How prevalent is RMG Wierdness?

[BobPerez]

My wife and I just started playing Dom3 and I've noticed that the RMG is creating a lot of bizarre situations where neighbors are incorrectly represented and UW graphics are used to represented forest terrain, and so on and so forth. Looking over the short bug list, it appears that these bugs have been found and accounted for.

We want to play some head-to-head, so we don't really need huge maps and we like the <small random map> option. But the bugs we encountered in our first two games are pretyt discouraging. Should we just hold off using the RMG and use only the shipping maps, or are these wierdnesses infrequent? Is there a patch coming to address this?

Thanks,

[Edi]

The RMG has gotten fairly little attention compared to mods and other things with higher priority. I am not very familiar with it myself, so all the shortlist entries regarding it are based on entries by other people.

The RMG is a useful tool in creating new maps, but you practically have to open the newly created map in the map editor and then check terrain and neighbor assignments. Currently it is a good idea to restart Dominions 3 every time after you've created a random map to avoid problems stemming from a corrupted geotable (scales bug, but would explain a lot of RMG strangeness).

You should also probably take a look at the maps and mods subforum, there are a fair number of user created maps there and there's also a sticky thread that links most map threads, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find them. Most maps are medium-sized, but there are some small ones as well.

[vfb]

There's also Zylithan's superb new map database here:

http://dom3maps.wikidot.com/nav:top

[llamabeast]

Many of the problems come from using the same name as a previous game. Try using a different game name every time. Doing that I've never really had any problems.

[Foodstamp]

Wow what kind of bugs are you having? The RMG only fails me when i duplicate a game name.

[Cor2]

Mine has refused to create new maps for months now. I go through the waiting process and I get the exact same map image I created just before this probelm started with a diffrent corruped map file, its unplayable. Never bothered to complain because there are so many user created maps around that are good. Its just weird.

[Endoperez]

I haven't heard of this before, and couldn't reproduce it on my system. How big maps are you generating, and with how many provinces? I did my tests with very small maps (400x200 pixels instead of 1400x1200), but I always got different maps and didn't notice any grabled graphics.

[Cor2]

Any size map. I have tried from 50- 400 provinces. pixel ranges from 600x600 to 1200x1200 rez. Its been a while since I tried, not in 3.08 or 3.10. Maybe fixed in one of those patches. It started shortaly after i got the game, I might have generated a dozen ma0ps or so.

I am just not really intrested in trouble shooting, as i dont use that feature any more. I might try again later see if the problem is still there when I get some time.

[Edratman]

I have had the same problem using the RMG. What I found that resolves the problem is to save the game, exit to desktop and start the game again. The map appears corrected (and substantially different than originally viewed). No other problems appear after performing these actions.

The problem only occurs when I start a game on a random map from the main menu, not when I generate a map using the random map maker and then use that map for a game. It also occurs on all 3 map size choices for me.

I haven't used start a game on a random map in quite a while. IIRC it did not occur 100% of the time, but I am not aware that I noticed any pattern to the occurance of the problem either.

[lch]

As has been stated before by llamabeast and Foodstamp, there seems to be some weird caching system which as a result does not show/generate the new map image (*.rgb/*.tga) in the game if there has already been generated one with the same name. The map file (*.map) with the neighbors and terrain flags, however, does get overwritten/updated, and thus it results in seemingly "wrong" generated maps, where forest provinces are marked as being underwater etc., just because the map image does not belong to the *.map file. I have seen this in some other games I participated in.

In order to make a meaningful bug report: State your operating system and game version (patch number). Describe in detail the steps as to how this bug can be reproduced. Let others check and verify your description. Let the devs fix it.

As a workaround, the previously mentioned "use a different name every time", "delete the generated map in the game before trying again" and "restart the game between generating" might be worth trying out.