Idea thread: special provinces, unique defenders
 

SemiRandomizer is a great program that can read special province settings from text files, and then add these provinces into exiting Dominions maps. Aran with random provinces tough enough to work as chokepoints? Independent castles with powerful defenders in both sides of the walls? Robin Hood and his merry men? Bunch of Abysians defending a fire site? It can be done. It isn't easy, though, so I though I'd start an idea mill and then translate the ones I like to the correct format. I probably won't be able to do quite that many this weekend, but I hope there will be quite a few ideas next weekend when I have more time.

Now, what tools you can use when desigining your provinces:

ANYTHING in the mapediting document. This means:
- adding to, or replacing, the original defenders
- adding any unit as a commander, with the spesific magic paths, items, amount of experience and name you want
- giving any unit(s) to a commander already in the province (you always have to add at least one commander), as either normal troops or bodyguards
- adding any existing magic site, either hidden (normal) or pre-searched
- adding any fort and/or a lab and/or a temple to the province
- defining different troops for inside and outside of the castle. Technically, one will be besieging the other, so the ones inside the castle need items to avoid supply problems.
- set the owner of the province, as well as its poptype, population amount, starting unrest and PD (if it's owned by a nation).

In addition, RanDom/SemiRandom allows these advanced options:
- randomly choosing this province instead of it always being in the exact same province of the one map you added it to (with various values such as terrain affecting where it can appear)
- adding "any one of [a list]" instead of "this one", whether we're talking about a name, a unit, an item or a castle. You can define the lists and use them in multiple instances. An example of a list would be three different sets of equipment for a thug.
- giving an AI player a pre-determined god

What you CAN'T use:
- mods. No modded units, no modded sites, no modded nations, because the special province would crash the game unless the spesific mod was active.




That's it. Please, post your ideas. Here're two examples of what the result will look like:




example 1: Robin Hood and his Merry Men
only available in medium and large forests
Has a Longbowman commander with 150 points of experience (3 stars). His name is Robin Hood, and he has a Longbow of Accuracy. He leads a group of 20 Longbowmen, 20 Woodsmen (with shortbows), and 20 Villains.
The province also has a known magic site called "Hall of Ancient Oaks", and the following commanders:
-a Monk given H2, Endless bag of Vine and a Cauldron of Broth. His name would be Tuck.
-a Ranger Captain (LA Ulm crossbowman) named Red Will,
-a Warrior Maiden (of EA Ulm) named Marian,
-and a Light Bandar Archer named Little John.
All of them have 100 points of experience (2 stars). Little John would have 50% chance of having a Storm Bow. There would be a 25% chance for Maid Marian to have Nature 2.

This would be made as:
filename: Endo8_R_U_N_FST_.gan
eigth province made by Endo(perez), replaces the original defenders, is unique, appears in normal-sized forests.
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>#commander 59
#name "Robin Hood"
#xp 150
#additem "Longbow of Accuracy"
#units 20 59
#units 20 "Villain"
#units 20 "Woodsman"

#knownfeature "Hall of Ancient Oaks"

#commander "Monk"
#name "Tuck"
#xp 100
#additem "Endless Bag of Wine"
#additem "Cauldron of Broth"

#commander "Ranger Captain"
#name "Red Will"
#xp 100

#commander "Warrior Maiden"
#xp 100
#name "Marian"
@4
#mag_nature 2
- three times
- out of four
- she has no magic

#commander "Light Bandar Archer"
#xp 100
#name "Little John"
@2
#additem "Storm Bow"
- half the time, no bow</pre><hr />





Examplem 2 (taken from the SemiRandom post in the mod forum):


<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>#god 11 138 -- PANGAEA GORGON
#clearmagic
#mag_earth 9
#mag_nature 4
#dominionstr 11 10
#scale_chaos 11 3
#scale_lazy 11 1
#scale_cold 11 -1
#scale_death 11 -3
#scale_unluck 11 -2
#scale_unmagic 11 2</pre><hr />

You could add items if you were feeling fancy:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>#additem "Shield of Gleaming Gold" -- hand slot
#additem "Sword of Sharpness" -- hand slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Robe of Invulnerability" -- body slot
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot</pre><hr />

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I was looking at these the other day on Gandalf's site and was intrigued. Are you saying you'll code it if we come up with good suggestions? If so, shweet! Limiting to units within the game or deciding if something can fit and whether or not it needs a new unit?

Some easy examples:

Camelot -

19 Knights of the round table outside a Forest Citadel
http://www.timelessmyths.com/arthurian/roundtable.html
Troops of some sort/# inside the citadel with Guinevere and Merlin.
Chalice like site
White man hill
aaand something.

19 knights (of Avalon) still aren't that terrible. So possibly give each knight 5 other basic knights - squires?

Each knight of avalon (round table) wouldn't necessarily get additional equipment, but i would add 2 misc per. RoRegen/luck/bracers of prot/RoWarrior/etc. Could get specific to the literature on each of the 18, but seems like a lot of work. King Arthur would be fitted out fully, with either a new (AN) sword or sword of quickness/sharpness.

Merlin would be a high level mage, RoWizardry and something.
Guen would be a combo mage/prieset (??), RoSorcery and something.

