Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

I was thinking about such map for SP - primarily to make the game more challenging by making it easier for multiple AI nations to attack you early in the game.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Just to make you know, I've tried to start new game with your map. The generation took 30 minutes, I lost my patience and killed the process (maybe it hanged or something, you never know). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
But your script is very useful, thanks! I'm using it on smaller maps which my PC can handle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

I think that part of the problem is when I added commanders. If I had randomly selected equipment from a list and given it to them, it would make a game quicker. But I added the command and added a line for the game to generate random equipment. Thats alot of extra thinking when its creating the game. Good for replayability but rough on creation.

The problem with adding specifics is the same as my problem with adding logical commands (not putting water commanders on a land province etc etc), or logical magic sites, or matching additional units to the poptype of that province.
Answer: Im too lazy.

Im too lazy to build a database (or spreadsheet) of all the possiblities and matching them to the logical uses of them. I COULD easily pull a list of everything in the game and pull randomly from that... hmmmm..... equal chance of getting the stupid exploding amulet or getting the paladins sunsword. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That might be fun.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

@Gandalf : if you can make such a list, even a small exemple of preset provinces/commanders, I can start using them for semi-random provinces with my application

Note that a first version is now available online (the perl source code is available for download) at http://dominions.realites.org/

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

#landname "HarpaKazi"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"

#landname "BlackWood Forest"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Black Bow"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Black Bow"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Black Bow"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Black Bow"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Black Bow"

#landname "Forest of Shafts"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Bow of War"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Bow of War"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Bow of War"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Bow of War"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Bow of War"
#commander "Centaur Hierophant"
#additem "Bow of War"

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Thanks for your exemples, I will use them in my next version with semi-random provinces

Note : no special (known)features for those provinces ?

Or maybe I can use them with my "greater manysites" option (instead of using the random commanders), so you know that thos province have a greater chance of having magic sites.

hum, ... I might also use the special unused terrain types too.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Unused terrain types? Which ones are unused?

Isnt there a site that grants recruiting centaurs? I was looking for it but didnt find it quickly so I gave up.

I also had sites that mixed many different avians, one that was built around dragons, a "lost villiage" that had been taken over by werewolves (***** queen, shapeshifters, and wolves), and another lost village that had become vampires. I was going to set the poptype on the villages to something basically villager so that it seemed once you killed off the weres or vamps you had "returned" the village back to normal. Its too bad that there is no description for provinces but maybe if the were/vamp leaders were named something like Village Elder Mason and Mrs Mason.

By the way, be sure to do this only for fun. I know of at least two other people who are at the same point in doing it codewise, and I see rumblings of a possible official version (some of my favorite Dom2 projects got knocked out by official versions). Nothing openly announced though.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

you know, "firesite", "deathsite", ... as per http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/terrain_math.txt

It's exactly what I need and that I don't have the time to search for. That's why I made a request in the map/mod forum

Yes, and it would be easy to have a small known site (a mine maybe) as a reward for returning the village to normal.


At worst the scripts themselves will became redundants, but not the main function library that will always find other usages, that's why I started with it.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Im not sure that those terrains are unused. They do show up in the generated maps, and I think they are supposed to affect the type of random sites that appear. Has anyone tested to see if they arent recognized by the game. Or they might be for the upcoming province project. But in any case, they would be good for recognition purposes.

Also; islands, lakes, peninsulas, lone mountains, caves (even if not marked as caves), multiprovince farmlands and swamps, valleys, and mega-connection locations. I had finally gotten the DomMap map generator for Dom2 to recognize some of those so I could program logical province names but the Dom3 generator kindof killed that project.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Hey Gandalf dont suppose you could make a maps with those scripts but not quite as big. And Slightly bigger than the pokeeye ones. You know 500 Range or so =p


If you could id love yea a long time and stuff. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Great thread, tons of good ideas. Wish I could code my way out of a paper bag.

Anyway, didn't someone mention previously a desire for timed events? i.e. turn 10 x1 occurs, turn 20 x2 occurs, etc? Any progress on that front? Would make scenario building a real possibility?

Even a simpler method - take those "caspur found the deepest cave, vamp count attacks, knights attack, barbs attack" and pre-set a bunch of those to occur first turn - with custom heroes... for example - the five heroes want to free your nation, or bogus attacks, etc.

Going to try out the poke the eye out map (like my maps to be done in 2 or 3 longish sittings).

Just have to say thanks for all the effort!

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

You can use my online tool at http://dominions.realites.org/ to add random stuff on any existing map file.

Just create a random map that looks fine to you, and upload the .map file with the randomize and/or freater manysites options checked.

Then save the results as a new .map file in your /maps directory, and launch the game.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

I've been trying to start a game on the MegaMap. So far, I had no luck. It seems that the creation process simply grinds to a halt, fortunately, except for the game hanging, nothing else happens.

My specs are a 'lowly' 2.6 P4 with 1 Gig RAM.

