Random Alliances (Gandalf or others)
 

I saw the 'Random Opponents' mod and was wondering
if/how it's possible to alter the mod so I can select the difficulty and just have the 3-8 'Random Alliances' between AIs with no more than 2 in an alliance. And is there any way these alliances can be announced/recognized in the game or does it remain a mystery?

Re: Random Alliances (Gandalf or others)
 

It can be done easily but not as a MOD. A MOD changes the things in the game. A MAP sets up a scenario using the units in the game. Both are text files and can easily be altered by a program so you can click on some executable to get a whole new game.

So you could have a MOD that made changes to units in order to make the AI play smarter, such as some have suggested making.

You could have an EXE program which you would run telling it what race you wanted to play. It would select some computer oppenents, set the MOD to improve those, choose alliances amoung them, then start the game.

So you might click on AIhell.exe and tell it that you are going to play Arcos. It creates a temp.dm (temp mod) and a temp.map for a human player of Arcos, Caelum/Jotun alliance, Man/Pangaea alliance, Ctis/Ermor alliance. Wow it could get rough though. What if Marignon/Ermor allied? I count on Marignon to keep Ermor from running the map. What if Atlantis/Rlyeh allied? Man/Caelum (early game Call of the.... spells).

Anyway, it can be done easily. The only hassle is that its 3 different easy areas. An exe (easy for those who have done it), MAP commands (easy for those who have done it), and MODs (easy etc etc) except that the MOD part is totally optional.