AI position(on random generated maps)

[theenemy]

Hi folks!

Sometimes, when I start a game on a randomly created map the AI nations are positioned a bit too close to mine own position. This appears to be happening randomly though. My question is: can you somehow...well I don't know, MOD the AI nations to start a bit further away from me?
Any help will be appreciated.

[Tifone]

Stupid question... tried with larger random maps?
Another (less stupid) one... Tried with Ran-Dom, Semi-Randomizer and all those nice stuff? I'm too limited to make those work but seem to do wonders http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=33342 and http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34826

[JimMorrison]

The best thing that you can do if you are using randomly generated maps, before you play, is to use the Map Editor to label as "No Start", most of the provinces on the map. I generally just flag all the provinces with 4 or less neighbors, though sometimes I do 5 or less.

Bear in mind your province/player count, as well. I find that will ~15/person seems to work best for everyone in MP, a higher ratio tends to work out better in SP, especially as you ramp up the difficulty rating.

[Endoperez]

The only built-in limits are the fact that capitals will have at least two provinces between them, if there is enough space on the map, and those built into the map in question. Custom maps often define number of provinces in which nations can start, but random maps won't.

SemiRandom mentioned above might have a feature for automatically assigning starting provinces to maps.

[Gandalf Parker]

If you choose "Large Random Map" it will generate a map with 20 provinces per player. That tends to give you MAYBE 5 provinces between you. If you have more or fewer AIs then the map size just changes accordingly and the effect is the same. I do understand. That isnt really enough room for some of the nations and some of the tactics they would use.

But if you go to "Game Tools" and do "Random Map Creator" then you can generate a map where the number of provinces is higher than 20 per AI. You can generate a map as large as 1500 provinces (if your machine has enough memory) and then you can play with 20 nations at 75 provinces per nation.

By the way, I enjoy my games more with sea set to 20 and mountains to 50. That creates less ocean and lots of strategic chokepoints you can exploit. If your machine takes forever trying to generate a large map then you can download a couple that I made for the same reason.
http://www.dom3minions.com/downloads.htm


Gandalf Parker

[vfb]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

The best thing that you can do if you are using randomly generated maps, before you play, is to use the Map Editor to label as "No Start", most of the provinces on the map. I generally just flag all the provinces with 4 or less neighbors, though sometimes I do 5 or less.

Bear in mind your province/player count, as well. I find that will ~15/person seems to work best for everyone in MP, a higher ratio tends to work out better in SP, especially as you ramp up the difficulty rating.

Don't do this by hand though!

The amazing DrP has written a script to do it for you:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=31093

[lch]

Don't do this with Perl though!

DireAussie has made a webpage where you can upload your .map file and select the minimum neighbors for each starting province, then download the changed .map file again.

http://users.on.net/~dfidge/cgi-bin/dom3map.pl

[JimMorrison]

Damn, that web script -almost- can do what I do. But I just did a map with land starts needing a minimum of 6 neighbors, water starts with at least 5 neighbors. Well, I suppose I could run it, and then just touch up the water, where any 5 neighbor provinces that don't touch land would get marked No Start by the script. Sure will save some time, thanks!

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm there was a scripted version that took separate choices for land and water. But I dont remember which one it was.

[lch]

It does take separate choices for land and water, but not in a way that Jim wants.