- Thread starter Moonsinger
- Start date
Chieftess said:
Thanks, Chieftess!
Yes, it might not work with Machintosh.
Would it be possible to have an option to have mapfinder save all maps over a certain limit no matter if it fits the other preferences..?
Reason I ask is after I got back to machine today, I saw the highest domination limit had been 4583(!) but ofcourse it had not fitted the river and cow I was looking for.. but I would sure have liked to have a look at that map no matter what
Reason I ask is after I got back to machine today, I saw the highest domination limit had been 4583(!) but ofcourse it had not fitted the river and cow I was looking for.. but I would sure have liked to have a look at that map no matter what
Gyathaar said:Would it be possible to have an option to have mapfinder save all maps over a certain limit no matter if it fits the other preferences..?
Reason I ask is after I got back to machine today, I saw the highest domination limit had been 4583(!) but ofcourse it had not fitted the river and cow I was looking for.. but I would sure have liked to have a look at that map no matter what
Sure! I will have an option for you to specify another directory and use it as a dumping ground for all the maps that have been generated (warning: unless you have a big enough hard drive, 5000 save games in one day could be a lot). However, since there is a bug with screen shot function (not sure if it is a bug within my program or within the Window API or whatever) to limit it to about 128 shots. Think of it as a camera with enough film for 128 shots. Therefore, I won't have it taking screenshot of those rejected games.
I meant more like under the extra tab, you could have an option to specify to always save games over a specified limit.. I would prolly set that to 4500 for 60% huge archepelagio.. most saves would be of no interest
Thou the ability to dump them into a different dir would be nice too
Thou the ability to dump them into a different dir would be nice too
Gyathaar said:I meant more like under the extra tab, you could have an option to specify to always save games over a specified limit.. I would prolly set that to 4500 for 60% huge archepelagio.. most saves would be of no interest
That's cool!
I think this would be a very nice option to have. I also will add another option to save all map with a minimum of 3 or more cows no matter what. Even with a low domination limit, three or more cows at the starting position may be fun to play.
That's pretty much what I've been doing. I'm not (too) worried about domination limit. I've just been searching for maps with 2 cows and looking especially at the ones with 3 cows or 2 cows+1 wheat. Has anyone noticed any correlation between civ and how good the start location is? I seemed to be getting much more 2 cow starts with the Babylonians than I am with the Sumerians.Moonsinger said:That's cool!
Dianthus said:
I have noticed a correlation of good starting location with the number of AI civs on the map. For example, after about 5000 iterations searching for map with domination limit of 4400 with 2 cows, fresh water, and 15 AIs -> none was found. Once I decrease the number of the AI players down to 8, I found about 25 maps in about every 5000 iterations.
I'm wondering if it might be due to "Culturally linked start location". Maybe Bablyon's cultural location just happens to be good. I've tried with this both on and off with Sumeria and it doesn't seem to make much difference, though this is just subjective, no numbers to back up this gut feeling.
An even better extension would be ability to specify a logical expression for what to look for.. but that might be more work.. something like:
(dom > 4500) OR (cow > 2) OR (dom > 4400 AND water > 1 AND cow > 0 )
(dom > 4500) OR (cow > 2) OR (dom > 4400 AND water > 1 AND cow > 0 )
Dianthus said:
If you really want to get to the bottom of your gut feeling, you can just simply have MapFinder to generate 100 of maps then write a little utility program to automatically loop through and evaluate the Babylonian starting location in comparing to other civs.
Now, you have inspired me to add another option to "Enable/disable screen shot" function, just in case.
Gyathaar said:
I have already thought of that years ago, but I was too lazy to implement a logic interpreter. If I take that route, I must also support complex logic such as:
((dom > 4500) or (cow > 2)) or (cow > 5) or (((....) and (...)) or (...)))
I think you get the idea....that's way too much programming for me.
Of course, with enough inspiration, I probably will take that route.
Moonsinger said:I have already thought of that years ago, but I was too lazy to implement a logic interpreter. If I take that route, I must also support complex logic such as:
((dom > 4500) or (cow > 2)) or (cow > 5) or (((....) and (...)) or (...)))
