Why are random new worlds so small ?

[Magean]

Hi all,

Since I'm now in holiday, I'm finally able to try the new features brought by patch 1.14. The rework of random new worlds (RNW) was something I was really looking forward, however I must say I'm disappointed : although they look better than those we had before, they tend to generate really small landmasses. On average, after generating a few of them, I tend to see mostly one or two small continents or some big islands, or an archipelago. Unfortunately, jewels like this :

are only rare exceptions.

Mind you, I have nothing against variance : the risk of stumbling upon a few measly islands, or on one gargantuous continent, is part of the pleasure of playing on a randomized map. That being said, I would be much happier if the expected size of RNW was roughly equal to that of the real new world, not substantially smaller. I fear I will have to disable the feature once again because I feel like the colonial game is too likely to be inexistent.

The best fix, in my opinion, would be a way to set some parameters before generating the RNW, to tell the game what kind of new world we want, à la Civilization : size, shape, climate, bumpiness... or just leave everyting full random. Since RNW now work with tiles, would it be really hard to put tiles in categories so that the game knows where to draw when generating ?

By the way, I remember having read it would be possible to save RNW to play them later on. This is an interesting feature, but I do not see how to use it... Any help ?

Anyway... Thanks in advance for your feedback, and I hope a dev will read this ! For someone who loves colonial games, RNW are really a key feature that has been in not-so-good shape for too long now.

 

[Wizzington]

We didn't have enough time to add as many big tiles as we wanted. It's something we plan to add on in the future. Generally though, they're not quite as small as you think... look at the original new world and see just how much is water.

 

[Magean]

We didn't have enough time to add as many big tiles as we wanted. It's something we plan to add on in the future. Generally though, they're not quite as small as you think... look at the original new world and see just how much is water.

Thanks for the answer. You're right, after unzooming I noticed the real new world is not as big as it looks, and it is much smaller than the thing I posted above. However, I still think I see too many Australia-sized landmasses. By the way, how can I save a New World that I liked ?

EDIT : a second grief I have about RNW is that they tend to create straight strings of islands which don't look natural at all. You should have them shuffled around a little bit, that'd be much better.

 

[PhroX]

We didn't have enough time to add as many big tiles as we wanted. It's something we plan to add on in the future. Generally though, they're not quite as small as you think... look at the original new world and see just how much is water.

I think part of the perception issue is that the "real" new world has (almost) all of its land in a single continent. Many of the RNW's I've seen which have a lot of land in total spread that land out into multiple, often quite widely separated, continents.

 

[I'm gaming]

Option to choose size of new world is needed..

 

[Golladan]

Keep in mind that while the landmasses may look small, they contain a crapload of provinces.

 

[kvk]

I would prefer more big landmasses with big provinces, most of the current tiles consists of small islands with a ton of provinces, which I am not a huge fan of. Though the RNW is still very cool and neat.

 

[Kastane]

I hardly get any real continents. I mostly get alot of islands in RNW that varies in size from that of Ireland, to that of Britain.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Option to choose size of new world is needed..

This is more or less what I was suggesting here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/useful-random-new-world-options.899976/

I take it a step further and give the option to control what the maximum and minimum result can be, so that you can completely eliminate undesirable results while still having as much surprise factor as you want in a given game.

 

[BrokenSky]

Part of the problem is that the Old -non random- New World (ONW) has a northern border and a lot of interior. If you compare the number of coast-to-inland provinces of most RNW tiles, the ONW has far more. This, coupled with panama means that reaching western america takes time and a lot of the provinces are interior, so it doesn't feel like as soon as you reach a continent you can colonize every bit of it. the solution is to have more large continent tiles which have a north/south border and larger interior/exterior ratios. but yeah having an options menu or something would be amazing.

Also would it be possible to get RNW scenarios to work with random nation mode? At the moment most civilizations are called "<capital province>_name" where <capital province> is the name of the province where the capital is.

 

[tobias.mb]

You should check out the "RNW: Only Continents" mod on steam.

 

[makif130289]

Playing with a random new world is just another heresy, like sunset invasion DLC of CKII .

 

[Magean]

You should check out the "RNW: Only Continents" mod on steam.

Thanks, this mod does quite the job.

 

[net.split]

I'm finding the smaller masses quite nice for EU4's gameplay. Colonization speed and fairly sparse natives makes the real New World's interior of questionable value and utilization, something that's actually appropriate given that not much went on there in EU4's time range. Having a new world more divided into several smaller continents and lots of islands makes for potentially great competitive play between colonial nations. I'd just like to see an improved naval warfare game so we can really take advantage of it.

 

[Mauer]

I'd like for canals to be added if possible to the RNWs, I played in that same map as the OPs pic and it would have been perfect to have one where the two biigger landmasses connect.