Wishlist: the Mappers Wishlist

[Gandalf Parker]

That was the concept.

Terrain, neighbors, and nostarts could be analyzed. That way special recognition could be given to
forest
mountain
swamp
combos such as forest/mountain
lakes (water with all land neighbors)
islands (land with all water neighbors)
nostart (not enough neighbors, possible choke points on map)
dead ends (only one neighbor)
cut offs till late game (no neighbors)

It doesnt matter to me how long it takes or how much "thinking" the programming needs to do. I can leave it running on my server and make the map available each time it finishes. It can take a full day to generate a map. It could take a week.

[paradoxharbinger]

the things you mentioned analyzing the *.map for don't seem like they ought to take that long, unless i'm missing something. why would this ever take more than a few seconds to run, even with many provinces?

[Gandalf Parker]

It wouldnt. Im just saying that Id be willing to pile on as many rewrites as I can. They could all be worked up seperately and then chained to run one after the other on a randomly created map (the really large ones can take 2 to 3 hours to generate just the initial map)

Such as examining terrains and adding logical names for forests, swamps, islands, etc etc as you saw in another post of mine.

Or resetting the native populations to different balances.

Or adding additional armies to independent provinces logically based on the terrains or the native populations. Giving them each helpful additional leaders. For some a mage, others a priest, and others a combat leader depending on what was lacking. Possibly giving the additional leaders a full load of randomly selected equipment.

Or adding specific sites, such as some minor cave site, and declaring it to be a secret passage from a province to another matching cave site far away. (anyone remember playing chutes and ladders?)

Or matching it up with a randomly generated MOD and working them both in together for a surprise game that no one can be prepared for.

Hmmmm what else can I come up with to extend the processing time.

[Gandalf Parker]

Is there a reason that some commands work as MODs but not as MAPs?

What Im thinking is... on a map I can name a province, name a commander, name a god. But I cant name a nation. If I could give a name to the empty modding slots then that would be great for the games Im planning. Much easier than having everyone download a mod just to play that game with.

[Singularity24601]

I would like the option of turning off certain decorative sprites (volcanoes, etc, that have no bearing in terms of game mechanics) in the map generator.

This way, a "scenario generator" can randomly generate special provinces and draw in any relevant features on to the .TGA (eg, a volcano for "Father Fire" from Orania).

Speaking of which, how is your "Semi Random" project going Gandalf Parker? Is it still progressing? Because I think it's an excellent idea. I'd write one myself, but I am quite busy and may not have time until this Christmas, or even Christmas 2007 :-/.

[NTJedi]

Singularity24601 said:
Speaking of which, how is your "Semi Random" project going Gandalf Parker? Is it still progressing? Because I think it's an excellent idea. I'd write one myself, but I am quite busy and may not have time until this Christmas, or even Christmas 2007 :-/.

Yes I would also like to know the progress...

I'm right in the same boat as you Singularity24601... my life is so busy and chaotic I rarely have time for games.

I can't even take a day off from work... long story, but even if I could take a day off from work it would be spent doing boring/annoying errands.

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Currently a command exists called #allies <nation#> <nation#> for setting computer opponents as allies.

I recommend an opposite command called #war <nation#> <nation#> which would place two computer opponents to always be at war. Also it could be used to instantly create a permanent war between a human and computer opponent.

[Edi]

What I'd like is some improvement to scripting sites and populations.

Currently, the way site scripting works is that first the game creates the map, randomly assigns sites and populations and adds provncial defenders and only then does it execute map commands such as #feature or #knownfeature. This means that if random site allocation fills up a province, scripted sites will not be added.

There is a way to ensure that the scripted stuff happens, which is #killfeatures. The problem is that it removes everything and then you add scripts.

So it's either script without #killfeatures and hope for the best (rather chancy of site frequency is high) or get guaranteed scripted sites but no randoms whatsoever.

And the whole bloody point is being able to script something that appears with certainty and then maybe getting something extra. Not the other way around.

It'd be much the same with the province defense. Better that the poptype scripting runs before assignment of native defenders, that way you won't get amazons defending some measly militia/light infantry combo as is liable to happen otherwise.

Edi

[YuanShi]

Centered land mass surrounded by sea.

This means that the map generator would convert the provinces directly on the border into sea/deep sea provinces.

The desired effect would be to be able to generate random maps that would generate perfect wrap-around giving the impression of a globe and avoiding the ugly and unrealistic "border province" effect, that makes the playing experience less inmersive as it makes you think that you are playing on a virtual game board instead of transporting you to a virtual world.

[Gandalf Parker]

#enablemod <mod.dm>

We have a server command for this...
-M --enablemod XXX Enable the mod with filename XXX
(yes devs I remember being a thorn to get that one )

Now I would also like to see a map command for it so that we can build more extensive scenarios

[Aezeal]

ah dammit I just wanted to ask about it (my niefelheim giant prov (which I was asking all those questions about) on the wrap around water map kinda needed - 3 cold scales..)