Monster SCENARIO Project

[Gandalf Parker]

PROJECT

Im trying to gather all my thoughts and get some feedback on what would be the largest possible scenario project possible using all of the programmable features of Dominions 3. One big zip file which would include much more than usually offered.

[Gandalf Parker]

STORYLINE
I have no idea yet.
"Beware Global Swarming"?
"Dominions Civil War"?
"the TimeLine has Ruptured!"?
"We have created a Pantheon. Well we created one also!"?

[Gandalf Parker]

SCENARIO
A scenario is not just a mod, and not just a map, and not just a 3rd party program you can run to modify something. A scenario is a storyline chain of events, which in this case you can take part in when you play it.

It could be a mod with more storyline than usual, or a map with more storyline than usual. But in this case, Im kindof going for all of the above.

A desktop icon (shortcut) to start the game putting you right into it. Seperarate from your Dom3 shortcut. This would take you directly into this game when you click it. It would also insure that the correct parameters are run. The mod, the settings, preexec, postexec, stats, log, scores, backups, etc.

The pre-exec program (prior to each turn being hosted) would check to see if things have happened in the game which the scenario needs to act on. Im not sure yet what those will be. Maybe reaching a certain year, specific spells being cast, independents down to a certain percent meaning everyone has grown to a certain point, etc.

The map (graphic) might come in multiple flavors which will be used as the game progresses.

The map (.map) will mostly setup specifics such as AI players and independents.

The defaults mod will need to list everything that is not only modified for the game, but anything that we might want changed later in mid-game.

The post-exec program (after each turn is hosted) might just have places for each person to figure out and insert whatever method they want for making backups, notifying the player that the turn has processed, etc. But maybe we can figure out how to get some of the options to work in a generic manner.

Mod 1, Mod 2, Mod 3 would be variations and changes which need to happen later. Possibly, because I love to do such things, we will go with a program to randomize some of this to increase re-playablity of the scenario.

[Gandalf Parker]

SHORTCUT
An icon specific to this game.

A shortcut which calls Dom3 generically. Without an actual install program this might be difficult but generally something like...
"C:\Program Files\dominions3\dom3.exe" -fwacd --magicsites 65 --renaming --indepstr 7 --hofsize 15 --eventrarity 1 --
--statfile --scoredump --preexec pre.bat --postexec post.bat --mapfile scenario.map scenario

[Gandalf Parker]

PRE-EXEC
Some of the things that can be "seen" and reacted to would be:
1) what turn or year it is
2) what season it is
3) certain nations failing to upload turn files, or failing to upload a turn for X number of hostings
4) how many nations have dropped out
5) how many are owned by a nation or by all nations:
provinces, forts, income, gem income, research, dominion, army size, victory points
6) all of the above as it applies to Independents to gauge the progression of the game. Such as when there are less than 10% provinces held by indepts.
7) largest change in any of the above
8) how many of something has entered the game:
assassins, horrors, global spells
9) certain specific provinces being attacked (when the home of xxxx is attacked then act)
10) certain spells being cast (meaning a way to check if a certain research level has been reached, or to know that AI Ermor is now capable of xxxxx)
11) what random events have run
12) specific items gotten from combats
13) overkills (such as a 2000 army killing a 200 army)

[Gandalf Parker]

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[Gandalf Parker]

To answer Azael from another thread...
Actually one of my many partially done projects was the testing of mid-game mod changes, with an offshoot into what does and does not have to be part in the mod that the player has. (as far as I know Ive finished testing host map vs player map, now on to mods)

So far it appears that for an AI a player side mod (programmers use the term stub-file so I call it stub.dm) must name the nation, assign it a nation slot, and should set the color that the nation uses in the scoreboards. Maybe also set the name and slot of magic sites (not done testing that part). The host stub.dm controls the units that can be recruited, and maybe the features of the site. So it would seem possible so far to do what you want. Have a game where the AI nation would be bare and unfeatured until a certain thing is seen in the game.log such as a number of turns passed or a particular site attacked or a global cast. Then the host can swap in the stub.dm that has the AI as a full featured nation able to recruit.

The nation would be active before that so it would build up gold and possibly gems. But that might be controllable also. It still needs some testing to find out the full capability but the early tests seem to indicate that SOME level is going to be possible.

That also applies to the random AI nation project I was working on. Not the mid-game part but seems to show that the player only needs to download a bare stub.dm file in order to play games over and over on my server where the nations they are playing are completely changed with each game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmm come to think of it..
an AI nation could have all versions of units geared toward a very specific style of playing. All expensive elites, defensive, minimal movement, possibly high on research to create a nation which the AI (even the stupid AI) would be forced to play as a slowly building up and "preparing" sort of nation. And then when it is attacked, the units all switch to cheaper, possibly less armored, good movement troops better oriented toward a barbarian horde style of playing. Ticking them off would suddenly cause them to "burst forth onto the landscape".
That might be fun.

And the reverse could be tried also. One that starts out aggressively expansive. And when attacked switches to a more lock-down and defend version.

[Aezeal]

So how do you add units or a nation during a game then, and have you actually tested it?

I can see how you could change a nation by having a zillion extra unitnumbers which could even have a greyed out version with unavailable over it as the pic, 999 gc and 999 rec cost, and 0 for each stat and thus making them quite unappealing to recruit and then later change the mod and give those units stats, a good pic and price and either grey out the original ones or just have the newer (improved versions) have a better price/power ration. (I think this is more elegant than using 3 castles (which would imho recruit the same units anyway so I'm not getting that at all anyway).

Anyway I could see that work.. but how to add a new nation or place units during the game.. I'm not seeing which commands I could use.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are some things the game reloads during each bootup and some it doesnt.

The map for instance is not used except for the initial creation of the game, and then only by the host. In direct connect games (like mine) the user receives a map graphic and never needs to see the .map at all.

On the other hand, a mod is loaded everytime the game brings up a game using that mod. So it can do some changes. So the "commands" is just restarting the game with the changed (but named the same) mod in place.

I have only gotten as far as testing the use of units that the users copy of Dom3 already "knows". If I grant abyssia infantry and caelums mages to a nation then Dom3 knows how to show the battles to the user.

Im guessing that if I make up a unit then the users copy must list the new ID numbers and some basic info on how to display it. Graphics can be a problem. If the player already has the graphics then its ok. In other words you could probably change units with #copyspr but referring to a self-made image would mean it has to be included in the copy that each user gets. Im afraid I havent tested host-only mid-game changes yet either. This is all based on "bugs" reported by others that differences in the mod versions caused strnge things to happen if the mod doesnt have a #ver to tell the game that the version has changed. Im trying to turn a bug into a feature before Johan fixes it.

But, at least it SHOULD work (or at least have the best bet) if you want to create the the entire unit in the users mod. If unit 3456 is fully defined and graphiced, and unit 3457 is also, then the users copy will know them both. If 3457 is all the nation can recruit at the beginning of the game, and later the recruit list removes it but puts in 3457, then thats something only the host is really caring about on an AI nation.

Properly tested (which Im not good at) it would start with everything in the users mod and then gradually see how much of it can be changed at the hosts end. Even better to find out which items can be deleted entirely from the users mod without affecting battle replays and what happens when you take the AIs castle (most of my tests crash at the taking of the castle)