Re: Crystal Lake
 

Yes :

#clearmagic will remove all existing magic path (if any)
and you can use #mag_astral, #mag_fire, ... to set the different path and their value.

Note that with the map command you can create a computer opponent and choose yourself its pretender, starting province, specific magic path on the pretender, and even the scales.

With this you can make your own custom opponent, for exemple Vanheim with a F9W9 blessing, or even if you want a full elemental blessing (E9F9W9A9), as there is no point limit.

Re: Crystal Lake
 

It can be done. You'd have to mod in a new unit graphics for the Kraken, though. First sprite would be an image of a lake, the second would be of tentacles swirling around the lake. #copystats Kraken, add Air Shield 60% and change defense to 16, change graphics.

Re: Ok, here\'s one that\'s ready to go.
 

Name: Koprul
Province type: swamp
Commander: Bog Mummy (the Niefel Pretender) armed with skull talisman, medallion of vengeance, axe of hate, totem shield x 27
Bodyguard: behemoth x 4
Bodyguard: leviathon x4
Units: longdead jotun x 134

Tar Pits
the swamp of the dead

Re: Ok, here\'s one that\'s ready to go.
 

It's ok if the Kraken comes out on land, but I like your idea for the graphics, Endoperez. I think though, if I were going to that amount of trouble, I'd tweak the kraken up into something else even more nasty.

I don't think these are supposed to use mods, though, is the thing.

Another kraken one
 

This requires a water-filled cavern, can we make that happen?
Name: Deep Throat
Province type: cavern, water filled
Commander: Ancient Kraken (named "Azathoth" earth15, water15, death5, astral5, nature5, fire5) with ring of regeneration, amulet of magic resistance, amulet of reinvigoration.
Unit: 48 krakens

Water Filled Cave
The Sea Underneath
Kraken Pit

The Ripper of Inkpot End
 

Name: Whitechapel
Province type: plains, death site, blood site
Commander: Destroyer of Worlds (blood3, death 3) with Hellsword, sword of swiftness, lucky coin, wraithcrown, jade armor, marble boots, amulet of magic resistance
Bodyguard: 5 shadow vestels

Re: design just ONE province
 

Hey what are those guys with pitchforks that hang out with vampires called?

Re: Crystal Lake
 

Name: Drakovia
Province type: hills
Commander type: necromancer (named Victor, with 2 blood and 2 air, armed with a lightning rod, ring of regeneration)
Commander type: ettin (named Monster) armed with 3 piercers, black steel armour, horned helmet, wraith crown, boots of quickness, ring of regeneration, amulet of reinvigoration.
Unit type: 16 corpse man
Unit type: 33 foul spawn
Unit type: 12 blood slave

Abandoned Laboratory,
Cracked Tower,
Gallows

neat idea!
 

neat idea!

Re: design just ONE province
 

Goths. Just kidding -- they're Thralls.

Re: The Ripper of Inkpot End
 

Bad idea. Inkpot End is going to give the DoW disease, which will eventually kill him though it'll cripple him with afflictions first. If you intend to combine disease sites, you need to use either undead or demonic creatures with it.

Edi

Re: design just ONE province
 

land name: Magrathea
requierments: Waste
population: 10
commanders: Archmage (named Slartibartfast) with S9A4W4E4F4 with Barrier, Shield of the Accursed, Robe of Invulnerability, Spirit Helmet, Boots of Calius the Druid,Pendant of Luck,Amulet of Missile Protection
Troll Commander x3
units: 70 trolls
hidden sites: Sunken City

Re: Another kraken one
 

Hum, I can require both "sea" and "cave" terrain types, but I'm not sure thatthey will really work together (I d'ont know if the battlefield will be a cave (with darkness), undersea, or both)

Will have to try


Isn't that a little ... excessive ?

Moreover, with such huge magic path already on the kraken, the communion will not be really useful, and will make the mind lors sitting target (communion slaves don't do anyhtin more)



Have Sea trolls the darkvision ability ? If not, and the cave type is used (ie : combat will be under the darkness effect) they will fight almost blind.

