Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

OK maybe this will address some of the issues about AI. Or at least clarify some. The AI gets more castles/temples/labs. It gets more high level troops. And it avoids some stupid things that can get it in trouble in a fast game. If nothing else its a VERY different game for the demo.

http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Poke_Eye.map
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Poke_Eye.tga

OK the actual image is the same eye one. But the map file is very changed. The game is now called "a Poke in the Eye". Be sure to read the prophet announcements since they can be very interesting. And be sure to scout carefully even on indep settings of 2.

Download those 2 files to the maps directory under your dominions2demo game.

If you are interested in the programming code, just ask.
If you think its crap, show me the one you did and I would be interested.

[ December 05, 2003, 16:15: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

I am not against this, I love challenges, but I really want to see a lot better core AI.
Of course Im trying this map of yours anyways.

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

I will give it a look Gandalf as soon as possible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif At any rate, thanks for your efforts!

An idle technical question: how did you manage to tweak the AI behaviour? I don't ask you to get really technical, but merely what kind of programming/editing/coding/scripting you did. (If anyone is interested in the details, I am pretty sure you will be asked. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) And likewise, what are the possibilities (or rather, limits) of such changes in the AI demeanour? Not only for now, but in the future as well. Who knows, you may very well have different AI for different strategies for example.

Sorry if I didn't make much sense, as technical tweakings are usually far beyond my field of knowledge.

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

oh goodie - downloading right now.

All hail Gandalf the Random!

Keir

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

>An idle technical question: how did you manage to tweak the AI behaviour? I don't ask you to get really technical, but merely what kind of programming/editing/coding/scripting you did

The core behavior wasn't tweaked. That will probably be up to Illwinter.

What has been done is that some AI players will not attack each other, plus heaps of random troops have been thrown everywhere (including starting provinces).

The AI doesn't play "better" but it often starts with funky resources. Add in the wild nature of the map, and you have a fun free for all game.

I played it a bit and it was actually some of the most fun I have had with the game so far.

Kudos to Gandalf! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

Indeed, try Gandalf's map with indy str 9. Insane http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I've got a new negative record with expanding. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif


Anyways scripts like this can help until the AI is being fixed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I misundersood Gandalph, nothing out of the ordinary here. Or perhaps I am wishing for a way to tweak the AI behaviour, which alters my understanding. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

The map is definitively intriguing and fun from what I have been, but I do have to play it more.

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didnt really change the AI behavior. I cheated. As APoger properly deduced I just gave it access to things people said they thought the AI should have. Its really just the same sort of random scattering I used in my Dom1 maps with a couple of the new Dom2 commands added.

The AI's get an added commander randomly chosen from the 1010 possible. That commander has a high chance of also getting a random magic item. Also some troops assigned, and some personal bodyguards. Of course the way I do this is to give every province an additional commander etc etc. You also get one when you start. The random equip command doesnt seem to work the same in Dom2 as it did in Dom1 but its in there anyway.

Someone COULD do a map making sure that JUST the AIs got the additional armys and proper units for that race but to do that you would have to lock-down the starting positions for each AI which would take down the replay on it.

The AI gets more castles/temples/labs because I scattered a bunch over the map. Of course you get that advantage also but thats as close as I can get unless someone wants to do a manually edited map where only the AI's get this.

Since the provinces all get that surprise additional army you will find that the map must be played carefully even on indep of 2. Ever tried to take a province guarded by monoliths?

Avoiding stupid moves? Well the only thing I could come up with there is that there is a bunch of ally commands tossed in. Im not even sure who is allied with who. But it means that some of the AI's wont attack other AI's. Maybe that way by the time you get there they can have something more challenging waiting for you instead of banging against each other.

As for what programming was used..... I use BASIC to run these maps. YABASIC to be exact (Yet Another Basic). Its free and available for nearly any operating system. If I get bored of this map I can double-click the basic file and it generates a completely new .map file for me to play on with all new scatters.

If you want to try your hand at manually making a more challenging map by purposely giving the AIs what you feel they should have then go for it. The mapedit docs are part of Dom1 or can be downloaded with the preview mapkit for dom2. The .map files are just a text file and can be edited using notepad, or wordpad, or word. The images of the map (the .tga file) can be edited with many paint programs. You could download GIMP (a free paint program but possibly too powerful for most people to really want to play with).

