Comment 25 for bug 654078

I know I'm not active around here recently, but I wanted to chime in :).

I am against making this an option, even for map creators, I think it would be confusing for players if on one map when they reach far areas there is always dense forest, while on other maps, it doesn't happen. (I know tree growth was an incentive for me as a player to start spreading quickly, so I don't have to cut down all the trees. Now how do I know if I need to do that, it it's optional?)

But, I have another "compromise", that at least could solve the "find millions of trees or find an empty area" part (similar solution to HJDs): the tree spreading could be influenced by "crowding", that is, a tree has less chance to start growing in a spot, if there are other trees nearby. How much this factors in could depend on tree type and/or terrain. If this is calibrated well, it could lead to nice sparse forests (for some kinds of trees). Of course, I don't know the tree spreading code, so I don't know how easy this would be to implement, or how bad it would be for performance, but if it could be done well it would both improve playability, while being more realistic (after all, there are sparser forests in real life :) )

(This could also be used to make sure trees don't "die out" for example, if there is no other tree for 6 distance, spreading chance becomes 100%, or something like that )