I tried generating without any AI first, so that SHOULD lessen the load a bit. Still, after 10-15 minutes, the computer is still creating the world.

Is there an easy way to maybe generate the game in textmode, so it cuts back on CPU usage?

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Been playing the poke in the eye map, love it.

One thing I wish - mobs/pretenders were categorized. i.e. militia - mid infantry = lvl 0, cav and some specials = lvl 2, mages = lvl 3, nasty mobs = lvl 4, pretenders = lvl 5...or something similar depending on difficulty. Then have lvl 4s and 5s just be commanders, with the rest being troops. Make sense?

Love the idea, love the randomness, love starting out with a free commander/stuff (I like it as an RPG as well, very commander concentrated - most of the fun for me). With that being said, its kind of silly when i start with a troop of horrors or a troop of melee pretenders http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Or face them for that matter. I spent like 2 hours just re-creating games to see some combinations, some were super weak (mages w/o magic, some were unreal (20 free horrors/gatekeepers), and some just wierd (20 baphomats - immobile).

I tried Jack's tool once, and will be testing further. Is there a way to simulate the free commander/troops on yours Jack?

Speaking of re-creating games - is there anyway to just "re-create game" with all the same settings? Or to have a standard settings file that you can choose? For instance, I hate starting in the midst of a map and will recreate till I get near an edge (my form of cheating), but while its still only a 2 minute process to start up a new game it gets old. Any thoughts?

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

At the moment those routines choose a random number from zero to the highest numbered unit in the game. It then makes that unit a commander, then selects another random number for what unit will be some bodyguards, and another random number for what is troops. The units in the game are not organized in any way that lets me easily select units that are leaders, or pretenders, or mages, or even water/land so the results are totally random. Anything can be a leader, anything can be a bodyguard, anything a troop, and if they drown in the first turn of the game then oh well.

To do more logical assignments, someone would need to go thru all the units in the game and make a text file of which are which so that my routines could select from it. Ive asked for it before but no one has done one.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

hmm, bummer. Hopefully it will eventually come out, fun though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Gotta be unfair when i get 20 giants and a free bow of war and the AI gets a suped up mage with a slave collar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Other way around too, but then i just reload!

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

I'm waiting for Edi to complete its unit DB. With it I will be able to add many more options to my randomizer, and use appropriate units depending on the province type



As dom3 works, if you start in a province where specific units/commanders have been added, you get them.

The "No start in edited provinces" option of my randomizer is there to prevent this to happen, in order to preserve some balance.

If you want sometimes to have additionnal units at the start of the game, just uncheck this option.

Of course if you start in a province with no units added it won't change anything, but you can also start with a mictlan Priest King and 5 Sun priest as units (perfect to start a blood economy when you start using "gift of reason" on them, it happened to me once)


You can use the official map editor, or my online map editor, to add the "nostart" attribute to provinces you don't want to start in.

It is also possible to specify a province as starting point, but my map editor doesn't has this feature yet, you have to edit the map file manually for now

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

This seemed the only appropriate thread for this. Two ideas came to me as I was nodding off to sleep. I had to up and make notes. Both of these are MAP commands (of course). Adding them to a map in order to get a very different game out of it.

The first idea is add a Wandering Monster (on a timer)
#computerplayer 79 4
#god 79 "Eater of the Dead"

This should put in an AI nation with lots of population and an Eater of the Dead which will start out in a tamed form. Once it eats enough of the populace it will break out across the map. Since its a nation in the game, every time you play the map it will be randomly located someplace.

Maybe also set scales and give it a strong dominion. Im not sure how that might affect things but it sounds like fun. Putting in a bunch of ally commands might also make it not attack AI's.

Other options for the monster might be Eater of Dreams, Eater of Gods, Hunter of Heroes but Im not sure what those are and how they operate.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

The next idea is NOT No-Indepts maps.

I can see the advantages of no-indepts in improving the AI. It removes all of the recruitable dependents from the game, but leaves the defenders so that you do have to fight your way across the map. I must admit that on really large maps the MicroManagement can get extreme later in the game. I try to make the best use of everything available to me but I cant remember them all.

So the idea is this...
I can write another one of my stupid little basic programs which will count sequentially thru the number of provinces on a large map. On each one it can randomly decide whether to remove the ability to recruit independents there. Im thinking that I would leave about 1 out of every 10 provinces.

That way I can still get some recruitables. But they would be more precious (and memorable). Of course the AI would also get them but I figure it would still limit its ability to use funds so it should still get more national units than the vanilla game. It will also help solve the problem of the AI having too much money and building tons of castles.

Im also thinking that I should drop a +resource site in each one. Each one that gets left with recruits? Or each one that gets it removed? It would boost the AIs resources at castles which should increase the AIs recruitment of elites.

