[request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

For the next version of my map randomizer (see http://dominions.realites.org), I will have some province be assigned preset provinces, some uniques, choosend randomly in a list, with different terrain types as requirement.

The problem is that in order for that to work, I need a base list of such provinces and their required terrain types, and I lack the time to both do the programming and parse the units/sites lists to create those provinces.

So I ask the community for provinces ideas that I will use in my scripts.

Exemples (thanks Gandalf for the first 3 !) :

-------
Landname : BlackWood Forest (provinces with landnames are uniques and won't be used more that once)
required terrains : forest
Commanders :
"Centaur Hierophant" with "Black Bow" [x5]
-------
Landname : Forest of Shafts
required terrains : forest
Commanders :
"Centaur Hierophant" with "Bow of war" [x6]
-------
Landname : HarpaKazi
required terrains : forest
Commanders :
"Black Harpy" with "Medallion of Vengeance" [x8]
-------
Landname : Castle Morco
required terrains : none
Commanders :
"Commander" ("Duke Morco") with randomequip 4
and "tower guards" bodyguards [x5]
Fort in province (unspecified, will depend on terrain type)
-------
Landname : Sea of Storms
required terrains : deep, sea
Commanders :
<some underwater commander with bodyguards and units>
<some underwater air or water site>
poptype <some water poptype>
population 10000
-------

As you can see with the last exemple, I can set *any* site, commander or other feature to the province, I just lack the time to explore the units and sites lists to choose what's appropriate that's why I need your help

Note that a province can have multiple requirements (such as a witch cursed province that would need both forest and swamp)

I'm *not* limited to the exemples I gave : once again, my scripts can handle *any* map or commander command, provided I have the correct names/numbers, so feel free to make any suggestion, even extreme ones, such as a province with the "Nexus" as a known feature, guarded with several archmages and a few dragons (at least, you know that what you fight for), and I can also randomize part of the province if needed.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

If anyone is really good at organizing, there are many projects which could benefit from some databasing. If someone would go thru the monsters one at a time and create tags for everything they can think of. Such as
pretender?
monster?
summons?
commander?
troop?
solo?
maybe even make a judgement on better bodyguard than it is commander or troop?

Also:
avian? mammal? aquatic?
intelligent? mindless? undead?
dragon? were-creature? blob/slime? magical ball?

and of course:
forest? mountain? waste? swamp? farmland?

My thinking is that some projects could greatly benefit from such a list. This project would benefit from being able to get ideas by asking for all were's, or all avians, or all slimes, just to try and generate a special province.

And my randomizers would benefit wonderfully if I could randomize aqutics to the water, and mountain creatures to the mountains.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

I think that when Edi will finish and publish his DB it will be much easier to come up with cool indepts since you wouldn't have to work from memory.

Especially my lame memory http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Oh, and do you want troops as well, or just commanders? Because it could get pretty wierd if your Duke Morco ended up commanding some X tribe warriors :X

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Yes, I already provide routines for totally random placements of commander, bodyguard, and troops. It can be interesting to see a slinger with dragon bodyguards and monolith troops.. but obviously something that is random and ALSO abit more logical would be gratefully accepted by many players.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Yes, once the DB is released, I plan to import it in a mysql database, add my own additionnal informations, and start using it like mad. ^_^


I can take any suggestion. Yes currently morco has no specific units, and has to do with the local poptype, but I can easily set the poptype (http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/Dom3_Poptypes.txt , maybe a random poptype beetween 48 an 56 ?)

I can set *anything* that is allowed by map commands, and even add a little random touch if needed.

I can set the population, the poptype, have only the chosen units in the province or keep the normal poptype units, I can put any site or building, any set of commanders/bodyguards/units/items, all I need is for some ideas, as I don't have currently enough time to both program and do the needed research for units,sites,... names or IDs.

I could make a lengendary province, for exemple "Nexus", guarded by several archmages and dragons, with the unique magic site of the same name, maybe a swamp waste "burial of the ancient kings", guarded by C'tis undeads, mummies, and a mighty saurolich, and with the site that allow a death mage to summon mummies, maybe a province with one of the sites with a magic bonus, guarded by some powerful titans or demons, ...

The only thing : those provinces, as they are harder to conquer, should all give the player some bonus (in the base system, all such provinces will have the "manysites" flag, but a specific magic site thematically sound, and more or less powerful depending on the defense would make for a great reward)

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

I just had an idea : we cannot add province descriptions that could have made unique province more flavorful, buth I could give each unique province a description and add it to the map description.

That way when you're about to start the game, you would have the list of uniques provinces and their background/description/backstory.

