Random games
Replayability is very dependent on the ability to customise random games. Some variables that should be controllable in customising random games:
% land mass
Islands - continents
% of each terrain type (and % left random [the slider that is reduced as the others are increased])
number of strategic tiles (isthmuses, straits, oases, passes) (there would need to be some well designed algorithms to ensure these are actually strategic, e.g. that a strait connects two significant bodies of water)
Technology advancement rate factor
Number of players
AI strength (or AI advantages)
World size
Victory conditions (e.g. % of land area, % of population, % of world military power, etc)
Fog of war
Fog of exploration
Mirror map
A pre-prepared map (e.g. Earth) with random starting locations/placement (depending on number of starting cities or land area)
Unoccupied land area (the slider that is reduced as the others are increased)
Extent of interweaving between unit/city distribution of players
Per side:
Starting technologies
Number of starting cities (or starting land area)
Infrastructure development level (stone age, bronze age, iron age, middle ages, rennaissance, industrial, modern, post-apocalptic, etc)
Number of players
AI strength (or AI advantages)
Starting units per player
Inter-side relationships (war/peace/alliance)
The civilisation name (e.g. Denmark), civilisation adjective (e.g. Danish), demonym (e.g. a Dane), the civilisation's colour, the civilisation's flag, the civilisation's graphic set and the list of city/region names for each player, from a set list or user input
Victory conditions (e.g. % of land area, % of population, % of world military power, etc) (if not set the same for all players)
The amount of world map known
Starting unit health
Starting unit distribution
Other options
Ability to change players between human/AI during the game
In addition to these options, an important feature is to be able to save sets of option preferences so these can be shared with other users or used again in the future. When a game is started the save file should log the set-up options, so these can be extracted into a set-up preferences file if the user requires.
Approach to defining the scope of random games
For every variable in the game, the designer should be asking "how can we expose this to players in the random game setup".
Derivations of the Earth map
All the following derivations could be done at random
rotated so that the poles are not at the poles (and resulting different climate driven terrain types)
differing sea level (based on real land height/sea depth data)
invert land and water
different climate (e.g. no Sahara Desert)
ice age
gondwanaland and other earlier landforms
expected future landforms
combinations of the above
Alternate histories
One of the pleasing factors about playing on Earth maps is having cities and civilisations in approximately the right place. Random alternate history games could be generated by starting with an as-accurate-as-possible Earth map (populated with states) and letting the AI play for a number of turns (number of turns to be chosen by the player), thus generating random alternative histories that aren't completely random games on the Earth map.
A good set of historical world maps is necessary.
Scripting for map generation
The kind of maps produced by a random map generator is very dependent on the method used. The game should be designed to allow players to be able to script their own random map generation. The limits to players' creativity are too broad to document here, but some map generation scripts they may come up with are:
map full of mountain-rimmed islands
map full of 1x1 islands
map with a desert running around the whole equator
map with only one continent
fat continents vs spindly continents
all land connected (no islands)
land more at the poles (equator more ocean)
evenly sized islands
The scripting could also be part of modpack design, such that, for example, dwarfs are only placed in hilly areas.
Biomorph approach
The game generates several random maps (e.g. 8 to 12), which are show alongside each other on screen. The player clicks on the one they like the most to play it, or to have a further generation derived from that map but subject to some randomization. The artificial (player) selection of maps can continue for an unlimited number of generations.
Random game setup tool
Players should not just be choosing the key setup variables, but also how they choose the key setup variables. For each numeric variable the player should be able to choose between selecting: low/medium/high; defined range; defined value; or totally random.
For example, a the variable might be % of land covered by forest. The player could choose between low/medium/high, a defined range (e.g. 10-20%), a defined value (e.g. 25%) or totally random (% to be determined by the game engine).
There should be the ability to export random game configuration file.
Players should be exchanging random games ("This random game was a good one try it out") and random game config files ("This config file produced some pretty cool games") on the forums. If this isn't happening, then the random game engine isn't good enogh