Utility: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Updated

[Endoperez]

Okay. That's a bit of a bummer, but I guess it can't be helped. Any way, I'll get you a bunch of provinces today, and tomorrow I'm back with the green garb. This time I'll have a laptop with me, but I'm not sure if I'm even going to take Dom with me. It's more for LAN fun than Dom work.

[Ballbarian]

Will be trying out a few ideas tonight.
How about if I added an "_OR_" tag that when present would have SemiRandom look for a province with any of the included terrain flags? I think this is in line with what you were suggesting.

So:
Endo2_U_A_OR_N_L_S_WST_SWP_FST_.gan
Could only be placed once (Unique) in Normal, Large, or Small provinces which include the terrain type of Waste, Swamp, or Forest.

Need to get some coffee in me and then I will dig into the code and see what I can do.

[Gandalf Parker]

maybe use another character. Such as a dash.
No the dash should be not such as -SWP.
Maybe plus could be OR.

[Ballbarian]

Sorry Gandalf, already implemented and appears to be working fine.
If changing it to a "_+_" is preferred for a sense of clarity, I can easily change the tag.

The following test file...
hdENDO2_A_U_OR_S_L_N_FST_WST_SWP_

...was successfully placed in a province of terrain type forest and size large. Will need to do more testing, but it could have been placed in any size province that contained any of the three tagged terrain types (forest, waste or swamp).

After I have had a chance to further stress test this, I will release the next update which will also include another serious bug fix involving pattern recognition and province placement. As with all things random, they can be some of the hardest critters to stumble upon. Illwinter certainly has my sympathies. I can't imagine trying to pinpoint things that can creep up in a piece of programming with the size and complexity of Dom3.

[Stryke11]

Ok...

Generated a map using Gandalf's settings. (I clicked the Load Settings button and chose the GandalfPlains one). The map was generated without a hitch.

Then, I clicked the SemiRandomize button, and some stuff happened which I assume was going along the right track until I got this:

---Error in main, line 1516: index 1 <=-1> out of range
---Error: Program stopped due to an error
---Program done, press RETURN---

So...no SemiRandom fun for me just yet. I just used what came with the program, I didn't add any .gan's.

Also, I'm not 100% on the auto add gods thing...will it allow you to still pick any nation you want with just typical settings, or do I need to change anything before I generate the map? Can the feature be disabled just to create a nice map that you can add the gods/nations on later when you set up the game?

Thanks! Once I get it working, and the community builds up a huge database of provinces, this is going to be awesome.

I would be happy to make provinces, I just need some time to familiarize myself with the controls. I don't think I have the programming know how to make them from scratch, but I can use your ProvinceEdit tool.

[Stryke11]

I created and SemiRandomized a different map and this one worked. When I created the map I left everything alone except I moved the slider of Eriu from AI to Human.

When I loaded up the map in the game all was going well. Only the middle age was selectable just like this forum said, and some nations were blacked out. I changed the human nation to Eriu and just clicked "n" until no more random AI's could be selected.

I designed my god, named him, and then clicked ready, where I abruptly got a nagot glik fel or something like that and it said "#god - this nation is not in play" and then crashed. Maybe this just wasn't meant to be for me

[Ballbarian]

Thanks for trying it out Stryke11.

It would be a great help if you could send me the file "TESTDUMP.txt" located in your SemiRandom directory to semirand-AT-dom3minions.com. This only records data from the last run of SemiRandom, so if you have run subsequent maps through it without an error, it won't do any good to send it.

To let Dom3 handle start locations and AI gods:
1. Go to the 'Starts' tab
2. Uncheck 'Lock Player Counts to Nat Cfg'
3. Set 'Desired Num Players' to 0 (zero)

To use the custom start placements without using the custom AI gods:
1. Go to the 'Starts' tab
2. Uncheck 'Lock Player Counts to Nat Cfg'
3. Set 'Desired Num Players' to your desired number of players.
4. Go to the 'AI Gods' tab
5. Set 'AI Land Players' & 'AI Sea Players' to 0 (zero)


Looking forward to seeing some of your province contributions.

[Stryke11]

Excellent! Your tips answered my questions exactly! But, as always, there are a few follow-ups:

If I have a random map, and lets say for whatever reason there are not enough provinces to follow the instructions I set on semirandom (say I want at least 4 neighbors and I want capitals to be four provinces away, but I select all nations and there just aren't enough provinces to do this)...what happens?

I'd like to know a rough guide for how width/height and provinces should go together. It makes sense that as I expand the number of provinces, the width and height (the size of the map I guess) should increase...but are there some established norms? I hate to reinvent the wheel. If nothing else, should the expansion be 1-1 (if I double province number, then I double # for width and height)?

Does the randomizer "randomize" the enemies in a province, or is every special province hand created. I noticed some in my quick tests that seem random, like militia and claymen together, or just infantry and crossbowmen in a motte and bailey. They didn't seem "special" like the ones mentioned in the companion thread, with Xavier's school or Robin Hood and all that, just, well, random .

