Utility: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Updated

[jutetrea]

Couple quick things -

When a .map file is semirandomed could you have it change the map title to reflect the _SR

Any chance of getting an option to randomize starting provinces (not provinces with a #start, but any that have an actual nation starting in them)
- Is there a map command for a random unit?
Like
#randomcommander 40 (40 ldr)
#randomunit 40 (40 units)

- so instead of potentially messing up normal starting armies, just adding a new commander and potentially 40 new units (fine to start with 1-40...some would be nasty). Kind of a toned down version of GP's chaos.
- maybe do a @1 commander and have a list of 40-50 cool potentials. Doesn't help the whole max line # problem, but maybe call from another list?

Possibly add a checkbox option for no independents?

Potential for an option to append the GAN name to the end of the gan file when saving? I added _A_Secluded_Temple to mine manually for example. Would make it easier to pick and choose.

I'm having issues with the attached mapfile - no holiness error. Help would be appreciated, I'll edit if I find it first.
-NVM, seems I had a mod compatibility problem instead. Although I've had 2 failed tries without finding a starting province.

[jutetrea]

As an addendum to the above I went through (awhile ago) and rated each unit on a 0-5 scale with the idea of having a starting commander. So while some units were big and nasty (titan, or cyclops) just with their starting magic they only rated a 4. Units with large magic or unique special abilities may have rated a 5.

Purely subjective, and fully editable of course.

I'd think having a starting commander from the 4 toughness list would be very cool for a high powered game (or SP) toss in some random units (probably from the 1-3 lists) and a #randommagic 4 and you've got a varied game without going too nuts.

[Ballbarian]

Fiddled with it some more this morning and found that removing lines that contained comments did help.

Removing:
"-" followed by text would save a line.
"######" lines like these would save 2 lines.
" " blank space & blank lines made no difference.
"---" with no text following made no difference.

Even with these items stripped from my test file, I was only able to save 1385 lines. In a normal SR map I might have achieved 13000 removed lines est out of a 46000 line map file. This would certainly help, but would not solve the problem for very large maps.

In the next version I will add an option to minimize file size which will strip blank lines and comments.

[Ballbarian]

When a .map file is semirandomed could you have it change the map title to reflect the _SR

This is already on my todo list for the next version.
Very annoying oversight on my part.

Any chance of getting an option to randomize starting provinces (not provinces with a #start, but any that have an actual nation starting in them)
- Is there a map command for a random unit?
Like
#randomcommander 40 (40 ldr)
#randomunit 40 (40 units)

There is currently no option or command for this.

- so instead of potentially messing up normal starting armies, just adding a new commander and potentially 40 new units (fine to start with 1-40...some would be nasty). Kind of a toned down version of GP's chaos.
- maybe do a @1 commander and have a list of 40-50 cool potentials. Doesn't help the whole max line # problem, but maybe call from another list?

I tinkered with this idea previously, but can't remember much of the details at the moment. I will look at it again.
Off the top of my head, I think I had looked at something along the lines of the @RANDOM additem LISTNAME format.

Possibly add a checkbox option for no independents?

This shouldn't be too hard to implement in the next version.

Potential for an option to append the GAN name to the end of the gan file when saving? I added _A_Secluded_Temple to mine manually for example. Would make it easier to pick and choose.

Should be fairly easy to add, and a good idea.
But be careful! The "_A_" part will likely be seen as an 'ADD' command by semirandom.

I'm having issues with the attached mapfile - no holiness error. Help would be appreciated, I'll edit if I find it first.
-NVM, seems I had a mod compatibility problem instead. Although I've had 2 failed tries without finding a starting province.

When I first saw your post, I did a quick search and found this line:
#mag_priest 0

...which was found in ENDO2_U_A_OR_PLN_EMT_MNT_FST_FRM_S_N_L_.gan

Not sure what effect that has? Maybe makes the unit holy without giving priest levels?

On the failed starting province tries, I suspect that being a 150 province map with 138 placed special provinces is your problem. It can also be an issue if there are water nations enabled during the game creation and no water starts available.

To reduce the chance of special provinces eating up too many provinces, either adjust the fiddle percent down, or (preferably), set "Desired Num Players" to the number of nations that you would like to appear on the map. By doing this, SemiRandom will attempt to place that many neutral starts, and will block those areas from further modification. (By neutral, I mean that they can be used by either human or AI nations.)

Unless it was fixed in a subsequent patch, leaving nation selection to "Random" in Dom3 game creation on a map with no water will risk Dom3 trying to place a water nation and cause the game to generate an error. (It has been quite a while since I tried using the random nation option.)

[Ballbarian]

As an addendum to the above I went through (awhile ago) and rated each unit on a 0-5 scale with the idea of having a starting commander. So while some units were big and nasty (titan, or cyclops) just with their starting magic they only rated a 4. Units with large magic or unique special abilities may have rated a 5.

Purely subjective, and fully editable of course.

I'd think having a starting commander from the 4 toughness list would be very cool for a high powered game (or SP) toss in some random units (probably from the 1-3 lists) and a #randommagic 4 and you've got a varied game without going too nuts.

Thanks for sharing this.

[jutetrea]

Yup, water nations were my problem with the starts.

And the no holiness thing seems to come from the Sylvania mod I was trying out, thought it was the map file. And yes, I didn't even know we HAD 138 GAN options - I'm assuming many were duplicates. Bit much if you ask me

Question: So, Do I add starting locations when creating the map or when semirandomizing? I'm not sure which options are for which. Does the "semi-randomize" button only work with those options on the front page (fiddle, fiddle xp, fiddle name?)