I've always been a big fan of really powerful random provinces, but good rewards if defeated.

----

Hawaian fire-god volcano
Dragons lair(s)
Forest of spiders
The unearthed pit
Mayan Temple theme and an angry Quetz..

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Thats the idea of it all. If we all designed ONE province then the SemiRandomizer would be able to create some very interesting maps. You could set it to add 3 percent special provinces and play your favorite map over and over with fun surprises.

Just for ideas, look at the magic sites and build a province around them. Especially if it allows summoning or recruiting certain units. Doesnt that mean it would be guarded by them? Or certain units as a theme. A werewolf village, or dragons lair, or giants cave.

PLUS one of the big complaints against the AI is that it creates bad gods and chooses horrible scales. If we all made gods for the AIs then it might improve them.

All of this is only going to be fun if we have enough variety so we can keep the game random without it having to be stupidly random (like my old programs were).

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I like stupidly random http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But I liked thematic better. Could someone post the format for a complex province with comments per section? I can copy most of an existing complex province but silly questions like... bodyguards come after commander, then commanders items..eh? Terrains still confuse me as well.

I've got the DB, the format is daunting.

Is the site modding in the mod guide as well? For instance, I think the camelot province should have recruitable knights, probably not of Avalon..but similar.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Jutetrea - I'd like to get MUCH more detail. I'm not going to go through a site just to find 19 names. If you'd like some of the knights to have a bit different equipment, mention it. Is King Arthur inside the castle with Guinewere/Merlin, or outside with his knights? What sites, exactly (there are just two healing sites according to Edi's list, and because I doubt Lyfjaberg would fit, it'd be Healing Spring). What magics would the mages have?

So, sites: Healing Spring, White Man Hill, probably a site with a Lake in its name (The Forest of the Lake (!), Bottomless Lake, Lake of Mists, Lake of Reflected Time, Lifeless Lake (Death gems, not good), Mirrorlake (allows recruitment of Illusionist, so not good), Overgrown Lake (not what we're looking for). I want DETAILS, because while I could do all this myself, I'd like to get enough details that I can just read through it, perhaps add something of my own while implementing it, and then move on to the next suggestion.

And what would these be, then? Volcano and a Sun Disk? Rain Forest, Jungle Temple, something else? What is an unearthed pit? If you have an idea, give details. If I go to the details myself, I'll do it for my own ideas.


Also, map "modding" is very, VERY simple. Adding commanders adds them to the last province you selected, regardless of how you did it, and there's no #end command for provinces. All commands that work on commanders (including commands for adding units under their control) work for the commander that was added last. Order doesn't matter. You can give a commander an item, then set bodyguards, then set his magic and experience, then his units, then add another item and add more units and add holy magic and then add another squad of bodyguards. You could also do that in reverse, and it would still work.

And as said above, modding SHOULDN'T be used. This is for semi-random only, and while you can do interesting stuff with mods, it'll get too complicated too fast.
Site modding is in the modding guide, but it's only partial. We can set capital-only recruitables, but not units recruitable everywhere. However, Camelot could be given the knights/longbowmen poptype. That is good enough, because this will be a high-pop province in a forest (at least from what I understood), and thus have much more resources than a farmland (only terrain knights are usually recruitable in) would.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Let me counter to that: Endo, I think you'll have to give a greater detail of what exactly is possible and how with these semi-random province settings, especially for people with zero knowledge about map editing. What you gave was a rough draft and that was useful to get some idea about what's possible, but it's no wonder that you get vague ideas as response to that, too. People have ideas, they just don't know how to submit them in the way that you want them. Where is that format that you want to have documented with all its features? A copy of Edi's database would be very much needed, too, I guess? Are all the sites in there?

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

#landname "HarpaKazi"
#knownfeature "Dying Forest" -- already found
#feature "Wild Forest"
#feature "Wild Forest"
#feature "Wild Forest" -- fills the site slots IF they have nothing in them already

#commander 614 -- Harpy Queen
#comname "Scorned" -- as in there is no fury like a woman scorned
#bodyguards 5 713 -- Harpy Manikin
#units 10 239 -- Harpy

#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"

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

How about the Forest of Truffles site guarded by pigs?
Forest of Delights with Pans and Maenads?
The Dying Forest with carrion spell creatures?
Mammoth Forest and... mammoths?
The Forest of Endless Streams allows recruiting Enchantress and should be guarded by some with maybe some decent equipment so you have to WORK for it.

There are some lists at www.dom3minions.com/docs which can help

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

For extreme examples its best to look at the program itself. Here is one of the files....

