Tutorial: Mapmaking for Civ 4

[Charriu]

Hello all together,

I wanted to get into mapmaking and searched the forum for anything related to mapmaking. What I didn't find is any kind of tutorial about mapmaking or general discussion about it. So I hope that this thread can develop into this kind of tutorial/discussion. Mind you this should about the process of mapmaking and not about the tools to make them. I will provide a link list to any tools I come across so that they are easier to find for anybody, but in this thread here I am interested about the skill of mapmaking. Things like:

• How do you start making the map?
  
• What are your steps to the final map (Player starts first or the shape of the land first etc.)?
  
• How do you make sure that the map is balanced?
  
• What are common mistakes you should avoid in mapmaking?
  
• When would you say is a map lush in RB fashion?
  

But I don't want to leave it at these general topics and hope that some people will share some knowledge about more specific topics like:

• The worldbuilder file. What's in it and what should I look for? Are there any specific RtR things that differ from the standard BtS?
  
• How to convert a BtS worldbuilder file into a RtR file?
  
• Rivers. How to make them beautiful and keep my sanity in doing so?
  
• Changes to the settings of the map after initial creation? How to? What should I avoid?
  

Together with the tool link list I will also try to update a list that links to any posts, which tackle one of these topics. Last but not least I will also reserve a post for a tiny FAQ, which should cover smaller questions

[Charriu]

Topics:

Civ4 World Builder Wiki: It contains an intro to the standard BtS Worldbuilder file, a link to the Worldbuilder manual and some useful information about rivers.
PB34 Map Thread: greenline did his first(?) map and laid out his process. There's a lot to learn from this thread.
PB38 Map Thread: just an excellent report across the whole process of creating this big map.


Tools:

[Charriu]

FAQ

Q: When can I build ships on a body of water?

A: To build ships on it, it needs to be 20 tiles big, with the exception of work boats, which can be build on any body of water that contains a sea resource. Source

Q: Which way does the x,y go on a civ4 map? Is the top left 0,0 and the bottom right w,h

A: (0,0) is bottom left. Kind of like graphs in math class, numbers get bigger right and up. Source

Q: When can ships cross the ocean?

A: There are two ways ships can cross the ocean, first via the normal tech route and the unlocked ships like caravels, galleons etc. The second way is more important for mapmaking. If a player has culture on an ocean tile, any of his ships can move in and out of that tile. But there's a catch to this as culture can only spread 2 tiles away from the nearest land.

Q: What should I check before I send the WorldBuilder file to the admins?

• Extra techs by free AI techs
• Extra techs by change of civilization
• Wrong scout/warrior start unit
• Wrong starting gold
• Missing extra units (only set for player 0)
• Tiles visible at startup
• Wrong starting point of player
• WB file not loadable because player/team sizes not match to DLL
• WB file not loadable because mod alters WB reading and file is not compatible
• WB file not loadable due manual editing of file


Source
[url=http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3762&highlight=map][/url]

[Mardoc]

Hello all together,

I wanted to get into mapmaking and searched the forum for anything related to mapmaking. What I didn't find is any kind of tutorial about mapmaking or general discussion about it. So I hope that this thread can develop into this kind of tutorial/discussion. Mind you this should about the process of mapmaking and not about the tools to make them. I will provide a link list to any tools I come across so that they are easier to find for anybody, but in this thread here I am interested about the skill of mapmaking. Things like:

You mean Civ 4 mapmaking or generic?  Anyway, I'll throw out a couple quick answers and try to circle back for a more complete answer in a few days when I have more time.  I only make maps because that gives me something to watch...

[*]How do you start making the map?

I typically roll a map in single player, enter worldbuilder, and start.  It's time consuming but simple to do things by hand.  If you can follow Python, look for GermanJoey's tool and follow his tutorials - that's how Cornflakes made the PB38 map.

[*]What are common mistakes you should avoid in mapmaking?

Never give people copper in the BFC...but always make sure to include all seven strategics in the portion of land that someone will definitely own if they are even remotely competitive.  Oil should be land oil, since sea oil isn't usable until later in the tech tree.

Never pick neighbors based on what would be a fun game to watch, or matching skill levels, or anything like that.  Make your starts, then assign them randomly, always.

[*]The worldbuilder file. What's in it and what should I look for?

Worldbuilder file is everything about the map, in text.  You can edit it in any text editor, but usually the most important things are civs, leaders, and starting techs - all conveniently at the top of the file.  Also game settings.  It's actually pretty easy to understand when you read it, they put some effort into making it legible.

Theoretically you could alter tiles/resources/etc with a text editor but that would be even more of a pain than using the worldbuilder itself.

Are there any specific RtR things that differ from the standard BtS?  How to convert a BtS worldbuilder file into a RtR file?

RtR has more slots available for civs.  It goes up to I think 34, while BtS caps at 18.  Best way to convert is to create a new RtR file as a template, and copy/paste the extra civ slots to the BtS file (in two places, both Teams and Players).

That's the only difference.  There are bigger differences if you want to create a FFH/EitB map but BtS and RtR are straightforward to convert.

[*]Changes to the settings of the map after initial creation? How to? What should I avoid?

Change them in the Worldbuilder file.  Either type them, or create a new Worldbuilder with the exact settings you want, and copy/paste them into the real map file.

[Charriu]

Ah yes. Thanks. I meant this to be for Civ 4 and I just adjusted the title.

