new map generator

[DrPraetorious]

Manuk - try setting the sea level all the way down to 0.

That gives you just a few lakes.

[paradoxharbinger]

hmmm... try lowering the sea level and zooming in. right now, zoom is not relative to map dimensions. try zoom: .75;

[paradoxharbinger]

btw, mapgen works differently than the dom3 map generator. dom3 looks like it creates terrain around provinces, ie the provinces are created first and then terrain is stuffed in and around them. mapgen does it in reverse order, terrain is created and then provinces are stuffed into the terrain. i did this because i thought it would lead to a more natural result. if you've ever seen a big map made with dom3, there are usually billions of small mountain ranges and forests, because they put these things along province borders. as a result it looks like chaos.

[DrPraetorious]

As a rule it produces nice output.

However, I think that the topography (that produces oceans and mountains) is a little off.

It never produces cliffs (so no coastal mountains) and it seldom produces large, unbroken blocks of land. It looks like post-glacial terrain (lots of narrow lakes) even with the water-content set to the minimum.

It'd nice to make maps, for example, with one, roughly circular lake in them. Maybe just a few different fractal algorithms? The code that generates the land maps in Civ IV is freely available (as python code) if you want to take a look at some alternative fractal math.

This is something of a nitpick, obviously, and I'm not suggesting it should take priority over the other features you have planned. If you set the water content very low you get nicely balanced maps.

Keep up the good work!
--TNDP

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, that's an idea.

If the difference in the "height" of two adjacent province-centers is >X, you declare the border between those two provinces to be a mountain-border. It's impassable and both provinces get the mountain-bordered terrain. How would that work?

[paradoxharbinger]

that would be a good place to start for part of, but you have to ensure that it makes sense with how the map looks. at least one of the provinces would have to be mountain terrain. there might be more conditions that have to be satisfied for the image to make sense with what map file says.

btw, adding a new layer to the heightmap for lakes should not be too difficult, and may actually be able to replace one of the others. in that case, there would be little time cost for adding it, meaning maps would only take slightly longer to generate. this is on the back burner for now.

[paradoxharbinger]

that problem with the oceans is kinda bizarre, should not be acting that way.

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, I was wrong about the no coastal cliffs (or I just needed to move the mountain limit a bit.)

This is a map without about the right ratios of land:water, but the water is heavily fragmented.

It's still playable, but it'd be nice if all that water was in one or two seas.