If I have a 150 province map, with 9 nations and I have a 4 province buffer... will those 4 provinces in the buffer be semirandomized if they fit? Any way to prevent those 4 from being semi-randomized? Hmm, that wouldn't work, would just be a line essentially... how about any way to prevent randomization of any province adjacent to a capital?

So,
9 nations, 50% fiddle, 150 map
~4 adjacent per capital (36)
150 - 36 = 114 available to fiddle?
Possible or not worth the effort?

[Ballbarian]

And yes, I didn't even know we HAD 138 GAN options - I'm assuming many were duplicates. Bit much if you ask me

Right now, there are 162 seperate gan files.
Some of those can appear in multiple flavors multiple times, but most are unique (only one placement ever per map).

Question: So, Do I add starting locations when creating the map or when semirandomizing? I'm not sure which options are for which. Does the "semi-randomize" button only work with those options on the front page (fiddle, fiddle xp, fiddle name?)

Starting location options should be set after you have a generated map (or an existing map). Or in other words, when semirandomizing.

In the following image, everything under the four tabs (General, Climate, Starts & AI Gods) are SemiRandom options that are only applied to the specified map file when using the "Semi Randomize" button.

If I have a 150 province map, with 9 nations and I have a 4 province buffer... will those 4 provinces in the buffer be semirandomized if they fit? Any way to prevent those 4 from being semi-randomized? Hmm, that wouldn't work, would just be a line essentially... how about any way to prevent randomization of any province adjacent to a capital?

Start locations and all of their neighbors are seen as off limits by SemiRandom. They will not have specials added to those provinces. This only works if you use SemiRandom's start location placement options.

22222
21112
21C12
21112
22222

In the above example, the Capital and all of the 1's, will be skipped, but the 2's could have special provinces assigned to them.

All the 4 province buffer does is ensure that at least 4 (or more) provinces exist between any 2 capitals. This also means that you could end up with less than the requested number of start positions. Always read the SemiRandom map description (in Dom3) as you are setting up a new game for the open start counts. This will tell you how many land/sea starts were placed. If you exceed these counts when adding nations, you risk placement errors and could even have 2 capitals start adjacent to each other as Dom3 tries to use the empty provinces that border the expected capitals for the extra ones.

So,
9 nations, 50% fiddle, 150 map
~4 adjacent per capital (36)
150 - 36 = 114 available to fiddle?
Possible or not worth the effort?

If I had a 150 province map, first I would decide on how many provinces per player I wanted. In your example (9 nations), let's say I wanted 16 provinces per player...

Next question would be, do I want any sea nations?
If the map was with no or very little sea, I would set "Max Sea Starts" to 0.

Now I would set "Desired Num Players" to 9 and leave "Enforced Spacing" at 4.

For "Fiddle Prov%" I usually use 100, but 50 would work just fine. Even 100 doesn't mean that every province will get fiddled with, but as the selection of gan files grows, it could in the future.

If you didn't want to mess with the start options, you can just lower that fiddle 50% and leave "Desired Num Players" at 0, but that could still leave voids where the lands were treacherous and civilization was sparse. You would only have about 8 clear provinces per player for possible starts in that case. A little too tight and risky for my tastes.

[Gandalf Parker]

This is getting complicated enough that it might be putting off people who want to check out what all the hubbub is about.

If anyone gets a map generated which they feel is a good example, could be make it available for download as a zip please?

[murteas]

jutetrea said:
Any chance of getting an option to randomize starting provinces (not provinces with a #start, but any that have an actual nation starting in them)
- Is there a map command for a random unit?
Like
#randomcommander 40 (40 ldr)
#randomunit 40 (40 units)

- so instead of potentially messing up normal starting armies, just adding a new commander and potentially 40 new units (fine to start with 1-40...some would be nasty). Kind of a toned down version of GP's chaos.
- maybe do a @1 commander and have a list of 40-50 cool potentials. Doesn't help the whole max line # problem, but maybe call from another list?

There isn't a that randomizes armies, but you can use my random commander (and starting army) mod. You can find a thread about it here:

Random Commander mod

BTW, Ballbarian - love the SemiRandomizer. Keep up the good work.

[Ballbarian]

@murteas,
I have been meaning to try mod out. Thanks for sharing the link.

@Gandalf,

This is getting complicated enough that it might be putting off people who want to check out what all the hubbub is about.

If anyone gets a map generated which they feel is a good example, could be make it available for download as a zip please?

...And I was trying soooo hard to keep it simple.

I generated a quick sample map. Keep in mind that I have not played on this one yet, so let me know if you see any problems. At first glance, I see that it only contains 1 cave province and no "lost" provinces. Unusual... I usually end up with at least 2 or 3 caves and at least 1 lost province in almost every map I have generated until now.

Anyhow, here is a thumb of the map:





And here is the zip containing the map files:
SemiSample175_SR.zip



And here is the contents of the Notes.txt file included with the zip:
Code:

---

Just a few tips for those that are new to starting a game with preset start positions:

**************************************************  **********

1. Start a new game in dom3, select the SemiSample map.



2. On the participants screen, select the nations that you

would like for this map.  SemiSample has 7 neutral start

positions (6 land and 1 sea).  These 7 can be human or AI. 

Do not add more nations than the supported 7 or else you may

get undesirable results!  Also be sure that you do not

select more than 1 sea nation.  If you do not want any sea

nations, then simply set 6 (or less) land nations.



3. Set or load human gods.



4. Adjust dom3 game settings.



5. Start game and boom. All set. 

---