[superdeath]

Interesting.
I would love to learn more as well, as im hoping to be the mapmaker for a PB sometime. I think i know how to change leaders/ect ( or i can trial and error it )

My questions are:
why no copper in BFC? Im assuming to prevent rush tactics, but BW is usually a go-to tech for everyone due to slavery/chops.
Wouldnt it just be easier to build a map in a RTR modded wb file instead of starting with BTS?
Is the hardest part of the mapmaking process the rivers?

[Charriu]

Wouldnt it just be easier to build a map in a RTR modded wb file instead of starting with BTS?

Yes, it is easier to start in RtR. But in the past some people did just this (Erwin in PB39), so I figured it would be good to know, what the difference are and how to do it.

[Krill]

Copper can be in the capital, however it gives Zulu the chance at a 2 mover rush. See PB16 for why that is a bad idea. Horse is a straight no for the same reason.

Rivers are easy. Just make them 2 tiles at a time, in the direction of upstream to downstream and then delete the unwanted sections.

Also, full of resources map script can be best script to get a random map to balance, but you have to get the settings near perfect. Often I've failed and had to use a vanilla script and do more work.

All judgement on game balance is from player experience though. Don't do things because you think it would be interesting to play. It usually isn't and players don't like being rats in a lab.

[Cornflakes]

As Mardoc mentioned, GermanJoey made a powerful and easy-to-use program to assist in editing. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you understand the commands that are available it is really quite simple. No programming knowledge required either, just basic command line functions.

PB38 mapmaking thread would be a good general reference as Mardoc, Krill, and RefSteel posted advice along the way. The Python I used on the PB38 map was to create a new map script without having to learn the Civ4 map script logic. It was easier for me to start from scratch than it was to manipulate the pre-existing scripts.

My priority for the PB38 and all of the Civ6 maps is:
0. I always start from an existing map, never created from scratch tile-by-tile. In PB38 I created a map script to roll something more specific with the landforms, but it was still a script-generated map.
1. Global view big-picture landform (I.e look at the minimap). Try to make sure players are spaced well, have approximately the same room to expand, and roughly the same neighbor situation (no monkey-in-the-middle or isolated totally isolated starts). At this stage I reject maps and re-roll the map script if I don’t like the overall global view.
2. Zoom the view to look at the total land for each player, one player at a time. More of a quick comparison of general land quality. Make sure one player doesn’t start in a desert or tundra wasteland while other players start in the Fertile Crescent. At this stage I’m just quickly changing some desert to grassland and vice versa. Also considering hills and forests. Not specific counts, but just overall look and feel.
3. Balance capital BFC. Others can provide more detail on what this looks like.
4. Balance strategic resources and luxuries. Others can provide more detail on what this looks like
5. Imagine I was playing each start. Looking about 5 tile radius from the starting tile, where would I locate my 2nd and 3rd cities. Would I be happy with the options if I had to play from that start position? What would I really wish I had? What did I dislike about that start? At this stage I’m usually adding in a couple of bonus resources and forests outside the BFC within about 6 tiles of the starting tile, to the weaker/more boring/I’d-rather-not-play-from-this-start positions. In Civ6 freshwater access is a huge consideration at this stage.

[Charriu]

Lately I had some time to read through the map threads of PB23 up to PB39 and I found some interesting general tips that. I think it would be good to collect them here. I link back to every original post, just so you can dig a little deeper and I apologize for ripping these posts out of their context. So first we have GermanJoey about:

The advantages of a lush map

There's four main reasons why so-called "lush" starts/maps are preferred, in no particular order:

1.) As Dreylin and REM said, low-food starts are unfun, both for the players and the lurkers. A big part of civ is that you're building a civ. When your civ sucks right from the get-go, it feels sucky. A big part of reporting is that you're excited about your civ, so you want to post about it. When you're not so excited, you might not post so much. That feeds back to the lurkers too; when the players are more excited and posting a lot, the lurkers will get more excited and post more too. (see PB33)

2.) Lusher maps speed the game up. Pitboss games are exciting when the game first begins, because there's lots to do in planning out your start and you're still uncovering the map, and exciting when players first start interacting heavily in the classical/medieval era. Between those points the game tends to be more of a drag, as you already have your plan mostly in place but you still need to log in and hit end turn, sometimes without even having a unit to move. Lusher maps make this part of the game go faster without having to resort to quick speed. (this is also a reason to give everyone a plainshill at their start)

3.) Lusher maps are higher skill. When there's only a few sparse food resources nearby, where one settles is pretty obvious and there won't be a big difference between what different players will do. Increase the lushness, and eventually there stops being one right choice, and players will have to start making decisions on what to do. Both PB27 and PB29 are good examples of this effect.

4.) Lusher maps are easier to balance. In the early game, civs will only have a few cities and they'll each be only working a few tiles. When one civ has three 6f tiles, three 5f tiles, and a pair of grass gems between their 4 cities while another civ has a bunch of plains sheep and no happy resource at all, that latter civ will get real bitter real quick once map trades start flinging around at Writing. Players will naturally try to optimize their civs to choose the best tiles to settle nearby, so the same exact distribution of tiles isn't necessary (although try to avoid heavy clusters), as long as both civs have some good stuff nearby - players will choose what they want from it. Think of an Iron Chef battle, where one chef has filet mignons, foie gras, etc, on their side of the kitchen, while the challenger chef has instant cup noodles and some microwaveable steamer bags of vegetables to work with on their side. Maybe the challenger can make a miracle out of what they've been given, but it's a massive uphill battle for them and certainly doesn't feel very fair or fun. (which, again, is important, because you're gonna be stuck with it for a year, and every time you login you're gonna have that shoved in your face)

At any rate, it's also not very novel or interesting to have those horrid low food capitals, because half the capitals in PB31 were even worse than these.

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