Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Just to be clear...
Are you now running SemiRandom from within the RanDom frontend? or are you running it directly by SemiRandom.exe?

If you are using just SemiRandom.exe directly, then you will have to manually change the SemiRandom.cfg settings. It sounds like SemiRandom is looking for a map named GANPLAINS.map and (odds are) not finding it, so generating this error.

If that is the case, try running it from RanDom, and remember to change the map name (bright yellow & red field) to a valid map (minus the '.map' extension).

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Keep your cfg like you had it. Don't remove the '1'. There is a new line in the cfg that was not there in the previous version.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

To expand on that...
I am an evil programmer who hates doing the documentation thing, so I neglected to update the readme.

The '1' that you removed is for fiddleXP, a new option. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I kept pushing Johan and Kristoffer to get a player to do the manual and Im very pleased with the results. By the time a programmer gets to releasing something he has beta-tested it to death so he can no longer think like a newbie.

Maybe someone who is just tackling your programs for the first time will keep good notes and post us a small documentation file.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

K, put everything back into the dominions 3 folder. Removed the new project line (left in the fiddle xp line). copied Aran.map to the semirandom folder.

Opened random, typed "aran" into the yellow box, hit semirandomize. Got the below (same as user above my earlier Fubar)

Adding stuff... /
---Error in main, line 1692: index 1 (=-1) out of range
---Error: Program stopped due to an error
---Program done, press RETURN---

Attached is the testdump, there is also a new text doc called neomatrix.txt.

I ran through your tips above and it worked though... thanks, sorry for being so thick.

Edit: Yup everything is working now. Playing a 2 player Aran @ 100% fiddle so I can have time to see the new GANs... some are very intimidating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Bout turn 20 and have seen 6 or 7 so far. One had like 300 units with hoburgs/ants and such... can't remember the name. Went down easier then i thought it would. Playing the Urdheim nation which I'm currently liking.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Not sure if I am just ahead of you, but I can't see an attachment?

Anyhow, just fyi, you don't have to move the map file to the SemiRandom folder. It just needs to be a valid '.map' file in your dominions3\maps folder.

The line 1692 index error is (I suspect) related to AI nation selection settings. You may have already seen this stock answer previously, but just in case you missed it:



If I had to guess, I would say that your problem is likely tied to AI nation selection. So far there are only god files for EA (every nation in the early era except for Tir na n'Og, so check the "AI Gods" tab and be sure that EA is selected and hit the "Show Nation Configuration" button and make sure that Tir na n'Og is disabled or set to human.


The following helped Stryke11 when he was having trouble:
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)

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I must apologize for rushing the release Sunday night.
I had intended to spend a little time on trying to determine the best default settings to cause users the least amount of trouble, but you know the saying about not being able to see the forest for the trees? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I thought that I had tricked Honeybadger into handling the documentation awhile back. I dazzled him with my archaic readme files, but he came to his senses and wandered away. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Attached to this post is a late addition.
VINESET.zip
Includes 3 new province files and an additional name set to support them.

To use:
1. Place the '.GAN' files in your GAN_BIN directory.
2. Place the '.txt' files in your NAME_VAULT directory.
3. Open the LIST_CRATE directory and open NameList.txt
4. Append the following lines:
UNOTMPFOREST_DATA1
UNOTMPFOREST_DATA2
5. Open the GanList.txt file and append the follwing lines:
VINESET1_HOT_M_R_OR_FST_S_N_L_
VINESET2_TMP_M_R_OR_FST_S_N_L_
VINESET3_CLD_M_R_OR_FST_S_N_L_


That's it.

I haven't had the pleasure of playing a map with these forest provinces in them yet, but hopefully the reward vs the fight are worthwhile without being too much.


Enjoy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I just tried your suggestions and it did work. I got the program to randomize a map again by adjusting the AI starts. Thanks.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Great! Thanks for letting me know dmentd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

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.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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)

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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

Thanks Ball!

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Great!
Oh, and your welcome! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


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... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Don't forget to share your creation with us KO! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Im probably the one with the most experience at creating maps that the game seems to hate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
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.

