Region size and density

[Harry Flashman]

Hello, this question has been asked before but the answers aren't clear:

What does 'Region Size' and 'Region Density' do? The first seems to be the size of terrain-type blobs (makes sense) but what does 'density' change?

[Questionable]

Also curious about this I barely touch the region size/density options cause I don't know how they'll actually change the layout of the map. I wish there was a "random" option for terrain type densities and whatnot for more map variety.

[IzzoTheBlue]

Region Density changes the frequency of the appearance of a given region type on the map. Region size specifies the actual number of tiles a given region will be when it spawns.

I can't tell you the exact numbers, as I haven't looked into this myself, but higher frequency will mean more regions will spawn. Note that changing the region settings will have an impact on how much wildlife/neutral units/creeps spawn on the map too. A higher frequency of regions means a higher frequency of creeps, as far as I can tell.

Again, I don't know the exact math. I believe that the way this all functions depends on the ratio of your specific settings. So if you are looking for a specific kind of map spawn, with certain terrain types in a given frequency, you'll likely have to play around with the settings a bit before you find something you like.

As an example: I find the tundra tilesets to be very hard on my eyes, so I don't play with tundra anymore. (Or very rarely.) So I now set the tundra frequency to "none". If I want to play on a desert, or in the jungle, for RP reasons, I might only have those specific tilesets active, and turn the rest off.

Again, it's something to play around with. I find it adds some variety to try playing on different settings.

Hope this helps!

[Harry Flashman]

Thank you, it does, but here's the dilemma: we know that say 'forest density' means more forest and so on... but there's an entry for simply 'region density' (not a specific type thereof), so what does THAT mean?

[Jey]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Harry Flashman:

but there's an entry for simply 'region density' (not a specific type thereof), so what does THAT mean?

The number of tiles that aren't grasslands, tundra or savanna.

[Harry Flashman]

Ah, so the general 'business' of the map... awesome, that's appreciated.

[IzzoTheBlue]

Harry,

Are you ready for a long-ass math post? Here it is.

I think I understand what you're trying to clarify. I am just guessing at this point, but I think the math (probably) isn't based solely on absolute values. My guess is that it also factors in the ratios of other settings. The map has to factor in how much river/lake you want, how many special outposts/camps/gateways/tombs you want, etc etc.

Again, this is just my hypothesis, and I could be wrong, but here's how I think it might work, as an example:

Scenario A Settings:

Map size: medium, 1444 tiles. (Medium maps are approx. 38x38 tiles, I counted super quick, but they are hexagons so I'm not sure if that's exactly how the math works here. Let's go with that number for this example, it doesn't really matter.)
region size: medium
region density: medium
Arctic Setting: medium
Desert setting: medium
Tropical setting: medium
volcanic setting: medium

Tileset generation logic: 1444/4 (you would divide by 4 in this case because you want an even ratio of region types on the map) then divided evenly into regions based on your size/density settings, plus other settings like rivers, camps, etc. We are going to ignore all those extra tiles here, because I don't feel like doing all that extra math, but that will affect our outcomes here to some extent.

I'm making an educated guess here, based on some casual observation of my most recent game I played with these settings, but medium region size and medium region density is 6x6 tiles, about 40 regions. That seems about consistent with the maps that I have been generating with medium region size. There might be some variation here; it could be something like 5x5-6x6, +/- X number of tiles based on other settings. I can't say for sure.

Scenario A Map Spawn Results:

# of regions: ~40.11 regions of ~6x6 size, with some variation.
25% Tundra regions
25% Desert regions
25% Tropical regions
25% Volcanic regions
Creeps: ~200. Explanation: RNG generated creep values, between 3-7 per region, +/-1 or 2, based on individual unit power. (Ie. You might get 7 kroot hounds vs 4 castelan robots on the same RNG roll for the same region, because castelan robots are way stronger than kroot hounds individually.)

Scenario B Settings:

Map size: medium (1444 tiles)
region size: very large
region density: medium
Arctic Setting: medium
Desert setting: medium
Tropical setting: medium
volcanic setting: medium

All we've done here is changed the region size from medium to very large, but it seems to have some big implications for the map spawn.

There seems to be a much larger range of region sizes that appear now; on a map I generated with these settings, I had one region that appeared to be over 15x15, and then another that I think might have only been 12x12. Again, defining the specific region barriers is tricky by casual observation only, but I'm guessing that anything above "medium size" starts to throw out some varied results.

More experimentation is necessary, but here's what I think happens:

Scenario B Map Spawn Results:

# of regions and size: ~8.25 regions, 12x12-15x15 in size. Much more variation is going to occur on this map, I believe, than scenario A.
0-50% Tundra regions
0-50% Desert regions
0-50% Tropical regions
0-50% Volcanic regions
Creeps: ~ 41.25. A much smaller value on average, because creeps (seem to) spawn in proportion to the number of regions spawned.

I say 0-50% for any particular region type, because the total number of regions is decreased considerably here, and RNG means that there's a decent chance that a certain tileset isn't going to have a whole region generated for it. Conversely it's entirely possible for one tileset to claim most of the map.

Note: There are other hidden variables that may exist that would affect how this works too. (ie. do the regions "bleed" into eachother at all, based on certain settings? Are there absolute minimum and maximum values or is it all ratio-based? What considerations are made for player spawn location based on difficulty setting?)

There's *way* more I could write here but I think I should stop, I've gone too deep into this rabbit hole and I need air. (It took me 2 hours to write this post... I spent way too much time on this.)

[Harry Flashman]

Wow, much obliged! I didn't realise how much these settings would affect creeps (which seems crucial). Am wondering if it also affects their behaviour (the way creeps can either kinda ignore your troops or hone in on them with implacable hatred).

It always speaks well of a game when people have given it this kind of thought... I'm enjoying getting into 'Gladius'.

[kknd]

Ohhh, thank you IzzoTheBlue for that example. I enjoy a creep ritch environment and now I can really crank that up!