PC Are all Random Gen maps a big green biome in the center ...

[gwensparkle]

BTW - I don't usually try to find out what the map looks like in advance of playing a game.  I did this for science.  

I'm curious if anyone has a different experience.  I've been starting random gen map after random gen map and I always start in the forest biome and never close to any other biome.  I finally got curious and before I deleted it all, I took a look at a file called biomes.png for each of the generated worlds.  If this  was the right file to show the map, then all the maps are very similar with a big forest biome in the center being surrounded by one each of the other biomes.  There is only a very minor variation in the shapes of the biomes and the order in which they surround the central forest biome.

Am I looking at the wrong file?  Am I just incredibly unlucky at generating RWG worlds?

I really would like to have the chance of starting in a biome other than forest, but it hasn't happened yet.  I'd love a map that was a bit more unpredictable and potentially unbalanced than what I'm seeing.  I've attached one of the map files, but they all look very similar...

 

[Kosmic Kerman]

AFAIK, yes this is intentional. They wanted everyone to start in the forest biome. This may or may not change in the future.

 

[kamelophagous]

RWG sucks.  Don't know why they don't just license Nitrogen and be done with it. 

 

[gwensparkle]

Thanks for the info.  I was afraid it might be intentional. - both the starting biome and the general map layout.

This seems like another step to make the game experience more predictable.   I rather liked sometimes getting really lucky and sometimes getting a bad deal from maps, to on screen markers holding your hand, to the predictable yellow circle for buried treasure.  On the plus side, TFP have made it possible to mod the game you might want.

I might have to look into Nitrogen once alpha 19 is stable.