Land sizes

[MrBiscuits]

A feature I'd quite like is that smaller land sizes have the land nearer the centre of the map. The reason I play smaller maps is that I want to play a shorter game, but with smaller land masses it means that you are managing less cities, but you've got to manage all your units moving across the ocean a lot more so you don't actually save any time.

This would make the naval aspect of those games a bit weaker, but to be honest it is not exactly the most interesting part of the game. There's enough navy combat with the standard map size as it is.

Maybe the vertical distribution could be the same and the horizontal one more central.

[zitro1987]

I remember making a similar argument, but there were some balance concerns (not just coding) in the forum and the idea got dropped.

Nonetheless, some balance issues aside, I still very strongly still support this, especially if picking fewer enemy wizards. The game lacks options for gamers who do not have the time to put 15+ hours per game. Many other strategy games (master of orion, civilization, etc) have size options. Having less land does shorten game a bit, but not enough due to scattered nature. It also makes naval or non-land units more important which I may not always want.

[teelaurila]

So basically you are saying that average land mass size divided by total map size should be bigger with smaller maps? So more continents less islands. Purposefully making half the map an ocean does not seem to make sense?

[MrBiscuits]

Same number of continents more of less as there's less land but it is concentrated more in the middle.

Ideally the entire map size would be reduced, but I imagine that is impossible, so this is another solution.

[teelaurila]

Well with civ the (usual) parameters are, afaik:
Land amount (land versus sea)
Land fragmentation (smattering of islands versus larger continents)
Map size

These should suffice. It would seem you wish for small map, more land and less sea, then. Not sure if fragmentation plays a part, but probably rather continents. A map with half of it sea is quite pointless, as you might as well have smaller map. (Well, technically a map with "pacific ocean" is more of a rectangle rather than the usual cylinder, as it's not so easy to go around compared to a half smaller map).

For what it's worth, it is my experience that smaller maps are not only shorter but also lots easier. But there is the difficulty slider that does not stop at 11.

[Seravy]

A solution for this would be to have a land fragmentation option but unfortunately that isn't possible for two reasons :
-No space on screen and in code to add another option button
-Land fragmentation isn't optional in this game - the AI does not work if continents exceed a certain size so at best it could have settings from the smallest to medium size.

Making the change mandatory is a bad idea, then we lose the ability to have the current type of map.

(also map size is impossible - every map is exactly 60x40 with no way to change that - it's a hardcoded amount that appears anywhere the game works on the map.)

[MrBiscuits]

A solution for this would be to have a land fragmentation option but unfortunately that isn't possible for two reasons :
-No space on screen and in code to add another option button
-Land fragmentation isn't optional in this game - the AI does not work if continents exceed a certain size so at best it could have settings from the smallest to medium size.

Making the change mandatory is a bad idea, then we lose the ability to have the current type of map.

(also map size is impossible - every map is exactly 60x40 with no way to change that - it's a hardcoded amount that appears anywhere the game works on the map.)

It's true that you'd lose the current map set ups, but do most people prefer tiny/small land size spread thinly over the entire map? 

I imagine most people would prefer it to have a similar land types to standard map size, so that could be the default for tiny/small.

[Seravy]

I prefer this so I'm not going to make the other mandatory.
It defeats the purpose of a naval map if there are no large distances on sea. You can cover up to 3 tiles with a freshly made ship without risking a naval battle.

[zitro1987]

We have 5 land-size options, what if we have?

concentrated-small-fair-large-huge (I can't think of the name for the first).

Small is a naval game as is, heavily concentrated on stretched out islands. Tiny is extremely unbalanced with an unfun stretched out nature.

Concentrated could be a unique option that uses the 'small' land tile # but concentrates fragmentation of such land.

This way, we don't add a new confusing option that works best only for tiny/small, we don't remove a current option, and now get to introduce a truly 'small' option (available in nearly all 4X games) for many players who prefer less stretched out territory.

[Seravy]

This is an already rejected suggestion, I've added it to that list.
I finally remembered the greatest problem with it : you CAN'T generate maps like that. It'd violate the minimal distance rules on wizard starting positions, towers, nodes, etc - mostly the wizards.

(let's not get into the details of what having all 3 other wizards in a range of 10 tiles from your starting position means for game balance.)