Here's an example that features inland lakes and some sort of river-looking things. Thus, whatever engine I use must be able to create the full range of biomes in each map, and not one narrow set of biomes per map, like AoE2 uses. One complication for my project is I want maps to be many, many times larger than AoE2 maps. Each pixel corresponds to one AoE2 map tile. I did not instruct the game to use specific geographies like archipelagos.įurther below are images from my own map engine. All screenshots are taken from random map type, 'Custom' -> 'The Unknown'. I've added several AoE2 random maps that highlight what I like about their mapping engine, which my own efforts are failing to reproduce.

I now see I've also tied that up in my mind with 'biome transitions that make sense', but that's a different problem (though I expect my continued use of Perlin noise will make it tricky to solve). Thinking further about my problem, and studying what I like about AoE2's random map engine, I believe my biggest problem is managing the distribution of water and plant life on the map. What algorithms and heuristics could I use to produce random maps that feel like AoE2 random maps? I remember the AoE2 map type 'The Unknown' advertised '100,000 possible maps', suggesting some use of seed numbers, but I'm not sure how to use seed numbers to produce the variety I saw. I've attempted using e.g., Perlin noise, but everything comes out either too homogeneous, or if not, the Perlin value -> terrain heuristics are too sensitive and fragile to make a variety of world types. I like the way Age of Empires II generate random maps turned out (good variety, decent biome transitions, maps felt random without feeling chaotic), but am struggling to replicate the style.

Age of empires 2 mac random language