Controlling the Map Generator

The generated map and player placement for a game can be manipulated by changing varying Server Options. This page aims to give the reader some recipes or options on how to manipulate the varying options to create the map you want to play. It is assumed that the game master is using a Server Settings File.

Note

See Map Generator for a detailed description of the inner workings of the generator.

The server options that impact what kind of map the generator creates are:

alltemperate
flatpoles
generator
huts
landmass
mapseed
mapsize
revealmap
separatepoles
singlepole
size
specials
startpos
steepness
teamplacement
temperature
tilesperplayer
tinyisles
topology
wetness
xsize
ysize

Some server options are more impacting than others to the makeup of the map. Let us start with talking about the options that are least impacting to the overall map.

These options change the makeup of tiles and not the map itself:

alltemperate – When enabled, all tiles have a similar temperature. Players will all have similar tiles to work. Set to disabled if you want to control with the temperature and wetness options.
huts – How many huts you want on the map. Longturn games typically have 0 huts.
specials – How many specials (tile resources) you want on the map.
steepness – Bigger numbers produce hilly and mountainous terrain, lower numbers do not.
temperature – You can create a hot or cold world with this option.
tinyisles – Set to enabled if you want small single-tile (1x1) islands on the map.
wetness – This option allows you to create a dry or wet map. Lower numbers are dry, higher numbers are wet.
revealmap – This setting is used to reveal the whole map at game start. Good to use for testing, but not for real games.

Poles and Base Topology

The concept of poles and overall topology is important in how you want to create your world map. There are some options that when toggled will create a pole at the top and bottom, no poles whatsoever, or poles in the map that you can work and navigate around.

The settings that define the poles and base topology are:

flatpoles – A low setting (0) will give poles with water and a high (100) will fill in with mostly glacier tiles on the poles.
separatepoles – When enabled will break poles up and when disabled will keep them together.
singlepole – When enabled will allow for a single pole and when disabled will give two poles.
topology – Sets the wrap (X, Y), the orientation (isometric or overhead) and the tile type (squares vs hexes).

Recipe: Blocking poles on the map

Set topology "WRAPX|ISO", separatepoles enabled, and singlepole disabled. This gives you a map with a blocking (cannot navigate around it) pole at the top and bottom of the map. You navigate East and West. If you set singlepole enabled here, you will get a really thick blocking border.

You can create blocking poles on the left and right by changing WRAPX to WRAPY. You would then navigate North and South.

Lastly, you can create a map that is like a game board. If you remove both WRAPX and WRAPY on topology, you will get regular poles at the top and bottom and “black” on the left and right. You can only navigate inside the box.

Recipe: A set of navigable poles on the map

Set topology "WRAPX|WRAPY|ISO", separatepoles enabled, and singlepole disabled. This gives you two poles on the map, which looks and acts like Earth where you can navigate around them.

If you set singlepole enabled instead of disabled you will get a single pole on the map instead of two.

Lastly, if you set flatpoles 0 you will get navigable poles with passages of water inside of them.

Recipe: No poles on the map

Set topology "WRAPX|WRAPY|ISO", separatepoles disabled, and singlepole disabled. This eliminates all poles on the map. You get a world with continents and islands, but no poles. There is no edge to the map as you can navigate in all directions indefinitely.

Recipe: Overhead square tiles

Set topology "WRAPX|WRAPY"

Recipe: Hex tiles

Set topology "WRAPX|WRAPY|ISO|HEX" will give isometric hex tiles. Removing the ISO will give overhead hex tiles.

Sizing Your Map

The overall size of the map (total number of X and Y tiles) is driven by a collection of settings. They are:

mapsize
size
tilesperplayer
xsize
ysize

The mapsize option is the driver and has three possible configurations:

FULLSIZE – When used, you must also have the size option set. The value is simply a number (in thousands) of tiles.
PLAYER – When used, you must also have the tilesperplayer option set. The map generator will take this into account and try its best to give each player a similar number of tiles to settle.
XYSIZE – When used, you must also have the xsize and ysize options set. These values are similar to the size option. Give the map generator very specific number of tiles on the two axis.

No recipes here. As a game master, you can figure out how big or small you want your map. Longturn games use the tilesperplayer option for their games as a reference.

Finalizing the Map and Player Placement

This is probably one of the hardest aspects of map generation. Actually getting the map you want as a game master, but also ensuring that player placement (or even team placement) is done the way you want is not exactly directly mapped. There is a bit of randomness involved.