If anyone requests it I can quickly re-generate that map to scramble things again. Or make my sloppy basic code available. Thanks for all the nice comments, I really just tossed this off thinking it wouldnt go over well.

[ November 04, 2003, 15:08: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

Gandalf,
I would like to see your code. I am currently working on a senaireo editor for the web right now and it could be a great deal of help.

Sammual

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK but dont laugh. I didnt say it was GOOD code.

It doesnt like me posting it here for some reason. It reads it as html and doesnt like part of it. There are some other examples (.bas .yab)at http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/

There is also an Online java Version done by a friend of mine in alt.hacker at http://members.aol.com/mp0werd/web/DomMapGen.html

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

Hmmm. It looks like you are not checking to see if the Province is a water province or not. What happens when an Aquatic Commander is put on land (Or the otherway around)?

Sammual

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It wasnt possible with Dom1. We had alot of conversations about that and the terrain tag that has been added to Dom2 sounds like it might have been sparked by those conversations.

If water units are on land, and land units in water, they drown that first round. The results are just a touch more random then they were with some provinces having no guardians at all. What was worse were my totally random games where I scattered native races. Having a land province that can only create water units or vice versa was rough.

With Dom2 some reasonable assignements can be made. That can be alot of fun but Im not sure if other changes might not have made things harder for the "Random Map Cult" (as we were called in the newsgroup)

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

Thanks, Gandalf -- tons of fun.

"The province is guarded by about 70 units. The army is made up of militia, archers and vampire lords."

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

I cant wait to see what happens if I pull a map from the old DomMap program into the new MapEditor. Everyday I generate 30 each of large/medium/small maps for the old Dominions game. Glancing at them and downloading to my machine the ones that are kindof interesting it is a morning ritual for me. I have quite a collection built up and I dont know if they will work for Dom2 or not.

http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...humbnails.html
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...humbnails.html
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...humbnails.html

The code for generating these is available as raw source so maybe someone will update it.
http://www.ont.com/~keldon/dommap.html

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

I should really have worked toward one of the things we already listed in one of the threads such as "» Solo scenarios, can someone make them ?", or the GIMP thread I started, but NOOoooo I had to go get distracted by a stupid comment on commander names.

After trying half a dozen different methods like alternating vowel/consonent, building tables based on letter frequency (scrabble sites are a great help), looking at other peoples generators, I finally came up with one that is surprisingly simple.

I make one long string of all the names I like, then randomly grab a piece out of it. Such as...
conan xena kull
makes a string of conanxenakull
which generates names like Anxe, Enak, Aku, Onanx, Xenak, Nanxe
Allright. They arent great names but they are unique and pronouncable. And very simple to do in very little code.

In fact, Im about to test a theory but I THINK that building a string of celtic names might generate fairly Celtic names, Cthulu, Chinese, etc etc. So I could build a string of the names illwinter is already using for each nation and get (I think) national sounding names.

The efficiency is just in case Illwinter might be interested. For what Im doing in my projects speed and efficient short code isnt really a factor. If I generate the maps every night it doesnt really matter how long it takes. I also have other code to come up with decent word combinations to name forests, plains, etc that can be used also now that there are terrain codes in Dom2
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...PlainsName.txt
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...orestNames.txt

Maybe I will update the "Poke in the Eye" generator to include at least some province names and naming all the dropped in commanders uniquely.

Im afraid that having the commanders dropped in sensibly (land units not dropped into water and vice versa) is still a ways off. I havent gotten up the motivation to add terrain preferences to the AllUnits spreadsheet. Maybe someone else will. Id love to see unit ID, terrain, commander or troop, and size of unit be easily accessable in a file.

Re: Gandalf\'s Random Circus for Dom2 (was demo)
 

interesting note during test. I wrote a fast script to toss 100 commanders into the province of Vanheim thinking I could get a quick list of vanheim names to test on. But I let the loop number also set the commander ID (geting 100 different commanders instead of the same one). It seems that names are not decided by the nation but by the unit type. I should have known that. I wonder how many different name lists there are? Not a big thing. Names like tombworm and childfeaster for the undead units are already handled by my script for naming provinces. Oh well, off to try again for a list.

I wish the old debug keypress was still in. SOmething so I could see unit #'s within a game instead of using AllUnits. So I can see which units are ACTUALLY being used everywhere. I think thats going to become important for modding also. Such as... which of the many knight units are the independents using, and which ones arent in the game at all anymore.

[ December 05, 2003, 16:25: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]