Re: Another kraken one
 

Edit : sorry double post

Re: The Ripper of Inkpot End
 

interesting, but do you know that "inkpot end" is a negative site that give nothing but has a chance of spreading diseases to units in the province ?

With such a site known do be in a province named "Whitechapel" with a destroyer of world , it would make human players ignore this province most of the time when it's near them.

... hum, or maybe not : killing the destroyer of worlds could bring good loot if one or more of hit magic items are found after the battle.

Maybe I could also put the "manysites" terrain type as required, so that the province has one known bad site, but a greater chance of other sites ?

Re: Crystal Lake
 

At last ! One interesting province without using a pretender type unit, with a good concept and not too hard to take. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

I like having some very hard province with good rewards in SP, but having some moer normal ones from you is refreshing.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: design just ONE province
 

Isn't Sunken City an underwater site ?

Re: design just ONE province
 

It might be, but it will still work if you place it in a none-watery province. (I did a little test and placing it in plains or forests works just fine, alteast with the knownfeature command)

Re: design just ONE province
 

You can place any site in any terrain with the #feature and #knownfeature commands. This can also result in more than one instance of unique sites appearing on the map, because random assignment happens before parsing the map file.

By the way, the Drakovia province needs to have the unit "corpse man" changed to "Corpse Construct" because that is the proper name for the unit. "Corpse Man" will produce absolutely nothing or will screw up the unit assignment in the map file. If you want a variety of foul spawns, the common ones are numbers 453 - 460. The others I don't remember and I don't have the DB at work.

Edi

Re: design just ONE province
 

Thanks Edi.

About all those province suggestion, they are still not listed online because I'm currently working on massive updates on the map editor, but I have noted them all and they will not be forgotten, do not worry.

Re: design just ONE province
 

Thanks for all of the province suggestions. Now I would like to request that somebody (with the time and the want) build the province files for SemiRandom using some of these great ideas. I tried to design it so that anybody that can edit a map file, can build a gan file. I don't mind scripting some myself, but I have no intention of doing them all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

A simple gan sample:
A more complex gan sample:
There are "how to's" in the readme here:
http://www.dom3minions.com/~semirand...ges/ReadMe.txt

and there is an email account dedicated to receiving uploads:
semirand -AT- dom3minions.com

and a place online for others to download your creations here:
http://www.dom3minions.com/~semirand/

Re: Ok, here\'s one that\'s ready to go.
 

My SemiRandom program currently recognizes the PATTERN volcano as any province with the "firesite" flag set, or if it finds a single mountain province with no mountain neighbors.

SR already recognizes island, lake, peninsula, lost, valley, coast & cave patterns. Feel free to have a look if it will be any help to you.

I have never seen the random map generator set cave terrain for a province. Maybe I am just really unlucky, so somebody correct me if I am wrong. That's why my SR project looks for this pattern and changes it to cave. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ok, here\'s one that\'s ready to go.
 

Ok, I've gone back and edited the provinces, so that they're a little more reasonable-or atleast, function a little bit better.

I'm still learning, and getting some of the meaner provinces "out of my system" as it were.

I'd like to suggest a rule for province design though, if I may?

If an artifact or unique unit/summons is present in the province then 1: there will be only 1 artifact and/or unique summons in that province, and 2: the province will be built thematically around that unique artifact/summons.

I think this is a good idea, because it imposes a limitation which will keep all the "eggs" from being in one "basket" and should improve province design (since if you add something unique, you have to build the province around that uniqueness, rather than adding a bunch of stuff purely for purposes best defined as "Monty Haul").

Gan files readme
 

Ballbarian, I really appreciate all your efforts, so thank you.

I promise I'll make a bunch of low-powered provinces eventually.

As per your Gan files readme (above) it's really difficult for me to read.

And this is coming from the master of writing really difficult things to read.

I'd be happy to edit it for you (I really can edit semi-grammatically when I put my mind to it) and send it to you in an email.

