[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

Care to elaborate on this exact subject ?

You sure? Its kindof jumping right to the very end of the subject. Thats an extreme example of trying to use everything at once.

You can add to a shortcut all of the switches for the way you like random maps to be run, amount of each terrain, color of land, colors of borders, etc. And you can put all the switches for games. Hall of Fame size, Rename on, mods, and naming the game. But it tends to hit the 255 character limit if you try to do everything on one. So I split it to two and use a scripted program to run both. I make my shortcut to that script (on WIndows its a batch file, on Linux its a shell script).

So, on WinXP I create a batch file for the various things I want to do, then create a shortcut to that.
Such as....

D:
cd \progra~1\dominions3

:---- make the map------------------------------

dom3 -Td --makemap QuickGame --mapaa --mapsize 200 100 --mapprov 300 --seapart 10 --mountpart 50 --mapgcol 50 100 50 250 --mapscol 20 50 80 255 --mapbcol 100 130 100 229 --mapsbcol 21 194 111 104 --mapnoise 50 --borderwidth 1 ">log.txt

:---- now modify it ----------------------------

FOR /L %%X IN (1,1,300) DO @(
  ECHO #setland %%X >>maps\QuickGame.map
  ECHO #poptype 90 >>maps\QuickGame.map
)

ECHO #computerplayer 23 4   >>maps\QuickGame.map
ECHO #computerplayer 24 4   >>maps\QuickGame.map

type AI-alliances.txt  >>maps\QuickGame.map

:---now create a game with that map--------

dom3 --mapfile QuickGame.map -mwafc --statfile --scoredump --preexec pre.bat --postexec post.bat  --indepstr 9 --hofsize 15 --magicsites 75 --renaming --era 1 --enablemod stub.dm --enablemod SingleAgeComplete.dm --enablemod heroes1_8.dm --enablemod "Epic Heroes Mod 1.5.dm" --enablemod mytheology3.dm --enablemod sitemod.dm --enablemod SRAI_1.dm

This one modifies the map to be No-Indy, adds 2 special AIs, and sets up interesting alliances between various nations if I include them as AIs in the game.

The game line enables mods because done that way turns them on for that game and I dont have to turn them off again. They are automatically on for that game, and off when Im done.

In that middle section you can also do:
SemiRandom: of course which can scatter interesting provinces thru the map
Chaoticized: scatters random armies with equipment
Mazed: a program to randomly remove neighbor connections

You can also run programs which modify mods in order to surprise you.

You can also specify ALL the settings and start the game but that gets trickier. With some more trickery you can also run the game thru 20 or 50 or 100 turns to give the AI a head start.