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

[Gandalf Parker]

Thanks, I needed that on one of my machines. The other loaded and ran it fine but my newer XP got that unregistered library error.

[Ballbarian]

Uploaded 10 new province files to the Gan Library. These were created with the new Province Editor. The tag name on the new set is "ZIGGY".

Thanks for sharing the link Gooles.

[Ballbarian]

Gandalf Parker said:
Great program. Here are my favorite settings.
100,30,50,30,20,10,10,#TRUE#,1600,1200,150,#FALSE# ,50,100,50,255,20,30,110,200,100,200,20,100,40,120 ,200,100,100,15

Growing up in the plains Im abit bugged by dirt-colored plains.

Thanks for sharing this Gandalf. I am currently enjoying a challenging game on a map generated with these settings. It worked out perfectly. Playing EA Rlyeh and the map generated included two large, bodies of water (north & south) with an isthmus separating them. A serious mountain range runs through the center of the strip with many chokepoints and one-neighbor provinces that SemiRandom turned into caves. Perfect for my darkvision hordes. Trying desperately to cross the land to get to Atlantis so that I can lay claim to their body of water. (Even found a nice lake to slosh around in along the way. )

On another subject, I have found and squished a bug in SemiRandom that crept up. It involved start placements for water nations under some circumstances. Also am in the process of adding a check box that will apply changes in the RanDom nation sliders to the SemiRandom settings player counts. This appears to be working great, but I want to fiddle with it for a while longer to look for any problems it could introduce. Seems to really simplify setting up a game. For my current game, I just set all of the early era nations to AI except for Tir na n'Og which I disabled, and Rlyeh which I set to human. Then I just hit SemiRandomize and baboom, off and playing.

I should be able to release an updated version by this coming weekend.

[Valandil]

Hrmmm. Blew up in my face when I tried it with Vista. Can't say I'm surprised.

[Ballbarian]

Has anyone had any problems running this in Vista? Judging by the little I have read online, it appears that it should run fine.

What exactly happened Valandil? What error message did you receive and at what point in the process?

[Ballbarian]

6/24/07 - Replaced v201 with v202: Fixed a major bug in SemiRandom where custom provinces could sometimes be placed on the incorrect terrain and a minor bug involving start placements for water nations. Also, added a check box to the "Starts" tab titled "Lock Player Counts to Nat Cfg". When checked, RanDom will automatically adjust several player count settings in SemiRandom. Very helpful when setting up a quick game. BACKUP YOUR OLD RANDOM/SEMIRANDOM FILES BEFORE INSTALLING THE NEW VERSION OR RISK LOSING YOUR OWN CUSTOM ADDITIONS.


NOTE: If you are installing over an old version of RanDom some files will be overwritten. I recommend backing up your old RanDom settings folder and SemiRandom folder prior to install. As a general rule, I include any GAN/GOD files that I have received in the latest release so if you have added files from the SemiRandom web site, you should not have to add them again. Additionally, some of the existing GAN files may have been updated as well. You WILL need to add any custom files that you had that were not submitted to me prior to this release.

[Valandil]

Ahem* Sorry for the delay.
"Componet TABCTL32.OCX or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid"

I'm guessing htis is a fairly straightforward missing file, probably at my end. The registry part botheres me though.

[Ballbarian]

My guess is that you are right. I did a little research and found a support statement from MS. Basic controls are reported to have shipped with Vista, but TABCTL32 was not one of them. It is however in their "tested" list so it should work once it is downloaded and registered.

If you are comfortable with it, you might try the vb library files installer that Gooles found:
http://www.ascentive.com/support/new/libraryfiles.exe

By using the installer, you shouldn't have to manually register the file. If you decide to try it, let us know if it works for you.

(I assume that Vista is like XP and will allow you to set a system restore point prior to running the installer. That way you can undo the process if anything goes wrong.)

[Endoperez]

If I name a file "Endo2_A_U_.gan", where can it appear? I'd like to do a province that isn't terrain-restricted. IIRC, using something like _FST_MNT_FRM_ means that it much be all of forest, mountain and farm. Is there a way to set it as "forest, mountain or farm"?

Also, if that doesn't work, have you solved the "multiple instances of the same unique province for different terrains" problem yet? I think it would work if I had e.g.

Endo2_A_U_FST.gan
Endo2_A_U_MNT.gan
Endo2_A_U_PLN.gan and
Endo2_A_U_FRM.gan,

but only one instance of an Endo2_X province could be added to any map.

[Ballbarian]

If you name a file Endo2_A_U_.gan, then SemiRandom will see it internally as Endo2_U_A_N_PLN_.gan because it is actually converting the file name tags into a terrain value. Normal (N) and Plain (PLN) have a value of 0 in Dominions maps so they are implicit.

I will look again at a workaround for this tonight and will consider using the numeric portion of the file name. Haven't thought it through yet and I have to get to work.