-- Isle of Thrones ***************
#population 45000
#poptype 71 -- Trolls
#killfeatures -- destroys any magic sites that were randomly assigned
#knownfeature "Conjurer's Cave"
#knownfeature "The Fire Prison"
#knownfeature "Tempest Hall"
#knownfeature "Ten Thousand Things"
#fort 24 -- builds the Crystal Citadel there
#temple -- builds a temple
#lab -- builds a laboratory

#commander 631 -- King of Elemental Fire (Pyriphlogos)
#comname "Primidius"
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 9
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Rainbow Armor" -- body slot
#additem "Charcoal Shield" -- hand slot
#bodyguards 5 "Will o' the Wisp"
#units 15 "Will o' the Wisp"
#units 10 "Summer Lion"

#commander 655 -- Scorpion King
#comname "Mordiseus"
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 4
#mag_earth 5
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Rainbow Armor" -- body slot
#additem "Charcoal Shield" -- hand slot
#additem "Elf Bane" -- hand slot
#bodyguards 5 "Mechanical Man"
#units 5 "Earth Elemental"
#units 10 "Scorpion Beast"
#units 20 "Mechanical Man"

#commander 627 -- Faery Queen
#comname "Velrian"
#clearmagic
#mag_nature 6
#mag_air 6
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Spirit Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Robe of Shadows" -- body slot
#additem "Eye Shield" -- hand slot
#additem "Rune Smasher" -- hand slot
#additem "Boots of Quickness" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 "Wyvern"
#units 5 "Air Elemental"
#units 10 "Wyvern"
#units 20 "Lumber Construct"

#commander 580 -- Sea King
#comname "Lunieous"
#clearmagic
#mag_water 6
#mag_astral 9
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Crown of Command" -- head slot
#additem "Robe of Shadows" -- body slot
#additem "Lantern Shield" -- hand slot
#additem "Faithful" -- hand slot
#additem "Boots of Quickness" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 "Ice Drake"
#units 5 "Water Elemental"
#units 15 "Sea Troll"

#commander 519 -- Troll King
#comname "Larry"
#additem "Bear Claw Talisman" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Black Steel Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Hammer of the Mountains" -- hand slot x2
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 518 -- Troll
#units 5 648 -- Troll Archer
#units 10 518 -- Troll

#commander 519 -- Troll King
#comname "Moe"
#additem "Bear Claw Talisman" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Black Steel Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Midget Masher" -- hand slot x2
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 518 -- Troll
#units 5 648 -- Troll Archer
#units 10 518 -- Troll

#commander 519 -- Troll King
#comname "Curly"
#additem "Bear Claw Talisman" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Black Steel Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Hammer of the Forge Lord" -- hand slot x2
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 1037 -- War Troll
#units 10 1037 -- War Troll
#units 10 1086 -- Troll Moose Knight

#commander 471 -- Golem
#comname "Bok"
#additem "Spell Focus" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Spirit Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Chain Mail of Displacement" -- body slot
#additem "Standard of the Damned" -- hand slot
#additem "Boots of Quickness" -- feet slot

-- END Isle of Thrones ***************

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Okay then.

Terrain the site can appear in, whether it's unique, and whether it replaces or adds to the original defenders of the province. If you want a spesific poptype, mention it.

The description of the province can be in any format, but generally I want to know the amount and type of everything in the province. It would be nice to get the types as unit IDs (59), but I can use the names as well ("longbowman"). If there are multiple units with the same name, I want to know which one to have (e.g. independent or Man-spesific Longbowman). I need to know the basic amount of units to know how tough battle you are trying to make. Say, a high priest, a bard, a Mother of Avalon and a knight commander leading 20 knights, two squads of 50 longbowmen and 40 independent heavy infantry with swords and shields (unit ID preferred).
If you want to have a castle defended both inside and outside, describe both groups of defenders.

If you want your commanders to have unique names, provide them, or a list from which they should be chosen - the in-game namelists (Infernal, Atlantian, generic female etc) can be used.
As for items, I want to know at least a somewhat defined list of what to choose from. "Any one-handed sword" etc is enough, but "well equipped" isn't.



Edi's DB has a list of magic sites. A well-chosen site adds a lot to a province. Sites can be added as either hidden or revealed. Remember that there's a maximum of four sites per province.

Edi's DB also lists lots of units, but personally I use AllView maps to be able to view the units' descriptions. As an example, I chose Marian to be a Warrior Maiden instead of the other female archer of EA Ulm because the Warrior Maidens' description doesn't mention that they are from Ulm.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Some of these would make for funny additions to the existing defenders of the province.

Forest of Delights, a Pan with a pair of Endless Bags of Wine leading a group of 40 Maenads.
Forest of Truffles, a Great Boar of Carnutes, a dozen Great Boars/Iron Boars, and perhaps a Fay Boar or two.
Mammoth Forest, and a Mammoth commander with a Horn of Valor leading 4 Mammoths set as bodyguards.

Those two are simple enough for me to fill in the details.
As for Dying Forest - I'd rather not go digging for the carrion creatures, and it's time-consuming to do a list of them (the only way to get somewhat random assignment and not e.g. 10 harpies, 10 satyrs and 10 minotaurs as manikins). If I was provided a list of the unit IDs, I'd gladly do it, and I'm sure the lists could be used in other provinces as well.

The Forest of Endless Streams is too unclear. How many Enchantresses should guard it? What decent equipment? Path boosters, Rune Smashers, Eyes of Aiming? I demand a list.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I was tossing out ideas for others. I might dig into it myself but if anyone else wants to then they can go with it.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Can you create these provinces without the land names? It would be more fun if someone stumbled upon "Randomprovince" with the harpies instead of seeing Harpakaze and just going around it to avoid the harpies.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Yes, and multiple choices on how to do it.

A) leave it blank and the game will fill one in

B) mark it for @RANDOM landname FOREST (if its a forest) and it will pick from a huge list of appropriate forest names. This is actually preferred since these lists are actually bigger than the games internal lists.