In the meantime, I've got the day off (and I earned it too, dammit) so I'm going to add as many provinces as I can come up with.

I'm willing to continue tweaking what (above provinces) I already have done too, if you don't think it would become too confusing and/or irritating.

A tough bit of pork
 

Name: Ferran Forest
Province type: forest
Poptype: hoburgs EA
Commander: Crystal Sorceress x 7
Bodyguards: 5 hog knights
Unit type: 93 Iron Pigs

Iron Woods
Forest of Truffles

Re: Gan files readme
 

I really like that as a rule of thumb.

That would be appreciated. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I would especially like to have had an html version with topic links within the document, but I have so many irons in the fire that I dare not add any more items to the list, or none of them will get finished.

(Sorry for going off-topic!)

Re: Gan files readme
 

The GAN files started out simple. Just a short text file of the map commands that should go into the .map. The only thing it did originally was find a location, and paste that file in on that number.

Im afraid that I made it go nuts. The random name files. And using the @ sign for a random. So instead of having the province always show up as "#landname Dragons Den" I could set a random of 3 names for "Dragons Den" "Draco Lair" "Here There Be" by saying
@3 landname
"Dragons Den"
"Draco Lair"
"Here There Be"

Once that worked it was obvious that any command could be done the same. You can create a small variety in the number of units, the type, the equipment, etc instead of creating a dozen copies of the file.
Surprise! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You can even have a special prize show up only once in 5 times by something like
@5 additem
"Enchanted Shield"
"Enchanted Shield"
"Enchanted Shield"
"Enchanted Shield"
"Sun Shield"

Gnome sweet gnome
 

Name: Hills of the Watchers
Province type: hills
Commander: Firbolg armed with longbow of accuracy, black steel plate, black steel helm, boots of long stridesx12.
Bodyguards: 4 crushers
Unit type: 165 earth gnomes

Gem deposits

Re: Gan files readme
 

I guess some people are again going to tear their hair out now that I chime in, but for monsters 399 & 400, these are really the same one. 399 is the werewolf form of the skinshifter (400), so the first time those babies go to battle, the surviving ones will come out if it as skinshifters.

Edi

Another firbolg one
 

Name: Ancient Downs
Province type: forest
Commander: Firbolg with sword of sharpness, lightning bow, fire plate, horned helmet, boots of long strides x1
Commander: Firbolg with hammer of the mountains, black steel armour, black steel helm, boots of long strides, amulet of reinvigoration, ring of the warrior x1
Commander: Firbolg with gate-cleaver, jade armour, dragon helmet, boots of long strides, amulet of reinvigoration, bear claw talisman x1
Commander: Firbolg with Faithful, weightless tower shield, weightless scale mail, lightning bow, boots of long strides, amulet of magic-resistance x1
Commander: Firbolg with flambeau, hydra-skin armour, horror helmet, boots of long strides x1
Commander: Firbolg with sword of sharpness, black steel plate, black steel tower shield, boots of long strides, ring of fire, ring of frost x6
Commander: Firbolg with longbow of accuracy, black steel plate, black steel helm x16
Commander: Firbolg x25
Bodyguard: Watcher x5


The Cedar Forest
Firbolg fortress

Re: Another firbolg one
 

Oops. Should have used 633 instead of 399.
Thanks again Edi!

An easy one
 

Province name: Enkidu Wastes
Province type: desert
Commander type: demi-lich with rod of the phoenix, rune smasher, amulet of magic resistance, amulet of reinvigoration
Bodyguard type: 4 giant mummies

The Desert of Ptah

Attack of the Blood-Farmers!
 

Province Name: Sangobar
Province type: grassland/plains
Commander type: Vampire Queen (blood 1, death1, astral1, water1) armed with 2 blood-thorns, ring of the warrior
Bodyguard type: 5 vampire counts
Unit type: 16 vampires
Unit type: 264 thralls

Farm of Plenty
Farm of Plenty
Farm of Plenty

3 in 1
 

Province Name: Desert of Shunn, The Wastes of Amok, Set
Province type: desert
Commander type: demi-lich with amulet of magic resistance, rune smasher
Bodyguard type: giant mummy x4

Crypt in the sand.

