Mod: Random Commander

[jutetrea]

ooh, PBEM or TCP/IP?

[llamabeast]

Well it's an automated PBEM server I've been working on. So it is PBEM, but I reckon it's very nearly as convenient as TCP/IP. You can see the website at www.llamaserver.net.

Basically it checks its e-mail every 5 minutes, keeps track of who's sent the turn in, and hosts when they're all in. It checks the files as they come in so it knows automatically what game they're for, and it sends confirmation e-mails straight back, or lets people know if there's a problem.

[jutetrea]

I like GP's "eye" something map, you were essentially scared to leave your capital. I'd like to do something a bit toned down from that, extensive mods but treasure and danger at every corner. Edi's (I think) Faerun maps were cool that way, but in a limited sense. I wouldn't want to put the effort into customizing every province, so a heavily random approach would be nice.

I also wish there was a way to relate the difficulty with of the province with the quantity/quality of treasure. Almost like CR ratings from D&D. I've only ever seen random 4..so have no idea if that is the construction level or what.
100 wolf tribe - random 4 on a commander
100 black knights - random 6
100 Huge Air Elem - Random 6 x2
etc

Barring that I would just like to see higher quality items in really really nasty provinces. With the chance to rout/not pick up items I would try for a solid medium amount figuring that a small amount would actually be gathered.

First thoughts
20 players
25 provinces per (500)
Start with 3
Indy's at 9
sites 75
renaming on
Probably a province win, but negotiable
difficult research
100% randomized

Mods
Epic/Worthy for heroes
Mythology/recuperating for pretenders
Mega-age mod +6 "balanced" nation mods negot on # of nations
Possibly add some of Amos' as AI?, probably not. negot
militia/light cav mod
Dr's spell mod if avail
Not sure about the CB mod - I like scales, but there are some gameplay drastic changes in gods/items (haven't even looked at nations/spells yet). Personal pref no, but negot.
And the no independent mod - fewer commanders to ferry, less low mages, but still get site mages. negotiable

[jutetrea]

Sorry for hijacking your thread Murteas! Will start a new one shortly.

llamabeast - easy to setup/maintain?

Would it be worth combining some of the smaller mods? i.e. militia/light cav/recup/nations/NI?

[Gandalf Parker]

jutetrea said:

I like GP's "eye" something map, you were essentially scared to leave your capital. I'd like to do something a bit toned down from that, extensive mods but treasure and danger at every corner. Edi's (I think) Faerun maps were cool that way, but in a limited sense. I wouldn't want to put the effort into customizing every province, so a heavily random approach would be nice.

Basically what you are talking about is the path which started with my Poke in the Eye map (a pollution of the eye.map that came with the game).

Then went thru one of my "one of these days" ideas from my way too full project lists.
http://www.dom2minions.com/SemiRandom.shtml

And has become 2 semit random generators. One online at
http://dominions.realites.org/

and the other downloadable at
http://www.dom3minions.com/~semirand/

If everyone contributed a province to those projects we would have a ton of fun.

And we could create full scenario sets such as Leif created for Dom2 which would create scenarios out of any map you wanted to run it against.
http://home.online.no/~rmoldskr/Domi...DomScripts.zip
It painted the map with a theme in mind. Such as...

#RandomizationName = AfterTheVampireWars
#DescriptionAddition = "The forces of the Light has driven the undead scourge away, forcing it to seek refuge in the depths of the ocean."

#RandomizationName = DovregubbensHall
#DescriptionAddition = Do not forget, sons of Adam, that once it was the hidden children of Eve that ruled this world, and you were but uninvited guests, tolerated merely because you were family - of sorts. The time might come again that we will seek to reclaim what was ours before it became yours, so do not sleep easily, sons of Adam.

#RandomizationName = DragonSprinkle
#DescriptionAddition = It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

#RandomizationName = AgeOfHoof
#DescriptionAddition = In this age, the worth of a man is measured by the quality of his horse, and cavalry rules supreme. Or so the mortal men think. Can you prove them wrong?

#RandomizationName = HoburgMadness
#DescriptionAddition = This land has been overrun by the little people. They are small, but many. Can you claim the realm?

I kept meaning to setup automations on those so that there would be a new game each day for each scenario. Its "on my list" of things to do.

Also I would like to go back to my original concept of doing the randoms like the Poke map, but abit more logical now that Edi has created the database I need which allows me to select randomly but select a water unit, or a commander, or a pretender, or a summons without selecting randomly from all of them at once.

I also need to redo some of my storyline ones such as a scenario playing against a large Ermorian led allaince between multiple AIs, or the one that had Man trying to consolidate all of the human-type independents against you. AI alliances against you are fun

Gandalf Parker

[murteas]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who loves random stuff.

In any case, my initial vision for this mod was to be "thematically" random. i.e. only randomize the starting commander within the possible commanders for that nation. So that you might start with a reasearch mage instead of a scout, for example. I didn't make it so you could get a pretender or other monster as a starting unit, though that could make for an interesting game.

The current version only randomizes from a small pool of normally available commanders, and as I mentioned it replaces the scout.(see first post for download).

That said, it is possible to change the mod so that you could include any type of starting commander in the random pool with only a text file change. And you can customize the random pool for each nation.

Currently I haven't touched the map files, I use RanDom and Semi-Random maps for most of my games, but I am not opposed to looking into making map/independent changes as well.

Let me know if anyone has feedback

[llamabeast]

jutetrea - setup is easy - I'll do it! But it's only a small job for me too. Maintenance should be easy I think, I've tried to design it so it will be. Go on the website, select a running game, then click "admin options". This isn't quite finished, but the most important options are already working, and the rest will be in the next few days. You would be the game admin and hence would have the admin password, so you could postpone turns, change the hosting interval and so on without me getting involved.

[Gandalf Parker]

Can you do that with a mod? Select the starting commander? I havent messed with modding much.

But you can do it with maps. I can picture the code that would do that. Its fairly easy (of course its always a joke when someone says that since it rarely is to someone else). Any programming language could do it (I do mine in BASIC). You simply generate the map commands and add them onto the end of a maps text file.

[MaxWilson]

Yes, when you design a nation you get to select (/replace) its starting scout and starting commander units as well as the starting army.

-Max

[murteas]

version 0.03 released...enjoy.

Anyone have any feedback for me?