Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: MercantileInterest on December 21, 2015, 05:01:02 PM

Title: New Huge Map Available
Post by: MercantileInterest on December 21, 2015, 05:01:02 PM

The new huge map contains three continents and a number of islands. The terrain allows for less conventional strategies, such as island hopping wars, navigating around enormous fungal blooms or harvesting mineral rich deserts. The freshwater sea consists of meltwater from the polar icecaps, thus explaining how it keeps from becoming salty. The map also includes unusual features like volcanic vents.

If you intend to play on a huge map, take a look as soon as it's approved for download.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: Buster's Uncle on December 21, 2015, 05:23:10 PM

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=314 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=314)

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: Mart on December 21, 2015, 05:25:58 PM

I will check it in a new SP game.

How about a huge map in the new ratio? 102x90?
This would be instead of old huge size 64x128. This new ratio makes travel along equator more than twice as from near north pole to near south pole. It is more like our globe. Also, this ratio allows for some other arrangements of factions.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: MercantileInterest on December 21, 2015, 06:00:14 PM

102x90? Will take a look at it.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: MercantileInterest on March 07, 2019, 11:01:53 PM

Quote from: Mart on December 21, 2015, 05:25:58 PM

I will check it in a new SP game.

How about a huge map in the new ratio? 102x90?
This would be instead of old huge size 64x128. This new ratio makes travel along equator more than twice as from near north pole to near south pole. It is more like our globe. Also, this ratio allows for some other arrangements of factions.

The old huge map size is 128 vertical and 64 (meaning 128) horizontal.

Which of the 102x90 dimensions is the horizontal? Is it already doubled?

I've an idea about making a new huge map of planet with 128 north-south tiles and however many east-west tiles would be proportionate to the new ratio. Would then copy all the old continents over by hand and then fill out the new area with islands or another continent. Would need two computers side by side but think it be worth the effort. Could share a version with the old continents ported over but the new area left blank for others to tinker with.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: Mart on March 07, 2019, 11:31:06 PM

This 102x90 is very wide map. wider than standard ratio. When customizing the map, one gets info:
Horizontal: 40
Vertical: 80

so this new would be:
Horizontal: 102
Vertical: 90

But some time ago, I found, that game does not deal well with such ratios and factions placement can be a big problem. I recently play on typical size ratio maps and I am ok with it.
It is though interesting to play such map ratios just for experience, to see how it is.

I once started doing such wide official planet version, and it was, like you say, tiles painting. It was very time consuming and I stopped.
It may be without 2 comps, two monitors would be ok, original map could be just screenshots, that one could view on a second monitor.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: MercantileInterest on March 08, 2019, 12:25:19 AM

A few weeks back, made a new map of Planet with the (Horizontal: 102, Vertical: 90) ratio. Am attaching it to this post. It's based off a sketch and, of course, not as tall as the original huge map of Planet but, over the course of several dozen tests, it seems to distribute factions evenly. Looked so wide I thought I must have gotten the numbers backwards. Same proportion scaled up to 128 vertical would be substantially larger.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: Mart on March 08, 2019, 07:28:46 AM

It was intended to be like this, somewhere like 2.3:1 ratio: width:height. A planet is like that, equator is 360 degrees, while north-south gets only half of that, and when we subtract polar regions to some extent, it is more than 2. But, that is true, at latitude e.g. 45 degrees it is less, so 2:1 is some exaggeration.

Title: Re: New Huge Map Available
Post by: bvanevery on March 08, 2019, 02:56:22 PM

Quote from: Mart on March 07, 2019, 11:31:06 PM

But some time ago, I found, that game does not deal well with such ratios and factions placement can be a big problem.

In my SMACX AI Growth mod I modified the world generation settings to produce no 1x1 islands or even any small islands.  Land masses are large and continental in shape to give the AI factions more room to grow in.  Oceans are large even on a 30%..50% land mass setting, in case the Pirates are in the game.  These settings greatly mitigate the problems of the stock binary's faction placement.

I define an "Enormous" map as 80x160.  That's 4x the size of a Standard 40x80 map.  This is the upper limit of how large the map can be, and still not have faction placement get screwed up.  The value was determined by empirical testing, trying to make bigger and bigger maps and observing whether factions would end up on a 1x1 island or some other pathology.  A 160x160 map was also possible and didn't show any placement defects, but it looks horrible in the minimap, so I didn't define that as the upper limit.

I also define a "Giant" map as 128x256.  Faction placement is likely to be bad for 1 or 2 factions.  It is possible, through random tries, to get placement that isn't bad.  However, how do you verify without playing the first part of the game?  I think it's a bit tedious to put some other human's eyeballs on it.

Induktio's Thinker mod has changed the faction placement algorithm, so it might actually circumvent the historical issues with the stock binary.