What does World Age do?

Question

In advanced game setup, what does the "World Age" option do?

The choices for the option are:

• 3 Billion Years
• 4 Billion Years
• 5 Billion Years
• Random

Answer 1

World age affects the prevalence of hills and mountains: younger worlds have larger, more craggy mountains that appear in bigger clusters whereas older worlds have more sloping hills that tend to appear in smaller clumps.

The code that governs this is in ContinentsPlus.lua:

local world_age_old = 2;
local world_age_normal = 3;
local world_age_new = 5;

-- Set values for hills and mountains according to World Age chosen by user.
local adjustment = world_age_normal;
if world_age == 3 then -- 5 Billion Years
  adjustment = world_age_old;
  adjust_plates = adjust_plates * 0.75;
elseif world_age == 1 then -- 3 Billion Years
  adjustment = world_age_new;
  adjust_plates = adjust_plates * 1.5;
else -- 4 Billion Years
end
-- Apply adjustment to hills and peaks settings.
local hillsBottom1 = 28 - adjustment;
local hillsTop1 = 28 + adjustment;
local hillsBottom2 = 72 - adjustment;
local hillsTop2 = 72 + adjustment;
local hillsClumps = 1 + adjustment;
local hillsNearMountains = 91 - (adjustment * 2) - extra_mountains;
local mountains = 97 - adjustment - extra_mountains;

Answer 2

In the beginning the world was full of mountains. The ravages of time eroded the mountains, the effects of wind and rain crumble those towering spires to create flat plains and grasslands and deserts. World age doesn't effect the amount of desert, jungle, or tundra. World age only effects the topographic features as rainfall effect regional climate. Sea level is obviously how high the sea is. A higher sea level will feature less islands and have, in general, a more continental mass. I just put all of those settings on random and leave my fate to 1s and 0s. I hope this explains it.

Answer 3

Topography

• 3 Billion: Lots of grasslands, few mountains and hills.
• 4 Billion: Still some grasslands, an average amount of Mountains. And quite a few hills.
• 5 billion: Few grasslands. Lots of mountains. Tons of hills.

Terrain

• 3 Billion: Lots of plains, Lots of jungles and forests.
• 4 Billion: Some plains. Some deserts, and jungles, forests and very little Tundra.
• 5 Billion: Few plains. Lots of deserts, A few jungles and forests. And a lot of Tundra.