Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

I'm currently working on a project with my fiance to write a java program that'll allow a player to go through and figure out the least expensive method to build a pretender from scratch.

What happens is that you give program the following information

Magic Paths
Dominion Score
Specific Nation

Then the program uses a reference I've compiled of every pretender in the game to calculate the cheapest way to get what you want. This should be particularly useful for making rainbow mages, or double/triple blesses by letting you maximize your points.

The only thing I really need help with is if people could do some data entry for me. I need to know which pretenders are available for each nation.

The specifics are that I would give people a spread sheet to fill out, and if I get 3 volunteers, I could divide up the work up by the ages. Probably wouldn't take more than 30 minutes, tops, to do an entire age.

I've included the XML file with all the pretender data in it to show you that I slogged through all 110+ pretenders by myself. You can probably just open it in a spreadsheet program, I know Excel was able to translate it nicely into a spreadsheet.

The XML file only includes starting path level, cost for a new path, the base cost of the chassis, and starting dominion, but that's all you need to know to figure out which pretender is the cheapest for a particular bless or site searching strategy.

If you'd like to help out, drop me a PM, or post here.

Even if you're not interested, if you'd find the application useful, just knowing that would be good too. Or if there's any features or functionality you'd like to see in addition to what I mentioned above.

Jazzepi

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

You know, one suggestion, mostly because I see the potential for this to be an invaluable tool..... But since it's calculating cost for every chassis available to that nation, just have it display the full list. That way for example, if you were going for an E9/10 bless, maybe you want to compare all the options against eachother, and you won't overlook a good option just because something else edges it out by 5-10 points that might go unspent anyways.

Oh also, if it could output in a .txt file, or in a form copy/pastable, so you can easily compare say E9 by itself, against E9S4 and E9N4, to see if one of them has an opportune choice.

Making both of these suggestions on the basis that I don't always just want the cheapest, but I will run dozens of variations through the Pretender Creator to find the one that just clicks to get the most bang for the buck. And this tool should theoretically make it easier to see those obscure options that maybe give you a chance to make a less used pretender cost effective and fun to use for once.

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

I'd like to suggest a CBM version, too. Shouldn't be too hard to come by, just parse the Gods part of the mod.

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

The Dom3 DB army list page has lists of pretenders for each nation.

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

There was a spreadsheet based version of this around for Dom2. As part of the Tome, I think.
I fiddled around with trying to do something similar for Dom3, but my spreadsheet-fu was not up to the task.

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

Organizing the information once it's been created by the program is going to come last, but it'll definitely be an important focus. I was thinking of doing something like a gradient scale, where you would be able to see what would happen if the God was switch up or down a point of dominion/magic pick without actually running through the whole process again.

Thankfully making a new type of output shouldn't be too difficult. I can slap more and more of those on without modifying the core structure of the program.

Jazzepi

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

Hot damn :9

Now I just need to rip the data.

Jazzepi

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

I checked out the Skaven mod. All I would have to do is parse something like this, right for each God in CBM?

I think it would be easy enough to come up with an extension to parse mods in this way since all the info you need is right here.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
-------- New Pretender


---- Seerlord


#newmonster 2173
#copystats 1010
#clearmagic#clearmagic#clearmagic
#spr1 "./Skaven/Pretender Seerlord.tga"
#spr2 "./Skaven/Pretender Seerlord2.tga"
#name "Skaven Seerlord"
#descr "Removed for forum post"
#hp 16
#size 2
#prot 5
#mor 30
#mr 18
#enc 3
#str 10
#att 12
#def 13
#prec 11
#mapmove 2
#ap 15
#gcost 30
#rcost 1
#weapon "falchion"
#poisonres 35
#stealthy 0
#magicskill 5 1
#magicskill 4 1
#expertleader
#pathcost 20
#startdom 2
#makemonster3 2148
#restrictedgod 73
#nametype 148
#nobadevents 40
#end
</pre><hr />

I assume "magic skills" represent each individual path for the pretender?

Jazzepi

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

The only important points there are:

#startdom X - Starting dominion value
#restrictedgod X - Which nation it belongs to
#pathcost X - how much a new path costs
#magicskill X X - the path and amount of starting magic
#goldcost X - the initial cost of the chassis

CBM gods won't make use of #restrictedgod. They might well change some of the other values though.

Re: Pretender Point Cost Calculator - Help Needed
 

I looked up the Pretender Summary tab in both open office and Excel.

Once I got to the "8 EA Abysia" none of the nations from then out out displayed which pretenders they were able to choose from.

Jazzepi