Utility RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Updated - Page 7

Ballbarian · #61 July 10th, 2007, 10:00 PM

Great! Thanks for letting me know dmentd.

I will try to at least put in some filler gods for any future releases, and I will spend a few more brain cells on default settings to help make life a little easier for everyone.

Stryke11 · #62 July 11th, 2007, 02:52 AM

What's a "name set"? That is, why is updating those three files more complicated than just putting the gans in the gan bin? For every gan I make I don't have to change the ganslist.txt and namelist.txt files do I?

PS I'm still trying to find a good fiddle ratio. I'm playing at 200% right now and at turn like 10 I have two provinces. It feels like an RPG. Every province is crazy strong. I sent my prophet and a full army to a province with just some heavy infantry and archers, and was completely decimated by a Lady of Storms and a bunch of Sylphs.

Ballbarian · #63 July 11th, 2007, 09:14 AM

A name set is just 2 files ("_DATA1" & "_DATA2") that SemiRandom uses to generate random names. There are several methods that it uses which I discussed in this thread.

When you add gan files (province files) with the Province Editor, it does the foot work for you, but if you download a gan file, you have to add it to the gan file list so that SemiRandom knows about it. (I couldn't find a simple way to read the directory with Yabasic.)

Name files are the same way. You have to let SemiRandom know that they are there by adding them to the name list.

With the provinces you have been submitting, the province name is stored within the province file itself. It is possible to use external name lists that can be utilized by other province files as well.

Oh, and SemiRandom should never place special provinces right next door to your capital. These neighbor provinces should all be marked as off limits if you are using it's internal start placement. (I suspect you are using the settings that let Dom3 handle start placement.)

I recommend the following method:

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)

Stryke11 · #64 July 11th, 2007, 02:05 PM

Well, I had fun...I loved it.

Thanks Ball!

TienIsCoolX · #65 July 13th, 2007, 04:57 AM

Hey, I've been lurking here for quite a while but I registered because I need help. I'm a fan of HUGE maps and I've generated a 1500 province map with your program and the settings posted by Gandalf, I am able to load this map in about 10 minutes and play it.

When I do the semirandomize thing, the 1692 error came up and so I turned off the "lock players to nat config" and put desired # of players to zero, and the semirandomizer goes smoothly. But, when I try to play the SR version of the map, it just stays at the loading screen, and when I CTRL ALT DEL, it says Dom3 isn't responding. I noticed that it does this even when its a small map if I CTRL ALT DEL so I tried waiting for the map to load, and my longest time was around 40 minutes before I got impatient, so I'm wondering if its actually LOADING or did it lock up due to some error (possibly related to the start locales?) I noticed that the normal .map file is 100 kb, whereas the modified SR .map file comes in at 800kb, so maybe the wait time is proportional to the size of the .map file?

Please help, I'd love to get a huge game going with SR settings (I tried SR Aran map and it was just freaking awesome, with 9 indy strength, I saw a province with 400 hoburg militia *WOW*) If you don't mind, maybe you can help me on AIM or something? I'd like to get a game going as soon as possible. Thank you.

Kristoffer O · #66 July 13th, 2007, 05:36 AM

Perhaps you have given preferences that the game cant handle, like 6 neigbours for everyone, not neighbour to special provinces or something else. Then the game goes on serching for thousands of provionces to find a possible placementwithout succeding. Just a guess. I have not tried a semirandomized map yet. I made myself a special province the other day, but never got to the semirandomization. And currently I'm in linux mode, so it'll have to wait.

Ballbarian · #67 July 13th, 2007, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Well, I had fun...I loved it.

Thanks Ball!

Great!
Oh, and your welcome!

Quote:

When I do the semirandomize thing, the 1692 error came up and so I turned off the "lock players to nat config" and put desired # of players to zero, and the semirandomizer goes smoothly. But, when I try to play the SR version of the map, it just stays at the loading screen, and when I CTRL ALT DEL, it says Dom3 isn't responding. I noticed that it does this even when its a small map if I CTRL ALT DEL so I tried waiting for the map to load, and my longest time was around 40 minutes before I got impatient, so I'm wondering if its actually LOADING or did it lock up due to some error (possibly related to the start locales?) I noticed that the normal .map file is 100 kb, whereas the modified SR .map file comes in at 800kb, so maybe the wait time is proportional to the size of the .map file?

