Idea thread: special provinces, unique defenders

[Endoperez]

SemiRandomizer is a great program that can read special province settings from text files, and then add these provinces into exiting Dominions maps. Aran with random provinces tough enough to work as chokepoints? Independent castles with powerful defenders in both sides of the walls? Robin Hood and his merry men? Bunch of Abysians defending a fire site? It can be done. It isn't easy, though, so I though I'd start an idea mill and then translate the ones I like to the correct format. I probably won't be able to do quite that many this weekend, but I hope there will be quite a few ideas next weekend when I have more time.

Now, what tools you can use when desigining your provinces:

ANYTHING in the mapediting document. This means:
- adding to, or replacing, the original defenders
- adding any unit as a commander, with the spesific magic paths, items, amount of experience and name you want
- giving any unit(s) to a commander already in the province (you always have to add at least one commander), as either normal troops or bodyguards
- adding any existing magic site, either hidden (normal) or pre-searched
- adding any fort and/or a lab and/or a temple to the province
- defining different troops for inside and outside of the castle. Technically, one will be besieging the other, so the ones inside the castle need items to avoid supply problems.
- set the owner of the province, as well as its poptype, population amount, starting unrest and PD (if it's owned by a nation).

In addition, RanDom/SemiRandom allows these advanced options:
- randomly choosing this province instead of it always being in the exact same province of the one map you added it to (with various values such as terrain affecting where it can appear)
- adding "any one of [a list]" instead of "this one", whether we're talking about a name, a unit, an item or a castle. You can define the lists and use them in multiple instances. An example of a list would be three different sets of equipment for a thug.
- giving an AI player a pre-determined god

What you CAN'T use:
- mods. No modded units, no modded sites, no modded nations, because the special province would crash the game unless the spesific mod was active.




That's it. Please, post your ideas. Here're two examples of what the result will look like:




example 1: Robin Hood and his Merry Men
only available in medium and large forests
Has a Longbowman commander with 150 points of experience (3 stars). His name is Robin Hood, and he has a Longbow of Accuracy. He leads a group of 20 Longbowmen, 20 Woodsmen (with shortbows), and 20 Villains.
The province also has a known magic site called "Hall of Ancient Oaks", and the following commanders:
-a Monk given H2, Endless bag of Vine and a Cauldron of Broth. His name would be Tuck.
-a Ranger Captain (LA Ulm crossbowman) named Red Will,
-a Warrior Maiden (of EA Ulm) named Marian,
-and a Light Bandar Archer named Little John.
All of them have 100 points of experience (2 stars). Little John would have 50% chance of having a Storm Bow. There would be a 25% chance for Maid Marian to have Nature 2.

This would be made as:
filename: Endo8_R_U_N_FST_.gan
eigth province made by Endo(perez), replaces the original defenders, is unique, appears in normal-sized forests.
Code:

---

#commander 59

#name "Robin Hood"

#xp 150

#additem "Longbow of Accuracy"

#units 20 59

#units 20 "Villain"

#units 20 "Woodsman"



#knownfeature "Hall of Ancient Oaks"



#commander "Monk"

#name "Tuck"

#xp 100

#additem "Endless Bag of Wine"

#additem "Cauldron of Broth"



#commander "Ranger Captain"

#name "Red Will"

#xp 100



#commander "Warrior Maiden"

#xp 100

#name "Marian"

@4 

#mag_nature 2

- three times 

- out of four

- she has no magic



#commander "Light Bandar Archer"

#xp 100

#name "Little John"

@2 

#additem "Storm Bow"

- half the time, no bow

---

Examplem 2 (taken from the SemiRandom post in the mod forum):


Code:

---

#god 11 138 -- PANGAEA GORGON

#clearmagic

#mag_earth 9

#mag_nature 4

#dominionstr 11 10

#scale_chaos 11 3

#scale_lazy 11 1

#scale_cold 11 -1

#scale_death 11 -3

#scale_unluck 11 -2

#scale_unmagic 11 2

---

You could add items if you were feeling fancy:

Code:

---

#additem "Shield of Gleaming Gold" 	-- hand slot

#additem "Sword of Sharpness"		-- hand slot

#additem "Black Steel Helmet"		-- head slot

#additem "Robe of Invulnerability" 	-- body slot

#additem "Boots of the Messenger" 	-- feet slot

#additem "Amulet of Antimagic" 		-- misc slot

#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot

---

[jutetrea]

I was looking at these the other day on Gandalf's site and was intrigued. Are you saying you'll code it if we come up with good suggestions? If so, shweet! Limiting to units within the game or deciding if something can fit and whether or not it needs a new unit?

Some easy examples:

Camelot -

19 Knights of the round table outside a Forest Citadel
http://www.timelessmyths.com/arthurian/roundtable.html
Troops of some sort/# inside the citadel with Guinevere and Merlin.
Chalice like site
White man hill
aaand something.

19 knights (of Avalon) still aren't that terrible. So possibly give each knight 5 other basic knights - squires?