What do you think ?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

The descripts would need to be pretty short but Ive seen other maps do that without it being too bad. On the other hand, should a randomly improved map tell me ahead of time that "the wondrous wizards academy" is somewhere on the map?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Idea Sparkers
Arent you irritated when you take a province expecting there to be a magic site or something that explains why there were so many xxxxxxx there? Only to find nothing that made sense? This is your chance to create that province. Where SHOULD they be living? WHY are they there? Is there a magic site or structure that they were all drawn to? Or a specific commander with a specific item? Can you create a province that makes sense AND would be an "interesting" surprise to whoever attacks it?

If you could name and build a province specifically selecting units, population type, buildings, monsters, any equipment on the commanders, and any magic sites.
Then what comes to mind for a province built around a

Temple:
or shrine
grove
altar
stonehenge
Forts:
Wizards Tower
Dark Citadel
Jeweled City
Lab:
in the forest
on a lonely mountain
experimental lab in a swamp
Poptype:
raptors
hoburg
crystal amazon
atavi apes
trolls
groups:
paladin
rangers
druids
clerics
thieves
items:
black hearts
whip of command
thunder bow and lightning spear
slave and master matrix
Monsters:
hydra
gorgon
mother of monsters
undead such as ghosts or wights
king of the deep
spiders
living plants
devils


Lists are available at
http://www.Dom3Minions.com/docs
Think what it would be like if we all created just unique province.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

I think it would also be a really good idea to go through and do screen captures of all the units in the game as well, for modding purposes. I'm not sure I'm willing to volunteer for such a gigantic task, but maybe if everyone takes one Nation in an age group, with over 50 nations, that'd be a big start. I'd certainly volunteer to take for instance Abyssia EA or whatever. That's what I'm playing now.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Give me a database with all units stats, number and the corresponding images, and I'll make an online tool that will allow to create mods from scratch. ^_^

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

So I can make suggestions like this:

No specific land-name
No specific terrain
Bane Lord [Shadow Brand] x2
80 misc. Longdeads
No poptype (or "no soldiers belonging to the local poptype")
Contains the Battlefield magic site
Population - 1000

?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Yes, it's excatly what i need !

The function that select one of those preset sites is already done, all I have to do in fill the special provinces list.


Your exemple is perfect :

No specific land-name => the province will not be unique (several provinces could be edited with those settings)
No specific terrain => means that it can be selected whatever the terrain_type is (but maybe "waste" as required terrain would be appropriate ?)
Bane Lord [Shadow Brand] x2 => no problem, commander support is already fully implemeted
80 misc. Longdeads => no problem
No poptype (or "no soldiers belonging to the local poptype") => ok
Contains the Battlefield magic site => do you want the site to be already found or not ? (#feature "Battlefield" or #knownfeature "Battlefield" ?)
Population - 1000 => ok

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Cool!

I meant it as a knownfeature (which is a good tip for all suggestions - remember to state if its a known site or hidden)
Also, I'm not sure if waste is appropraite, I rather tend to see "waste" provinces as those that are naturally uninhabitable, while this province is merely ravaged by war.
Something along the lines of:
19. a wild region or tract of land; desolate country, desert, or the like.

How 'bout:

Land Name: [The?] Twisted Forst
Terrain: Forest
Dark Vines [x7]
49 Vine Ogres
70 Vine Men
No extra troops from poptype. Though I could see it recruiting blowpipes and/or druids.
Population - 1500 (the few that manage to reside next to the creatures of the twisted forest)
Manysites

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Ok, I will add the site to my list tonight (I'm currently at work)

Ok, so any land province will do (of course it's not for sea provinces) ^_^

... so, a waste http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


The dark wines as commanders, is it correct ?

Note that I can set a fixed poptype too, so I could use the poptype #37 (Woodsmen + druid).

*Any* command that is currently usable in .map file is recognized by my script (It took almost 10 hours of programming to make the functions that can parse a .map file to a perl structure and back, but now I can easily change any info in a programmer-friendly way and output the edited map code with only one function)

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

You can make Dark Vines as commanders. In fact anything can be a pretender, or commander, or bodyguard, or troop. But there is a Vine King, and something called Ancient Presence, which you might want to consider.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Yeah, I meant the dark vines as commanders. I don't know nuthin' 'bout no Vine King :X (it might be better for this province, but I really never met the Vine King)
Poptype #37 is indeed a good choice.

As for the waste part, you seperated what was basically one unit into two parts, the dictionary definition of "waste" was intended to complement what I said one sentence before about how I view "waste" provinces, it was the definition that fits my view the most (notice it is definition #19 :X)

I'll try and come up with some more ideas later, though besides a few minutes for the forum I'm a bit busy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

(Definitely not as busy as Jack, taking 10 hours to program .map<->perl functions, nice work!)

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Oh, I know that I can make any unit a commander, I was just making sure that it was what Agrajag wanted.


I know about the Vine king, and it could do indeed a good commander for this province (with or without the Dark Vines), but what is the "Ancient Presence" ?

