[request for help] unique provinces ideas

[Jack_Trowell]

For the next version of my map randomizer (see http://dominions.realites.org), I will have some province be assigned preset provinces, some uniques, choosend randomly in a list, with different terrain types as requirement.

The problem is that in order for that to work, I need a base list of such provinces and their required terrain types, and I lack the time to both do the programming and parse the units/sites lists to create those provinces.

So I ask the community for provinces ideas that I will use in my scripts.

Exemples (thanks Gandalf for the first 3 !) :

-------
Landname : BlackWood Forest (provinces with landnames are uniques and won't be used more that once)
required terrains : forest
Commanders :
"Centaur Hierophant" with "Black Bow" [x5]
-------
Landname : Forest of Shafts
required terrains : forest
Commanders :
"Centaur Hierophant" with "Bow of war" [x6]
-------
Landname : HarpaKazi
required terrains : forest
Commanders :
"Black Harpy" with "Medallion of Vengeance" [x8]
-------
Landname : Castle Morco
required terrains : none
Commanders :
"Commander" ("Duke Morco") with randomequip 4
and "tower guards" bodyguards [x5]
Fort in province (unspecified, will depend on terrain type)
-------
Landname : Sea of Storms
required terrains : deep, sea
Commanders :
<some underwater commander with bodyguards and units>
<some underwater air or water site>
poptype <some water poptype>
population 10000
-------

As you can see with the last exemple, I can set *any* site, commander or other feature to the province, I just lack the time to explore the units and sites lists to choose what's appropriate that's why I need your help

Note that a province can have multiple requirements (such as a witch cursed province that would need both forest and swamp)

I'm *not* limited to the exemples I gave : once again, my scripts can handle *any* map or commander command, provided I have the correct names/numbers, so feel free to make any suggestion, even extreme ones, such as a province with the "Nexus" as a known feature, guarded with several archmages and a few dragons (at least, you know that what you fight for), and I can also randomize part of the province if needed.

[Gandalf Parker]

If anyone is really good at organizing, there are many projects which could benefit from some databasing. If someone would go thru the monsters one at a time and create tags for everything they can think of. Such as
pretender?
monster?
summons?
commander?
troop?
solo?
maybe even make a judgement on better bodyguard than it is commander or troop?

Also:
avian? mammal? aquatic?
intelligent? mindless? undead?
dragon? were-creature? blob/slime? magical ball?

and of course:
forest? mountain? waste? swamp? farmland?

My thinking is that some projects could greatly benefit from such a list. This project would benefit from being able to get ideas by asking for all were's, or all avians, or all slimes, just to try and generate a special province.

And my randomizers would benefit wonderfully if I could randomize aqutics to the water, and mountain creatures to the mountains.

[Agrajag]

I think that when Edi will finish and publish his DB it will be much easier to come up with cool indepts since you wouldn't have to work from memory.

Especially my lame memory

Oh, and do you want troops as well, or just commanders? Because it could get pretty wierd if your Duke Morco ended up commanding some X tribe warriors :X

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes, I already provide routines for totally random placements of commander, bodyguard, and troops. It can be interesting to see a slinger with dragon bodyguards and monolith troops.. but obviously something that is random and ALSO abit more logical would be gratefully accepted by many players.

[Jack_Trowell]

Agrajag said:
I think that when Edi will finish and publish his DB it will be much easier to come up with cool indepts since you wouldn't have to work from memory.

Yes, once the DB is released, I plan to import it in a mysql database, add my own additionnal informations, and start using it like mad. ^_^

Especially my lame memory

Oh, and do you want troops as well, or just commanders? Because it could get pretty wierd if your Duke Morco ended up commanding some X tribe warriors :X

I can take any suggestion. Yes currently morco has no specific units, and has to do with the local poptype, but I can easily set the poptype (http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/Dom3_Poptypes.txt , maybe a random poptype beetween 48 an 56 ?)

I can set *anything* that is allowed by map commands, and even add a little random touch if needed.

I can set the population, the poptype, have only the chosen units in the province or keep the normal poptype units, I can put any site or building, any set of commanders/bodyguards/units/items, all I need is for some ideas, as I don't have currently enough time to both program and do the needed research for units,sites,... names or IDs.

I could make a lengendary province, for exemple "Nexus", guarded by several archmages and dragons, with the unique magic site of the same name, maybe a swamp waste "burial of the ancient kings", guarded by C'tis undeads, mummies, and a mighty saurolich, and with the site that allow a death mage to summon mummies, maybe a province with one of the sites with a magic bonus, guarded by some powerful titans or demons, ...

The only thing : those provinces, as they are harder to conquer, should all give the player some bonus (in the base system, all such provinces will have the "manysites" flag, but a specific magic site thematically sound, and more or less powerful depending on the defense would make for a great reward)

[Jack_Trowell]

I just had an idea : we cannot add province descriptions that could have made unique province more flavorful, buth I could give each unique province a description and add it to the map description.

That way when you're about to start the game, you would have the list of uniques provinces and their background/description/backstory.

What do you think ?

[Gandalf Parker]

The descripts would need to be pretty short but Ive seen other maps do that without it being too bad. On the other hand, should a randomly improved map tell me ahead of time that "the wondrous wizards academy" is somewhere on the map?

[Jack_Trowell]

Small update to the map randomizer:

- Fixed a bug in "#units" command in ouput map code (missing closing quote)
- Mine of superior iron in "Duncorum" preset province changed to "knownfeature"
- Succubus in preset province "Mountains of Magic" could not equip the Jade Armor (no body slot) => armor switched with boots of quickness of the Wraith Lord in same province

[Ragnarok-X]

Can you write a short summary of what your tools do ?

I see you can submit one of your own maps into the randomizer and i think what it will do is randomly add in "unique" indi's and sites, is that right ?

[Jack_Trowell]

Yes exactly, you go to http://dominions.realites.org/map_randomizer/ , upload your map file, change the options if needed, and submit.
The script will then output a cleaned and modified map file, with some provinces randomly modified, eitheir by adding random commanders and units, with the occasionnal lab or fort, or by using a predefined province from the list available.

If you uncheck all options, the script will only check the map file syntax and output a cleaned version, adding comments about provinces terrains types and neighbours but no other change, so this can also be usefull to check a freshly edited map file for syntax errors.

The other tool is a map editor, it is functionnal and almost complete (except for some specific settings such as victory points), but currently only works with a set of predefined maps (the program doesn't allows yet to upload your own map files), and there isn't currently much info on units/sites except for their names (this project was started before Edi made his wonderful DB available).

I had stopped working on both projects a long time ago after a hard drive failure, but I have since installed a new server and restored both applications from my backups.

With the new dom3 patch my motivation have somewhat came back and I might start working again, depending on my free time.

Meanwhile, if you have provinces ideas for the randomizer (see http://dominions.realites.org/map_ra...cial_provinces for current list), of if you want a specific map to be added to the editor I am open to suggestions.