Mod: Random Commander

[Gandalf Parker]

Or you can try the initial efforts at that.
A small fast one...
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/Poke_Eye_v3.zip
A GIANT map for a really LONG solo game
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/MegaMap.jpg

The problem with mine is that they do not use any kindof help to make the choices logical so the results are pretty insane. You might start with a new commander that is a slinger that has followers that are 10 of a pretender type.

I have not yet caught up to my old Dom2 efforts as far as re-randomizing those maps daily to increase replay value.

[jutetrea]

In that respect I'm looking forward to a mod that can do this, prevents having to re-randomize the map everytime you want to start a new game.

By trimming the available units a bit it can be a bit more balanced to avoid the above. It'll never be truly balanced, but (at least in SP) having the AI get the exact same chance at good/bad goes a long way.

My SP games are pretty mod heavy to begin with, but if it works out at least as good as current methods I'll be making it a staple.

Once I get access to a server I think i'm going to start a crazily mod heavy game just to see how bad it borks MP. Epic/worthy/mythology/random plus 2 or 3 remnants from Dom2, some of the CB sections and maybe some of the modded nations. Be a completely different game, especially with random.

[Gandalf Parker]

jutetrea said:
In that respect I'm looking forward to a mod that can do this, prevents having to re-randomize the map everytime you want to start a new game.

Pros and Cons. A mod like that would be well received. But a program on a server could do far more. Mine dont but it could be written to take far more into account. I usually arrange it so that the map graphic could be downloaded one time and the .map text file is re-randomized daily then zipped for a seperate download. That can create a fairly small and fast download to get entirely new scatterings. That is also how I plan to do some scenarios (we dont have nearly enough scenarios yet).

There is also the Randomized Mod created in Dom2 by Leif Roar Moldskred.
"Another item by Leif. This time he took my idea for a randomizing MOD file and ran with it. WAY TO GO LEIF! Its a Perl script. The script, RandomUnitsMod.pl, basically changes one randomly selected stat for every unit to a random value, one quarter of the units also gets a randomly selected new weapon and half the units gets a randomly selected new ability."
http://home.online.no/~rmoldskr/Domi...omUnitsMod.zip
If he doesnt redo it for Dom3 Ive been tempted to do it myself.

Once I get access to a server I think i'm going to start a crazily mod heavy game just to see how bad it borks MP. Epic/worthy/mythology/random plus 2 or 3 remnants from Dom2, some of the CB sections and maybe some of the modded nations. Be a completely different game, especially with random.

Id like to see that offered.

From before Dom3 was ever released I have planned to offer a mega-big game on a mega-big map with my chaotic additions on the map. But I was waiting. I didnt want to offer my particular brands of aberration while everyone was still getting used to the game, and I felt that a vanilla monster-sized game should be offered first (which luckily Velusion took off my hands).

Gandalf Parker

[llamabeast]

If you get round to organising and getting players for such a game jutetrea, I'd be happy to host it for you.

[jutetrea]

ooh, PBEM or TCP/IP?

[llamabeast]

Well it's an automated PBEM server I've been working on. So it is PBEM, but I reckon it's very nearly as convenient as TCP/IP. You can see the website at www.llamaserver.net.

Basically it checks its e-mail every 5 minutes, keeps track of who's sent the turn in, and hosts when they're all in. It checks the files as they come in so it knows automatically what game they're for, and it sends confirmation e-mails straight back, or lets people know if there's a problem.

[jutetrea]

I like GP's "eye" something map, you were essentially scared to leave your capital. I'd like to do something a bit toned down from that, extensive mods but treasure and danger at every corner. Edi's (I think) Faerun maps were cool that way, but in a limited sense. I wouldn't want to put the effort into customizing every province, so a heavily random approach would be nice.

I also wish there was a way to relate the difficulty with of the province with the quantity/quality of treasure. Almost like CR ratings from D&D. I've only ever seen random 4..so have no idea if that is the construction level or what.
100 wolf tribe - random 4 on a commander
100 black knights - random 6
100 Huge Air Elem - Random 6 x2
etc

Barring that I would just like to see higher quality items in really really nasty provinces. With the chance to rout/not pick up items I would try for a solid medium amount figuring that a small amount would actually be gathered.