C) make your own list such as,
@5 landname
"Gilderland"
"Ganthony's Grove"
"Knot Here Woods"
"Four Rest Forest"
"Holly Wood"

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Very cool. I will definitely have to find some time to fool around with these new tools.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Magic Site: Doom Cloud.

Commander: Queen of Clouds, equipped with Doom Glaive, Chain Mail of Displacement, Spirit Helm, Amulet of Anti-Magic, Dancing Trident.

Troops: 20 slyphs.

--------------------------------------------

Magic Site: The Endless Field of Cubes.

Commander: Vistor, equipped with spell focus and eye of the void.

Troops: 30 things of many eyes.

----------------------------------------------

Magic Sites: Horses Vale, Totem Collection.

Commanders: Horse brother with bow of war, horn of valour; horse brother with black bow of botulf, champions skull.

Troops: 50 horse brothers.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Got tired, but got this by using Jack's online editor.
Right direction? Hit return and it kind of aborted the process so didn't get to finish the commanders fully.

All commanders with 2 bodyguards (64) and 8 troops (64)

Itemize the commanders? Maybe just luck pendant?
Possibly drop magic from Arthur and just give him upgraded EQ?
Is there an AOE morale boost item?
If all troops are inside a fort, are the sites available? If not, possibly put all troops inside a Forest castle (35)

10 Melee Commanders
2 bodyguards each = 20 knights
8 troops each = 80

2 Magic Commanders
2 bodyguards = 4 knights
50 archers each = 100


Other magic commander
Merlin (maybe 6F6A6E3S)
Robe of the Magi(?), ring of sorcery, amulet of missile protection, amulet of focus, birch boots, gems(?)
2 bodyguards (64)
50 troops (55 - longbowmen)

Add Ring of wizardry or sorcery to Guen, amulet of missile prot, amulet of focus, gems(?)


#landname "Camelot"
-- large (2)
-- forest (128)
-- farm (256)
-- land neighbours : 3 --???
-- sea neighbours : 1 --???
#terrain 3 386
#poptype 30
#nostart 3
#specstart 31 3
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "King Arthur"
#mag_fire 4
#mag_earth 4
#mag_priest 3
#bodyguards 2 64
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Gawain"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Lancelot"
#units 10 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 1175 -- Warrior Queen
#comname "Guenivere"
#clearmagic
#mag_water 3
#mag_air 3
#mag_nature 3
#bodyguards 2 64
#units 50 55 -- Longbowman
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Galahad"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Perceval"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Bors"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Bedivere"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "King Pellinore"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Tristan"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Palamedes"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#killfeatures
#knownfeature "56"
#knownfeature "276"
#knownfeature "239"
#knownfeature "355"

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Is there a command to add a specific description to an added unit?

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

That's almost a complete province in there. Save it as a Jutetrea1_U_R_L_CO_FST_.gan and put it to the GAN_BIN folder of SemiRandom to enable it. That'd make it unique province restricted to large, coastal forests (_L_CO_FST_) that replaces (_R_) the original defenders.

Descriptions can't be changed.

Magic sites are available whether the castle is besieged or not. However, you can't use numbers when assigning magic sites. And even if you could, #knownfeature "34" would look for a magic site named 34, not magic site by the number 34. Because the first site by the name of "Forest of Avalon" is number 5, you can't add any other Forest of Avalon sites to the province. Because of this, I replaced Forest of Avalon with The Enchanted Isle.

Robe of the Magi causes horror marks, so Merlin might die before anyone sees him. Not good. I gave him some simple equipment. My changes are in italics.

AoE morale boosters: standard ability, available from at least Herald Lances and Horns of Valor.

Gems: randomequip gives gems, even at low values when items are rare.

For Arthur: Sword of Swiftness or Faithful. Shield of Valor (for the name) or Shield of Gleaming Gold (for Awe).

#landname "Camelot"
@5 population
9000
10000
11000
12000
13000

#poptype 30

#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "King Arthur"
#xp 150
#mag_fire 4
#mag_earth 4
#mag_priest 3
#bodyguards 2 64
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon

#commander 382 - Mystic
#comname "Merlin"
#xp 50
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 6
#mag_air 6
#mag_earth6
#mag_astral 3
#additem "Ring of Wizardry"
#additem "Birch boots"
#additem "Starshine Skullcap"
#additem "Robe of Missile Protection"
#additem "Rune Smasher"
#randomequip 1
#bodyguards 2 64
#units 50 55

#commander 1175 -- Warrior Queen
#comname "Guenivere"
#additem "Robe of Missile Protection"
#additem "Bag of Winds"
#additem "Thistle Mace"
#additem "Ring of Sorcery"
#randomequip 1
#clearmagic
#mag_water 3
#mag_air 3
#mag_nature 3
#bodyguards 2 64
#units 50 55

#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Gawain"
#xp 10
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Lancelot"
#xp 10
#units 10 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Galahad"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Perceval"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Sir Bors"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Bedivere"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "King Pellinore"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Tristan"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64
#commander 58 -- Knight of the Stone
#comname "Palamedes"
#units 8 64 -- Knight of Avalon
#bodyguards 2 64

#killfeatures
#knownfeature "White Man Hill"
#knownfeature "The Forest of the Lake"
#knownfeature "The Enchanted Isle"
#knownfeature "Stone Circle"

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I take it that everyone is avoiding using uniques?