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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

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<font color="red">"</font>


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.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I will attach the corrected gan file to this post.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I clocked in at about 45 minutes, still did not load. CTRL ALT DEL says that DOM3 isn't responding. :\

Gandalf, how do I lower those instances of those specials list? And would it affect my gameplay too much because I really want the indy provinces to be uniqe and extra difficult to take over.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

The Ctrl-Alt-Del thing isnt important. Basically that says that it asked Dom3 to quit and got no response. Dom3 thinks really hard and does not check for things like being asked to quit.

Like I said, to be sure that it can or cant be used I would ask it to do it overnight. I really like the random stuff.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

^ Will do, and Gandalf, how big of a map have you SR'ed and played succesfuly?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I think that I may have found the limit.
I created a test map and the last line that appears to have been read by Dom3 is line number 10696.

Gandalf's MegaMap is 9152 lines long.
A SemiRandomized MegaMap reached 46973 lines!
Note that these figures all include comment lines and empty lines which are likely ignored by Dom3, but no guarantees on that.

More testing will be required before I can determine if stripping comment lines and empty lines will help or not.

I typically play on 175 province maps which only reach to about 4000 to 5000 lines est. So it is probably safe to assume that you can run a 350 province map without issue?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I just tried a map called "radiance 1.0" and it worked well, the load time was about 4 minutes. By the way, what constitutes a "megamap"? Is there a certain range of provinces that goes by to achieve megamap status?

Oh and about this line stripping thing, would it mean that around 30,000 lines must be taken out?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Gandalf had one of his crazy maps available that was 1495 provinces. It was titled "MegaMap". It was the largest random map that I had in my maps folder so I used it as a gauge.

If my findings are accurate, then yes, 36277 would have to be trimmed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I hope that when JK returns from his overseas invasion that he can confirm this map line limit and maybe he will even graciously find that changing a single constant somewhere in the code (in a future patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) will greatly increase the ceiling out of the kindness of his great big programming heart. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/heart.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Dang, well I guess I'll keep myself occupied with some other game till this gets fixed. I don't wanna waste my time with a non SRed 1500 map (Too much time and not enough satisfaction). I'll watch this topic for any updates on the matter, oh and, where is he vacationing at? And I really hope he comes back soon.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

He's in Patala, the underworld of jewelled cities and the origin of all rivers and monsoon rains. In other words, India. I havn't heard from him, but I suspect he's getting wet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

On my Dom2minions pages
http://www.dom2minions.com/~dominion...andomMaps.html
I used this.....

TINY less than 5 each, or less than 85 total provinces. Best done as 45 land and 8 water.

SMALL 5 each, or 85 total provinces. Best done as 75 land and 10 water.

MEDIUM 10 each, or 170 total provinces. Best done as 150 land and 20 water.

LARGE 15 each, or 255 total provinces. Best done as 225 land and 30 water.

HUGE 20 each, or 340 total provinces. Best done as 300 land and 40 water.

EPIC 25 or more each, maybe to the maximum 500 total provinces. Something like 450 land and 50 water.

But now the Dom3 game defines small, medium, large as
SMALL 10 provinces per player
MEDIUM 15 provinces per player
LARGE 20 provinces per player

So I guess I need to redefine. Something like Epic 50/player (1000 province map) and Xtreme 60/player (1250 province map). MegaMap Ive usually used for maximum settings (1500 provinces)

Maybe Ballbarian could add a "stripped" version. Knocking out blank lines, descriptions, helpful remarks such as what the unit is next to the unit number. And I have no idea if it matters but maybe try putting the text in unix format like the .map is instead of the bulkier dos version.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Couple quick things -

When a .map file is semirandomed could you have it change the map title to reflect the _SR

Any chance of getting an option to randomize starting provinces (not provinces with a #start, but any that have an actual nation starting in them)
- Is there a map command for a random unit?
Like
#randomcommander 40 (40 ldr)
#randomunit 40 (40 units)

- so instead of potentially messing up normal starting armies, just adding a new commander and potentially 40 new units (fine to start with 1-40...some would be nasty). Kind of a toned down version of GP's chaos.
- maybe do a @1 commander and have a list of 40-50 cool potentials. Doesn't help the whole max line # problem, but maybe call from another list?