SR will definitly work on a 1500 province map, but I cannot guarantee that Dom3 (or maybe your system?) can handle a 1500 province SR'd map with the potentially large numbers of units that could be placed.

Have you tried creating a game using the non-SR'd version of the 1500 province map (just to see how long it takes to load on your system)?

As far as the chance of an error with the start locations goes, by setting the number of players to 0, no start locations should have been placed. Feel free to attach the ".map" file to a post if you want, and I will look it over to make sure that this is the case in your situation.

AIM won't be an option for me (sorry), and I will have to leave for work in a few minutes. I will check back here over lunch and again this evening. If I get time tonight, I will try to start a game on a 1500 province map. I know it will be painful on my ancient PC...

Quote:

I made myself a special province the other day

Don't forget to share your creation with us KO!

You can open the gan file with any text editor and just copy/paste the contents into your post. And be sure to give us the name of the file as well.

Gandalf Parker · #68 July 13th, 2007, 11:29 AM

Quote:

TienIsCoolX said:
But, when I try to play the SR version of the map, it just stays at the loading screen, and when I CTRL ALT DEL, it says Dom3 isn't responding. I noticed that it does this even when its a small map if I CTRL ALT DEL so I tried waiting for the map to load, and my longest time was around 40 minutes before I got impatient, so I'm wondering if its actually LOADING or did it lock up due to some error (possibly related to the start locales?)

Im probably the one with the most experience at creating maps that the game seems to hate.

The game is not particularly fast at some things. Some things can help speed it up. Such as less of the special terrain settings like manysites, firesite, bloodsite, priestsite which causes it to look up a special list. Also things like random equip on assigned commanders which causes it to "think" some more. There are also some units that force the game to do extra thinking to decide how many random gems or what random magics. But once it does all the initial thinking and finally creates the ftherland file then its not too slow for playing it.

Just to be sure of what is really happening, I will sometimes start a game just before I go to bed and let it think all night so I can see what is happening the next morning.

Quote:

I noticed that the normal .map file is 100 kb, whereas the modified SR .map file comes in at 800kb, so maybe the wait time is proportional to the size of the .map file?

It does definetly but not the size specifically. More for the reasons I gave. If all of the random things are replced with specific settings then it sets up much quicker.

Dont sweat the overnight setup time. Once you get a game generated on something like that then you will have a long LONG game to play

TienIsCoolX · #69 July 13th, 2007, 02:04 PM

Thank you for the fast replies. I have started the 1500 province map, non SRed, it takes 10~ minutes, that is, with settings at 9 indies and 10 nations.

I think my computer is able to handle the map. Here are my specs: 1.8 GHZ X2 Turion, 2 gigs of ram, and a Geforce 7600 Go(If the graphics card matters, I've no idea lol) I'll probably try an overnight load, if the SR'ed version here has no errors and is actually *loading*.

Ok, I will attach the SR'ed version here, sorry about the name of it being "Automap" I forgot to change the name as I was generating random maps till I got one that I liked, this one is the best so far. The fiddle setting is at 150%, no normal mountains, desire number palyers at zero, and unchecked the ntl config box. Those are all the settings I changed.

On a side note, I've got some questions...
-When I was playing a game with mid man, a one eyed crone appeared and the description says she was like a beloved hero or something. Do these events happen alot?
-I recruited a castellan and he had the skill of "unequaled obesity", yet, he was FRESHLY recruited and was NOT in that hall of fame thing. Is this a bug?
-Is there a limit to how many troops a castellan or any commander can control? Or does it go by their ever gaining experience?
-Let's say all the nations recruits mercenaries and the whole merc squad gets killed, does the game automatically auto generate more merc squads, or is there no more after that?

Oh and I'd like to congratulate the makers of this game on their ingenious, simple yet effective anti pirating technique built into the cd key, it got my neighbor buying this game after he pirated it because he wanted to play with me.

EDIT: Shoot, I don't know how to add an attachment. Agh.
EDIT2: Ok never mind I did it, yay.

Ballbarian · #70 July 13th, 2007, 02:40 PM

I don't know for sure if this is causing the problem, but I have located at least one error in a gan file:
ENDO8_U_R_OR_FST_S_N_L_.gan
The line:
#additem "Vision's Foe
Should be:
#additem "Vision's Foe"

Keep in mind that this was just a quick scan over my lunch hour.
I will attach a corrected .map file to this post.

Maybe try it with the updated map file and be sure to let me know if it works for you.