Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Is there or will there ever be a random map generator that works underground provinces into the picture?

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

RanDom looks for provinces with only one neighbor and border mountain terrain and will convert them to cave provinces. In my games I typically end up with at least one or two caves.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Excellent Thank You! I'll give it a spin. :jam:

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Houston we have a problem.

I downloaded the zipped files,unzipped them into a c:\Random folder

I get

(Component "Comdlg32.ocx" or one of it's dependancies not correctly registered. A file is missing or invalid)

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

I reinstalled it under c:\dominions3 but I'm still getting that error message.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Comdlg32.ocx can be found in the following posts along with some instructions on some options for using it:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=115
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=117

If you receive any other errors about missing controls, you might check out the following posts:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=148
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=153

Those items seem to have solved most problems with missing controls. Is your operating system Vista by chance?

Anyhow, let me know if you still have problems.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Excellent Thanks Again! I required a couple of them to get it working. Using Windows XP Pro here.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Great!

There is a slight learning curve with making the tools do what you want, but if you can get past that part I think you will like it. Especially if you do much single player. The start placement and province variety could be useful for multiplayer as well if you are so inclined. :)

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

I was hopeing to use it mainly for making maps for SP mode. I hit the exucute button a few times now and I see what you mean about the learning curve. I attatched one of my abortions to this post.
Strange things are happening in these maps. My land nation started a couple times in water. The provinces seem to have bizare connections, where some provinces have zero connections ,or the connected province is several provinces away.
Also the map I see when creating the game(picking the map from the list)is always different than the one that loads in for the game. On one map the names of several provinces where clumped together in the water.

I haven't seen any sign of cave formation yet, could you supply some good settings that would result in caves?

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

In order to modify the map (and gain the benefit of cave provinces) you will need to use the SemiRandomize button. 'Execute' generates a random map and 'Semi Randomize' creates a modified version of the map file with '_SR' appended to it. The modified map file can be found in the dominions3\SemiRandom folder. Copy & paste this map file into your dominions3\maps directory and you should be good to go.

That is bizarre. I have never seen or heard of anything like that. The only thing that I can think of is if the map file and the image are mismatched. When you use the execute button, RanDom just calls dominions3 via the command line and feeds it the settings (colors, terrain info, map name, etc) and then lets dom3 generate the initial map file and image. Then when you use the SemiRandomize button, a 2nd application (written in Yabasic) modifies the map file (the text one, not the image). In order for this to work properly, the map file named must be located in the dominions3\maps folder. The original map file is left untouched, and the modified "_SR" version then needs to be moved into the dominions3\maps folder. You can tell which one is SemiRandomized from within the game by reading the description.

To increase the odds of getting some cave provinces, you will need to include plenty of border mountains. To do this, make sure that the "Normal Mount" checkbox is unchecked (as I believe it is by default) and increase the "Mountain" slider to a level you are comfortable with. The sample map that you uploaded appears to have plenty of potential provinces. Did you make the dimensions so small just for testing or are you using those dimensions in game? I wonder if using such a small image is causing dom3 to go bonkers. Just a thought.

Good luck and let me know if you continue to have trouble.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Thanks for that info,I'll try running it again tomorrow. I'll post a save game using that map I posted before. This map was not modified by the second program though.

I tried awhile ago ,made a new map,then ran the 2nd program but got this error.

Adding Stuff...

---Error in main,line 1692:index 1 <=-1> out of range
---Error: Program stopped due to an error.
---Program done.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Here's that savegame.
It Illustrates the problems I mentioned earlier.

I was trying to make the small random map size that you can make using the game.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

The following post might help:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...8&postcount=42

The post is a little outdated now as the only age missing god files now is LA. Were you placing nation starts for late age by chance?

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

If I try to load the game it appears to be looking for "parganos_llama.tga". I suspect that this is not a random map that you generated with RanDom. In the past there were some bugs with dom3 in the way it handled maps at game creation. It is as if it's cache is not cleared or updated properly. A workaround is to always close the game and restart it between changes to existing maps or the map directory. It seems to be reading the map text for the map that you have selected while remembering a map image from a previous game or outdated index of map image files.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

Geez. Thanks for your help. I think I'm going to stick with the default map randomizer as it works first time everytime. I just don't understand your program I guess.

Re: Random Maps and Underground Provinces
 

EA Arcoscephale

Is it possible you could add a slider in the RanDom program for caves?