Possibly add a checkbox option for no independents?

Potential for an option to append the GAN name to the end of the gan file when saving? I added _A_Secluded_Temple to mine manually for example. Would make it easier to pick and choose.

I'm having issues with the attached mapfile - no holiness error. Help would be appreciated, I'll edit if I find it first.
-NVM, seems I had a mod compatibility problem instead. Although I've had 2 failed tries without finding a starting province.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

As an addendum to the above I went through (awhile ago) and rated each unit on a 0-5 scale with the idea of having a starting commander. So while some units were big and nasty (titan, or cyclops) just with their starting magic they only rated a 4. Units with large magic or unique special abilities may have rated a 5.

Purely subjective, and fully editable of course.

I'd think having a starting commander from the 4 toughness list would be very cool for a high powered game (or SP) toss in some random units (probably from the 1-3 lists) and a #randommagic 4 and you've got a varied game without going too nuts.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Fiddled with it some more this morning and found that removing lines that contained comments did help.

Removing:
"-" followed by text would save a line.
"######" lines like these would save 2 lines.
" " blank space &amp; blank lines made no difference.
"---" with no text following made no difference.

Even with these items stripped from my test file, I was only able to save 1385 lines. In a normal SR map I might have achieved 13000 removed lines est out of a 46000 line map file. This would certainly help, but would not solve the problem for very large maps.

In the next version I will add an option to minimize file size which will strip blank lines and comments.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

This is already on my todo list for the next version.
Very annoying oversight on my part. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

There is currently no option or command for this.

I tinkered with this idea previously, but can't remember much of the details at the moment. I will look at it again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Off the top of my head, I think I had looked at something along the lines of the @RANDOM additem LISTNAME format.

This shouldn't be too hard to implement in the next version.

Should be fairly easy to add, and a good idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
But be careful! The "_A_" part will likely be seen as an 'ADD' command by semirandom.

When I first saw your post, I did a quick search and found this line:
#mag_priest 0

...which was found in ENDO2_U_A_OR_PLN_EMT_MNT_FST_FRM_S_N_L_.gan

Not sure what effect that has? Maybe makes the unit holy without giving priest levels?

On the failed starting province tries, I suspect that being a 150 province map with 138 placed special provinces is your problem. It can also be an issue if there are water nations enabled during the game creation and no water starts available.

To reduce the chance of special provinces eating up too many provinces, either adjust the fiddle percent down, or (preferably), set "Desired Num Players" to the number of nations that you would like to appear on the map. By doing this, SemiRandom will attempt to place that many neutral starts, and will block those areas from further modification. (By neutral, I mean that they can be used by either human or AI nations.)

Unless it was fixed in a subsequent patch, leaving nation selection to "Random" in Dom3 game creation on a map with no water will risk Dom3 trying to place a water nation and cause the game to generate an error. (It has been quite a while since I tried using the random nation option.)

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Thanks for sharing this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Yup, water nations were my problem with the starts.

And the no holiness thing seems to come from the Sylvania mod I was trying out, thought it was the map file. And yes, I didn't even know we HAD 138 GAN options - I'm assuming many were duplicates. Bit much if you ask me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Question: So, Do I add starting locations when creating the map or when semirandomizing? I'm not sure which options are for which. Does the "semi-randomize" button only work with those options on the front page (fiddle, fiddle xp, fiddle name?)

If I have a 150 province map, with 9 nations and I have a 4 province buffer... will those 4 provinces in the buffer be semirandomized if they fit? Any way to prevent those 4 from being semi-randomized? Hmm, that wouldn't work, would just be a line essentially... how about any way to prevent randomization of any province adjacent to a capital?

So,
9 nations, 50% fiddle, 150 map
~4 adjacent per capital (36)
150 - 36 = 114 available to fiddle?
Possible or not worth the effort?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Right now, there are 162 seperate gan files. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Some of those can appear in multiple flavors multiple times, but most are unique (only one placement ever per map).

