poll would be an excellent idea!

[Pinchak]

Pirates need water! Otherwise, i think we are buckaneers or bandits or something.

Terra: Interesting but for reasons discribed above probably not the best choice.

Panagea: The standard

Inland Sea: Ladder/teamer standard

Islands: I was all for this at first (because of my teams pirate theme) but for the above mentioned reasons it may not be a good choice.

Fractial: Doesn't usually provide even starting spots (civs starting on the "arms" of the fractial are isolated)

Shuffle: Too risky

Hub/Ring: Too artificial

Archapelago: I like this option the best. Isolation (even without the snakey version) is not as big a problem as you may think. In my experience, island hopping via galley is very doable (expecially with low sea level).


That earthbuilder program looks interesting, but who gets to build/verify it? If we go this route i would think a non playing 3ed party would need to undertake this.

[RobWorham]

Originally posted by Pinchak
That earthbuilder program looks interesting, but who gets to build/verify it? If we go this route i would think a non playing 3ed party would need to undertake this.

We have two non playing mods - Platypus Rex and Krill. Maybe they can do it??

[Pinchak]

Yes, planet maker seems interesting, and a very real option.

We could vote on the settings (might take several polls). Only concern is that some of those demos Porv posted look a little TOO real for fair play.

What I mean by that is there seems to be large tracks of similar land (the deserts along the equator are a prime example of this).

We would have to make sure this was not an issue (civs starting in desert while others start in temperate).

Seems as easy as using the proper settings, but it is something to be mindful of when choosing settings, as the ingame generator tends to generate more random terrain features (sometimes unrealistic, but nicely distributed).

[proviisori]

since we have mods to this game that can check the map..

I vote for the Planet Generator.
I have used it few times for SP games and it really gives nice maps.. even nicer than tectonics map script.

[Zoid]

As long as everyone gets a fairly equal starting position I don't really care what map we get. But Planet Generator sounds good...