Mod: UnitGen - Random nations with procedural sprites!

[elmokki]

Newest possible. Though I believe 6 should be new enough for UnitGen.

[Ragnarok-X]

I tried this some more and came up with the following suggestions. I hope you can include them.

Most nations made are too generic. I think 6 or 7 times (out of 8) i got a nation with 4 normal infantry w/ mace, spear, axe, falchion, then heavy variants of these 4 guys, sometime 1 rider, always 1 (interesting!) sacred.
Commanders were mostly 1 spy, 2 commanders w/ different weapons, 1 priest and 3 mages + 1 high priest.
I think you need to add more diversity.
For example, i believe most nations should NOT get a melee variant for *each* weapon chassis.
Maybe give it a 100 % chance for a combination of 2/2 infantry/heavy infantry variants, i.e. spear/axe or spear/mace or mace/ace with a 100 % offchance for the same heavy variant.
Then, a 35 % chance to add in a third melee guy with new weapon (i.e. 35 % a nation with spear/axe gets mace) and then anohter 35 % to get the fourth melee variant. Maybe a 20 % base-chance for a dualwielder of a random weapon.
In addition, a %-based chance to get 2 sacreds and/or light/heavy variant of a sacred.

Regarding commanders, they need better naming. The nations i made all had 2 commanders, which unfortunally were named "Commander" too.
I wish you had randomness to the naming, i.e. even chance for name "Commander", "Lord", "General", "Warchief".
Then, instead of giving 2 alternate commanders w/ different weapon, make the nation have 2 REALLY different commanders (i.e. 40 leader vs 80 leader /w standard). For Example, Commander and High Commander, Lord and Great Lord, Warchief and Seasoned Warchief.

In addition, give the nation a small chance to get the commander-class a magic pick (i.e. the tool creates a high commander that has 1 magic pick with a 10 % chance -> NOT 10 % per recruit, but a 10 % chance to get a 100 % m1 commander in nation creation).

Same goes for holy mages, i.e. some nations get H1 on their lesser/higher commander).

Lastly, maybe you could introduce a .ini file for this. The value aboves (%-chances) are defined using a .ini file, and everyone could alter their .ini file to get the programm to create nations like they want.

I applaude your work and hope you consider my suggestions.
The coolest race i got had serpent cataphracts and the sacred was a spider rider + h3 high priest. And i got hoburgs that got a sacred poison spearman.

[elmokki]

Well, normal troops are right now generated so that nation gets 3 or 4 different weapons and 2 or 3 different armors and every single combination is generated for infantry. For archers 1-2 weapons are generated and two armor variants for each weapon are generated. Cavalry is a bit different, nations get 1-3 mounts and then they get: lance cavalry or onehanded cavalry depending on a dice roll, two handed cavalry if possible (basically only if there's a great axe available actually), and a light lance cavalry. The program tries to generate cav versions for each armor, but it also depends on the available mounts. If there isn't a heavy mount then there just simply isn't a full plate cavalry unit. Obviously when a race just doesn't get some role, it won't be generated. Abysians don't get ranged, chariots or cavalry, lizards don't get cavalry and flying races don't get cavalry or chariots.

So basically you're looking at potentially like 20-24 units we're thinning the herd down from. The thinning algorithm first decides the roster size in all different areas (cav/chariot/ranged/infantry) and then starts thinning the units. Generally it always tries removing a whole tier of armor from that role first, if that is too much it tries removing one weapon type and if everything else fails it removes a random single unit. I do agree that I should probably make it chance based so that it at least sometimes - actually might be a good idea to have it do it pretty often - prioritizes removing a random unit.

I would, however, like to note that troop rosters in the game are relatively monotonous already. Many nations get very similiar units with minor changes, and it's okay. It's obvious people won't in general recruit more than 3 or 4 different unit types at most. Even then in some cases it allows a tactical choice (naginata vs katana vs no-dashi is at the very least tougher than mace vs spear vs broad sword), even though that choice is an once per choice and varies between players, not between turns in a single game (or well, naginata is 4 more damage than katana, but the pricinple stays).

The commander generation in all it's simplicity right now is picking existing troops so that all the special tags (like flying, stealthy, amphibious, 50% chance of sacred to be guaranteed to be a com) are filled if possible. I agree it could use some 80 leadership commanders, more diverse naming - especially the sacred commander version of let's say Death Templar should probably be something like Death Lord - and both commanders and priests should have magic occasionally. It isn't exactly a high priority though since unless a commander (I'm mostly looking at sacred commanders) is thugworthy or has an useful special trait (flying for that hoburg hawk cavalry or stealthy for stealthy troops) it just won't be recruited almost at all.

You can already change many of the probabilities for the program. You can't influence mage setups (1, 2 or 3 primary mages) or the path patterns they get (one path at 3, one path at 2 and one random is more common than let's say two paths at 2 and 2 linked randoms). You also can't influence the cav-chariot-archer-infantry ratio. What you can, however, influence is the probability of appearance for different sorts of magic weapons for sacreds, different sorts of special features for mages, sacreds and priests, and different sorts of gear for every single unit generated. Oh yeah, also general nation traits (both stuff shared by all units of primary race and stuff like blood sacrifice) and the probability of different pretender chassises appearing are modifiable.

