Mod: UnitGen - Random nations with procedural sprites!

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Several years ago DrP was working on a price list for designing your own nation. So, just like you spend points on your pretender you could do the same for your nation. I don't remember how far he got in that project, and in any case I don't think there was a program that would generate the nation in the way your programs do.

So it occurred to me that randomly generated nations are fun but I can also see designing your own nation, in the same way you design your pretender or a character in an RPG, could be quite fun. I mention it because it seems like you've got a lot of pieces in place for such a program. You have a routine to generate sprites (that's a big one), to create the mod nation, and even a weighting system to assign values to different aspects of the nation.

Could you use that core and have a different front end that would let you build the nation to your specifications? For instance, you could choose Caelians as the race, F and N as the magic (cost would vary depending on path, highest level possible and if it was a cap only mage), and specials such as magic weapons or a boar riding wingless sacred unit.

Of course players would try to game the system but they'd be working from the same set of rules and you could always adjust point values if, for instance, everyone ends up with flying astral nations.

I'm sure I'm making it sound simpler than it is and it would probably require a lot of work but I know you work on things when you get bored so if you get bored and want try something new I think this could be interesting.

It's been suggested a couple of times before already, but essentially such system would require so much user interface coding that it's fairly unlikely I'd ever bother.

I mean, it'd be all about a) tons of user interface code and b) tons of code that tries to keep the nations balanced

Even if I bothered making the user interface, the balance code itself would be hell of a lot of work. UnitGen has very few balancing code lines and even Randomocalypse only took very little into account to prevent too powerful synergies. Those synergies would be all over the place with design-your-own-nation system.

Of course if anyone wants UnitGen source code to work with - I do warn though, many parts are totally uncommented and the code varies from terrible to decent - I'm happy to share it.

What it will do without a hitch is draw anything current UnitGen is equipped to draw and write units with given commands. Nations themselves are doable, but would need some tweaking.

EDIT: It's in Java, but I'm pretty sure any potential person knows it already.

[elmokki]

I made a thread on the other forum regarding pricing, but the pricing would probably need to be so complex that I'd just get frustrated trying to invent algorithms.

[elmokki]

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom3/unitgen...gen_29_7_12.zip

- Fixed custom weapon generation failures
- Added some #onebattlespell mage filters
- Made unit descriptions primarily triggering of filters (filterdescriptions.txt) and from commands only if no filter explained that command. This is primarily awesome for stuff that gives multiple commands that are describe-worthy. Like glamour always gave stealth and got descriptions for both stealth and glamour. Now it'll just see there's glamour filter applied and tells the filter description and skips the command descriptions.

[elmokki]

Work in progress!

I still want to do some code changes so I can make their primary mages / sacreds bigger agarthans and their mage gear selection is too small at the moment too.

Oh yeah, and those javelineers there have 12 ammunition javelins and no proper melee weapon. I wanted some other ranged choice to go alongside boulders. That particular sacred (bronze armored one) wasn't even too bad with 11 base precision and magical poison javelins.

[elmokki]

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom3/u...gen_1_8_12.zip

[NEW] Agarthan race (thanks to kianduatha for name files)
[NEW] Ability to specify different poses for different tiers of mages and priests (see Agartha's poses.txt)
[FIXED] The mage pose was used to generate priests sometimes
[NEW] Ability to specify different poses for elite generation (see Agartha's poses.txt)

[elmokki]

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom3/u...en_21_8_12.zip

- Fixed some fairly stupid bugs that caused crashes (I found a few extras on top of the reported ones while generating a few thousand nations to find a hangup bug I accidentally coded in)
- Tweaked parameters so getting a nation where all infantry have exact same weapons but different armor should be less likely. It's still possible though.
- Tweaked cavalry generation so that stupid duplicates shouldn't happen.
- Updated naming code to understand names being generated after applied filters. Like a mage that can turn to a (were)wolf now has a fair chance to be something like "Wolf Seer" or a sacred with some elemental resists of all types might be something like "Templar of Elements"
- Agarthan sacred pose for rangeds wasn't listed as such which caused big agarthan non-sacred rangeds and small agarthan sacred rangeds to happen.

I'm extremely interested if someone finds a seed that generates 100% duplicate troops of any role. It's probably still very much possible.

[elmokki]

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom3/u...21_8_12-v2.zip

- Fixed a crash bug
- Tweaked racial generation chances slightly

[elmokki]

Done so far (release probably tomorrow)

#troopchance for races. Currently makes hoburg cavalry a bit more common and abysian cavalry a little less common.

This (happens with #description "blabla" on items):
** Temple Cavalier (Human), 65g, 13r, Icy Spear, Kite Shield, Leather Hood, Jaguar mount.
--- Waste survival and Storm power
--- The jaguar will persist even if the rider dies.


kianduatha's tweaks to Abysian cavalry (other forum has exact changelog, but basically fossil and scorpion cavalry have worse versions of their weapons now, cost 5 resources more and fossil cavalry has 5 enc instead of 2)

Mounts of sacred units will be sacred only if both conditions are fulfilled:
1) Only sacred units have such mount
2) x% chance where x is by default 100%, but can be specified with #epicness <0 to 1> on the mount item.

[elmokki]

Oil (slime in Dom3 terms) spitting mechanical spiders and corrosively biting mechanical ants. Let's see how broken these will be. High def, good abilities, but fairly low hp and fairly expensive.

[elmokki]

http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom3/u...en_24_8_12.zip

Fairly long list of changes, nothing hugely revolutionary per se though

Features:
- Added a pile of commands to affect sacred quality, mage paths, filter probabilities, troop type distribution and special monster (hydras etc) chances on nations based on the primary race. See races.txt.
- Items may use #description "stuff" that will be shown in advanced descriptions. This is currently used mostly for the mounts that make the unit leave a mount behind after death.
- Special monsters actually show up on both advanced descriptions and summaries.
Balance and content:
- Added salamander and mammoth special monsters (abysian and caelian exclusives)
- Added mechanized ant, mosquito and spider mounts for hoburgs. Thanks to kianduatha for comments on balance and ideas on their funky weapons.
- Weakened Abysian fossil and scorpion cavalry. All weapons have lower attack bonuses, fossilized sword does less damage and the fossil cavalry has higher encumberance.
- Cheapened human cavalries slightly.
- Made agarthan sacreds somewhat more expensive.
- Used the new race based nation generation commands to make some unit types less common for some races, made hoburgs gain more fabulous things and made abysians and atlanteans usually have slightly less magic spread.
- Hoburgs also have a hugely increased chance to get shapeshifts, especially metal men (still not massive or anything)
- Abysians and Atlanteans get shapeshifts slightly more rarely.

I'll try to add this to patch notes from now on since sometimes seeds won't break or will only break partially. These will always just be guesstimates though.
How about old seeds? Totally broken.