Ultra Large Maps on CTC?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
Note: don�t go to big there�s a limit. After the limit the ai totally messes up map generation. (home made maps are no effected)

The AI? Actual not it is the game itsself. And that can be controlled trough map.txt, but don't ask me how. I just took my map.txt from Apolyton Pack.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Well i found the best setup for 2x gigantic maps (140*280)

WetDry=5
WarmCold=5
OceanLand=3
IslandContinent=10
HomoDiverse=1
GoodCount=10

This will ALWAYS give a nice amount of continents/large islands and a nice stretch of oceans, and best of all no checkerboard of tiny one tile islands. Deviate even slightly from these settings and youll get the checkerboard, well, you can change Goods count of course.

I didnt use the apolyton mod though, just default map.txt.

[Flinx]

Goofing around last night I changed Huge to 70x280 and generated a new game using the settings of my current (playtest) game. The map was almost normal, but where one continent should have been was a group of 20 to 30 small islands. How strange.

[The Big Mc]

Thats the "bug"

[Locutus]

I think this should be common knowledge so call me Captain Obvious if you want, but since noone mentioned it so far...

The checkerboard pattern is caused be the the 'other' settings in map.txt are not suitable for large maps. If you increase settings like MAP_NUM_CONTINENTS, MAP_MIN_WIDTH, MAP_MAX_HEIGHT, etc you will get much nicer maps without the checkerboard pattern. Which values are ideal depends on the mapsize of course, and on personal preference, so you'll have to experiment a bit with the exact settings.

For the source code project I think a thorough revisal of the map generation algorithm is in order anyhow, so the current system will replaced by something more intuitive (and less size-dependent) sooner or later.

[Dale]

I concure with Locutus. When I was initially setting up the Apolyton Ultra-Gigantic maps I found to get the good maps without these mini islands everywhere, you have to play with the settings in map.txt. I can't remember which one's off hand, but look at the gigantic settings in APOLUL_map.txt. The difference between the normal and UL map.txt should lead you in the right direction.

BTW, the "bug" everyone mentions with the UL maps which made me stop using them in Apolyton Pack, comes to a few things:
- After about 1500AD it was taking up to 30mins per turn for the AIs on slower spec computers.
- You can't scroll the city window in diplomacy, so you couldn't trade newer cities.
- Trade routes from one end of the map to the other caused ALL sorts of problems. For some reason, the trade gained from the largest trade routes was massively out of proportion to the rest of them. I was setting up a trade route between two of my cities in the middle of the game from the top-left to bottom-right of the map, and netting 6400 gold per turn from it.
- Pirating on those massive trade routes was causing crashes.

There were a few other smaller issues that I can't remember, so I just stopped using the UG maps.

Dale

[Maquiladora]

Yes... i just realised the testing i was using a very old installation that contains many changes, including higher MAX_NUM_CONTINENTS in map.txt for giga maps.