These options are the last piece to defining a game map:

generator
landmass
mapseed
startpos
teamplacement

As with the revealmap option, discussed earlier, the mapseed option is used during testing to keep randomness from creeping into your testing. By setting a value, you eliminate the RNG in the server from impacting the game map you want to create. If a game master is also playing the game, it is recommended to disable (remove or comment out) this option when the game starts so even the game master does not have knowledge of the map at game start.

We will get to some recipes in a bit, but before we do that, let us talk about the generator and startpos options. They work in tandem with each other.

First up, generator has the following configurations:

SCENARIO – This configuration is for Scenario games only. This is a special use case.
RANDOM – The default. As the name implies, there is a dependency on the built-in Random Number Generator (RNG) in the server. The generator will attempt to create equally spaced, relatively small islands. Player placement will be impacted by the landmass option. The larger the value the bigger the continents/islands. This option is also impacted by the mapsize option. Best to use the FULLSIZE or the XYSIZE configuration.
FRACTAL – This is the setting most Longturn games use. This configuration will create earth-like maps. By default, all players are placed on the same continent. The landmass option can also impact placement.
ISLAND – Each player is placed on their own island. Each island is similar in size, but not shape.
FAIR – Every player gets the exact same island.
FRACTURE – Similar to FRACTAL, however this configuration often places mountains on the coasts.

Now let us discuss startpos, which has the following configurations:

DEFAULT – The default. This configuration uses the generator configuration to place players.
SINGLE – One player per island/continent.
2or3 – As the configuration name implies, the startpos will place 2 or 3 players together on an island/continent.
ALL – Everyone is placed on the same continent. Make sure you give enough tiles when using this configuration. The landmass and tilesperplayer will come in handy.
VARIABLE – The server will use the RNG to give a bit of randomness to player placement. The size of the continents will be taken into account.

Recipe: Large Pangea-like world

To create a gigantic single continent and have every player start there, begin with the no poles recipe above. Then set generator to RANDOM, or FRACTAL, or FRACTURE and set landmass 85 (the max). Finally set startpos "ALL".

If you want more ocean or poles, you can reduce the landmass setting and add poles with the recipe above. Longturn games use a landmass setting of 40 with poles for many games.

Recipe: Multiple continents with players distributed randomly

To create a map with several populated continents, use the FRACTAL generator and set startpos to VARIABLE. You may get different results dpeending on landmass: around 30 (Earth-like) is a good compromise. Larger values will merge continents, smaller values will create more islands farther apart. We suggest using mapsize "PLAYER" to keep the number of tiles per player constant while experimenting.

Recipe: An archipelago with players on their own island

To create an archipelago and start each player on their own island, begin with the navigable poles on the map recipe above. This is recommended from a realism perspective. If you do not want poles, you can skip it. Set generator to ISLAND or FAIR (ISLAND is recommended) and then set startpos "SINGLE". Finally set landmass to 15 or 20 (minimum is 15). This will allow for some small random non-populated islands on the map.

This recipe introduces a great use of the tilesperplayer option. Each player will get a similar sized island of the number of tiles you define. Do not forget to change the mapsize option to PLAYER if you go this route.

By playing around with the varying values, you can create many different kinds of maps. Let us move to discussing team games and team placement.

Team games are a special use case. Most games are what the Longturn community calls Free For All (FFA). The idea of an FFA game is there are no preset alliances at game start. Those form in game. Team games are the opposite of FFA games. Alliances (e.g. teams) are defined before the game starts. Getting player placement correct when teams are involved is quite important!

The teamplacement option has the following configurations:

DISABLED – If set, then the option configuration is ignored.
CLOSEST – The default. The name implies what happens.
CONTINENT – Everyone on the same continent. This requires tuning landmass, generator, and startpos to fit how you want the teams to get placed on the same continent.
HORIZONTAL – Place team players in a East-West alignment.
VERTICAL – Place team players in a North-South alignment.

Recipe: Two team game with each team on their own continent

Follow the steps to create a players.serv file.

Add a read players.serv entry to your Server Settings File.

Set generator "FRACTURE", landmass to 30 or 40, mapsize "PLAYER", tilesperplayer to something between 1 and 1000 (Longturn uses 500), teamplacement "CONTINENT", and startpos "ALL".

You can add poles to the map with the recipe above.

Note

Do not be surprised if you need to play around with some of the other settings to get the map you are looking for. Every Longturn game goes through a process of generating test maps for players to evaluate and vote for. Play around with the settings and you will get the map you eventually want!