I don't recall any corresponding summon, maybe it's from a random event ?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Ancient Presence just looks like a mound of vines. It has magic. I used it as a special map item using it as a pretender for an AI. I dont remember all of its specials but it would be worth looking into. I think its number ID is 641

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Here are a few I came up with (this is fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif).

Land Name: Forest of Sighs
Terrain: Forest
Commanders: 5 Enchantress
Troops: 10 Hama Dryad, 20 Sprite
Poptype: woodsmen
Magic sites (visible): Forest of Joy, Forest of Pain

Land Name: Shimmering Mountains
Terrain: Mountain
Troops/commanders: 1 Vastness
Poptype: no special
Magic sites: Distortion

Land Name: Gardens of Rhuax
Terrain: Waste
Commanders: 10 Fire Elementals, 2 Adept of Pyriphlegeton
Troops: 50 Magma Children
Poptype: no special
Magic sites (visible): Gold Apple Tree, Fountain of Fire, Magma River, Ashen Fields

Hope they are ok.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Thanks to all, things are starting to look interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

With those provinces and some more, I will soon be able to update the online map parser to use special provinces for the "greater manysites options" (and for terrains type without any special site yet, I can always use my randomize_province() function)

I think that I will give to "normal" provinces a small chance to use a preset province too (something like 5% chance)

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

It doesnt really matter if any of them are "ok" if we can get alot of them. If any of them are super disastrous or abit too much benefit for the amount of fight, it will balance off by showing up so rarely.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Here's a few more:

Land Name: The Devouring Deep
Terrain: Deep Sea
Commanders: 3 Basalt King
Troops: 5 Monster Fish, 5 Sea Serpent, 10 Kraken
Poptype: no special
Magic sites: Basalt Pillars, Kraken Pit, Basalt Statue

Land Name: Valley of Despair
Terrain: Farmland
Commanders: 1 Succubus, 5 Circle Master, 10 Conjuror
Troops: 100 Ghoul, 20 Bone Fiend, 10 Fiend of Darkness
Poptype: no special
Magic sites: Haunted Torture Chamber, Black Tower, The Demon Gate

Land Name: End of Dreams
Terrain: Swamp
Commanders: 4 Dracolich
Troops: 100 Soulless
Poptype: no special
Magic sites: Leper Fens, Temple of Darkness, Gore Swamps

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

The Ancient Presence is from one of the more vicious and rare events in the game -- almost the entire population of the province dies, and the Ancient Presence leads a group of mandragoras or mannikin (can't remember which right now) to attack the garrison.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

It's both Mandragora and Mannikin, over 100 of them in total. Very nasty.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

I should backtrack on "too much". We probably shouldnt use unique magic items. And putting too many of the same type of magic site might not be good.

But if you list 3 or 4 sites then that province will only get them if it has empty slots. If it has 2 already then it will only get 2 of the suggested. You might want to list magic sites in the order of importance

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Could anyone give me a detailed description of the Ancient Presence unit? I'd like to base a Pretender for an Ivy Kingdom nation off of it. Thanks for your help!

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

I can add the #killfeatures flag to the province (always, or only for some special provinces, as needed)

Note also that there can be multiple terrains types required for the same province (for exemple, a valley might need "farm" and "border mountain" at the same time)

One more thing : All preset provinces will have an "author" value assigned, that will automatically be added in the comments of the province in the ouput map file

@gandalf and alls others : from a previous post you made in the forum, I plan to add to the province the total count of land and sea neighbours. So yes it will be possible to create uniques provinces that require "lake" or "island", or even "hidden" (province with no neighbours, only way in or out by teleport spells, the random map generator sometimes make some when mountain percent chance is high)

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

I think I could take some time just going thru the magic sites and creating logical provinces for many of them. Why dont the sites that allow me to summon or recruit xxxxxxx cause me to have to battle xxxxxxxx. Ghouls, mummies, trolls, enchantress, magi, villains, etc etc.

And sites that dont do much but have cool names. Haunted Village, Ancient Temple, Graveyard of the Damned.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

It's fun just looking at the magic site list for inspiration. Mine's for Dom2 though, is there one for Dom3? There are some new sites I think.

What kind of province would have a Temple of Darkness? A terrible swamp, naturally, full of corpses and reeking of decay. Who would rule such place? Four Dracoliches, of course, commanding and army of people they've killed.

More provinces coming up tomorrow. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Thanks Teraswaerto, your provinces are great

You have a list of magic sites at http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/ , but there is no description of their efects, only their names.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Land Name: Mountains of Magic
Terrain: Mountain
Commanders: Fire Elemental, Water Elemental, Air Elemental, Earth Elemental (all huge), Tarrasque, Abomination, Wraith Lord [Boots of Quickness], Succubus [Jade Armor, Lucky Charm, Anti-Magic Charm]
Poptype: Hoburg
Magic Sites [known]: Ten Thousand Things (important), Gem Deposits (less important)


And with these words I go to sleep. Good night.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Just a quick message to make a status update :

tonight I plan to finish changing the way the get_special_province() function works so I can use "lake" (sea with only land neighbours), "island" (land with only sea neighbours) and "hidden" provinces (no neighbours at all), and add the last suggested provinces (thanks to Teraswaerto and Agrajag).

