Todd_Hawks

It's simply, really: I own both Elemental and Civ V and they are both(!) very disppointing. For different reasons: Elemental is a huge mess in nearly all areas but the expectations were lower to start with. Civ V is working in general and you won't notice until after a while that the AI is completely braindead, the diplomacy is non-existant and intransparent and a lot of other stuff is dumbed down. It's a shame that the only empire strategy games this year are both big failures

Civ V isn't out yet so no one can really say how good it will be. I expect it to be highly polished but also dumbed down in several respects. I also expect the AI to be bad, solely due to the "one unit per tile" rule... AIs were never any good at that level of tactical complexity in any game. That said, I still think Civ V will be way, way better than Elemental in its current, sorry state. It's hard to imagine to get a worse release than Elemental.

They are able but based on my experience with GalCiv 2, it will take at least half a year. Considering how bad the game currently is, make that one or even two years.

[quote who="Jharii" reply="126" id="2729059"]LOL. Everyone just ignores the posted workaround/fix and picks up a torch.[/quote] There IS no workaround/fix. If you took even one look at one (or several) of those truly randomly generated maps you would know that they aren't any good at all. @rune: Please provide a link to where they say that they work on fixing/implementing random maps. All I have seen are posts by Frogboy repeatedly claiming that "Maps. Are. Random." and

[quote who="Stargrazer" reply="98" id="2727252"] Quoting Todd Hawks, reply 86Just for your information: The patch 1.01 brought 4 new large and 5 new medium maps. bringing the total to 6 and 9, respectively. To put things into perspective, this means that the probability of getting at least one repeated map (land mass layout) when playing n games on large maps is: n: prob 2: 16.7% 3: 44.4% <br

Well, Frogboy stated this very wekend that now he finally has some time to do some serious AI work... 1 day before release. So it was clear from the beginning that the AI would be very bad. It'll probably get fixed within the next years, like the rest of the stuff. Which is very recommendable by Stadock, I just wish they wouldn't start their real beta test with the release.

[quote who="Stuie_acs" reply="95" id="2726291"] LDiCesare is the author of what is still my favorite map script for Civ 4. If anyone gets it, I think he does.[/quote] Which map script is that? I see myself playing some more Civ 4 until Elemental is in a playable state (and let's be honest: Civ V probably will need a few patches as well) and am always intererested in good map scripts.

Just for your information: The patch 1.01 brought 4 new large and 5 new medium maps. bringing the total to 6 and 9, respectively. Which is better than before, but it's still nothing compared to random maps. And if that few are called "lots of new seed maps"... sorry, but unless there are hundreds or even thousands, we will still see a lot of repetition.

Before this thread gets locked or deleted as well, I'd like to ask you a question, Frogboy: When you say that "the maps *are* randomly generated, only the landmass is taken from the seed files", then please (I am not sarcastic here, genuinely curious) tell me what exactly is randomly generated. Because to me, a map *is* the landmass. You know, the shape of the continents and the landscape features (mountains, forests,...). And all these are not random. The only thing that seems to be

Unfortunately, you are completely right. I wish this game was as good as we were lead to believe, but it's a rushed mess. It was to be expected, though, with Frogboy's comments this weekend about what needs to be fixed even in his opinion. Since I preordered more than a year ago, there is nothing I can do but chalk it up as failure and maybe see whether stardock will fix thing. They probably will, but (like with GalCiv 2, and that was not half as bad at release) it will take several expansion

Okay, the thread title was not that great but sometimes it's necessary to get some attention, especially on the first day. ;) Now, on topic: The generated maps are quite bad, in my opinion. Not one or two tiles islands, but still.... why not try it yourself? Add "cheat" behind the shortcut call and then uncover the map with ctrl-u. Only takes a few seconds to generate a few maps and check them out. It is not possible to simply add seeds. Those "seeds" are not really seeds (see

Sorry folks, I spent some time generating random maps and they are really, really, really bad. Try it yourselves. Deleting the seeds unfortunately is not the solution. To those who asked me why I looked at several maps already: Why not? Because I wanted to know how they look like. If I (or others) hadn't done this, the problem wouldn't have surfaced until a few weeks later but the problem would still be the same, so what does it matter? @ Nessin: There are so ma

[quote who="Nessin" reply="28" id="2722987"]Todd: Really? The wrong decision not to include completely random maps? I can see the draw of random maps, but unfortunately I've played too many Civilization games (as one example) where you get an hour or two in only to find out you (or the AI, thus killing any real challenge) were royally screwed by the map generator and have to restart. Or maybe you think its actually EASY to get a random function to generate a usabl

... with useful threads like yours... Sorry, couldn't resist. Seriously, what's your point? Do you try to make the forum even more cluttered in an effort to prevent Stardock from finding out about the problems of the game (and the praise for it) or potential buyers from getting information or new players from getting help?

[quote who="GI_Joe" reply="23" id="2722888"] Also: Todd, do you mean that there are only four actual maps (of whatever size you were playing), or are there more, but you just got a repetition on the fourth try?[/quote] I just got the repitition on the fourth try, I have no idea how many maps there are. But take a look at the maps folder: There are only 7 seed files for "small" and 6 for "tiny". Only 2 for "large" and 4 for "medium". So I assume that's the number of maps (there ar

Currently, only the resources are random. Everything else is fixed (shape of the continent, position of landscape (woods, mountains), starting locations (you don't always start at the same location but the locations themselves seem fixed)). Note that there are a couple of maps, so you won't get the same map *always*. But as I said, it only took me four tries to get a repetition. Also, not only the mountain ranges or forests should be random but also the shape of the map. As it

What is the point of a fantasy strategy game with a heavy portion of exploring and adventuring when there are evidently no random maps? It took me only 4 tries to get a duplicate map. Same shape, same position of the woods, the mountains and even the starting locations (these were shuffled around, though). Even if the resources are randomized, this is definitely not what I call a randomized map! I have to admit, I am a very astonished. The most important thing you need for a r