Tools and Tutorials

[DrPraetorious]

Attached find the best damned start-province finding perlscript anyone will ever write.

USAGE:
cp map.map new_map.map
perl (scriptname) X R map.map >> new_map.map

It takes as input the minimum number of neighbors each start-province must have (X), and the absolute minimum distance between each pair of start provinces (R).

For the first start province it chooses the eligible province with the fewest eligible start provinces within R.

FOr the second start province it chooses the eligible province farthest from the first start province.

Now it adds provinces in order to minimize the *variance* in the remoteness of all start provinces, and keeps doing so until it can't fit any more.

The "remoteness" of a start province is the sum of all path lengths between that province and other start provinces.

This will tend to spread the start provinces out on the map more or less uniformly. A province with fewer close neighbors will tend to be closer to the close neighbors that it does have.

I'm happy to alter the script somewhat if needed to meet community needs. It requires a real computer (with perl) to run.

It doesn't presently generate sea start sites. I'll add this functionality at some point. Oh, it also suggests places to add specials but it doesn't actually add any.