[Freeciv-Dev] I have written a new terrain generator

[Helge Hafting <helgehaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have written a new terrain generator, and wonder
if there's any interest in testing it,
and where I should send the files.

My terrain generator tries create a natural terrain by
simulating global weather.  The simulation has
lots of adjustable parameters, currently stored in a
file of its own.

The first step is creating a height map.
That is, each tile  gets some height or depth.
Heights are averaged to simulate erosion.

The next step is to assign tile temperatures, depending
on latitude and wether the tile is land or sea.
And high tiles are colder than low ones.
Temperatures are then averaged, i.e. sea tiles
influence nearby land and vice versa.

The third step is a simulation of weather.  
Water evaporates from sea (and tiles wet from
previous passes) and form clouds that rain down
on neighbour tiles.  You get more rain
over cold and high tiles, as in real life.
Tiles end up with different wetness after this.

The fourth step is to run excess water down
to lower tiles until it reaches the sea.  
Any tile with sufficient waterflow becomes
river.

The final step is to map the generated terrain
to freeciv tile types.  This is done by using
a ruleset that specify a height range, a
temperature range, and a wetness range for
each freeciv tile type.  These rules
are in the config file too, so they can
be tuned easily.  And new tiletypes may
be added without changing the program code.

The generated terrain have rivers flowing 
from mountains to sea, and mountains
mostly in the middle of continents.

The program is currently standalone, it
reads a savegame to get some 
parameters like land percentage and
then rewrites the terrain.  I wonder if it is
interest in having it merged as another
way of generating terrain?

I can do it, but I will probably need some
advice.  I haven't used CVS before, and
there are some issues.  The current terrain
generator do stuff like deleting small islands.
I don't know why, it is easy enough to put
the players on larger islands or perhaps
give the "unlucky" ones a free trireme
or something.

Helge Hafting