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

No, its just harder to find them in the DB if you don't know names. I used the online tool for formatting, and had the database open - just switched back and forth. Plus it was like 3AM here.

I'm all for using uniques, plan on a

province where all the horrors hang out when not assassinating people.
Elemental Nodes - fire, air, water, earth
Sorcery Nodes - Astral, Nature, blood, death
do a little research and figure out the naming for that arabic mountain castle where all the assassin's hung - hashishen or something. Aby/machaka themed
Mayan/Aztec temple - Mictlan themed
Bottomless pit/broken seal - agartha themed
There be dragons
Olympus - home of the gods

Questions:
Is it possible to force provinces to be next to each other in a random setting? i.e. 2 related provinces right next to each other.

Is there a designation in the database for what nation a unit is generally associated with? For instance, query out anything not related to Machaka.

Using heroes as units - (not the generic hero unit) the uniques that appear per nation. How are they listed in the DB?

Neighbors to a province - automatically done during map creation?

Is it possible to script units/commanders via map file? Or even position them?

If a unit is given F6 for magic, do they have access to the while spell book or are they limited to 0 lvl spells? Seems like they have access, but are there any restrictions? Can you give a unit 15S/gems and hope he casts master enslave?

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

This is a *great* idea.
Now, I'd need to research for details, but just a few ideas:

Innsmouth with cultists and fishmen.
Shaolin with disciples and monks.
Village defended by seven samurai.
Cimmeria, land of barbarians, with Conan as one of them.
Kirke's island from Odyssey, sorceress and a horde of beasts and foulspawn.
Holy sanctuary with clerics, flagellants and paladins.
Transylvania with a vampire count leading an army of infartry, peasants, villans and wolves.
Highlands with banshee's and barbarian swordsmen.

For underwater:
Land of the drowned - full of undead.
Sunken city - mechanical men, golems and other animates.
Lair of the kraken - pretender-sized octopus with items

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

First let me thank Endoperez for taking on what I just don't have the energy left to do. Endo, you always explain everything so much better than I can! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Definitely some great ideas in this thread.

I will try to answer a few questions:

That is something that Endo has asked for in the past and that I would like to add in the next version as "kingdoms".


There is a tab with nations &amp; their units, but not a field in the "All Units" tab. That would be a very nice addition though. I would be afraid to incur Edi's wrath by asking for another field, safer to add it ourselves. (Just picking Edi http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif )


If I remember correctly, there is a field at the far right on the "All Units" sheet called "special" or something like that. I remember seeing notes there designating a unit as being a particular nations hero.


Neighbors should already be done by the map designer or by the games random map generator. RanDom doesn't touch them.


Nope, but would be a welcome addition if a simple way were given.


I have wondered about this for some time. I wonder if since independents are considered a nation unto themselves if they don't quietly do research in the background. By late game, I usually have any Independents that I am going to attack already cleared out, so this is just speculation.

I think that the only way to give gems to an independent commander is via gem generating items and I have heard (from Gandalf?) that sometimes they will receive them when using #randomequip.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

If possible "kingdoms" sound cool.

I remember seeing a map on the dom2 site that reminded me of a Warcraft 2 map, 6 or so spokes to a wheel with a set of provinces at the end of each spoke. 2 nations would start on a spoke and then conquer their way towards the middle. The kingdom idea sounds cool because then you could have concentric rings of increasing strength towards the middle.. a king of the hill type thing.

Also quest type scenarios...hmm, is it possible to generate in game messages via map/script/mod? Even if pre-set i.e. on turn 20 an all message goes out - province #42 is the home to an evil black dragon, blah blah.

At its most simple level it would be cool to have something like an NPC pre-set kingdom - castle with a "boss" surrounded by provinces filled with minions.

Hmm.. guess I have to give the DB a deeper look, must have skipped some tabs. Thanks for the answers.

X-Men easter egg
 

This is just a silly idea...

Magic site: Xavier's School, enables recruitment of mutant with 100% AFWES random, 20-50% FWSN random

Xavier: S3, movement 1/2
Cyclops: high precision, ranged attack with the Solar rays animation or a better suited animation
Angel: Flying, high att+def, maybe some gear aswell
Beast: Bandar sprite, high Str, high MR, high movement
Iceman: Ice Elemental sprite, W2
Storm: A4, Flying
Jean: F3S2
Rogue: D2, Life Drain
Wolverine: E2, high Regen, 2x AN or AP Claw attack, maybe immortal
Nightcrawler: demon sprite, intrinsic Boots of the Crane or otherwise automatic Blink in battle

Maybe half of them in the outside, half of them in the inside. Maybe +1 Astral to Xavier and Jean, maybe -1 Air to Storm (though she should be able to cast Storm?). Prevent them from getting charmed, somehow. Make them SCs / Thugs.