One disadvantage is that in replayability. Whenever you replay the map, the game WILL re-randomize which independents are in a province, but not where. So eventaully you will have a feel for which provinces will or wont have recruitables. It would affect decisions. Of course hopefully, like with any of my programs, I will eventually setup something on the Dom3Minions site to re-randomize the .map file for a map like this and zip it up each day.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Both ideas sound pretty nice.

Can the partial no-indy maps just be done on a percentage as via Bal's program?

ex.
Mountains 10%
Plains 10%
Indy's 20% (unsure how the program works, but possibly relate the slider to a % in the script/map command?)

Big nasty god nation could even be expanded - small principalities of 1 province with VERY limited resources derived from special sites.

Pick 10-20 themed sites (vale of horrors, troll recruiting, shadow seers, etc), call them a nation, give em a themed god and let em go. They won't get far as they'll be severely handicapped, but that's actually fine. They'll be able to respond a bit more then indy's but much less then a full fledged nation since they'll be limited on site income/mages/scales/dominion.

Obviously eater of the dead is the best choice as it has its own mini-AI, but the others might work as well.

Big question - can this be done dynamically a la randomizer without messing up available nation #'s and max nations? So I guess another questions: can you randomize nations ala provinces a la map commands?

@1 Province
province name
province name
province name

@1 nation name
nation name
nation name
nation name

@1 Nation #
77
78
79


@1 God
Eater of dead
Lord of night
Eater of Gods
etc

@1 scales
beneficial scale settings
negative scale settings
neutral scale settings

@1 paths
Rainbow
Bless 1
Bless 2
Bless 3

@3 sites

@1 Indy type
@4 starting items
@5 allies

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

Wow I am embarrased.
I started the SemiRandom project, and you have got it licked much better than I do.

As far as I can tell, all of what you said is very possible. But you would probably have to bounce it off of Ballbarian to be sure.

Having indys as a percentage on the mapgen part of Ballbarians program should be very easy, and probably a great idea.

The creative use of the @ code is great but it looks abit overdone. If the nation numbers and monster-gods are both random then you have a chance of overwriting one you just did. Setting it to 79 (the highest number available and most unlikely to be used by Kristoffer any time soon). Also, as much as I love randoms in every project I do, I think it gets away from the purpose of the SemiRandom project if we dont try to create one really good surprise rather than all options as randoms.

Im leary of getting into details and tempting in one of the experts to tell me that I totally dont understand Eater of the Dead... but Im thinking
10 dominion
3 Death scales
3 ant-magic
3 anti-luck

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

#war <nation> <nation>
I ran across NT Jedi's request in the Mapper Wishlist to have the opposite of #ally by being able to create an automatic war between two nations. (AI's only)

My brain farted out that I can drop an army belonging to nation1 into the home province of nation2. Or give them each a province next door to the other. Or even a bunch of scouts I think will serve the need. Im not sure but I THINK that once a war is started by the AI, it stays started?

As an interesting sidenote, I have accidentally mistyped the nation number for an added army which created situations where one nations capital starts off being sieged by another nation. I havent come up with a scenario for that but maybe someone else will.

Edit:
One thought maybe using the "Special Monsters" nations number to create a "Arcos has come under siege by horrors. Rush to their aid."

Edit2:
Or how about victory points in each capital. And a scenario of "Lanka is going to WIN! Lanka has a large sieging force in every capital except yours. You must rush to save as many as possible for if Lanka gains them then you cannot survive."

Edit3:
This is getting nuts. I need to quit. Anyway, how about an MP game where a large standardized army of knights and bowmen is dropped into everyones capital and randomly assigned to one of the other players. Everyone starts out under seige by someone else.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

I have an idea to make a semi-no-independents game. I cannot code it, but I think it will woek.

1. Create 2 or 3 new nations comprised of independents. These nations would have no mages or blessed troops. All they could do is recruit archers, infantry, cavalry, mundane commanders. Call these "Mundane Nations"
2. Give the nations a starting troop strength of several commanders, heavy infantry, archers, in adequate strength to represent level 5 to 9 indy starting strength.
3. Set up the nations so that they do not start with a castle.
4. Here is the part I do not know how to do. If for example you have a 100 province map and are using 10 DOM3 nations you would set up 70 of these "mundane nations" as additional opponents. That would randomize the remaining 20 provinces with recruitable independents and you would not be able to recruit the national troops of the "Mundane Nations". The starting provinces would also always be randomized if someone can figure out if this works.

The big problem that I don't know how to get around is how to setup the same nation multiple times.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

You can create a castled province which is owned by independents (nation 23). You can create as many of those as you wish. But like independents, they will not break out of that province.

You can also create fully AI nations by using the empty nation slots. at the moment those are 70-79

And, now that I think of it...
The max number of nations is 80. It seems as though you could use as many of those as you want. Either as they are, or rebuilt.

Re: Gandalf\'s Crazy Solo Games
 

You just copy and paste the code for the nation and change the nation number accordingly. You won't run into the usual troubles with the descriptions or icons that mod nations have, since you're going to use stock units only.