Better map generation algorithm

[Zentay]

I find the map generation rarely produces satisfying results and think it could be a lot better.

It appears to be heavily based on perlin noise which produces very random and chaotic results.

The many tiny lakes that only get in the way of building a factory are frustrating. Cull these please.

Always starting in the middle of several lakes is frustrating because it means there's no room for an orderly factory in the starting location.

Terrain segmentation creates a leopard pattern of different terrain types which is extremely ugly. The combination of very low terrain segmentation and water only in starting area also seems bugged and always produces horrendoues leopard patterns.

I think it would be much more interesting is terrain segmentation was removed entirely in favor of a biome choice (all desert, all woodland, etc).

[daniel34]

Setting the water to starting area only will not spawn lakes outside the starting area, especially useful if you set the starting area to be small.

You can also use the Landfill mod to convert lakes into buildable land mass.

[ssilk]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=13022 World Generation / Map Generator / Game Modes

PS: There are many different ideas of "what is a good starting location/a good map". Also the complete opposite of what your suggestion.

[Targa]

The game kind of reminds me of when I used to play Civ 4 a lot. I could sit for an hour or two trying to generate a map that was to my liking. This game, however, is not quite as bad. I can usually find a decent map after hitting the Restart button less than 20 times. My issue is that I don't find any of the biomes visually appealing except for the "green grass, green trees" one, which makes rolling a map take a bit longer. I doubt you could find any game that randomly generates maps that can generate great maps most, or even 50% of the time.

That being said, the config.lua in the RSO mod has some map generation tweaks you can play with, if you have a mind to.