[Ragnarok-X]

I understand your reasoning, and obviously its your tool. I just posted what i would be looking for in a programm should i use it. Of course i already do use it for SP, but i think the suggestions i made would make it even better. I think most dom 3 players love flavour, variance and decision-making, as such, adding more unique/diversity would add a lot.
Im looking forward to newer revisions, especially if you enable (...) even more user-customization.
thank you.

I forgot to mention, the spider-mount sacred i got, they even had enchanted maces. Good times.

[elmokki]

http://koti.kapsi.fi/elmokki/dom3/un...en_11_4_12.zip

SpriteGen shows a 2x zoom version along with the normal image. UnitGen may have something new, not sure if I've touched it.

[Ragnarok-X]

I have a small bug report and a suggestion.

Firstly, in the last 2 days i created a lot of nations and played them for 2 or 3 turns. About 30 or so.
I had many occasions, where units had the sprite of holding a flail, but they were actually equipped with a mace. You might check that, im pretty sure there is art mixup there.

I have to say something about balance yet again. I suppose all these nations are made with middle era in mind. However, i found that there is really strong bias towards heavy protection in the nations made. Out of 30 nations, i would say about 20 had protection 14+, many even protection 16+. Many nations felt like you were playing Ulm. I didnt matter if i got lizards, hoburgs or humans, heavy protection nations were certainly favoured among nation creation. I believe you might want to check that, maybe lower the bance chance for heavy armor and stuff. Nations similar to Miclan (i.e. low protection in general or sacred heavy) nations seem to be impossible atm, maybe you can add a modifier which grants + sacreds or disabled heavy armor to increase variance.
In addition to the different mounts, i would love if you would add the tien chi tiger or miclan jaguar as base mount arts. Maybe even add pegasus or griffin knight wings as a sprite so there can be flying boards, lizards, tigers. That would be awesome.


Regarding sacred creation, i got a bunch of nations that got a sacred with crossbow and heavy melee weapon, which is rather unfortunate. Maybe decrease the chance for that. Ranged and dagger or melee and jav or poision pipes is fine, but many times i got stuff like long spear and crossbow or enchanted mace and arbalest, which seems unlikely and less useful.

Lastly, one thing in particular i did not like is how ranged stock units are created. Several times i got crossbow or arbalest infantry, of course with 2 variations, normal and heavy. In these cases, the heavy variants had heavy armor (obviously) and ressource cost went from ~ 15 to 25/30. I think this is rather useless. I never found myself in the situation where i wanted to buy heavy armor ranged infantry especially considering the increased ressource cost. I think you should definitly disable the routine that automaticly creates a heavy armor variant, at least for xbow/arbalest shooters.
Im so looking forward to further tinkering with unitgen and hope for updates and more features. Thanks for including the sprite-zoom in spritegen.


edit: lastly, would it be possible to create a logfile with each nations created ? I would like to the reason for nation creation, i.e. the exact rolls that resulted in certain units being created.

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

I have a small bug report and a suggestion.

Firstly, in the last 2 days i created a lot of nations and played them for 2 or 3 turns. About 30 or so.
I had many occasions, where units had the sprite of holding a flail, but they were actually equipped with a mace. You might check that, im pretty sure there is art mixup there.

I need the races of these units to look at it. There's no way it can happen on all races since Tengu and Hoburgs don't even get flails and Abysians have a different sprite for it than the other nations.

I have to say something about balance yet again. I suppose all these nations are made with middle era in mind. However, i found that there is really strong bias towards heavy protection in the nations made. Out of 30 nations, i would say about 20 had protection 14+, many even protection 16+. Many nations felt like you were playing Ulm. I didnt matter if i got lizards, hoburgs or humans, heavy protection nations were certainly favoured among nation creation. I believe you might want to check that, maybe lower the bance chance for heavy armor and stuff. Nations similar to Miclan (i.e. low protection in general or sacred heavy) nations seem to be impossible atm, maybe you can add a modifier which grants + sacreds or disabled heavy armor to increase variance.

It can be tweaked pretty easily. I'll also probably need to look into nation tag generation since some nations did at some point occasionally get tagged "primitive" and those nations generally were in leather and some ring mail.

In addition to the different mounts, i would love if you would add the tien chi tiger or miclan jaguar as base mount arts. Maybe even add pegasus or griffin knight wings as a sprite so there can be flying boards, lizards, tigers. That would be awesome.

Flying whatevers is actually a pretty neat idea and can definitely be implemented. Mounts (and helmets, weapons and shields) are very easy to add in general, but my policy is that I don't really take requests on graphics as the whole program is designed so that pretty much anyone can define new stuff in so I don't have to do all the graphics (that said like 95%+ are made by me currently and the rest is by kianduatha)

Regarding sacred creation, i got a bunch of nations that got a sacred with crossbow and heavy melee weapon, which is rather unfortunate. Maybe decrease the chance for that. Ranged and dagger or melee and jav or poision pipes is fine, but many times i got stuff like long spear and crossbow or enchanted mace and arbalest, which seems unlikely and less useful.

