Hands down the most popular map script for Civilization IV is Cephalo's "Perfect World" map script. This script uses plate tectonics and weather modeling to create a remarkably Earth-like random planet.
The main disadvantage of this script is that it takes far longer to render a map of an imaginary world; people using mid-2000s CPU talked about it taking 10 minutes to generate a Civilization IV map.
This is less of an issue on a modern Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processor; on my Core i5-2430M, it takes 30 seconds to a minute to render a map.
I like the script so much that I am beginning work on making some modifications to it. My goal with this fork is to address issues people have had with the script which Cephalo has never addressed. Unlike Cephalo, I feel basic settings should be changed from Civ4's menus instead of editing the script. I like having the knobs on the front instead of in the back of the unit.
It is currently possible to set the ocean level from inside of Civ4, but I have not bothered setting up climate parameters yet. It's also possible to use a fixed seed instead of a randomly chosen seed.
In addition, I have made it a tunable parameter how many islands the script has (it doesn't reduce the "grain" size but instead makes the height map larger which makes the grain relatively smaller), and began work on having it be possible for the script to make "quick and dirty" maps (rendering time appears to be the square of the heightmap size, so smaller height maps result in faster renders). This has not been extensively tested.
This script is currently derived from Cephalo's last (and probably final) release of PerfectWorld2.py (version 2.06), and currently does not incorporate any third party changes.
Totestra is available at http://samiam.org/Civ4/.
To install the script, download then copy Totestra.py to the PublicMaps directory, which should be at /Users/yourname/Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete/PublicMaps or somewhere similar.
Before filing a bug report or making a feature request, please keep in mind the following:
- Make sure logging is enabled. In CivilizationIV.ini (this may be a
different file depending on the Civilization IV install being used),
make sure LoggingEnabled = 1, RandLog = 1, and MessageLog = 1
- If you try and load the script and it gives you nothing but grassland,
this means the script failed for some reason. Make sure to post the
relevant lines of PythonDbg.log and PythonErr.log so we can try and
figure out what's broken with your Civ IV install.
- I can not look at any reports of issues with strange looking maps,
strange player placements, etc. unless I know the exact parameters that
made the map in question. To get this information, look in PythonDbg.log
for the map seed as well as the map parameters; post these parameters
along with your bug report.
- I will probably not implement whatever pet feature you want to have
implemented. You have the source and I don't think Cephalo will mind if
you implement it yourself.
- All support requests or comments need to be posted at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=461262. Do not email me, or use any other contact method to discuss with me this map script.
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