pretender generator

[Gandalf Parker]

Projects are getting done so its time to bring out my ideas list and toss another rock into the pond just for the ripples.

With a pretender cost-calculator out, and the various discussions about AI faults, Im wondering if it might not be worthwhile for someone to write a "better" pretender generator (yes I could do it myself but I dont want to slam the door if someone else wants to since they could probably do it better).

The idea is that if someone puts a generator down in code then it would be easier for us all to
A) check its assumptions for particular nations
B) improve on them based on our own experiences as players and based on AI stupid actions
C) maybe even give Johan something to use as psuedo code for an in-game improvment

The biggest basis of it would be a case statement for IF LA_ERMOR, vs IF EA_PANGAEA, vs IF MA_ABYSSIA, etc etc. Possibly down the road to handle variables for IF SC and IF RAINBOW but I would rather avoid that for now. At first I would like to see a simple structure for just the nations so that people can suggest reasonable scales and pretender choices along the line of whats being done for the SemiRand project. In fact, the output of the program might best be done as a SemiRand .GAN file which overwrites it each time. So if you feel that you want some new opponents you can run this program to generate new pretender/scales for the AIs of certain nations. Being able to append to a map to have certain nations play as GOOD AI's would be a nice improvement.

Oh, and I would like some ideas also as far as reasonable alliances. I figure that Pangaea and Oceania would ally. Who else would make sense?

Side note:
Of course, as soon as a reasonable one is done then my first project will be to pollute it with my chaos by throwing pretender units into my copy of it that cannot be gotten with the game. Like "Ancient Presence" or "Tree Lord" coming up for Pangaea. Hmmmm maybe a pretender of "Eater of the Dead" for Ermor?