Change: Don't use special map gen for tropic #9634
Conversation
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This feels like a very cheap solution to a bigger problem, at the cost of anyone that likes the tropic mapgen :) I am not a fan of this change. I think, and we (other developers) have been talking about this for a while now, it makes much more sense to change the approach of our "new game" window. Offer a few solid presets, and a big "advanced" button that allows you to turn every nob we can find in any way you like. One of those can be if a percentage of the map should be some type, like desert, water, snow, ... That brings in much more variation, and people can truly experiment with different forms of map generation. It even allows us to add more of these things in there, for people to find their niche. But removing it outright .. that sounds like a step backwards, not forwards. |
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I'm totally on-board with new map generation presets and tools. And I don't want to eliminate the ability of a player to generate the map they want — I'm getting plenty of hate for my signal GUI PR right now. :) But in the meantime, a subtropic Alpinist map looks like a temperate Hilly map to me. Changing the terrain type seems like a better way to choose the terrain type, rather than having special hidden rules which does something different than I expect. This disconnect between my choices in the New Map menu and what actually generates are what frustrates me. In any case, with or without the proposed new map generation presents/tools, I would like to see these hidden rules eliminated so that what I select is what gets generated. |
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It was never the idea that climates render their heightmap the same. Diversity was what the idea was with those climates. Basically, it is climates++. And I can understand that you struggle with that. But the fact still remains that your solution is the cheapest of all :D (sorry, I don't mean this in a bad way ofc). |
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After some discussion on Discord, let's wait for the new map generation tools to do this. |
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I don't see the point in removing the tropic-special while keeping the arctic-special. So to allow more map options, I guess you want some "elevation gamma" setting:
No idea whether "gamma" is a good term, probably not, but image processing uses some similar stuff to adjust brightness/contrast/gamma. |
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I like your suggestion @frosch123 ; and I guess we can do with yet-another-map-generation-setting :P And it fits a lot more with any future plans. Sounds like a nice compromise between the two, not @2TallTyler ? :) |
Motivation / Problem
Subtropic maps use different map generation than other climates (so does subarctic, but that's a different story) which makes it impossible to get mountainous terrain from generated maps. This limits the types of games which can be played, even as #8891 makes it possible to have all-rainforest maps. Want a hilly rainforest? Your only option is to use a heightmap.
Eliminating the special subtropic rules has been proposed before in #7340 and an associated forum topic, but was closed by the stale bot. Now that landscape generation has been simplified in #8891, I think it's worth revisiting.
Description
TGP uses separate rules for subtropic and subarctic:
Half of tiles should be at lowest (0..25%) heightsRedistribute heights to have more tiles at highest (75%..100%) rangeAs shown in #8891 (comment), this appears to drag down the peaks and make the entire map flatter.
Leaving alone subarctic for now, I don't see a need for separate subtropic rules to flatten maps. Players can just choose a flatter terrain type.
Generating a map with these settings:
Current subtropic generation:
Proposed subtropic generation:
Limitations
Checklist for review
Some things are not automated, and forgotten often. This list is a reminder for the reviewers.