Obvious ones
 

The grey tower of nexus:
knownfeature: grey tower of nexus
3 shadow seers with a clam of pearls each (106)
2 grey lords (391)
20 grey knights (390)
poptype: standard farmlands


The factory:
knownfeature: the factory
4 mage engineers(1606) with 2 mech men as bodyguards
6 engineers (1072) with 1 mech man as bodyguard
10 mechanical men
40 clockwork horrors

Re: X-Men easter egg
 

Some notes:

I think its best if uniques are avoided in the scripts that would add provinces randomly to the map.

We cannot BUILD completely new units. Thats a modding thing. With map commands we can build-up a specific unit that is in the game already. We can SELECT units, name them, give them experiences and equipment, bodyguards and troops.

We can also ignore the usual purpose of a unit. ALL units in the game can be assigned as pretenders, commanders, or followers. Creating a horror pretender for a nation, or a mass of horror followers for a commander, is possible.

People who are creating smarter gods and scales for the AI's might be interested to know that you can also decide what AI's tend to ally with each other. Such as, my Pangaean pretender design included a line to ally automatically with Oceania. That means they will not attack each other if they are both AI's in a game.

Please provide some info on WHERE you feel a province design should appear. Mountain? Forest? Swamp? Cave? on a river? in a lake? on an island? These are all recognizable by the program.

Certain features that we cannot give can be provided as a name OR found in the magic sites. If you want a cemetary, a town, a valley, grove, arena then use a site to give that feel to the province. And also look at the sites for things that fit the concept even if you have filled it with other things. Check for sites that have to do with temple, or dragon, or forest.

So consider: location, name, structures, magic sites (found, hidden, or filler), commanders, commander names, experience, equipment, body guards, units.

Re: X-Men easter egg
 

Just as an opinion I feel that all sites in a special province should be available on conquer - as part of the reward for defeating the crazy specials. Again just as an opinion, but crazy hard sites shouldn't be filled with lvl 0 and lvl 2 items but should yield potentially greater rewards. (obviously some lower level items are worth more, clams). Also obvious, rewards should be relevant to the difficulty.

Rewards aren't guarenteed anyway (routs, proximity) but getting everything and only walking away with a bracer and a luck amy is a bit annoying if you had to risk significant troops.

Another reason why I love the "kingdom" idea, thematically progressively difficult encounters.

sorry for the ramble, sick.

Re: X-Men easter egg
 

Even with kingdoms I think we will end up with "3 neighboring mountain provinces" or "a forest next to a swamp". So progressively difficult might not work since we cant gaurantee a sequence they would be attacked in.

But, everyone should remember, these are MAP commands. All of these ideas can be built into a map. If you feel motivated to get really really specific then by all means consider doing a map and designing the entire layout and scenario and descriptions. So far we have very few scenario maps and no super-scenarios (using maps, mods, and multiple maps). Id love to see a storyline super-scenario that takes one nation thru all 3 ages.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

All are good ideas, but need some fleshing out. R'lyeh is a sunken city, but I guess another would be fine if you don't find an alternative name. I mentioned good sources of fitting units in () symbols in the quoted part. Also, Circe is a Sauromatian hero who also affected LA Arcos Sibyls IIRC.


Idea is good, but new units would need to be done as mods. Many heroes can be done with a combination of items and suitable unit types. Examples: Cyclops - Rod of the Phoenix. (Arch)Angel - Stymphalian Wings. Wolverine - maybe Troll with ring of regen, hydra skin armor, lycanthropos amulet and two Duskdaggers (curses everyone touched, AN) - something with both regeneration and rejuvenation would be best. Jean - Phoenix Pyre the spell would be very good, but we can't force her to cast that. Nightcrawler - Fiend of Darkness, chainmail of deception for glamour. Iceman - maybe a Caelian temple guard with Rime Hauberk. Storm - Staff of Storms.





Both are very rare and VERY powerful sites. Would these be in addition to the existing units? Even so, I'd say they need to be a bit more powerful. Your call, though.



Except something late Friday or Saturday. And please keep the ideas coming, and flesh out the existing ones.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Is it possible to disable the randomly spawning indies nowadays? If it is, you could double the number of the units listed, I figured they would be there in addition to the normal indies.
Anyway modify the number or types of units as you see fit, I spent like 5 minutes thinking about the proper power levels.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Is there any way to regenerate the units back to full strength after each encounter?

The problem I have with independents is that the indie troops diminish after each encounter. Sending in many armies over the course of several turns makes it easier for the players to take the hard provinces. I think having the units regenerate will make it a more worthwhile challenge/fun for the players.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Disable Indies: Yes. If I understand what you are asking. There is a map command for setting the province and giving it things, and another command for sweeping it clean and then giving it things. But as far as I know it sweeps everything so its only reasonable if the province design puts back a poptype, magic sites, AND guards.

Regerate after each encounter: no. But there are some ways to make sure that a province continually expands its numbers such as with devils or vampires.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Here's my half-baked idea:
The Citadel of High Metals:
magic sites:
- The tower of Golden Order
- The tower of Silver Order
- The tower of Iron Order
buildings:
- mountain citadel,
- lab,
Outside:
- 3 adepts of each of orders (9 total)
- 4 human commanders (like regular heavy infantry)
- 12 watchers
- 40 heavy infantry
- 40 crossbowmen
Equipment:
mages - amulet of missile protecton, weightless scale mail, pendant of luck.
infantry and crossbowmen - high quality armor and weapons of regular kind (nothing magical or extreme).