Starting location options should be set after you have a generated map (or an existing map). Or in other words, when semirandomizing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

In the following image, everything under the four tabs (General, Climate, Starts &amp; AI Gods) are SemiRandom options that are only applied to the specified map file when using the "Semi Randomize" button.


http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...23673-main.JPG


Start locations and all of their neighbors are seen as off limits by SemiRandom. They will not have specials added to those provinces. This only works if you use SemiRandom's start location placement options.

22222
21112
21C12
21112
22222

In the above example, the Capital and all of the 1's, will be skipped, but the 2's could have special provinces assigned to them.

All the 4 province buffer does is ensure that at least 4 (or more) provinces exist between any 2 capitals. This also means that you could end up with less than the requested number of start positions. Always read the SemiRandom map description (in Dom3) as you are setting up a new game for the open start counts. This will tell you how many land/sea starts were placed. If you exceed these counts when adding nations, you risk placement errors and could even have 2 capitals start adjacent to each other as Dom3 tries to use the empty provinces that border the expected capitals for the extra ones.

If I had a 150 province map, first I would decide on how many provinces per player I wanted. In your example (9 nations), let's say I wanted 16 provinces per player...

Next question would be, do I want any sea nations?
If the map was with no or very little sea, I would set "Max Sea Starts" to 0.

Now I would set "Desired Num Players" to 9 and leave "Enforced Spacing" at 4.

For "Fiddle Prov%" I usually use 100, but 50 would work just fine. Even 100 doesn't mean that every province will get fiddled with, but as the selection of gan files grows, it could in the future. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

If you didn't want to mess with the start options, you can just lower that fiddle 50% and leave "Desired Num Players" at 0, but that could still leave voids where the lands were treacherous and civilization was sparse. You would only have about 8 clear provinces per player for possible starts in that case. A little too tight and risky for my tastes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

This is getting complicated enough that it might be putting off people who want to check out what all the hubbub is about.

If anyone gets a map generated which they feel is a good example, could be make it available for download as a zip please?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

There isn't a that randomizes armies, but you can use my random commander (and starting army) mod. You can find a thread about it here:

Random Commander mod

BTW, Ballbarian - love the SemiRandomizer. Keep up the good work.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

@murteas,
I have been meaning to try mod out. Thanks for sharing the link. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

@Gandalf,
...And I was trying soooo hard to keep it simple. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I generated a quick sample map. Keep in mind that I have not played on this one yet, so let me know if you see any problems. At first glance, I see that it only contains 1 cave province and no "lost" provinces. Unusual... I usually end up with at least 2 or 3 caves and at least 1 lost province in almost every map I have generated until now.

Anyhow, here is a thumb of the map:

http://www.dom3minions.com/~semirand...iSample175.jpg



And here is the zip containing the map files:
SemiSample175_SR.zip



And here is the contents of the Notes.txt file included with the zip:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Just a few tips for those that are new to starting a game with preset start positions:
************************************************** **********
1. Start a new game in dom3, select the SemiSample map.

2. On the participants screen, select the nations that you
would like for this map. SemiSample has 7 neutral start
positions (6 land and 1 sea). These 7 can be human or AI.
Do not add more nations than the supported 7 or else you may
get undesirable results! Also be sure that you do not
select more than 1 sea nation. If you do not want any sea
nations, then simply set 6 (or less) land nations.

3. Set or load human gods.

4. Adjust dom3 game settings.

5. Start game and boom. All set.
</pre><hr />

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Great tool, Ballbarian! I've been using it since it was only the Semirandomizer. The fiddle XP was what I was really waiting for since I was doing it by hand before. But I haven't been able to get the semirandomizer to work the xp toggle. I tried doing by hand again but I keep getting at least one random Indy on the scoreboard with a couple of hundred XP. Any tips?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Yeah, I'm actually regretting putting so much XP in my GANs, I think I have like 900 xp on some of those guys.. I miss heroic abilities http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I've only played on 2 maps so far, but haven't had any luck with fiddle xp working either.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I have checked several runs and I have not seen a single #xp line sneak through. I believe that you are seeing independents that have been placed by Dom3 and not SemiRandom. In my current game, the only non-Dom3 placed independent in the hall of fame is Tharizdun, who has 306 kills. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Hopefully the poor naming of the xp check box hasn't caused confusion? If you want to block #xp lines from being written to the map file by SemiRandom, uncheck "Fiddle XP".