Re: 3 in 1 the sequil
 

Province name: Redgrain, Marrowvale, Sangria
Province type: grasslands, plains
Commander type: vampire count
Unit type: 12 vampires
Unit type: 95 thralls

Farm of Plenty

What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Province name: The Scurve
Province type: forest/jungle/swamp
Commander: carrion lord with skull talisman
Bodyguard: 5 darkvines
Units: carrion beast x 16
Units: carrion beast x 12
Units: carrion beast x 8
Units: carrion beast x 14
Units: carrion beast x 22
Units: carrion centaur x15

Overgrown Graveyard

(note: there are 5 types of carrion beasts, please feel free to use your own judgement as to which particular beast the numbers apply to)

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Land Name: Fields of Vanishing
Terrain: Farmlands
Population: 0
Absolutely no units or commanders guarding it.


I really like the idea of this province - due to some mysterious magical event in the past - everyone in the province just vanished instantly.
Is it possible to make it so you also can't recruit anything from it?

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

I dont think you can make it non-recruitable. But I think you can set the unrest to some monstrously high number which would serve the same purpose.

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

On the other hand, with nobody there, there'd be no resources... or at least no resource collection... right?

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

The combination of the Rainbow Shroud, the Doom Cloud, Chillsick Swamp and the Vale of Infinite Horror would explain 0 pop... :p

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Yes, it is. Assign poptype number greater than 87 and you will not be able to recruit absolutely anything out of there. This is another one of those bits that I found out when testing poptypes for the DB.

Edi

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Wow thats a cool tidbit. That means that I can create a game-maker program that removes all recruitments from a map and then places scattered ones back. So something like 1 out of 50 provinces allows any recruiting at all. A very diffrent game to have to cope with.

And someone might create an MP map that evens out the luck of recruiting. Make them all the same, or remove it from the game completely.

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

I was wondering if this was possible and was going to recommend it as a map feature request, but since it's already possible it saves making the post.
This does open some new map combinations and can help prevent the computer opponents from buying the stupid populations.

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

I've attached a bunch of treasure provinces in a .txt file. I've written up a bunch more but they've, gah, got bugs in them. These ones, I've fixed.

The six cities are variations on a theme - big army, big population, communion slaves, guarding victory points.

The minor provinces are better defended than standard indies and are guaranteed to have useful, but not outstanding, sites in them, and/or poptypes that make good units.

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Thanks DrPraetorious! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Would you mind adding notes on terrain and/or climate preference for each province? That would make it much easier for us to add them to the sets. Of course some are obvious, but every bit helps.

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Oh, sure.

-- Burning city!
#landname 99 "The Smouldering Ruins of Agash-Va!"
(waste)

-- Jewel of the desert.
#landname 215 "Saelin, Jewel of the Desert"
(waste)

-- City of tears.
#landname 233 "Rohas, City of Tears"
(coastal)

-- The amber city.
#landname 17 "The Amber City"
(sea)

-- City of Great Learning.
#landname 291 "Pushtun, City of Wisdom"
(plains or farmland)

-- Dread City of Darkness.
#landname 103 "Kar-Vadhagh, The Black City"
(plains or farmland)


The remainder have no terrain preferences yet because I haven't set them, but they should probably be -

-- Vale of the Aesir.
(any land)

-- TROLLS! (pack 2)
(mountain)

-- GOBLINS! (pack 1)
(any land)

-- Valley of the Enchantresses.
#landname 208 "Vale of the Enchantresses"
(forest)

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

But any castle would still give access to all national units?

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Correct

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

Unless of course Johan sees it and decides to fix it as he has some of my other game-making finds. You know what they say "One mans bug is another mans feature"

Re: What happens when you don\'t mow the lawn
 

I assume that the "extra" poptype numbers are there for modding - one hopes that you'll be able to leave a poptype empty - or empty an existing poptype - if desired.