Inside:
- 20 adepts of each of orders (60 total)
- 16 Telestic animates
- 4 human commanders (like regular heavy infantry)
- 32 gargoyles
- 16 iron dragons
- 240 mechanical milita,
- 180 clockwork horrors
- 200 crossbowmen

Equipment:
Mages - lucky coin, robe of invulnerability, brimstone boots, starshne skullcap, ring of tamed lightning, amulet of antimagic
Human commanders - brimstone boots, cauldron of broth, lucky pendant

The problem is obvious - mages are vulnerable to murdering winter (and to poison too) and I don't see how to solve it thematically. It doesn't seem right for the adepts of metal orders to have (or use) water magic - same for nature magic.

It is also tempting to give mages rune smasher - it certainly sounds like the item they would use, but how can they forge it? Lucky coin seems to be the only shield item self-respecting mage may carry into the combat, other than rune smasher, no other single-handed weapon seems appropriate (and/or useful).

Concerning the troops, I think that adepts of metal orders would be inclined to build their army primarily from the engineered constructs. Did I miss some suitable summons?

I would also expect them to cast Dome (or 5) of Arcane Warding, but are there commands to do that?

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

You can provide a small list of randoms for the equipment. Maybe the Ring of Tamed Lightening could be random with the other rings which offer various protections.

As for items they cant make.. well, holding so closely to the logic of their limits is cool. But then again, they can always trade with other mage towers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Alexti - very nice! Also, following Gandalf's suggestion would work very well. Each mage would have one ring that provides a resistance, chosen from (Ring of Tamed Lightning, Ring of Fire Resistance, Ring of Cold Resistance, Snake Ring). That way, you can't eliminate ALL the mages with any one spell, but the spells will still be useful. Perhaps alternating between Amulets of Antimagic, Amulets of Missile Protection and Girdles of Might (for reinvigoration).

They could be given Drakes. Also, Living Statues.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

With such a nice province I was concerned that if there is an obvious way to conquer it (storm the citadel) before the late game it may be very unbalancing (access to 4 magic paths, astral magic boosters, nice mages to cover the weaknesses in conquering nation). It's relatively easy (and important) to protect mages against Fires from Afar and Seeking Arrows, but my most concern is about murdering winter. I wonder if it is possible to set the scale to Heat+3 (and how efficient it would be against MW). There are obviously some other ways to kill off the mages, but they are either late game or rather slow and by the time significant amount of mages is killed it will be late game as well.

I didn't want to open that "trading" can of worms. It may be plausible, but from this perspective you can put pretty much anything you want on mages which would make all those "uber-mage" sites alike (and I was planning to come up with other ones - hopefully distinctly different). So I was trying to build the scenario viewing adepts of iron orders as rather smart and proficient in their areas, but not having competence outside of those. So I expected them to be pretty good at crafting items and building mechanical armies, but not at summonning or healing, for example.

Some of the units (like clockwork horrors and mechanical men) fit perfectly. I'm not entirely sure about Gargoyles, Watchers and Telestic Animates. Same for Living Statues. Maybe they could make few Crushers.

Of course, they could get Golems which is fitting, but should they go SC route? Well-equipped Golems could be an option. Can it be made random? Like if they would discover SC route in one game, but not in another. If it can be set so that there're 8 nicely equipped Golems (50% - 8 Golems, 50% - no Golems at all), that will be a nice idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Btw, there's one remaining slot for magic sites - I couldn't think of anything suitable though - one of those gold or silver mine would fit thematically, but would make virtually no effect on gameplay.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

First off let me say that I really like your thoughtful approach to province design! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

For gods yes, for independent provinces no. I really, really, really wish we could use something like #scale_cold -3 to influence a province. The only alternative right now is by using a magic site that influences scales:

562 Desert
frq 5, lvl 0, type Fire, Heat, Death

162 Desert of Bones
frq 1, lvl 1, type Fire, F1, D1, Heat

172 Fountain of Fire
frq 2, lvl 1, type Fire, F3, Heat

154 Plain of Perpetual Drought
frq 0, lvl 0, type Fire, F1, Heat

180 Prison of the Desert Sun
frq 1, lvl 4, type Fire, F5, Heat, Heat

165 Volcano
frq 1, lvl 0, type Fire, F3, Heat

(Pardon the crazy format, but I am having fun with my GAN editor. Just got the feature filters working! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)


Sort of possible. You can set it so that there are 50% - 8 Golems with each having some/lots/no equipment. But if you chance any equipment, there has to be a commander set to assign it to. There are tricks that you can use like setting a placeholder commander before a golem that will catch any equipment that the golem would have gotten. In this way you can leave each golem at 50%, but any equipment that comes into play would show up on the alternate commander as long as he had the slots. Not a great solution.

Does anyone know what happens if you assign equipment in a map file for a commander that does not have a slot for it? If it doesn't generate an error, I would guess that the command to equip the item would just be ignored. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Just a small comment,

I like the thoughtful approach as well - although while potentially vulnerable to MW - many sites are. Mwinter is a later game spell anyway. If someone wants to try to take down 100+ troops with Fires from afar - I say let them.