To insure that experience points have been blocked, open the SR'd map file and search for "xp". You should see "--XP blocked" instead of "#xp 100" (for example). Let me know if this is not the case.

(Oh, and thank you for the positive feedback! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif )

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Ok, now do one with 1500 provinces! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Looking for instructions on how to develop GOD files, include them in the GOD_BIN and then most importantly which settings on RanDom affect how god's are chosen.

For example, I set a small 80 map to 50% fiddle, 2 land, 3 seastarting locations, 2 Land AI, 2 Sea AI. The gods somehow broke it, seems it chose 4 versions of the same god (Arco) and then since it was random when it didn't pick arco it CTD'd. Manually chose Arco and it still popped. Had to delete all god files and it worked fine (although it only made 4 starting locations and started MA Ry'leh out on land)

Still brutalizing the AI so buffing them with good scales + an awake pretender with magic/items would be a nice boost. I figure I'll make a few, give em all one major weakness (like Death 3, or drain 3) and boost the heck out of everything else.

Also, Anyone found a way to stimulate AI site searching? Or a way to make an AI conquered province always reveal on kill or "always known"?

Would it break the game to have every site in the world pre-known? I'm figuring it would simplify things a bit, but would boost the AI more than humans since humans (or at least me) make it a priority to site search anyway? Would also reduce Micro quite a bit. Going to try a test game and find/replace all #feature with #knownfeature and see what happens.

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Developing GOD files is very similar to developing GAN files. Let's say you wanted to create a custom god for early era Arcoscephale...

Create a text file and rename it to:
JUTETREA1_0_A_EA_.god

The format is:
&lt;author&gt;&lt;index&gt;_&lt;nation#&gt;_&lt;ad d/replace&gt;_&lt;era&gt;_.god

A little more explanation:
&lt;author&gt;
--&gt; self explanatory. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

&lt;index&gt;
--&gt; Whatever works for you, but I started with '1', then if I created a 2nd god for a nation, I advanced this to 2. You can use whatever system works best for you. It is really just a way to help insure a unique name for the file.

&lt;nation#&gt;
--&gt; A valid nation number. Gandalf has posted a list of nations &amp; numbers here:
http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/nations.txt

&lt;add/replace&gt;
--&gt; '_A_' = add the units included in this god file to this nation's starting province. '_R_' = replace the nations's starting units with those included in this god file.

&lt;era&gt;
--&gt; '_EA_' = early era, '_MA_' = middle era, '_LA_' = late era.

To fill your shiny new file with meaty god-like goodness, you can use the Province Editor to help with some of the coding if you would like to use it to add bodyguards &amp;/or units, magic items, additional magic sites, etc, and then just copy the code from there and paste it into your god file. You will still have to do some manual editing however.

An example Arcoscephale god file follows:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
#god 0 156 -- Arcoscephale CYCLOPS
@RANDOM comname COMMANDER
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 4
#mag_earth 5
#additem "Shield of Gleaming Gold" -- hand slot
#additem "Frost Brand" -- hand slot
#additem "Horror Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Copper Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Birch Boots" -- feet slot
#additem "Girdle of Might" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#dominionstr 0 10
#scale_chaos 0 -2
#scale_lazy 0 -1
-- #scale_cold 0 0
#scale_death 0 -2
-- #scale_unluck 0 0
#scale_unmagic 0 2
-- 4 points left if we were dormant...</pre><hr />

The key line above is the first line.
#god 0 156
#god &lt;nation#&gt; &lt;unit#&gt;

And the dominion &amp; scale lines:
#dominionstr 0 10
#dominionstr &lt;nation#&gt; &lt;dominion strength&gt;

#scale_chaos 0 -2
#scale_&lt;scale&gt; &lt;nation#&gt; &lt;value&gt;

(Note that this looks confusing, but it really isn't that bad once you figure it out. See the dom3 map editing manual and other god files to get a better feel for how it works.)

