make us some maps
 

I mean YOU!
You make us some maps. Yeah, you. The one reading this.

get map images from
A) the Dom3 map generator
B) the old Dom2 DomMap generator
C) other games
D) other map generators
E) satellite images
F) fantasy books
G) draw one
H) grab some that get offered once in awhile at Dom2Minions.com or Dom3Minions.com then add personal touches to it.

use the map editor in Dom3 to do some of the work, and then edit the .map file for special changes. Its plain text and can be opened in any word processor such as NotePad.

Some uses for the special map commands are...
A) create planned provinces where the magic sites, indept race, structures, etc are all defined and logical
B) create commanders with units and equipment then position them
C) create AIs with starting prov, castle type, god, units, researched spells, etc
D) any of the above but done by a program which does it on random rolls
E) manually create "yourself" as an AI nation with your favorite god and items and spells. Then play against "yourself". This could be saved as a seperate file which you can then add to any map you feel like playing against yourself on (if it really kicks tail then upload it so we can use it also)

join us in the MAPS/MODS subforum if this was interesting to you

Re: make us some maps
 

Hey! Just let me get the Dom3DB halfway finished first! Then you'll get a remake of the Faerun map for Dom3, though I'll need to do separate map files for the different eras.

Edi

Re: make us some maps
 

I rather like that this game has the image and the text seperate. It makes it easy to offer one really extensive image (and long download) with multiple (small dowload) text files that give you multiple options to choose from on the menu. So the "Eye" image file can be reused to show up in the menu as
Eye
Black Eye
Eye and AIs
Poke in the Eye
Eye Barbarian Age
etc etc etc

Re: make us some maps
 

Gandalf, dear friend!; I'm already working on two whole AGES, not to mention a huge Lovecraft-mod, so that's atleast 7 or 8 nations on top of that, PLUS I'm doing artwork for Uh-nu-buh...so, yeah ok I'll make you some maps (as soon as I figure out the map-editor) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: make us some maps
 

You should list all the .map edit commands which are currently broken within your topic. This will save these individuals several hours of editing and testing and editing and testing... then only to discover all the time was wasted because the .map command doesn't work as expected.
Here's a few of the broken commands which will hopefully be fixed in an upcoming patch:
1) #startspell <player> "spellname"
BROKEN: only works for the first turn making it useless

2) #fort "<fort number>"
BROKEN: fort specified is different than what appears... and sometimes no fort will appear.

3) Late Age nation 56 says Jotunheim when its actually Jomon

4) #randomequip 3 and 4 says it will provide the commander with MANY items yet usually only one or two items are given.

Re: make us some maps
 

Actually, #fort <nbr> does work as advertised, but I'm not sure if the fort numbers in the manual are correct. I have them listed correctly in the DB and I can post some kind of a list of them from home tomorrow (I'm at work now).

Edi

Re: make us some maps
 

I've done the skeleton for a map (the topology so that you can have 16 starting nations, each of which has 3 possible neighbours) but it takes a lot of time putting art on top of it...

Re: make us some maps
 

http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/forts.txt
altho I probably should pull the list from the game again in case the last couple of patches added any.

Re: make us some maps
 

Incidentally, I believe that one of those dark fortresses is *under water* and the other is for surface provinces.

I'm not sure what difference this makes - if any.

I'm working on a random special province generator - it's a bit less extreme than the one in Gandalf's er... uniquely challenging maps. These are designed to add a little spice to multiplayer, so they are only placed at strategic locations - actually, they are placed at provinces that are as close to equidistant from all existing start locations as is possible (possible given that I'm lazy and my heuristic doesn't work that well.) If you know perl you can easily change how my map-funker works, however.

Anyway, I need two things, provinces, and squads to put in provinces. Squads (which can actually be any number of units strung together) can be reused as guardians in multiple special province placements.

Special provinces have both names and numbers.

Here's an example of how this all works out. I generally use #s instead of names so that I don't have to escape quotes (\") but it might be harder to read, maybe I should shift over:

-- special province 16, fortress of a barbarian khan.
$mask[16] = 0;
$descript[16] = "#poptype 26\n#fort 2\n#knownfeature 562\n#knownfeature 483\n#knownfeature 492\n#knownfeature 500\n";
@{$squads[16]} = ("major khan","horse chief","horse chief","ancestor shamans");

$def_squad{"major khan"} = "#leader 930\n#mag_priest 4\n#randomequip 4\n#bodyguards 10 1577\n#units 20 939\n#units 20 939\n#units 30 938\n#units 30 938\n";
$def_squad{"horse chief"}= "#leader 136\#randomequip 2\n#bodyguards 10 137\n#units 40 137\n";
$def_squad{"ancestor shamans") = "#leader 1709\n#randomequip 4\n#bodyguards 10 139\n#randomequip 2\n#leader 1710\n#randomequip 2\n#bodyguards 10 139\n#leader 1711\n#bodyguards 10 139\n");

If, when placing special provinces, it rolls 16, if the mask meets requirements (there are none, so that's easy) it'll put a simple hillfort, a dragon mountain, a wolven gate, a tundra, a haunted torture chamber and a a khan, two horse tribe chiefs and three shamans (with significant armies each) into the province.

