Any interest in a RMG?

[Agrajag]

Gandalf Parker said:
But one thing that would make ANY map generator worth looking at is if it can create wrappable maps. If you could work in a tiling routine to match the edges then everything else would just be gravy.

It would actually be quite simple to make wrappable maps, since the algorithm in use lends itself well to that. It would take a bit of thought since I made some mistakes last time I tried it, but not much work.

Ballbarian said:
Creating wrappable maps would definitely be a plus, but first and foremost, only continue to work on it as long as it is enjoyable.

I'm sure most programmers will agree that a lot of things are enjoyable to program, and yet have a lot of parts that aren't enjoyable. One commonly cited example is GUI work, which isn't a lot of fun, but is important if you want people to use what you made.
And of course, working with the "as long as it is enjoyable" system would mean the whole thing takes >x10 more time (if at all completed)

EDIT: thanks for the replies btw.

[llamabeast]

If you can do wrappable maps I think it would be very useful.

[Agrajag]

Wrappable maps are in.
Since this was a longstanding bug with my code, I wanted to fix it regardless of whether it was going to be used for a RMG. (which turned out to be the result of a value being 1 more than it should have been )
Attached is an example of a wrapping map. (I tiled it so it would be obvious that it does indeed wrap properly)

So how does this change things for people?
(Note, the algorithm can only generate square maps. This is not a problem if you want a none-wrappable map, since you can just cut out some of the square and you get a rectangle. But for wrappable maps, you will lose wrapping in one direction or another [or both, if you want to]
So basically, that means that the restriction is:
1) If want a map that wraps around both edges, it has to be square.
2) If want a map that wraps around one edge, it can be a rectangle, but will only wrap around the rectangle's shorter side)

[Gandalf Parker]

Interesting. The fact that a rectangle will only wrap one way is actually a plus. In some of the serious map conversations it was brought up that the wrapping isnt realistic to a globe. The most realistic "wrap" would be that west-west wrapped, all of the northern would connect to each other (polar) and all ofthe southern connect to each other. Your rectangle arrangement makes that really easy.

It also reminds me that I found a really cool utility that would make a spinning globe GIF out of a map. I was going to use it on the leading webpage for the next monstrous Dom3 game I setup.

Something else that comes up...
I take it that you plan the same limits? 1500 provinces? Smaller maps people can provide to the community but the really monstrous ones are usually generated. One thing that can be a problem is the "grouping" of terrains. People tend to want grouping to be water vs land (large continents and large bodies of water) but small grouping of all other terrains. In other words they want each nation to to have easy access to each of those terrains. Small chance of landing in mountains surrounded by mountains, or landing in waste surrounded by waste, etc. Is there a controllable variable for the "shotgun" effect of each terrain seperately?

[Gandalf Parker]

I just noticed something in rereading your initial post. Keeping the segments of the program separate. Thats wonderful! Does this mean that it can be used to try to make logical provinces on a found image? Thats going to allow for some very interesting maps from people as lazy as I am.

[Agrajag]

Re: Limits.
The only limit is your patience in waiting for the thing to churn out such a gigantic image (Unless you want something like 512x512 for 1500 provinces, which doesn't sound brilliant to me).
You might also run out of RAM if you try and generate something like a 32768x32768 map (Though that won't really stop you, unless you also run out of swap space )
Summary: Limited only by processing power.

Re: Shotgunning.
Well, currently the program generates two "maps", one is for altitude, and one is for precipitation. The altitude map determines whether a pixel is deep ocean, ocean, land or mountain, and the precipitation map determines whether a pixel is waste,plains,farmlands,forest or swamp.
This means that you can control each set of data separately. If there was demand, it would be trivial to even make a single "map" for each terrain type, though I think that might end up looking terrible. (And imagine the possible outcomes, a mountain/forest/waste/swamp/farm province :S)
I suppose it might make sense to decouple mountains from altitude and make a "cragginess" map.
As for the shotgun effect, you can control how rough each map will be, and you can control what boundaries of precipitation (for example) will create each terrain type, but you will most likely end up with one terrain type surrounded by the other (wastes will always be surrounded by normal provinces [as in, not forest/farm/swamp], because to get from the precipitation required for a waste to that of a forest it must pass through "normal" first).
So in summation, yes you can create a shotgun effect, to certain limits, which can be changed by popular demand.

Re: Logical provinces on a found image.
Unless you generate the map with the generator, it won't be able to determine the terrain type of each pixel, so it won't be able to draw borders based on logical boundaries (such as the edges of mountains), but it will be able to draw borders between provinces based on distance (it might look something like this), and it also won't be able to write down province type to a .map file (though will be able to write down neighbours).
However, if when you made your map you started with a layer that describes the type of each pixel using one color (for example, if you started with something that looks like what my program outputs right now, but painted over it with effects/sprites/fluff/etc.), then it would be trivial for me to write a program that would take that base image and convert it into my own format, which would then enable you to pipe that into the province placer along with your finished image, and it will be able to work its magic.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm all for more random maps, especially if you can generate really big (1200-1500 province) maps in which the oceans/waters always connect to each other, and that include good cave systems and chokepoints-also random maps that automatically added in better provinces (better independents, meaningful names, anything to make them more special) and stronger independent nations, if that's possible. I'm all for more images too, especially if they have in-game meaning.

Can you do semi-randoms? I wouldn't mind a feature that allowed me to take-for example-the maps that come with the game and add X amount of randomly generated cave provinces that link Province A to Province B.

Or maybe something that generated little tiny random maps?-say 1-16 province things-and then allowed me to jigsaw them all together, or just attach them to larger maps. I'm thinking caves, deep ocean, extra-dimensional spaces, etc. but I'm sure there are lots of uses for this.