With luck, I should have tonight, or by tomorrow evening, an updated version using the special provinces for the "greater manysites" option at http://dominions.realites.org

When it's done, I will of course post an announce here, and provinces suggestion don't have to stop, I could still use a few hundred more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

New version at http://dominions.realites.org

- "greater manysites" now use list of pre-set provinces.
- map file upload instead of text area : the application now doesn't hang anymore with large map files

You can list all available special provinces at
http://dominions.realites.org/?actio...cial_provinces

This will list them all, and give the same map code that will be used by the script when editing map files. (yes, you can also copy/past the code in a map file manually if you want to test a province, and of course there might still be some errors, don't hesitate to post when you find one)

And of course the online tool will use those provinces (with full credit for the authors in the resulting map code) when you check the "greater manysites" option.

The list is *far* for complete, so I still take suggestions for new provinces, as well as suggestion or request for new features.

Currently on my immediate TODO list :

- a pre-set province with a name should be unique in the final map
- add more pre set provinces so that each terrain type as at least some
- maybe making two versions of the random province function, one for land provinces and one for sea provinces (need list of IDs of units with ampibious or aquatic, even a partial list would be better than nothing). At worst I might just ignore random sea provinces and use instead preset ones (since very few units are aquatic in proportion to the huge number that exist, random units on land provinces usually don't drown, the reverse being false)


Your suggestions ?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Small update to the map randomizer:

- Fixed a bug in "#units" command in ouput map code (missing closing quote)
- Mine of superior iron in "Duncorum" preset province changed to "knownfeature"
- Succubus in preset province "Mountains of Magic" could not equip the Jade Armor (no body slot) => armor switched with boots of quickness of the Wraith Lord in same province

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Can you write a short summary of what your tools do ?

I see you can submit one of your own maps into the randomizer and i think what it will do is randomly add in "unique" indi's and sites, is that right ?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Yes exactly, you go to http://dominions.realites.org/map_randomizer/ , upload your map file, change the options if needed, and submit.
The script will then output a cleaned and modified map file, with some provinces randomly modified, eitheir by adding random commanders and units, with the occasionnal lab or fort, or by using a predefined province from the list available.

If you uncheck all options, the script will only check the map file syntax and output a cleaned version, adding comments about provinces terrains types and neighbours but no other change, so this can also be usefull to check a freshly edited map file for syntax errors.

The other tool is a map editor, it is functionnal and almost complete (except for some specific settings such as victory points), but currently only works with a set of predefined maps (the program doesn't allows yet to upload your own map files), and there isn't currently much info on units/sites except for their names (this project was started before Edi made his wonderful DB available).

I had stopped working on both projects a long time ago after a hard drive failure, but I have since installed a new server and restored both applications from my backups.

With the new dom3 patch my motivation have somewhat came back and I might start working again, depending on my free time.

Meanwhile, if you have provinces ideas for the randomizer (see http://dominions.realites.org/map_ra...cial_provinces for current list), of if you want a specific map to be added to the editor I am open to suggestions.

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

- New predefined provinces added : "Land of the Cyclops King", "Trollheim", "Land of the Asmegs" and "Peaceful Valley"
- "Castle Marko" upgraded with Longbowmen + Knight poptype

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

How likely is it that your tool will replace a stock province with a "unique" one ? In percentage ?

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

With default settings, 100% of provinces with the "manysites" flag will be replaced with a preset province (if one available for the province terrain type, else it will just be some random commanders/units), with other provinces having 5% of the same, and you can change both % if you wish before submitting, it's all in the main page at http://dominions.realites.org/map_randomizer/ (scroll down and read the "Greater Manysites" description, this is were the preset provinces settings are defined, see http://dominions.realites.org/map_ra...cial_provinces for the unique provinces list)

Re: [request for help] unique provinces ideas
 

Note : "manysites" is a dom3 terrain flag, same as "mountain" or "farm", you can see and change it when you use the official map editor ingame (or my own map editor). This flag increase the default chance of having a site in each slot of the province, and is often used in custom maps to give more value to a province without setting anything in stone.

For those that don't already know, each province has only 4 slots for sites, and each slot has on average 35-45% chance of having something (default settings depending on Era, plus small mod for some terrains types, such as farms having slightly less sites that default for exemple)

According to this, the "manysites" flag is supposed to increase those chances, probably doubling them of giving a fixed bonus like +25%, but even then you're never sure that all slots will be used.