If anyone wants to contribute more such useful snippets, it'd be quite coo. I can reformat them for you if you find all the \n stuff difficult to deal with - just separate each entry with an extra line of blank space or something.

Re: make us some maps
 

This might be a 'notepad' issue again, but #fort "<nbr>" gives unpredictable results on the many maps I've tested.
I did find a complicated workaround to get the correct fort to appear using notepad.
#fort "<fort_number>" = is unpredictable and should not be used
however
IF the map editor uses the complicated workaround below the correct fort can appear using notepad:
#owner <fort_number>#fort "<any_number>" = WORKS !!

Using the command above within notepad will allow the correct fort to appear and proves the command is broken at least when using notepad. Since most game owners are using Windows and the map edit PDF says a text editor can be used... it's broken. Based on what I discovered it's not working as advertised.

Re: make us some maps
 

NM I figured it out.

Re: make us some maps
 

I am fooling around with Photoshop and the maps. I can't seem to grasp the location of one piece of data. If I want to tweak the location on the map of a province, where is the province location ( like a set of pixel coordinates) stored.

Stated differently.. If I create a .rgb and a .map file where is the link between the 2 stored?

Re: make us some maps
 

It's stored in the .map file... when you open your image within the map editor, make your adjustments and then save the map the .map file will be created linking the two files.
Do not make changes within the .map file such as setting allies and then use the map editor to change province settings, otherwise once you save the map within the editor all the information you typed into the .map file will be lost.... this happened to me.

Re: make us some maps
 

DrPraetorious ....
your special barbarian province 16 looks great except one thing which you may or may not know. You have 3 #knownfeatures listed yet when the map is created if 2 random magic sites are placed on the province then one of your #knownfeatures will not appear. If you definitely want all three of those magic sites to appear then add the #killfeatures before your #knownfeature commands.

Re: make us some maps
 

I need to dig up my snippets (I called them zones I think).

Lets see...
There was one full of black hawks all carrying exploding amulets

and the Forest of Black Wood which had that site that allows recruiting centaurs, and a dozen centaurs all armed with Black Bow

Another that had centaurs armed with Bow of War

The Lost Village that had a ***** Queen, and skinshifter bodyguards, and lots of wolves
And another Lost Village of all vampires

Crystal Tower with caelum troops but I forget the layout of it

Gryphon Vale (gryphons without riders)

Is anyone putting the neighbors into an array? That would allow for recognition of more than just terrain.
Island: land with all water neighbors
Lake: water with all land neighbors
Volcano: mountain with no mountains around it
Penninsulas, valleys, etc
Also Cave: kindof anyway,land with only one land neighbor

Gandalf Parker

Re: make us some maps
 

NTJedi - yes, you are 100% correct.

Since #killfeatures is part of all my special provinces, it spits it out by default, doesn't need to be added to each special.

Gandalf - yeah, remember you requested island and lake functionality when I posted version 0.1 of the script? It does indeed keep track of neighbors, and spits out comments re: what's a lake and what's an island. Now that you bring it up, it would be much more logical to put specials on lakes (especially) and islands than just scattered around at unused start locations.

In addition to specifying a mask for every eligible special province, I can also specify something about the neighbors - two extra lines of code, easy. That way you could have special provinces that can only be islands etc. I'll get on that.

I wasn't planning on posting a new version of my map-funker until paradox bringer can generate wrap-around maps that he's willing to let me have http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

At that point, I can start nagging him about how I want my script to add little symbols to his map when it places start locations, special provinces, etc.

Re: make us some maps
 

@DrPraetorious : I'm currently writing a perl library that will make those kind of script easier.

I should finish tonight the parsing function (from *any .map file, it extract all the informations into a perl structure (it woouldn't be hard to make a true perl object), including the list of terrains types (and similar settings such as 'manysites') of each province.

Simple functions will then be able to edit the provinces and map settings, and another function (that I plan to have done by this week-end) will then output the edited .map file.

When the first version is done (parsing and output functions done + random commanders function (with or without bodyguards and/or units) + simple exemple script) I will post it on the mod forum.

Re: make us some maps
 

That's a notepad issue, not a problem with the game. Notepad for some reason uses a different form of endline command than standard. It's some kind of proprietary Microsoft thing. Using any other text editor will give you no problems at all. With all the alternatives out there, why anyone would want to use that piece of crap anyway is quite beyond me.

Personally I use Crimson Editor. It's a completely free and far more powerful tool than Notepad and doesn't have any issues with the endlines. Other good choices are Textpad (which you can run off a USB stick withoyt ever needing to install it) and any of a dozen others.

Edi

Re: make us some maps
 

About #21 "Jerellen Wall" : isn'it "Jervallian" wall rather ?
I've found such a site, but it didn't give me any fortress - bug ?
As the site didn't give anything *at all* indeed, it should be a bug !

Re: make us some maps
 

The Jervallan Wall gives me a fortress when I find it.

Did you already build a fortress in the province? It won't replace an existing fort.