Map generation woes

[Voker57]

Here's a list of issues faced by PBEM players with map generation.

1. Spacing. Spread Out seems to does not work at all, at least reliably. Often empires border, or nearly border each other. Distances are also uneven between 4 players.
2. Starting resources. On Tech 4 it is somewhat less a problem, since everybody starts with guaranteed deposits, but on tech 3 it seems to be not the case. It is also a wild RNG ride to uncover later deposits. Starting deposits also can have too big mining difficulty spread. There also appears to be a bug that metal deposit can be overwritten by water and cripple the player, but I can't reproduce it.
3. Population. Minors are the most important resource in multiplayer, and they are not spread evenly. An option to distribute them, or at least the total population with free folk included, would be great. If you start with multiple zones, zones might have 15 or 80k population, which does not help.

So ultimately, to get an even ground, what players have to do is to generate ~50 maps and choose one that seems fair. Would be great to have something done about this in the game engine.

[ZygfrydDeLowe]

It would be great if there were some kind of "PBEM" chekbox for planet changer that would basically ensure that all human players start the game with same resources - population, deposits (same ease of mining) etc...

[Arralen]

Why a new checkbox again instead of just fixing it for everybody?

Map generation is definitly whacky - all examples with medium size setting and "spread out" option ticked.

- all majors in 1/4 of the map
- number of minors rediculously low

[Arralen]

- 4 of 6 majors tucked to the map edges
- upper right of the map (~1/2 of the whole map area) without any major

[Arralen]

- left 1/3 of the map without major
- distance between at least 2 majors way to short

[Arralen]

- majors only in upper left and lower right quadrant
- no minors on the upper left

Actually, this map might be quite ok to play on?!?

[Arralen]

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[Arralen]

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[Culthrasa]

I totally agree... I'd rather have the "progression" to first battle the minors and then the majors. It makes for a totally different game when you start surrounded by multiple majors (especially on higher difficulties).

On the other hand, placement is also a function of the map itself. As far as I know the "best" places are chosen for the cities (near rivers, agricultural terrain etc...) So when a large part of the map is barren/desert like it makes sense that some clustering will emerge.

But some more equidistant starts would be nice

[Voker57]

Still an issue. Would be nice to have at least Spread Out work properly, it's the main PITA in generating a good MP map.

[Thrake]

I agree with all of Voker's points. My biggest grip. It took me hours (literally) to generate a good multiplayer map. It's fun once it started but getting it started is not fun.

Spread out is particularly annoying as there is no easy way to locate majors so I must check manually the whole map before to find out if it needs rerolling. Most other settings at least can be checked quickly to decide if it's fine or not.