I think you get the idea....that's way too much programming for me.
actually.. no matter how complex you write this, it is always possible to reduce the query into a line of :
(a and b and ...) or (c and d) or (e ) or (f and g and i) or ( ... ) ....
as an example:
(a or ((b or c) and d)) and (e or (not f)) is the same as:
(e and a ) or (g and a) or (e and b and d) or (e and c and d) or (g and b and d) or (g and c and d)
where g = (not f)
how do you make a not? well.. just invert the comparison.. dom > 4000 would become dom <= 4000.
but you really dont need this complex stuff for mapfinder I guess... any change would be an improvement... how about this:
you allow up to 2 (or perhaps 3 or 4 extra queries).. they each take the form of pulldown boxes with values..
dom > a (and) dom < b (and) water > c (and) food > d (and) lux > e
for food and lux you have 'food' and 'lux' as generic values, but pulldown lists with the individual food sources and luxes..
with this I would have my normal search running like now, but could set the first extra query list to dom > 4500 (leave b at 6000, c at -1 and d at -1)
2nd line I would select cow as food source and d to 2 (and leave the rest at default value..
and could have a 3rd line where I set e to 0 so I also get all maps with luxes in the starting position (or could set it to ivory if i wanted to be able to build SoZ)
MOTH
Emperor
One small thing: Can a Wine on Grass be counted as a bonus food?
One big thing:
I've been wondering if there is a way to generalize some fo the food bonuses. A cow on grass is not the same as a cow on plains. Similiarly, a Wheat has much different value if on grass, plains, or flood plains depending on what other sheild production is going on. Personally, I would be as happy with a grass-cow as I would with a plains-wheat.
I was thinking an alternate evaluation including a combo of Cracker's raw despot values and improved despot values. Refer to Cracker's page http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/opening_plays.htm and go down a page or 2 to see his table of values.
If I could specify that I want to keep any saves that have X number of tiles that have at least value Y then we could get a lot more starts to look at.
One note on the screen-shot bug: On my ancient 400Mhz machine with 96MB memory it comes up with the error after saving 65 screen shots.
One big thing:
I've been wondering if there is a way to generalize some fo the food bonuses. A cow on grass is not the same as a cow on plains. Similiarly, a Wheat has much different value if on grass, plains, or flood plains depending on what other sheild production is going on. Personally, I would be as happy with a grass-cow as I would with a plains-wheat.
I was thinking an alternate evaluation including a combo of Cracker's raw despot values and improved despot values. Refer to Cracker's page http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/opening_plays.htm and go down a page or 2 to see his table of values.
If I could specify that I want to keep any saves that have X number of tiles that have at least value Y then we could get a lot more starts to look at.
One note on the screen-shot bug: On my ancient 400Mhz machine with 96MB memory it comes up with the error after saving 65 screen shots.
Just want to let you all know that I have fixed the Screen Shot bug and it's now can capture thousand of shots without any problem. I know this because I put it in an infinite loop and it ran without any problem. I will release that new version this weekend.
@MOTH: I will keep that in mind...If I have time, I will take care of that Simple Logic expression first so that you can script the exact criteria that you want...which mean you can script Cracker's criteria or whatever criteria yourself...killing two birds with one stone.
I will release that new version this weekend.@MOTH: I will keep that in mind...If I have time, I will take care of that Simple Logic expression first so that you can script the exact criteria that you want...which mean you can script Cracker's criteria or whatever criteria yourself...killing two birds with one stone.
Using Windows 2000, C3C, and MapFinder 2005v2r5b, I see some odd behavior. I first ran it on a setting that made it easy to find 10 acceptable maps, which it did. (It didn't stop running then, but that's not the problem.) I had Quick Start checked in mapfinder, and it did quick starts in C3C
Then I restarted everything. In C3C, I did New Game, changed the world settings (just in case), and got a new world. Then I started mapfinder and changed what is acceptable and let it go. Now the settler takes one move South, which it didn't do before, as I recall. But now mapfinder doesn't do quick starts any more.
