1.1 Potential issue - concentration of monster lairs/goodie huts/quests in upper left corner of map?

from Elemental Forums

Hey guys!

In my current game of Elemental, using a large random map, I ended up with a 'Florida style' peninsula in the upper left corner of the map.  It had multiple monster lairs, goodie huts, quest huts and stuff concentrated in a mass, with something like 4 quests, 5 monster lairs, and 4 treasure sites all spaced within 1-2 squares of each other. 

I ended up with quite the haul clearing out that peninsula, as this was mid/late game and my Sov stack was at the 'Deadly' level, but I digress...

I didn't think to save the game separately at that point, but afterwords I remember this being an issue in the old 'E:WOM' days with resources (i.e. a bunch of resource sites ending up being concentrated in the upper left corner), so the code needed to be tweaked to spread the resources out more uniformly.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.  I haven't seen it before now, but then I haven't started near the upper left corner of the map near a narrow peninsula before now in my E:LH playtesting.  This is important, because if it turns out that the AI randomizer is favoring the upper left corner of the map for lairs/treasure sites/quest sites, it might need some tweaking, similar to the love that resources needed back in the day.  Plus, players that 'know' about a hot spot in the upper left corner of the map can capitalize on it, hence throwing off game balance a bit perhaps.

If this isn't a 'regular' thing, then all is well.  Just wondering if anyone else has seen this.

2,913 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I haven't noticed this clustering with the maps, it might have been just a fluke in your game. Or there wasn't enough room for items to be placed and so you ended up with clustering.

It is also random and clustering is a complete possibility. For example, you could flip a coin and get heads 4000 times in a row... not likely but entirely possible.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 1


I haven't noticed this clustering with the maps, it might have been just a fluke in your game. Or there wasn't enough room for items to be placed and so you ended up with clustering.

It is also random and clustering is a complete possibility. For example, you could flip a coin and get heads 4000 times in a row... not likely but entirely possible.
End of parrottmath's quote

My guess is that the game AI shifted these to the nearest landmass when they were called out in water, which happened to be the peninsula I mentioned.  That being said, the fact that it happened in the upper left corner is what caught my attention, as this has been an issue in E:WOM with resources in the past (was fixed at some point), and I could see the possiblilty of the random seeding algorithm in E:LH 'inheriting' this issue with the code.

Also, if this 'clustering' happens fairly regularly, well it might be worth a look, as it can be very imbalancing versus the other empire placement locations on the map.  If it is a rare thing, then thems the breaks with random map generation.  If it happens a significant amount of the time, well it affects game balance and hence my mention.

Mainly, I just wanted to point this out so that others could comment as to whether this was a significant issue in their own games, in case a placement code tweak might be in order.

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