The lines that start with '--' are just comment lines, and are ignored by dom3.

A more complex god file with a little bit of additional boost follows:

BALL2_1_A_EA_.god
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
#knownfeature 340 -- The Crypt Underneath

#god 1 994 -- Ermor Special: EATER OF THE DEAD
@RANDOM comname COMMANDER
#clearmagic
--#mag_fire 0
--#mag_air 0
--#mag_earth 0
#mag_astral 9
#mag_death 9
--#mag_nature 0
#additem "Bane Venom Charm" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic" -- misc slot
#dominionstr 1 10
#scale_chaos 1 1
#scale_lazy 1 -1
#scale_cold 1 1
#scale_death 1 3
#scale_unluck 1 -2
#scale_unmagic 1 -3
-- Unpredictable prelude of things to come...

#bodyguards 10 185 -- Bane
#units 20 185 -- Bane
#units 20 185 -- Bane
</pre><hr />

Notice how it includes an additional magic site &amp; bodyguards &amp; units... how the eater of the dead will act over time, well, that remains to be seen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Finally, you need to add the god file name to '\SemiRandom\LIST_CRATE\GodList.txt' file so that SR knows that it is there.


On the 2nd part of your question:
1. #start locations are placed for human players. (desired num players - aiplayers)

2. #specstart locations (nation specific) locations are placed randomly for ai nations. Random location is picked, and then a random nation from the enabled ai nations, then finally a random god from the available god files for that nation.




I'm not sure what happened, but here are some gotchas:

1. Make sure you are using 'EA' (early era) for now as there are no god files for other eras yet (afaik!). Also, make sure that all of the nations that you are setting to AI have a god file. (Tir na n'Og is the only EA nation that I have not created a god file for yet.)

2. Make sure that you are setting 'Max Sea Starts' to a value equal to or greater than the number of sea nations you want. This is automatic if you have the 'Lock Player Counts to Nat Cfg' check box checked and are using the Nation Cfg sliders.

Let me know if that doesn't help, and if you are still having problems, attach the SR'd map file and TESTDUMP.txt.





Not to my knowledge.

I wouldn't think that it would break the game, but not to my taste. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I like a little mystery &amp; micro. (Ok, very little micro... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) I would think it would certainly boost the AI somewhat, but the human would benefit as well, so it probably would even out?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

If you ever want to test a god, or always have it used every time, then you can just add those lines to a map. Such as...

copy eye.map to eye2.map

then append

#god 0 156 -- Arcoscephale CYCLOPS
@RANDOM comname COMMANDER
#clearmagic
#mag_fire 4
#mag_earth 5
#additem "Shield of Gleaming Gold" -- hand slot
#additem "Frost Brand" -- hand slot
#additem "Horror Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Copper Plate" -- body slot
#additem "Birch Boots" -- feet slot
#additem "Girdle of Might" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#dominionstr 0 10
#scale_chaos 0 -2
#scale_lazy 0 -1
-- #scale_cold 0 0
#scale_death 0 -2
-- #scale_unluck 0 0
#scale_unmagic 0 2
-- 4 points left if we were dormant...

the only line that isnt going to work is the RANDOM one which could be replaced with
#comname "Bozo"

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

I would like to try this out, but it seems I'm missing some GAN files and it won't run. I was trying it on a cradle map file. Is the readme up to date on the current attached version? Do I need to install something else to get it to work?

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Are you using the RanDom gui? or trying to just use SemiRandom separately? Are you a windows user? XP? Vista?

What kind of error are you getting?

I am on my lunch hour right now, so it may be tonight before I am able to check the forums again.

Thanks for trying it out Morkilus!

Re: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Upd
 

Random note: Is it WAD that when a unique summon is placed in a GAN it is unavailable for summoning? I had assumed that if you summoned a unit not in control by another player they would just *poof* and appear.

Last game ran against the GAN that had an air queen in it. The one who summons spring hawks, Arielle or something? Anyway, I summoned the first 2 fine and could not summon the third and figured my opponent had her. Then a turn or two later ran into her in an Indy site.