First thoughts
20 players
25 provinces per (500)
Start with 3
Indy's at 9
sites 75
renaming on
Probably a province win, but negotiable
difficult research
100% randomized

Mods
Epic/Worthy for heroes
Mythology/recuperating for pretenders
Mega-age mod +6 "balanced" nation mods negot on # of nations
Possibly add some of Amos' as AI?, probably not. negot
militia/light cav mod
Dr's spell mod if avail
Not sure about the CB mod - I like scales, but there are some gameplay drastic changes in gods/items (haven't even looked at nations/spells yet). Personal pref no, but negot.
And the no independent mod - fewer commanders to ferry, less low mages, but still get site mages. negotiable

[jutetrea]

Sorry for hijacking your thread Murteas! Will start a new one shortly.

llamabeast - easy to setup/maintain?

Would it be worth combining some of the smaller mods? i.e. militia/light cav/recup/nations/NI?

[Gandalf Parker]

jutetrea said:

I like GP's "eye" something map, you were essentially scared to leave your capital. I'd like to do something a bit toned down from that, extensive mods but treasure and danger at every corner. Edi's (I think) Faerun maps were cool that way, but in a limited sense. I wouldn't want to put the effort into customizing every province, so a heavily random approach would be nice.

Basically what you are talking about is the path which started with my Poke in the Eye map (a pollution of the eye.map that came with the game).

Then went thru one of my "one of these days" ideas from my way too full project lists.
http://www.dom2minions.com/SemiRandom.shtml

And has become 2 semit random generators. One online at
http://dominions.realites.org/

and the other downloadable at
http://www.dom3minions.com/~semirand/

If everyone contributed a province to those projects we would have a ton of fun.

And we could create full scenario sets such as Leif created for Dom2 which would create scenarios out of any map you wanted to run it against.
http://home.online.no/~rmoldskr/Domi...DomScripts.zip
It painted the map with a theme in mind. Such as...

#RandomizationName = AfterTheVampireWars
#DescriptionAddition = "The forces of the Light has driven the undead scourge away, forcing it to seek refuge in the depths of the ocean."

#RandomizationName = DovregubbensHall
#DescriptionAddition = Do not forget, sons of Adam, that once it was the hidden children of Eve that ruled this world, and you were but uninvited guests, tolerated merely because you were family - of sorts. The time might come again that we will seek to reclaim what was ours before it became yours, so do not sleep easily, sons of Adam.

#RandomizationName = DragonSprinkle
#DescriptionAddition = It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

#RandomizationName = AgeOfHoof
#DescriptionAddition = In this age, the worth of a man is measured by the quality of his horse, and cavalry rules supreme. Or so the mortal men think. Can you prove them wrong?

#RandomizationName = HoburgMadness
#DescriptionAddition = This land has been overrun by the little people. They are small, but many. Can you claim the realm?

I kept meaning to setup automations on those so that there would be a new game each day for each scenario. Its "on my list" of things to do.

Also I would like to go back to my original concept of doing the randoms like the Poke map, but abit more logical now that Edi has created the database I need which allows me to select randomly but select a water unit, or a commander, or a pretender, or a summons without selecting randomly from all of them at once.

I also need to redo some of my storyline ones such as a scenario playing against a large Ermorian led allaince between multiple AIs, or the one that had Man trying to consolidate all of the human-type independents against you. AI alliances against you are fun

Gandalf Parker

[murteas]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who loves random stuff.

In any case, my initial vision for this mod was to be "thematically" random. i.e. only randomize the starting commander within the possible commanders for that nation. So that you might start with a reasearch mage instead of a scout, for example. I didn't make it so you could get a pretender or other monster as a starting unit, though that could make for an interesting game.

The current version only randomizes from a small pool of normally available commanders, and as I mentioned it replaces the scout.(see first post for download).

That said, it is possible to change the mod so that you could include any type of starting commander in the random pool with only a text file change. And you can customize the random pool for each nation.

Currently I haven't touched the map files, I use RanDom and Semi-Random maps for most of my games, but I am not opposed to looking into making map/independent changes as well.

Let me know if anyone has feedback