Strategic Chokepoint MAPs

[Wauthan]

I'm a big fan of your Poke in the Eye and Miirunst X projects. I was wondering if there was a way to create some kind of tool, spreadsheet or other way to randomize any kind of map in this way? I also wondered if you use all available units in the randomizer? And if there is a way to remove certain units from being used in it? While a dagon (in a robe of invulnerability), guarded by red dragons with a sons of the seas army is pretty fun to fight its also a bit frustrating in the long run. Making a lite Version that doesn't use high end units would be very welcome.

As for your randomly generated maps I haven't yet laid eyes upon one that more interesting than the "handcrafted". It's most likely because the maps available are a lot of fun and random maps look less balanced at first sight. I'll check them out more closely when I get download capabilities once more.

Thanks for your hard work. It is well appreciated.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wauthan said:
I'm a big fan of your Poke in the Eye and Miirunst X projects. I was wondering if there was a way to create some kind of tool, spreadsheet or other way to randomize any kind of map in this way?

Well there is a program which does it of course. Its written in a Version of BASIC. YABasic Yet Another Basic) to be exact. You can freely download that if you want to run my programs. It just adds the stuff I do onto the end of the .map file. But its easier for me to copy it and modify it to have the name of the file hard-coded rather than ask. I could do one that will work with random.map I guess (the default file that DomMap creates)

It does compile (create standalone EXE programs) and I have thought about making one for doing any map but thats more error-checking and UI programming than I like to do. If anyone else wants to tackle it then Im sure my basic routines would be easy to re-write into one of the harder programming Languages.

I also wondered if you use all available units in the randomizer? And if there is a way to remove certain units from being used in it? While a dagon (in a robe of invulnerability), guarded by red dragons with a sons of the seas army is pretty fun to fight its also a bit frustrating in the long run. Making a lite Version that doesn't use high end units would be very welcome.

Yes it uses them all. The units are assigned by a number so its simple to have it add a-random-of-1-to-10 monsters whose ID number is a-random-number-from-1-to-1080. The sequence is how they were added to the game so its hard to chop out any. There is a nation, then some monsters, then some pretenders, then another nation, and more monsters, and later pretenders...

I have wanted to improve the routines. Not have land things put in water and no water things put on land so they all drown in the first turn. If someone wanted to make a database or spreadsheet of all the units and put flags for land, water, amphib, pretender, leader, troops, etc etc then I could program against that.

As for your randomly generated maps I haven't yet laid eyes upon one that more interesting than the "handcrafted". It's most likely because the maps available are a lot of fun and random maps look less balanced at first sight. I'll check them out more closely when I get download capabilities once more.

Everything has its pros and cons. Hand made maps are great and will never beat random ones. But random ones can be larger, and I can whip out a bach of them every day. If you dont like todays batch then check it tomorrow for a new batch. Eventually one may look good to you. Feel free to grab it, name it, add personal touches, and make a handcrafted out of it.


Thanks for your hard work. It is well appreciated.

[/quote]

[Wauthan]

I have wanted to improve the routines. Not have land things put in water and no water things put on land so they all drown in the first turn. If someone wanted to make a database or spreadsheet of all the units and put flags for land, water, amphib, pretender, leader, troops, etc etc then I could program against that.

I'm on it. Shouldn't be too hard to make an spreadsheet considering Edi already listed all the units with all their abilities in a similar document.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wauthan said:
I'm on it. Shouldn't be too hard to make an spreadsheet considering Edi already listed all the units with all their abilities in a similar document.

Here is a bit of a writeup on it.
http://www.dom2minions.com/SemiRandom.shtml
If you can stand the colors. feel free to make suggestions on that also.

[Wauthan]

Here's a preliminary Version. I reckon it's full of mistakes and prehaps it might also be expanded (thinking along the lines of listing survival as well). Hope you can make any use of it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wauthan said:
Here's a preliminary Version. I reckon it's full of mistakes and prehaps it might also be expanded (thinking along the lines of listing survival as well). Hope you can make any use of it.

Even if it has mistakes it will amount to a rare strange event instead of a 40% result of "did he mean to do that?"

Thank you. You are too quick.Now I gotta get off my asteroid (mean stop playing SEIV) and look at making this happen.

EDIT:
It did pick up nicely in my Open Office program. I exported it to a csv file so it looks like this...
0:Old Centurion:::::X::::::::::::-
1:Legionnaire:::::X::::::::::::
2:Old Standard:::::X::::::::::::
3:Serpent Cataphract:::::X::::::::::::cb
4:Serpent:::::X::::::::::::a, cb

Dont worry about me doing that. An xls file makes it easy for whoever is updating things, especially if they are using windows and have something like excel to use. Exporting it to text is a single step for me. I might write something to reformat it into a better format for me but thats easy to do once someone does the initial typing in. What you have provided is generically useful for many.

[Wauthan]

Ah well... Didn't think about the compability issue. I made another Version anyways. Hopefully it will be of some use. Makes it easy to see what units that are similar if you're going for wasteland survival or a toxic army strategy.