Utility: RanDom v2.03 - Map gen & Semirandomizer... Updated

[Ballbarian]

Thanks Endo!

This will be a hurried post because I need to be leaving!

@Panpiper:
I suspect that Latus may have many #nostart's set in the map (may be included in the terrain mask) or something that for some reason SemiRandom is thinking that it can't mess with. I don't have time to look right now, but I will check it tonight.

Thank you very much for sharing your province files!

[Panpiper]

Ballbarian said:
@Panpiper:
I suspect that Latus may have many #nostart's set in the map (may be included in the terrain mask) or something that for some reason SemiRandom is thinking that it can't mess with. I don't have time to look right now, but I will check it tonight.

Thank you very much for sharing your province files!

Technically they were 'your' province files Ballbarian, and those who contributed. I just used your program to put them into the Faerun map. They probably would have been better placed by doing it by hand, but I am too lazy for such an andevour and not enough of a Faerun scholar.

By the way, I used the same original Faerun file both the first time and this subsequent time to do a test run. The first time through got the attached map with 122 improved provinces. The second time through it got only four, essentially the same problem as the Latus map. So I doubt the problem is encoded nostarts. On the other hand, it may be two problems, nostarts on the the Latus map and some other issue working with the Faerun map.

[Gandalf Parker]

On the subject of Documentation...
As I often said (and was finally proven out with the manual for the 3rd version of Dominions) waiting for the programmer to document is not the best idea. By the time a programmer (or mapper, or modder, scripter, etc) gets their love-child to work they tend to be beyond writing for a brand-new user. They dont think like a newbie and dont come up with newbie questions. And any answers tend to not be newbie answers. They are too deep into the subject. And we dont really WANT them to back out of that deep spot since they are hopefully thinking on the next version. (a very general stereotype of course and not true of every programmer)

The BEST documentation IMHO is when a new user, with abit of writing skill, takes good notes while they are learning the program. Write down the questions that came up and the answers you got. Translate the programmers short answers into new-user full english. Maybe even add charts and screenshots. Etc, etc, etc. Not only is it great for the community but its a nice way to thank a developer by offering them "just a quick little thing I did that you can use for documentation". Most of them will appreciate it.

[Ballbarian]

Technically they were 'your' province files Ballbarian, and those who contributed. I just used your program to put them into the Faerun map.

Ah! Sorry for my confusion. I was running in high gear today and did more skimming than reading and completely misunderstood what you were trying to say. Work was insane today.

I downloaded the Faerunmod.map map that was attached to your post and removed all of the provinces from the map file that had been placed by SemiRandom ver095, then ran it through ver107 a few minutes ago and it modified 349 provinces with 'Fiddle Prov%' set to 100.

It could be that the map file you were using was already modified and SemiRandom just could not find very many new locations to populate.

On the other hand, it may be two problems, nostarts on the the Latus map and some other issue working with the Faerun map.

Very prophetic Panpiper!

The Latus map has 64 #specstart & 25 #land provinces. SemiRandom sees these provinces and all of their neighbors as being off limits for modification. Many of those provinces have 6+ neighbors with 7 and 8 neighbors not being uncommon. This quickly blocks 100's of provinces from modification. But it doesn't stop there. There are many provinces marked with terrain flags like FIRE-SITE, ASTRAL-SITE, EARTH-SITE, etc, and many of these are showing up as having no matching GAN file that is not unique and that has not already been placed. Again, this adds up to many provinces. (You can see when a province is skipped because of no matching GAN file by checking the 'Show Need' box on the 'General' settings tab.

Also note that when I ran a test run on Latus, SemiRandom v107 placed 38 provinces. Since you were only getting 3 or 4, I suspect that you have 'Desired Num Players' value on the 'Starts' tab set to some value other than zero. Every start location that SemiRandom places is going to mark that province and all of it's neighbors as off limits as well, further reducing the available clear locations.

Out of curiosity, I removed all of Latus's #specstart commands and ran it through SemiRandom which yielded 131 provinces modified. There were around 100 provinces with no matching GAN file and around 200 or more that were excluded because of the #land provinces and their neighbors. (Ideally, SemiRandom should only ignore the #land and not it's neighbors, but the initial idea was not to clutter areas around special provinces that were placed by map designers with a theme in mind.)

In summary:
When a map designer has used commands that set start locations and special provinces with custom content, SemiRandom will preserve them and all of their neighboring provinces.

If custom starts already exist in a map, be sure to set 'Desired Num Players' to zero.

