make us some maps

[LDiCesare]

I've done the skeleton for a map (the topology so that you can have 16 starting nations, each of which has 3 possible neighbours) but it takes a lot of time putting art on top of it...

[Gandalf Parker]

http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/forts.txt
altho I probably should pull the list from the game again in case the last couple of patches added any.

[DrPraetorious]

Incidentally, I believe that one of those dark fortresses is *under water* and the other is for surface provinces.

I'm not sure what difference this makes - if any.

I'm working on a random special province generator - it's a bit less extreme than the one in Gandalf's er... uniquely challenging maps. These are designed to add a little spice to multiplayer, so they are only placed at strategic locations - actually, they are placed at provinces that are as close to equidistant from all existing start locations as is possible (possible given that I'm lazy and my heuristic doesn't work that well.) If you know perl you can easily change how my map-funker works, however.

Anyway, I need two things, provinces, and squads to put in provinces. Squads (which can actually be any number of units strung together) can be reused as guardians in multiple special province placements.

Special provinces have both names and numbers.

Here's an example of how this all works out. I generally use #s instead of names so that I don't have to escape quotes (\") but it might be harder to read, maybe I should shift over:

-- special province 16, fortress of a barbarian khan.
$mask[16] = 0;
$descript[16] = "#poptype 26\n#fort 2\n#knownfeature 562\n#knownfeature 483\n#knownfeature 492\n#knownfeature 500\n";
@{$squads[16]} = ("major khan","horse chief","horse chief","ancestor shamans");

$def_squad{"major khan"} = "#leader 930\n#mag_priest 4\n#randomequip 4\n#bodyguards 10 1577\n#units 20 939\n#units 20 939\n#units 30 938\n#units 30 938\n";
$def_squad{"horse chief"}= "#leader 136\#randomequip 2\n#bodyguards 10 137\n#units 40 137\n";
$def_squad{"ancestor shamans") = "#leader 1709\n#randomequip 4\n#bodyguards 10 139\n#randomequip 2\n#leader 1710\n#randomequip 2\n#bodyguards 10 139\n#leader 1711\n#bodyguards 10 139\n");

If, when placing special provinces, it rolls 16, if the mask meets requirements (there are none, so that's easy) it'll put a simple hillfort, a dragon mountain, a wolven gate, a tundra, a haunted torture chamber and a a khan, two horse tribe chiefs and three shamans (with significant armies each) into the province.

If anyone wants to contribute more such useful snippets, it'd be quite coo. I can reformat them for you if you find all the \n stuff difficult to deal with - just separate each entry with an extra line of blank space or something.

[Capt_Jack]

I am fooling around with Photoshop and the maps. I can't seem to grasp the location of one piece of data. If I want to tweak the location on the map of a province, where is the province location ( like a set of pixel coordinates) stored.

Stated differently.. If I create a .rgb and a .map file where is the link between the 2 stored?

[NTJedi]

Capt_Jack said:
Stated differently.. If I create a .rgb and a .map file where is the link between the 2 stored?

It's stored in the .map file... when you open your image within the map editor, make your adjustments and then save the map the .map file will be created linking the two files.
Do not make changes within the .map file such as setting allies and then use the map editor to change province settings, otherwise once you save the map within the editor all the information you typed into the .map file will be lost.... this happened to me.

[NTJedi]

DrPraetorious ....
your special barbarian province 16 looks great except one thing which you may or may not know. You have 3 #knownfeatures listed yet when the map is created if 2 random magic sites are placed on the province then one of your #knownfeatures will not appear. If you definitely want all three of those magic sites to appear then add the #killfeatures before your #knownfeature commands.

[Gandalf Parker]

I need to dig up my snippets (I called them zones I think).

Lets see...
There was one full of black hawks all carrying exploding amulets

and the Forest of Black Wood which had that site that allows recruiting centaurs, and a dozen centaurs all armed with Black Bow

Another that had centaurs armed with Bow of War

The Lost Village that had a ***** Queen, and skinshifter bodyguards, and lots of wolves
And another Lost Village of all vampires

Crystal Tower with caelum troops but I forget the layout of it

Gryphon Vale (gryphons without riders)

Is anyone putting the neighbors into an array? That would allow for recognition of more than just terrain.
Island: land with all water neighbors
Lake: water with all land neighbors
Volcano: mountain with no mountains around it
Penninsulas, valleys, etc
Also Cave: kindof anyway,land with only one land neighbor

Gandalf Parker

[Jack_Trowell]

@DrPraetorious : I'm currently writing a perl library that will make those kind of script easier.

I should finish tonight the parsing function (from *any .map file, it extract all the informations into a perl structure (it woouldn't be hard to make a true perl object), including the list of terrains types (and similar settings such as 'manysites') of each province.

Simple functions will then be able to edit the provinces and map settings, and another function (that I plan to have done by this week-end) will then output the edited .map file.

When the first version is done (parsing and output functions done + random commanders function (with or without bodyguards and/or units) + simple exemple script) I will post it on the mod forum.

[PDF]

Gandalf Parker said:
http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/forts.txt
altho I probably should pull the list from the game again in case the last couple of patches added any.

About #21 "Jerellen Wall" : isn'it "Jervallian" wall rather ?
I've found such a site, but it didn't give me any fortress - bug ?
As the site didn't give anything *at all* indeed, it should be a bug !

[DrPraetorious]

The Jervallan Wall gives me a fortress when I find it.

Did you already build a fortress in the province? It won't replace an existing fort.