Each knight of avalon (round table) wouldn't necessarily get additional equipment, but i would add 2 misc per. RoRegen/luck/bracers of prot/RoWarrior/etc. Could get specific to the literature on each of the 18, but seems like a lot of work. King Arthur would be fitted out fully, with either a new (AN) sword or sword of quickness/sharpness.

Merlin would be a high level mage, RoWizardry and something.
Guen would be a combo mage/prieset (??), RoSorcery and something.

I've always been a big fan of really powerful random provinces, but good rewards if defeated.

----

Hawaian fire-god volcano
Dragons lair(s)
Forest of spiders
The unearthed pit
Mayan Temple theme and an angry Quetz..

[Gandalf Parker]

Thats the idea of it all. If we all designed ONE province then the SemiRandomizer would be able to create some very interesting maps. You could set it to add 3 percent special provinces and play your favorite map over and over with fun surprises.

Just for ideas, look at the magic sites and build a province around them. Especially if it allows summoning or recruiting certain units. Doesnt that mean it would be guarded by them? Or certain units as a theme. A werewolf village, or dragons lair, or giants cave.

PLUS one of the big complaints against the AI is that it creates bad gods and chooses horrible scales. If we all made gods for the AIs then it might improve them.

All of this is only going to be fun if we have enough variety so we can keep the game random without it having to be stupidly random (like my old programs were).

[jutetrea]

I like stupidly random

But I liked thematic better. Could someone post the format for a complex province with comments per section? I can copy most of an existing complex province but silly questions like... bodyguards come after commander, then commanders items..eh? Terrains still confuse me as well.

I've got the DB, the format is daunting.

Is the site modding in the mod guide as well? For instance, I think the camelot province should have recruitable knights, probably not of Avalon..but similar.

[Endoperez]

Jutetrea - I'd like to get MUCH more detail. I'm not going to go through a site just to find 19 names. If you'd like some of the knights to have a bit different equipment, mention it. Is King Arthur inside the castle with Guinewere/Merlin, or outside with his knights? What sites, exactly (there are just two healing sites according to Edi's list, and because I doubt Lyfjaberg would fit, it'd be Healing Spring). What magics would the mages have?

So, sites: Healing Spring, White Man Hill, probably a site with a Lake in its name (The Forest of the Lake (!), Bottomless Lake, Lake of Mists, Lake of Reflected Time, Lifeless Lake (Death gems, not good), Mirrorlake (allows recruitment of Illusionist, so not good), Overgrown Lake (not what we're looking for). I want DETAILS, because while I could do all this myself, I'd like to get enough details that I can just read through it, perhaps add something of my own while implementing it, and then move on to the next suggestion.

Hawaian fire-god volcano
Dragons lair(s)
Forest of spiders
The unearthed pit
Mayan Temple theme and an angry Quetz..

And what would these be, then? Volcano and a Sun Disk? Rain Forest, Jungle Temple, something else? What is an unearthed pit? If you have an idea, give details. If I go to the details myself, I'll do it for my own ideas.


Also, map "modding" is very, VERY simple. Adding commanders adds them to the last province you selected, regardless of how you did it, and there's no #end command for provinces. All commands that work on commanders (including commands for adding units under their control) work for the commander that was added last. Order doesn't matter. You can give a commander an item, then set bodyguards, then set his magic and experience, then his units, then add another item and add more units and add holy magic and then add another squad of bodyguards. You could also do that in reverse, and it would still work.

And as said above, modding SHOULDN'T be used. This is for semi-random only, and while you can do interesting stuff with mods, it'll get too complicated too fast.
Site modding is in the modding guide, but it's only partial. We can set capital-only recruitables, but not units recruitable everywhere. However, Camelot could be given the knights/longbowmen poptype. That is good enough, because this will be a high-pop province in a forest (at least from what I understood), and thus have much more resources than a farmland (only terrain knights are usually recruitable in) would.

[lch]

Endoperez said:
Jutetrea - I'd like to get MUCH more detail. I'm not going to go through a site just to find 19 names. If you'd like some of the knights to have a bit different equipment, mention it. Is King Arthur inside the castle with Guinewere/Merlin, or outside with his knights? What sites, exactly (there are just two healing sites according to Edi's list, and because I doubt Lyfjaberg would fit, it'd be Healing Spring). What magics would the mages have?

Let me counter to that: Endo, I think you'll have to give a greater detail of what exactly is possible and how with these semi-random province settings, especially for people with zero knowledge about map editing. What you gave was a rough draft and that was useful to get some idea about what's possible, but it's no wonder that you get vague ideas as response to that, too. People have ideas, they just don't know how to submit them in the way that you want them. Where is that format that you want to have documented with all its features? A copy of Edi's database would be very much needed, too, I guess? Are all the sites in there?

[Gandalf Parker]

#landname "HarpaKazi"
#knownfeature "Dying Forest" -- already found
#feature "Wild Forest"
#feature "Wild Forest"
#feature "Wild Forest" -- fills the site slots IF they have nothing in them already

#commander 614 -- Harpy Queen
#comname "Scorned" -- as in there is no fury like a woman scorned
#bodyguards 5 713 -- Harpy Manikin
#units 10 239 -- Harpy

#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"
#commander "Black Harpy"
#additem "Medallion of Vengeance"

[Gandalf Parker]

How about the Forest of Truffles site guarded by pigs?
Forest of Delights with Pans and Maenads?
The Dying Forest with carrion spell creatures?
Mammoth Forest and... mammoths?
The Forest of Endless Streams allows recruiting Enchantress and should be guarded by some with maybe some decent equipment so you have to WORK for it.

