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

[Endoperez]

Gandalf - those scales are Order 2, Prod 2, Cold 1, Misfortune 3 and Drain 1. I think you meant the opposites.

[Gandalf Parker]

Endoperez said:
Gandalf - those scales are Order 2, Prod 2, Cold 1, Misfortune 3 and Drain 1. I think you meant the opposites.

Ouch! Yes I did, thanks for that. I will edit it

[Xietor]

I loved random I, when i get time i will try the newer version!

[jutetrea]

Ballbarian - could you expand on this line:

-Random start distributions can be set.

Thanks

[Ballbarian]

@Gandalf
Great! That will make a perfect addition.

@jutetrea
Sure.
The parameters are:

numPlayers
--> -1 means use DEFAULT_PROVPERPLAYER or provPerPlayer (0=NO START PLACEMENTS), otherwise how many starts are desired.

provPerPlayer
--> -1 means use DEFAULT_PROVPERPLAYER or numPlayers, otherwise this will determine how many starts can be placed dependent on province count.

minNeighCount
--> -1 means use DEFAULT_MINNEIGHCOUNT, otherwise value entered is the minimum neighbor count before a province can be a valid start.

maxSeaStarts
--> -1 means use default of 3. Use this to limit sea start placements.

enforcedSpace
--> -1 means no space enforcement, otherwise value entered enforced. This is the minimum number of provinces between start positions.

Provinces adjacent to start provinces are set off limits to prevent SemiRandom from assigning any specials to those provinces.


As a side note:
I know that there are algorithms out there that would have worked just as well (likely better) than this one, but I came up with it from scratch. Anyhow, keep in mind that it is possible to set numPlayers to "7" only to find that SemiRandom only placed 6 start positions. I added a fidgeter into the algorithm early on to mix up the results a little from run to run which keeps every run on the same map different, but as a result it will not be optimized.

This is also probably a good time to point out that my entire approach to this project from day one was to keep it moving by letting myself be a little sloppy at times. Kind of one hack stacked on top of another to get the end result that I wanted, and then work another idea into it. Time is a serious issue for me, so this (and many other projects) are what I do for fun.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ballbarian said:
This is also probably a good time to point out that my entire approach to this project from day one was to keep it moving by letting myself be a little sloppy at times. Kind of one hack stacked on top of another to get the end result that I wanted, and then work another idea into it. Time is a serious issue for me, so this (and many other projects) are what I do for fun.

The joys of basic programming. Thats why I stay with it.

[Herode]

Wow, I've juste discovered RanDom. Great job, Ballbarian !!

[Gandalf Parker]

If a god is randomly added, does the description remind the player that the nation MUST be in the game? Otherwise the game blows up.
Altho, an interesting note, apparently you can choose to make that nation AI or play it yourself with that god.

[Ballbarian]

Example description:
"This is a SemiRandomized map. It has 125 provinces: 116 land, 9 sea, 14 land starts, 1 sea starts, 1 open land starts, 0 open sea starts, 14 custom AI gods."

The open land/sea starts tell you how many slots there are for human players and the "14 custom AI gods" lets you know that there will be 14 slots devoted to AI nations. Remember that you do not have to set each individual nation. All you have to set are the human nations and then just hit <n> (the shortcut for <add new player>) until it greys out. In the map example above, you would end up with 14 random nation spots showing default settings.

It would be a nice feature to have the description remind you which nations were reserved for human, but in its current state, SemiRandom only sees nation numbers and not the names.

Right now I am neck deep in a province/Gan editor. Made a huge amount of progress so far this weekend, but I have been seduced by Edi's database and the pace is slowing some.

[Gooles]

If VB lib. didn't work for anyone else, I've found this library to contain and register all the ocx files you'll need.