Map Dom3Minions RandomMaps (again) - Page 2

Gandalf Parker · #11 December 18th, 2008, 12:34 AM

Huge is in (600 provinces)
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/h

Gandalf Parker · #12 December 18th, 2008, 01:23 AM

Grand is in (1000 provinces)
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/g
and now we are into one of the main reasons for the project. People dont tend to want to generate 1000 or more province maps over and over till they find one they like.

None of this batch really caught my fancy either but I will keep making them so eventually we should get some decent ones.

Gandalf Parker · #13 December 18th, 2008, 10:52 AM

OK Epic is in place and now all of them have examples to look at.
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/e

Now we are definetly into the reason for the project. People dont want to generate tons of large maps to find one to be inspired by. Some peoples computers can barely play a map this large much less generate one.

Look at E_03_17Dec08 (if you look today). Its an Epic sized snow-country looking map. The top of it is a small section of land between two large oceans. A scenario map could be made of this and uploaded for everyone which is closed off to having human players start in the top half. And allied AIs already own the top of the map. Maybe Rlyeh and Atlantis already own the two oceans, and Ermor is in that little land zone. The Dreaded Atlantis Rlyeh Ermor alliance (D.A.R.E.) giving them each pre-designed gods and scales and extra armies and extra castles. Being set to ally means they wont attack each other. They will only attack you (and you should probably bring some human players along to ally with you too). That can be one map.

Hoplosternum · #14 December 23rd, 2008, 02:47 AM

Hi Gandalf,

Thanks for these. I have downloaded a few for the Christmas break

Gandalf Parker · #15 December 29th, 2008, 07:52 PM

OK a full new batch of maps have been generated.
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomizedMaps.htm

I think I am going to have to swing away from the idea of generating these every day as I did with the Dom2 version. I want to add to this, and just generating these on my souped up server took 13 hours! Maybe I will shoot for having them all generate once a week and spread them out abit.

whiplashomega · #16 December 31st, 2008, 06:23 AM

Is there a way to keep the sea provinces from all clumping like that? I've often thought it would be nice to have multiple smaller seas to break up the map, but the random map generator always puts them all together! at most making two separate seas separated by an isthmus. Also it would create interesting strategies with the ocean players to have many separated possible base locations.

Gandalf Parker · #17 December 31st, 2008, 04:03 PM

The Dom3 generator doesnt seem to support that altho Harbringers does.
Some of his are available on my main maps page
http://www.dom3minions.com/maps.htm

Its one of the reasons that this project is needed. Its easier for people to just check once in awhile and see if a map is to their liking instead of running hundreds over and over like I do. Every once in awhile Dom3 will do a map that is wintery, or has scattered waters, or is a continent surrounded by water, or one big ocean completely surrounded by land, or split down the center, or any of the other variations that one person seems to like over what the other person likes.

I myself have particular likes in a map (here are some of my latest "keepers")
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMap...rs/Keepers.htm
and I figured that if Im going to have my server generate tons of maps just so I can shop thru them and keep a few then I might as well make it public and allow others to also.

They are fully playable. But someone could snag one and improve it also. Check the neighbors for logical connections, add seaports, give the provinces names that make sense and dont duplicate, add some more interesting icons, maybe "winterize" the northern and southern ends, and "jungle" the center, maybe add some designed provinces such as a mountain full of dwarves with a construction bonus magic site there.

Gandalf Parker · #18 January 4th, 2009, 02:50 PM

Since people have had a chance to look at some of these, Im considering some changes which will affect the load on my system and the generating times of the maps. What do people think of:

Is the smaller view used for tiling adequate to see the maps features? Only creating one jpg of the map would help things alot.

Do many people have a problem with the linux version of the .map file? The way it creates a single string of text out of everything when viewed in an editor like NotePad. I could run each one thru a converter to DOS/Windows text mode before zipping it up.

Do many people have a problem with the size of the files for the larger maps? Should I make them larger? (to get rid of the fuzziness) or maybe run them thru a color reducer? (would lost some of the photographic quality, look more grainy, but be smaller files)

How many people make extensive use of map modifiers or annotators? Enough that I should run every map thru it and add another .map file to the zip for each one? Examples would be SemiRand, or NoIndys, or programs to put english labels to the terrain numbers (plains, forest, mountains, etc) into the .map file, or programs to set better start/nostart positions, or a province count file (how many forest, mountain, start, nostart etc are already set in the file).

Gandalf Parker · #19 January 4th, 2009, 02:54 PM

Or should I just leave this one and move on to the wraparound maps?

darloth · #20 January 9th, 2009, 03:58 PM

It's nice to be able to go and browse things like this, although I think wraparound maps or maps that aren't plausible in the dom3 generator on its own (recoloured poles + equator, or SemiRand, or whatever) are probably a lot more worthwhile.

Certainly for me, I browsed these but I could probably get something like that myself easily enough, wheras I'd find it much more useful to see a couple of examples of something I don't know how to do yet, or would find difficult.