MFO@TournamentTwo  by RF_Gandalf & MFO@Mapster

This is an update to the Tournament map released last month. The slight changes made are to make a more fair forest distribution and more balanced random extra food choices. I have also added a 'Green' version by popular request. 

TournamentTwo is a new random map designed to be used as a replacement for Arabia, with several changes to make the map fairer and more interesting. With the new AOK:TC patch, this map makes a variety of civilizations useful while not giving only one or two civs all the advantages. In any TournamentTwo game, random civs can be a fair choice.

First, this is an all-land map which has some of the same features as Arabia.  Every player always has 8 sheep or turkeys in the usual 4/2/2 grouping, 2 single boars, always 4 deer, and a grouping of 6 berry bushes. The usual pattern of gold and stone is present. However these resources are found in a more fair distribution than in Arabia. For example, in Arabia, the closest 3 gold piles are supposed to be from 12-16, 18-26, and 25-35 tiles from the TC. In Tournament this variability is reduced slightly to 12-15, 19-24, and 27-33 tiles (there has to be some variability to be sure they are always placed, not blocked by forest). This helps to reduce the possibility of getting markedly different starting positions. 

Second, TournamentTwo randomly varies the extra food resources. Arabia always has a group of extra deer for each player, which really stacks the deck in favor of the Mongols due to their hunting bonus. Other maps such as Highland have extra sheep and boar, and Yucatan has extra boar, turkeys and berries. Knowing ahead of time which extra food resource is present influences civ selection based on bonuses. In a change from the original Tournament, this script now gives a random choice of 4 extra deer(5%), 1 extra boar(5%), 2 extra sheep(5%), 4 extra sheep(5%), a group of 5 extra berry bushes(20%), 2 groups of 5 extra berry bushes(10%), Arabia-style ponds with a few more shorefish(20%), 3 starting farms(similar to the Fortress map start)(10%), or no extra food(20%). 

Because of the randomly selected extra food choices, various civs may be of more use on this map. For example, Mongols benefit from the extra deer or boar only 10% of the time, Britons or Celts benefit from the extra sheep or turkeys 10% of the time. All civs benefit relatively equally with extra berries(the Mayans due to longer lasting resources, the Japanese due to cheaper mills benefit a bit more). Obviously, scouting well is a key to playing well on this map more than others. 

The only other differences on this map are slight - forest size can vary more so than on Arabia - up to 2% more total forest in clumps that vary more(and on average tend to be smaller than on Arabia). There is a new feature that adds a clump of 40 trees a specified distance to the TC of each player to help ensure fair wood placement for each (note that this clump is NOT forest terrain but objects, and does NOT show up on the minimap). There is some minor variation in amount of cliffs and elevation (but never more than Arabia). The script should not start players as close to borders as sometimes happens in Arabia. And as in many Mapster maps, there is a random chance of 18 different terrain patterns (but no snow among them) for the sake of variety. The 'Green' version has several different random all-green base terrains with various forest types. 

We think that this map script is one of the best for rated play, or any 1x1 or team competition, because of the standardization of resource locations, while adding some randomization of the types of extra food resources. 

Check here for a page with graphics:  http://mrfixitonline.com/readPosting.asp?PostingId=510221

Feedback appreciated! 

Special thanks to Machiavelli_IUB and others on the MFO Random Map Script forum for their feedback and suggestions to improve the script.