Scenario - RMG starting conditions

[CrUsHeR]

Alright so i also cracked the 500-hour bar recently.
Gotta say that i have gotten a bit tired of starting on maps with very unfun, not to say futile starting conditions.


1) Starting Distance

This is a very basic setting in AOW III - Far, Average, Near, Random. Players will start the map on locations within a certain distance to each other. So you can decide how long it will approximately take before running into other players. And if set to a fixed distance, it gives all players a similar amount of space to expand their empire into.

In Planetfall this is always completely random, with the result that there mostly are as many players next to each other as possible. So on a Large size map with 6 players, you mostly start sandwiched between 2-3 others.
Occasionally you start with another player on an island, in that case a deathmatch by turn 20+ is guaranteed.
And the most rare start is when you get your own island/continent, for many AOW veterans probably the most desireable one because you get the chance to actually play your starting race and develop your own tech and units first.



2) Terrain

From what i understand, in AOW III the RMG always places the player starting locations first, and then builds the world around them. So everyone gets a decent chunk of terrain/climate they can actually settle on without penalties.

In Planetfall, all races (Amazons aside) can exploit all terrain in the same way. Only exception: Volcanic, which is comparably worthless on the economic side, and requires a mid/late game tech just to ignore the happiness penalty.

So the question is - why does the RMG sometimes put players on islands which are 50% or more volcanic? Even if you play Dvar or Promethean this is undesireable, but for all other factions/techs this means that you can basically alt+f4.

[Sinsling]

Advanced settings -> world? You can fine tune enviroment variables until you consistently get worlds that you enjoy.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Sinsling:

Advanced settings -> world? You can fine tune enviroment variables until you consistently get worlds that you enjoy.

Did you... read beyond the first paragraph?

Starting distance option doesn't exist.

Volcanic should only appear on expansion islands, or as extensions of very large continents. However i even had about 3 maps in a row where half or more of my starting island was volcanic, so less than one screen of regular sectors to build on. So this may or may not be a bug in the RMG code, either way requires some kind of fix that the current game doesn't offer.

[Sinsling]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Originally posted by Sinsling:

Advanced settings -> world? You can fine tune enviroment variables until you consistently get worlds that you enjoy.

Did you... read beyond the first paragraph?

Starting distance option doesn't exist.

Volcanic should only appear on expansion islands, or as extensions of very large continents. However i even had about 3 maps in a row where half or more of my starting island was volcanic, so less than one screen of regular sectors to build on. So this may or may not be a bug in the RMG code, either way requires some kind of fix that the current game doesn't offer.

Starting distance has no relation to terrain/climate unless you are amazon imo, and I didnt find that topic worth discussing. If you want to be able to define starting terrain/climates and their distance from capital that sounds like something a mod would have to do. The in-game ui for something like that would be horribly unappealing.

[CrUsHeR]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior

"Passive-aggressive behavior is characterized by (...) Pretending not to understand"


You know exactly where the button is in AOW3 for the starting distance. This is not a miracle or requires a mod.


Who said that terrain should be connected to the starting distance? All i suggest is that the RMG works like it is supposed to, i.e. not placing players in areas where the only option is to colonize a lot of volcanic terrain. Talking about the default planet type, of course.

[Sinsling]

Its rmg I dont see why it wouldnt spawn you next to volcanic. On volcanic could understandably be an issue but I've never seen that happen. Ravaged world is the only one ive seen that will constantly place volcanic around players so we have very different opinions about the default world settings.

I also didnt talk one bit about starting distance, which ironically is the top half of your op and as I said I didn't find worth discussing. So ♥♥♥♥ off about your passive aggressive ♥♥♥♥ and learn to read, thanks. 😁

[Thimple ThighMan]

@CrUsHeR

If it's any consolation, I understood your OP fine. :)

I'm really surprised that 1. Starting distance, wasn't already an option. So, seconded as a request if that's what it was. It worked great in AOW3.

Re: 2. The default planet type is Imperial World (it says 'Default' after the name!), so no idea what 'different opinions about the default world settings' is supposed to mean.

If it worked as in AOW3, it would be great, but it seems for now, you could change 'Clime Layout' to 'Noise', so that you get randomly distributed individual volcanic sectors (as opposed to patches of volcanic sectors). If it's set to 'poles' and you get randomly placed near the middle, then it's more likely that you'll spawn into a volcanic clime.

In addition, by default on Imperial, volcanic is set to frequency of 20. That could be reduced down to 10, or 5 or even 0?

I'm sure after 500 hours you already knew that anyway, just saying, but again if 2. is a request, seconded too.

[sandman25dcsss]

1. I guess they couldn't keep the option from aow3 because we have a globe-like map now. Players should be distributed evenly, or some players will have unfair advantage of having more room. In aow3 it wasn't a problem because map edges served a natural limit. Geometrically you can see it easily with 4 points on square and on cube. Moving all points closer to edges of the square will increase distance between players while still being fair, now try to move 4 points on cube and you will see the middle player(s) are surrounded by other players which are not surrounded by others.
2. It is already customizable. Disable volcanic if you don't like it.

[Thimple ThighMan]

It's a 2D map with edge wraparound, not a sphere, or cube i.e. no 'Z' axis.

You just need to use simple modulus integer arithmetic to account for the overflow or underflow at the sides, to maintain an equal distance.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by Thimple ThighMan:

It's a 2D map with edge wraparound, not a sphere, or cube i.e. no 'Z' axis.

You just need to use simple modulus integer arithmetic to account for the overflow at the sides to maintain an equal distance.

What do you mean? Can you put 4 points on a ring to make it both fair and customizable with regards to distance between the points?

[Thimple ThighMan]

It's not a ring.

If you go to past the largest X coordinate east, you start back at the smallest X coordinate in the west- and vice versa.

With edge wraparound, If you're at one extreme edge you're also closer to coordinates on the other edge of course at the same time.

So, it gives you less room to 'manoeuvre' so to speak to make it fit the near, far, distant setting, but not impossible.

[sandman25dcsss]

It is hard to explain in words but let me try one more time. The planetfall map is really a cylinder. Just take a piece of paper and fold it along short side so the opposite edges touch each other.
So basically our task is to put N players on that cylinder. Let's use N=4 for simplicity. Equal distance between players means we have a square and that square can have different size depending on starting distance option. Can you put a specific square inside a rectangle so it would be a symmetric figure? Yes. But the square should have specific size. If you change the size, it will no longer be symmetric. For instance, if you have rectangle just a bit larger than the square, some players will be almost adjacent to each other (after folding the rectangle to create cylinder out of it).

[Sinsling]

Technically with map wrap around distance starts are closer to being fair. Noone gets stuck as being "the middle man", because everyone is going to be pinched between 2 players at 3+.

[sandman25dcsss]

Probably. I remember there was a dev diary about map generation which mentioned player positions.
Yet I cannot see how to make a map with 12 players fair. In aow3 it was easy, they could use a regular polygon. It won't work for planetfall of course.

[Sinsling]

Actually, that doesnt work how I think it works. 🤔

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by Sinsling:

Except even with using a geometric shape, middleman issues show up

How? There is no one in the middle, everyone is on the edge of the shape.