If you happen to use the 'Show Need' option, and see an entry in the map file like:
----------------------------------------------------------
-- No match exists for province #71, terrain value:
-- Need: ASTRAL-SITE NORMAL COAST
----------------------------------------------------------

...then design a GAN file for it (the Province Editor tool can help with this) and submit it to this thread or email it to me and we will add it to the library.

Thank you for pointing out the issues you were having as I will bet there were other folks having similar troubles and hopefully some of this might help in understanding how this creature works.

[Ballbarian]

Gandalf,
That was such an absolutely fantastic post that it deserves to be repeated with a full quote.

On the subject of Documentation...
As I often said (and was finally proven out with the manual for the 3rd version of Dominions) waiting for the programmer to document is not the best idea. By the time a programmer (or mapper, or modder, scripter, etc) gets their love-child to work they tend to be beyond writing for a brand-new user. They dont think like a newbie and dont come up with newbie questions. And any answers tend to not be newbie answers. They are too deep into the subject. And we dont really WANT them to back out of that deep spot since they are hopefully thinking on the next version. (a very general stereotype of course and not true of every programmer)

The BEST documentation IMHO is when a new user, with abit of writing skill, takes good notes while they are learning the program. Write down the questions that came up and the answers you got. Translate the programmers short answers into new-user full english. Maybe even add charts and screenshots. Etc, etc, etc. Not only is it great for the community but its a nice way to thank a developer by offering them "just a quick little thing I did that you can use for documentation". Most of them will appreciate it.

I know that I would appreciate someone taking something like that upon themselves.

Not that I am begging or anything.

(Please, oh please won't somebody save me!!!)

...uh...I mean, well, yeah.

[Panpiper]

Ballbarian said:
I know that I would appreciate someone taking something like that upon themselves.

Not that I am begging or anything.

(Please, oh please won't somebody save me!!!)

Heh, not just save you, but save the rest of us as well. (Ok, maybe just me.)

I fear I remain utterly clueless. I have tried exactly the same as yourself, removing all changes made by the program then running it again.

"I suspect that you have 'Desired Num Players' value on the 'Starts' tab..."

Oh boy. Er... There's a tab? When I run SemiRandom I get a DOS sceen that requests that I input a filename. If I try to run the RanDom program, I get an error message saying it can't find SemiRandom.cfg even though it's sitting right where the extraction put it, in the SemiRandom folder right above the RanDom program. The documentation (which is for version 0.80 by the way) describes the first 8 or 9 entries in the .cfg file, but the rest are undefined, so I have no way of knowing what to hack. The SemiRandom.cfg file looks like this:

F:\Program Files (x86)\dominions3\SemiRandom
100
1
0
25
25
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
7
6
0
2
EA
-1
4
0
4
255 205 000 225
GANPLAINS

Or maybe I should just ask you to post that modified Faerun file? ;-)

[Ballbarian]

I will attach the modified Faerun file to this post.

For what it is worth, the following is from the SemiRandom 107 code and may give you a fair idea of what the additional values are associated with:
Code:

---

  line input #1 path$

  line input #1 fiddleXP  REM <=0 means block #xp lines to keep Hall of Fame clear of Independents. 1 to allow.

  line input #1 fiddlePercent

  line input #1 fiddleName

  line input #1 showNeed

  line input #1 hotPercent

  line input #1 colPercent

  line input #1 cldband1   REM -1 means realworld climate bands not defined

  line input #1 tmpband1   REM otherwise the values are prov# ranges.

  line input #1 hotband

  line input #1 tmpband2

  line input #1 cldband2

  line input #1 numPlayers    REM -1 means use DEFAULT_PROVPERPLAYER or provPerPlayer (0=NO START PLACEMENTS)

  line input #1 aiLandPlayers REM 0=NO AI LAND PLAYER PLACEMENTS

  line input #1 aiSeaPlayers  REM 0=NO AI SEA PLAYER PLACEMENTS

  line input #1 aiDifficulty  REM 1 to 5 (2=standard)

  line input #1 selectedEra$  REM values= EA, MA, LA

  line input #1 provPerPlayer REM -1 means use DEFAULT_PROVPERPLAYER or numPlayers

  line input #1 minNeighCount REM -1 means use DEFAULT_MINNEIGHCOUNT

  line input #1 maxSeaStarts  REM -1 means use default of 3.

  line input #1 enforcedSpace REM -1 means no space enforcement, otherwise value entered enforced.

  line input #1 mapTextColor$  REM -1 means don't set, otherwise = Red Green Blue Alpha (000-255)

  line input #1 map$

---

I will try figure out what is going on with your error message (with RanDom) after a good nights sleep!