This behavior repeats. The settler does a move south only on the first map of each run. I've increased the timings, but don't see any difference.
What could be causing this?
Then I restarted everything. In C3C, I did New Game, changed the world settings (just in case), and got a new world. Then I started mapfinder and changed what is acceptable and let it go. Now the settler takes one move South, which it didn't do before, as I recall. But now mapfinder doesn't do quick starts any more.
This behavior repeats. The settler does a move south only on the first map of each run. I've increased the timings, but don't see any difference.
What could be causing this?
Tzar Sasha
Tzar of Nowheresville
bluejay said:
You started a new game via New Game rather than Quick Start. Yet, Mapfinder was set for Quick Start. There are different commands programmed into Mapfinder for quickstart versus normal. Each set could have a different effect on C3C when starting the game in a way different than chosen in Mapfinder. I have not yet tried version 5b however, I've seen strange results in other versions with Mapfinder set on quickstart and C3C started with New game.
Try the following it is what I've done to avoid strange problems:
1. Start New game.
2. Setup the world the way you want it, with what civs etc...
3. When new game starts, exit back to main menu via New Game option.
4. At the main menu choose Quick start it will start a new game with the setting you just put in.
Or you could run Mapfinder without the quickstart option checked.
Now if Moonsinger or Dianthus have a better resolution, that's great. Go with their ideas. I'm just trying to help you work around the issue till they decide if it can be fixed....
Update: MapFinder 2005 v5.7
Added the following feature:
#1. Option to look for goodie hut (File/Setup/Extra Tab)
#2. Option to look for shield bonus grassland (File/Setup/Extra Tab). Please keep in mind that we do not look for shield bonus hidden under the forest! We could see what hidden under the forest, but we won't do it because that may be illegal for the HoF. The bottom line, MapFinder won't report anything that you can't see with your normal eye at 4000BC.
#3. Remove the length restriction on the output directory. You now can a very long name for your output directory. Basically, I tell MapFinder to save the map in Civ's default "Saves" folder then move it to wherever. The end result = no length restriction.
#4. Add option to save the map whenever a certain domination limit has been found.
#5. Add option to save the map whenever certain number of cow has been found.
Changed to previous feature:
* MapFinder no longer counts Cattle on Plain as bonus resource. Therefore, if you happen to see a cow goes by and MapFinder didn't count, that is perfectly normal.
Bug fixed:
* The screen shot function has been fixed. There is no upper limit and you now can have screen shot for as many acceptable as you like.
//Edit: Just change it to v5.7. There wasn't thing different between v5.6 and v5.7 except for extra syntax check on the new options to make sure they are valid; otherwise, if someone forget to set them, all a lot of maps will be saved.
Added the following feature:
#1. Option to look for goodie hut (File/Setup/Extra Tab)
#2. Option to look for shield bonus grassland (File/Setup/Extra Tab). Please keep in mind that we do not look for shield bonus hidden under the forest! We could see what hidden under the forest, but we won't do it because that may be illegal for the HoF. The bottom line, MapFinder won't report anything that you can't see with your normal eye at 4000BC.
#3. Remove the length restriction on the output directory. You now can a very long name for your output directory. Basically, I tell MapFinder to save the map in Civ's default "Saves" folder then move it to wherever. The end result = no length restriction.
#4. Add option to save the map whenever a certain domination limit has been found.
#5. Add option to save the map whenever certain number of cow has been found.
Changed to previous feature:
* MapFinder no longer counts Cattle on Plain as bonus resource. Therefore, if you happen to see a cow goes by and MapFinder didn't count, that is perfectly normal.
Bug fixed:
* The screen shot function has been fixed. There is no upper limit and you now can have screen shot for as many acceptable as you like.
//Edit: Just change it to v5.7. There wasn't thing different between v5.6 and v5.7 except for extra syntax check on the new options to make sure they are valid; otherwise, if someone forget to set them, all a lot of maps will be saved.
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