I take it the "fiddle" percentage is the amount of regions that are randomized? It didn't seem like setting it to 100% randomized every region though...some had what looked like standard defenders.

If I can repeat the previous error I will send testdump, but as of now my last few have been ok.

Thanks for the patience with the questions and creating such an awesome program. Bluewater Bay is niiiiiice.

[Ballbarian]

If I have a random map, and lets say for whatever reason there are not enough provinces to follow the instructions I set on semirandom (say I want at least 4 neighbors and I want capitals to be four provinces away, but I select all nations and there just aren't enough provinces to do this)...what happens?

SemiRandom will first attempt to place human starts. These are '#start' commands in the map file which are completely neutral in that any nation can use them as long as they are not an AI nation with a special start location somewhere on the map.

If there are more human starts defined than places to put them, only the positions which fit the defined criteria will have a start placed and the remainder will be left out.

Next SemiRandom will select AI nations randomly from those that are enabled, and place them across the remaining available start locations with '#specstart' commands.

Just make sure that when you start a game that you do not use more nations than there are starts available or you could end up with nations starting right next to each other due to Dom3 having nowhere else to put the extra nations.

I'd like to know a rough guide for how width/height and provinces should go together. It makes sense that as I expand the number of provinces, the width and height (the size of the map I guess) should increase...but are there some established norms? I hate to reinvent the wheel. If nothing else, should the expansion be 1-1 (if I double province number, then I double # for width and height)?

This is pretty much a matter of taste since the Dom3 random map generator is great at scaling the image. If you increase province count without increasing the size of the image, the image quality degrades since it is squeezing more (and smaller) sprites into the same number of pixels.

Maybe a fair formula (by my own preferences) would be something like:
provinceCount * 20 = (height + width)
So if you wanted 175 provinces for a map:
175*20=(3500)
3500/2=1750
1750x1750

This would get you in the ballpark and then you can just shift some from the height column to the width column to get rectangular map sizes.
1700x1800 or 2750x750 etc...

Once you have the scale that you like, then I would certainly double the image size if I doubled the province count as you suggest in your example.

Does the randomizer "randomize" the enemies in a province, or is every special province hand created. I noticed some in my quick tests that seem random, like militia and claymen together, or just infantry and crossbowmen in a motte and bailey. They didn't seem "special" like the ones mentioned in the companion thread, with Xavier's school or Robin Hood and all that, just, well, random .

All of the provinces placed by SemiRandom are generated from '.gan' files. The gan files can act as simple scripts with randomized elements in them, and they can be flagged as being Unique (where only one of the given province can be placed anywhere on the map), or as Multiple (where any number can be placed as long as the terrain matches). The somewhat random provinces that you are seeing are just, well, semi-random.

Take a look at some of the existing gan files for an idea of how it works. They are just text files and can be opened with the text editor of your choice.

I take it the "fiddle" percentage is the amount of regions that are randomized? It didn't seem like setting it to 100% randomized every region though...some had what looked like standard defenders.

You are correct. The fiddle percentage can be increased over 100 which will cause SemiRandom to try even harder to fill all of the spots on the map, but run time will increase as well, and it may just be that it can't find a gan file which matches the remaining terrain or geographical patterns. It is also worth noting that it will never place a special province directly adjacent to a pre defined start position. It is no fun to start a game with Hellgate Keep parked right next door to your capital.

If I can repeat the previous error I will send testdump, but as of now my last few have been ok.

Thanks for the patience with the questions and creating such an awesome program. Bluewater Bay is niiiiiice.

Glad to here that it is working for you now!
Thanks for asking them. I am sure that for every person who asks a question, there are two people that haven't asked, but have the same question.

So far my favorites are the RuggedShores & GandalfPlains settings, but I like lots of chokepoints and rough terrain in my games.

[Ballbarian]

7/08/07 - Replaced v202 with v203: Updated SemiRandom to version 106. Now supports the new "_OR_" tag which will allow placement of a single province file across a wide variety of terrain types. Also added a new option "fiddleXP" which will block #xp (experience point) lines from being written into the map file. This is for folks who would like to keep the Hall of Fame clear of independent commanders. In RanDom, this is a new check box located on the "General" tab. The update also includes some drastic changes to many of the existing GAN province files as well as many new ones. I HIGHLY recommend moving or renaming the old SemiRandom folder prior to installing this new version. And finally, the Province Editor has been updated from version 1.00 to 1.01 to support the new features. The editor's discussion thread can be found HERE.


NOTE: If you are installing over an old version of RanDom some files will be overwritten. I recommend backing up your old RanDom settings folder and SemiRandom folder prior to install. As a general rule, I include any GAN/GOD files that I have received in the latest release so if you have added files from the SemiRandom web site, you should not have to add them again. Additionally, some of the existing GAN files may have been updated as well. You WILL need to add any custom files that you had that were not submitted to me prior to this release.