Not all sacreds need to be useful, but I do agree that at the very least the primarily ranged sacreds should have a reduced chance of getting a magical melee weapon.

Lastly, one thing in particular i did not like is how ranged stock units are created. Several times i got crossbow or arbalest infantry, of course with 2 variations, normal and heavy. In these cases, the heavy variants had heavy armor (obviously) and ressource cost went from ~ 15 to 25/30. I think this is rather useless. I never found myself in the situation where i wanted to buy heavy armor ranged infantry especially considering the increased ressource cost. I think you should definitly disable the routine that automaticly creates a heavy armor variant, at least for xbow/arbalest shooters.

Take a look at base game ranged units. Yes, the only units people tend to use are the lightest ones possible, but there still are plenty of needlessly heavy crossbowmen (as an extreme, Agarthan full chain crossbowmen, but nations like MA Ulm get a fairly heavy crossbowman already). Not all the units need to be useful, which is the case in all categories. That said the heavy armor on ranged might be too common right now, so it could probably get some weighing towards lighter armor (this is also something absolutely anyone can do)

edit: lastly, would it be possible to create a logfile with each nations created ? I would like to the reason for nation creation, i.e. the exact rolls that resulted in certain units being created.

I'll take that to mind for if/when I bother to rewrite some systems to be more user accessible.

[Ragnarok-X]

hey,

i realize most my sugggestions (like chances for armor, weapons, equipment) can be modified using the existing files. However, i have one huge problem with that. Currently im already using several modded files, i.e. i added more description variables for sacreds, more tri-path mage-class names suffix and prefixes but at some point i realized all of my altered files will be gone for good if i download a new revision and replace all the files. Since i already dont know which files i tinkered with, (and thus cant save) i decided to stop modding them alltogether until you realize a "breakthrough" revision which then will be more durable.

If i do sprite parts for tiger/jaguar (more maybe) will you incorporate them in offical revisions ?

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

hey,

i realize most my sugggestions (like chances for armor, weapons, equipment) can be modified using the existing files. However, i have one huge problem with that. Currently im already using several modded files, i.e. i added more description variables for sacreds, more tri-path mage-class names suffix and prefixes but at some point i realized all of my altered files will be gone for good if i download a new revision and replace all the files. Since i already dont know which files i tinkered with, (and thus cant save) i decided to stop modding them alltogether until you realize a "breakthrough" revision which then will be more durable.

When you do changes submitting stuff to for example this thread is a pretty good idea.

If i do sprite parts for tiger/jaguar (more maybe) will you incorporate them in offical revisions ?

Pretty much anything that looks decent will be added in. I do hope though that instead of just graphics people will also do the text based parts of item additions, since in some cases that's like half the work.

[Ragnarok-X]

If possible (please) could you alter the routines so that not every race gets an heavy armed variant of each infantry ? Something like a 50 % chance to spawn a heavy variant would be great (for me). In additionn, please alter the amount of base types so that not each race gets 4 melee weapon variants. If you dont feel like altering it in general, would you kindly explain to me where these values are stored ?

Regarding the mace/flail thingy, i was mistaken. It was not a mace, it was a morning star. I.e. many races had units with a flail artwork but a morning star equipment. I will run another 10 nations today evening and if i spot anything, i will post it.

Here are the mods i was able to find.




magicweapons
-- 64: decay
#unitname "prefix warped"
#unitname "suffix 'of warp'"

-- 216: Fire
#unitname "prefix charring"
#unitname "suffix 'of char'"

-- raising
#unitname "prefix soulbound"
#unitname "suffix 'of reanimation'"


sacredarmdesc
"answering their gods call, %unitname% armed with both faith and %weapons%, they are staying true to their believe"
"recruited into service, %unitname% are now leaving their holy ground, bringing justice in their gods name"
"wilding %weapons% blessed by faith, %unitname% is now forcing everyone to acknowledge the one true god"

majormagicdesc
"The %unitname% of %nation% long studies make them knowledgeable in %magics%"
"The %unitname% of %nation% are born with an affinity in %magics%"
"The %unitname% of %nation% have reached expertise in %magics% due to long training"

adjectives
planar 3 astral earth death
maelstrom 3 fire death nature
putrid 2 death nature
gorgonic 2 death nature
Acashic 3 astral

sacredparts
-- Generic
#define
#name "divine"
#tag "notsuffix"
#basechance 1
#end

#define
#name "just"
#tag "notsuffix"
#basechance 1
#end

-- Nature
#define
#name "firstborn"
#basechance 0
#chanceinc "magic nature 1"
#tag "notsuffix"
#end

#define
#name "primordial"
#basechance 0
#chanceinc "magic nature 1"
#tag "notsuffix"
#end

-- Crosspath
#define
#name "hellbent"
#basechance 0
#tag "notsuffix"
#chanceinc "magic earth fire 2"
#end

#define
#name "radiant"
#basechance 0
#tag "notsuffix"
#chanceinc "magic fire astral 2"
#end

#define
#name "devouring"
#basechance 0
#tag "notsuffix"
#chanceinc "magic earth nature 2"
#end