Transport Fever 3 Map Seeds: How They Work and How to Share Them

Every Transport Fever 3 free-game map starts as a seed — the number that decides whether your randomly generated world gives you two cozy towns around a bay or a sprawling industrial mainland. Search interest in seeds exploded during launch week, so this guide explains exactly what the seed controls, what it does not, and how to share maps reliably. It pairs with our map sizes reference: size decides the frame, the seed paints the picture.

What exactly is a Transport Fever 3 seed?

From the official wiki’s free-game manual: a seed is “a value used as a key for randomization. With the same seed and the same settings, a map will be created identical each time.”

In practice the seed drives terrain generation — coastlines, mountains, rivers, where forests grow — and, together with your density sliders, how towns and industries are scattered across that terrain. Two maps from the same seed are the same world down to the placement details.

What a seed does not lock in:

• Anything you build after generation (your empire lives in the save, not the seed)
• Game rules — start year, difficulty and economy are separate settings
• Content from mods that add industries or generation features

Where do you enter or find a seed?

Seeds are handled on the new-game screen, where you configure size, aspect ratio, climate and the seed value before generating. The game assigns one by default; typing your own (any text or number works as the key) makes the result reproducible. The seed for the map you are generating is visible right there in the creation panel.

Note that sharing just the seed string is not enough to recreate a world — read the next section before you post yours anywhere.

How do you share a map so others get the same world?

Because the seed is only the randomization key, the full recipe is seed + settings. To make your map reproducible for someone else, hand over all of:

1. The seed — the exact string, character for character
2. Map size and aspect ratio — e.g. Large at 1:2
3. Climate — Temperate, Subarctic, Dry or Tropical
4. Generation sliders — town density, industry density and any other options you moved

Miss one slider and the same seed produces a noticeably different map. For truly deterministic sharing of a designed map rather than a generated one, the map editor can export map files directly, and finished maps are shared through the in-game mod hub — that path sidesteps seeds entirely.

Do seeds matter for competitive or challenge play?

They are the natural leveler. A community challenge (“everyone plays seed X on Medium, Subarctic, Hard economy, 1900 start”) puts every participant in the same geography, so differences come down to network-building skill. The seed also decides whether a map suits your plan at all — which is why our starting position guide treats reading the generated map, not hunting a famous city name, as the real opening move.

What makes a seed good?

There is no magic seed number — only maps that fit what you want to run. Before committing to a generated map, check:

• Two or more towns close together for your first passenger or cargo link
• A usable industry cluster — oil or a raw material near its buyer keeps early chains short (see our cargo chains guide)
• Water access if you plan fishing or shipping lines
• Terrain you can afford — flat corridors are cheap; fjords and canyons are beautiful and expensive

Regenerate with new seeds a few times before you commit — it costs nothing at the map-creation stage, unlike rebuilding a bad network two game-years in. And when you want to sanity-check what a size actually gives you in kilometers, the map comparison tool has the full official dimensions grid.