There are some lists at www.dom3minions.com/docs which can help

[Gandalf Parker]

For extreme examples its best to look at the program itself. Here is one of the files....

-- Isle of Thrones ***************
#population 45000
#poptype 71 -- Trolls
#killfeatures -- destroys any magic sites that were randomly assigned
#knownfeature "Conjurer's Cave"
#knownfeature "The Fire Prison"
#knownfeature "Tempest Hall"
#knownfeature "Ten Thousand Things"
#fort 24 -- builds the Crystal Citadel there
#temple -- builds a temple
#lab -- builds a laboratory

#commander 631 -- King of Elemental Fire (Pyriphlogos)
#comname "Primidius"
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 9
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Rainbow Armor" -- body slot
#additem "Charcoal Shield" -- hand slot
#bodyguards 5 "Will o' the Wisp"
#units 15 "Will o' the Wisp"
#units 10 "Summer Lion"

#commander 655 -- Scorpion King
#comname "Mordiseus"
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 4
#mag_earth 5
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Rainbow Armor" -- body slot
#additem "Charcoal Shield" -- hand slot
#additem "Elf Bane" -- hand slot
#bodyguards 5 "Mechanical Man"
#units 5 "Earth Elemental"
#units 10 "Scorpion Beast"
#units 20 "Mechanical Man"

#commander 627 -- Faery Queen
#comname "Velrian"
#clearmagic
#mag_nature 6
#mag_air 6
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Spirit Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Robe of Shadows" -- body slot
#additem "Eye Shield" -- hand slot
#additem "Rune Smasher" -- hand slot
#additem "Boots of Quickness" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 "Wyvern"
#units 5 "Air Elemental"
#units 10 "Wyvern"
#units 20 "Lumber Construct"

#commander 580 -- Sea King
#comname "Lunieous"
#clearmagic
#mag_water 6
#mag_astral 9
#additem "Amulet of Resilience" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Crown of Command" -- head slot
#additem "Robe of Shadows" -- body slot
#additem "Lantern Shield" -- hand slot
#additem "Faithful" -- hand slot
#additem "Boots of Quickness" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 "Ice Drake"
#units 5 "Water Elemental"
#units 15 "Sea Troll"

#commander 519 -- Troll King
#comname "Larry"
#additem "Bear Claw Talisman" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Black Steel Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Hammer of the Mountains" -- hand slot x2
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 518 -- Troll
#units 5 648 -- Troll Archer
#units 10 518 -- Troll

#commander 519 -- Troll King
#comname "Moe"
#additem "Bear Claw Talisman" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Black Steel Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Midget Masher" -- hand slot x2
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 518 -- Troll
#units 5 648 -- Troll Archer
#units 10 518 -- Troll

#commander 519 -- Troll King
#comname "Curly"
#additem "Bear Claw Talisman" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Black Steel Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Hammer of the Forge Lord" -- hand slot x2
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#bodyguards 5 1037 -- War Troll
#units 10 1037 -- War Troll
#units 10 1086 -- Troll Moose Knight

#commander 471 -- Golem
#comname "Bok"
#additem "Spell Focus" -- misc slot
#additem "Ring of Fire" -- misc slot
#additem "Spirit Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Chain Mail of Displacement" -- body slot
#additem "Standard of the Damned" -- hand slot
#additem "Boots of Quickness" -- feet slot

-- END Isle of Thrones ***************

[Endoperez]

Okay then.

Terrain the site can appear in, whether it's unique, and whether it replaces or adds to the original defenders of the province. If you want a spesific poptype, mention it.

The description of the province can be in any format, but generally I want to know the amount and type of everything in the province. It would be nice to get the types as unit IDs (59), but I can use the names as well ("longbowman"). If there are multiple units with the same name, I want to know which one to have (e.g. independent or Man-spesific Longbowman). I need to know the basic amount of units to know how tough battle you are trying to make. Say, a high priest, a bard, a Mother of Avalon and a knight commander leading 20 knights, two squads of 50 longbowmen and 40 independent heavy infantry with swords and shields (unit ID preferred).
If you want to have a castle defended both inside and outside, describe both groups of defenders.

If you want your commanders to have unique names, provide them, or a list from which they should be chosen - the in-game namelists (Infernal, Atlantian, generic female etc) can be used.
As for items, I want to know at least a somewhat defined list of what to choose from. "Any one-handed sword" etc is enough, but "well equipped" isn't.



Edi's DB has a list of magic sites. A well-chosen site adds a lot to a province. Sites can be added as either hidden or revealed. Remember that there's a maximum of four sites per province.

Edi's DB also lists lots of units, but personally I use AllView maps to be able to view the units' descriptions. As an example, I chose Marian to be a Warrior Maiden instead of the other female archer of EA Ulm because the Warrior Maidens' description doesn't mention that they are from Ulm.