I'm afraid of turning on Random New World. Should I be?

[CyaN]

So, I didn't really like that feature before, I think I only activated it once and the unholy mess I discovered when I sailed west made me lose interest in that game pretty quickly. But the changes look good though, so I'm considering giving it another chance, only that this time I don't want to quit the game after a couple of hours of gameplay, the moment I see the first blobby island crowded with disoriented natives and with a big ass desert in the middle.

To sum up, I'm still suffering from PRNWD (Post-Random New World Disorder) and I don't want to aggravate it, so I'm looking for opinions before I try it myself. What do you think of that reworked feature? Were you underwhelmed by the new world you discovered? Or was it interesting?

 

[Willem IV]

I had a interesting run with my first and only game so far. Just try it, and go exploring.

 

[Grif_E]

If you won't trigger if you find a whole lot of ocean with a bunch of small islands, or if the bulk of the landmass is in the area normally identified as the middle of the Pacific Ocean you'll probably be fine. If you'd be upset that you cannot start colonising as early as a normal game because landmasses happen to be a lot farther away in the generation you get then it also might be a bad idea for you.

 

[Paul31264]

I've tried out the new RNW and generated a couple of them, but I've never actually played with one. The ones I generated were just not very appealing to me, since they were just a bunch of small islands which would have been a pain to colonize and navigate.

I really wish there were some costumization options for the RNW, something similar to the map types in Civ V (Pangaea, Continents, Archipelago, Fractal, and so on). If I knew that the RNW would consist of just a few large landmasses, I would actually turn it on, but I don't want to generate a RNW and then be stuck with a potentially disappointing one throughout the game.

 

[fetusthebard]

I also find that there are these odd shaped islands that always pop up. Some are cool, like one that is a giant volcano basically, but one of them is a cross and it looks really stupid, and another is a circle with a path through the middle and that one looks stupid as well. The landmasses are generally worth it, but I wasn't really upset by the landmasses in the old one either. Except when they looked like snakes.

 

[Falc]

There's an option that controls how likely the 'fantasy' New World tiles are, ranging from 'Frequent' to 'Never'. I'm pretty sure those weird-looking ones are in the fantasy category.

 

[Janha]

I have just discovered my first one, and it's basically huge continent. I don't still know what is behind it. So excited! You should really put RNW on. Even my friend, who doesn't play EU4, was very excited what we will discover :333 It's so fascinating!!

 

[Serio]

There's an option that controls how likely the 'fantasy' New World tiles are, ranging from 'Frequent' to 'Never'. I'm pretty sure those weird-looking ones are in the fantasy category.

Doesn't that option just cause native countries to get bonuses, making them more likely to be challenging when you do arrive in the New World?

 

[Alpacayak]

You can disable TI on lobby and check for yourself before committing to a campaign. Sadly I find that setting fantasy to frequent increases the occurrence of disconnected, bland islands quite a lot. But if you play with them disabled or on less frequent settings it does actually generate some quite solid and convincing landmasses.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Doesn't that option just cause native countries to get bonuses, making them more likely to be challenging when you do arrive in the New World?

It controls both what continents you get and who is on them.

 

[grommile]

The most amusing fantasy tile is, of course, Paradoxia.

 

[Serio]

It controls both what continents you get and who is on them.

Ooh, sweet. I wasn't aware of that. Looks like I'm gonna be playing RNW soon enough, then!

 

[CyaN]

It sounds amusing enough, I guess. I think I'll do a Russia game and see what I get (if I don't like the new world... well, I'm Russia, I don't care) before committing myself to a colonization game.

 

[Freudia]

I kinda just wish I'd roll RNWs that consisted of more 'landmasses' and less 'islands'. The island-heavy stuff is kinda cool, but not if it makes up a solid 70-80% of the maps generated. I did see a cool RNW a friend rolled up which had consisted of three large landmasses conjoined together by a tiny sliver of land, though, and that definitely would have made for a great game. Just wish maps like that would show up more.

 

[ahhheygao]

So, I didn't really like that feature before, I think I only activated it once and the unholy mess I discovered when I sailed west made me lose interest in that game pretty quickly. But the changes look good though, so I'm considering giving it another chance, only that this time I don't want to quit the game after a couple of hours of gameplay, the moment I see the first blobby island crowded with disoriented natives and with a big ass desert in the middle.

So from the sounds of it, you want fresh sense of exploration and don't want to reveal Terra Incognita in the lobby to check whether the generated RNW is worth committing to?

To sum up, I'm still suffering from PRNWD (Post-Random New World Disorder) and I don't want to aggravate it, so I'm looking for opinions before I try it myself. What do you think of that reworked feature? Were you underwhelmed by the new world you discovered? Or was it interesting?

I like a lot of the fantasy land tiles, but overall I still feel there are too many islands and too few major landmasses. Thankfully, modding the RNW generation is pretty damn easy and surprisingly doesn't actually change checksum at the moment, so it wouldn't affect multiplayers or Ironman Cheevo-hunters. See below.

I really wish there were some costumization options for the RNW, something similar to the map types in Civ V (Pangaea, Continents, Archipelago, Fractal, and so on). If I knew that the RNW would consist of just a few large landmasses, I would actually turn it on, but I don't want to generate a RNW and then be stuck with a potentially disappointing one throughout the game.

I kinda just wish I'd roll RNWs that consisted of more 'landmasses' and less 'islands'. The island-heavy stuff is kinda cool, but not if it makes up a solid 70-80% of the maps generated. I did see a cool RNW a friend rolled up which had consisted of three large landmasses conjoined together by a tiny sliver of land, though, and that definitely would have made for a great game. Just wish maps like that would show up more.

You CAN customize how maps are generated in RNW via modding, and it's really easy to mod, not to mention it doesn't affect checksum (for multiplayer or Ironman Achievements). You just need to examine and edit the tile generation files in the "Steam\steamapps\common\Europa Universalis IV\map\random\tiles\" directory. Simply crank up the line that defines the random generation weights of the major landmass tiles (e.g. increase weight = 100 to weight = 10000), and you'll be guaranteed at least a few major landmasses. It's THAT easy.

 

[Promanco]

Is not for every game, but it is definitely fun everyonce in a while, try it out to see if is up your alley, and it will be unless you hate fun

 

[orang3kush]

 

[TheDungen]

Well I'll be frank with you it's still not perfect, but it's better.

It's smaller than the real new world, it doesn't fit as well aestetically as the real new world (especially when compared to the pacific) and it does stange things to the seas of the old world. But it's a huge improvement over the old one. If they keep improving it like they keep improving all things it will probably eventually be one of the best ranadom map generators out there.

 

[myrsl0ken]

It controls both what continents you get and who is on them.

I wish you had separated that 'cause I love the fantasy nations but hate the fanatasy tiles.

 

[ahhheygao]

I wish you had separated that 'cause I love the fantasy nations but hate the fanatasy tiles.

They are actually separated. The land masses are governed by the tiles files, while the weight of fantasy nations are governed by RNWScenarios.txt file. If you lower the weight of the fantasy tiles to something minuscule (like weight = 1), you'll have fantasy nations show up but none of the fantasy land mass tiles.