The limited list of resistence items is a nice idea though. In my experience (abeit limited) its usually either an SC or an overwhelming army that would take out an a difficult special... and in reality its just a matter of how big the army has to be.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Besides, even if you block MW you don't block assassins with skelly spam/Drain Life banners/seduce/whatever. There's always a way to clear out a tough province if you're patient enough.

BTW, when an indy battlemage is in a province, what determines what schools and levels within those schools he can cast?

-Max

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Doesn't turning up the heat to protect against Murdering Winter make you vulnerable to Flames from the Sky? And other magic paths have remote spells like that, too (Beckoning etc.).

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I am not sure I completely understand your idea. Maybe it can done differently: create two such provinces: one with Golems, another - without and then set it so that only one of the provinces is selected for the generated map. Then Golems could have had semi-random equipment. Would it work?

P.S. Thanks for the program! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

This would be pretty tough for solo-ing SC - a lot of unroutable with a lot of resistances, plus horde of mages firing all kind of spells (assuming AI will be casting something sensible).

Increases in army size stop being efficient at some point, there're only so many that can fight in the gates and number of turns in the battle is limited. In this case it's more of a question of having the right army rather than a large army.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

It's easy for adepts to have 100% fire resistance and most of their troops is also fire resistant, so FftS is not a big danger. From my (admittedly mostly Dom2) experiences other spells are much less efficient - for example beckoning allows MR and morale check, so it's useless against all those inanimates, and mages have a good chance to pass the checks too.

More dangerous is Leprosy, I think.

But anyway, creating unassailable province was not my goal (if it was I would just put few thousand tartarian commanders there :&gt;), I'm just trying to think how adepts of metal orders could defend themselves best (but within their limitation) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

You have discovered one of the limitations of the current design. If you create two unique provinces there is a chance that both could be placed on the same map.

Ideally, I should have treated commanders as objects with their attributes attached directly to their selection instead of treating each line separately. Maybe in future versions I can add support for random sections. This would allow multiple internal province versions... Will have to think on that some more when I am awake. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

What I was describing before was that if you had a commander of some sort with no or limited slots (I'll call him "catcher") and a chance for a single golem that might make an appearance as a well armed thug, the placement in the file would be something like this:
#commander 101 -- catcher
@2 commander
471 --Golem
--no Golem
#additem "Horned Helmet"
#additem "Fire Plate"
#additem "Fire Brand"
#additem "Charcoal Shield"
#additem "Boots of Long Strides"

In this example, their is a 50% chance for the golem to make an appearance. If he does, then he will be equipped with the listed items. If he does not then the items would be applied to "catcher". My thought is that if catcher has no slots for these items that they simply go *poof*. This depends on exactly how dom3 handles such a situation and is just theory on my part. If the catcher does have slots, but they already have items, I strongly suspect that the existing items will be replaced by subsequent #additems.

Anyone who has had experience with anything like this, please feel free to correct or confirm. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Your welcome! (and thanks for the thanks!) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I think a good selection of equipment for a golem would be:

Horror Helmet
Black Steel Plate
Stinger
Ring of the Warrior
Ring of Tamed Lightning
Shield of Valor
Boots of Long Strides

That way, you've got a very nice selection of reasonably thematic equipment, and nothing *too* powerful, since there's going to be 8 of them.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

The point of my reply was to demonstrate the technique I was talking about, not to suggest equipment for a golem. I just copy/pasted some lines from a random file.

Edit- removed the rolly eyeballs. Was having a bad week. (sorry HB...)

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I just tested your concept and confirm it. If the selected commander doesnt have the slots then the game simply ignores the item assignment and moves on. They dont fall to the ground, go in armory, and do not go to the next commander selected.
Oh yeah, and the game doesnt crash. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

I only have about three hours until I have to get back to the army. Thanks to a combination of a batch of new books (mainly Pratchett) and a friend's graduation party, I haven't even started this project. I'll do my best to write down the ones posted here next week.

Re: Idea thread: special provinces, unique defende
 

Hopefully by the time you get back I will have the province editor complete. I think (if you can run windows programs) that you will find it helpful. Right now it is roughly 75%-85% complete. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Edit-
Make that 95% complete.

Here is a sample from the first trial run using very basic stuff:

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
SAMPLE999_CLD_IS_U_R_S_SWP_FST_

@1 landname
"Forgotten Isle"
#temple
#lab
#fort 26 --Dead City
#population 0
#poptype 88 --NO RECRUITABLES
#killfeatures
#feature "Chillsick Swamp"
#knownfeature "Haunted Village"

#commander 777 --Tartarian Monstra
#comname "Ess of the Lost"
#additem "Flesh Eater"
#additem "Totem Shield"
#additem "Robe of Shadows"
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic"
#clearmagic
#mag_death 9
#mag_astral 9
#xp 300
#bodyguards 15 526 --Serpent Fiend
#units 20 526 --Serpent Fiend
#units 20 533 --Wight
#units 20 533 --Wight
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I still need to add support for Endo's castle defenders to the editor, but it should be a piece of cake. Which reminds me... I can't believe that I didn't get your "Realm of the Ape King" added to the new release of RanDom. I just checked and it is not even on the site. *slaps forehead*