City State Placement busting games.

[Agent]

Take a look at one section of the map in the game I started earlier:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1708345261

9 of the 10 revealed city states are in one big clump right next to a few civs. Do I need to elaborate on why that is basically game-ruining? If you start next to the clump you get a ton of early envoys which gives an unassailable early advantage, and if you start away from the clump you get basically no early envoys and a massive disadvantage. CS need to be spread out roughly evenly across the map! Not *exactly* evenly but way better than 90% in one big bunch.

This is on fractal. Anyone know if playing on certain maps will prevent this?

[Agent]

Also, for all I know there are a couple more CS in that clump. I ragequit in frustration.

[=7CAV=SPC.Henson.K]

I just quit another game as well. Huge map, 5 players. I met the Indians, who were 10 tiles away, on the second move of my scout.

[Raj]

We can’t pre-place civilisation or CS on the map using Firaxis map/s. If you are using Mod (ie YnAMP Map), civilization and CS are placed on true start location, which is why I love using YnAMP Gaint Map. However, with the GS, Gaint Map is still unstable and crashes at late stage. Furthermore, the Worldbuilder lack advance function to create or change map to our preferred sizing.

[hopsblues]

Why should CS's be spread apart or clumped? It's a game...roll with it...The game isn't there to let you have an easy path. It's supposed to be a challenge....

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by hopsblues:

Why should CS's be spread apart or clumped? It's a game...roll with it...The game isn't there to let you have an easy path. It's supposed to be a challenge....

The problem is that these clumpings are so very frequent and if you happen to start close to that said clump, you will get super easy mode.
It would be very preferable if they were spread out for a more even difficulty distribution.

[Agent]

CS should be spread apart because that's good design and makes the game better. They should not be clumped because that's bad design and makes the game worse. This isn't rocket science.

Might as well ask why there isn't one random goody hut on the map that gives +10,000gold to whoever finds it. Because that would be bad design and screw up the game balance? Just like all the CS being in one big clump is bad design and screws up the game balance?

[Chameleon_Silk]

fractal probably causes it to happen more than maps that are less random, I would imagine.

and if you enjoy fractal and are seeing the clumping lots maybe fractal ain't as good as you thought it was :P

[Agent]

fractal 4 lyfe

[adder007usa]

I can confirm the problem isn't just fractal. The "Play now" quickplay option gave me a map where 6 out of the 9 city states were in the upper right hand corner of my starting continent. I believe "Play now" uses a small "Continents" style map, so yeah. Not just fractals. Even the "Default" settings are messed up.

[jayjum]

I just started a Huge continents game, 12 civs, 24 CS's. I am Greece, so I was hoping to use the 5% culture bonus per CS Suz. on my Continent there were 5 CS's, only 1 barely close enough to trade with, I started far north, one was in the middle the others down south. 6 CS's were on a large island by themselves between the continents farthest side away from me of course, one on its own island far south, and that leaves 12 on the other continent. I find this often,majority on one continent, hardly any on the other. Usually I start on the continent with lots unless my Civ needs CS's, then I do not, Like Greece, or Hungary. Seems fishy.

[fanboy]

It's quite important to meet a CS before other civs do, +2 stats in early game is no joke, CS are also buffer zone between civs. I often keep seeds of maps in which a lot of CS spawn around me. Also, if some culture civs like Pericles keep controlling several CS, there is no hope to win a culture victory, in one of my games, Pericles is Antananarivo suzerain and damn, his culture is horrifying!!!

[Agent]

Yeah I just ragequit another game where all the CS started in a lump on the other side of the map. Now that I've noticed this problem it makes my blood pressure skyrocket and I can't take it. Is there a way to address it on the mod end without forgoing random maps entirely?

[Gentlest Giant]

You could use this to confirm whether or not the map is to your liking.
https://gameranx.com/features/id/78891/article/civilization-6-reveal-the-map-with-this-debug-console-cheat/

I would consider it a desperate measure though.

[adder007usa]

This has nothing to do with liking

This has to do with the simple fact that before gathering storm, this didn't happen. In Rise and Fall, you would more often than not get a nice even distribution of city states across the map, usually running into at least one before one of your neighboring civs

After gathering storm released, this started happening, and it has been messing up games ever since.

[Raj]

A lot of map issues that was highlighted could be solve with a WorldBuilder (WB) with advance functions. Current WB can’t place civilization or city state in a map. In fact Firaxis does have the feature in WB but was not released in the patch. With advance features enabled, we can create a good customised map to play. All should come together and raise the lack of advance WB. Playing a good game require a good map. Without a good map (well spread resources, well spread city-state) the game will not be interesting.