HoF Map Finder/Generator Utility 2016-10-05

[Moonsinger]

Thanks Ms. MS.

You are welcome! I figure...if Dianthus and I done a really good job on this project, you may hire us to lead Firaxis after you buy them. Too bad, that company hasn't yet gone public.

Will you then also change the heading: "Terrain criteria for 9 tiles at the starting location" to something like "Terrain criteria for ALL viewable tiles at the starting location"?

Wish List: Are you planning on giving options like:
1. All viewable tiles
2. All viewable tiles excluding Settler Tile
3. All viewable tiles excluding starting-9 tiles
4. 9 start-positon tiles only
5. 8 start-positon tiles only (viz. exclude Settler Tile)?

How about "all visible tiles" at the starting location? My guess is that even if we have to move the starting settler a few turns, it probably won't matter much in the end. I have played so many games until around 1000BC where I didn't settle until 3900BC but end with a higher score than map with better start. What do you think?

 

[TimHobbit]

How about "all visible tiles" at the starting location? My guess is that even if we have to move the starting settler a few turns, it probably won't matter much in the end. I have played so many games until around 1000BC where I didn't settle until 3900BC but end with a higher score than map with better start. What do you think?

:?

I'm not sure if this would effect the "Hall of Fame" aspect of the application?

TimHobbit

 

[MOTH]

:?

I'm not sure if this would effect the "Hall of Fame" aspect of the application?

TimHobbit

This has already passed muster as ok for the HOF. These are basically any tiles that are fully revealed at the start of the game without settling or moving. So, if you start on a hill you could see the starting 9 tiles and up to 16 more.

Ms Moonsinger was not advocating have the Utility consider (or actually do it) moving any units. She was starting that when she plays she will sometimes move from the initial location before settling.

 

[EMan]

You are welcome! I figure...if Dianthus and I done a really good job on this project, you may hire us to lead Firaxis after you buy them. Too bad, that company hasn't yet gone public.

Why would One want to buy a Company that hasn't ALREADY hired the likes of you & Dianthus? .........Plus, say, SirPleb & DaveMcW for Testing..... and so many other brilliant people at CFC! The mind boggles!

How about "all visible tiles" at the starting location? My guess is that even if we have to move the starting settler a few turns, it probably won't matter much in the end. I have played so many games until around 1000BC where I didn't settle until 3900BC but end with a higher score than map with better start. What do you think?

Ahhhh.....you're thinking like the World Champion Dairy Farmer that you indeed are!

Where this comes into being of utmost value is in the Fast Finish Victory types.
A few examples off the cuff:
1. Aztec Conquest Tiny: You need 2 tiles in the starting-8 (Not the Settler tile) that generate 2 shields each. However, more than 2 Forests could impair the progress of your Aztec Warriors to find & conquer the other Civs.
2. UN/20K/100K/SS/Dom Victories: You might want a Goody Hut outside the starting-9 (that's in view of course), so that you may Pop a Settler/City/Tech. (I learnt today from SirPleb's Diplo thread that you can't pop a Settler in turn 1!)........to have ANY chance of beating SirPleb's 210AD UN Victory!
3. 20K: You might want a Coastal (Non-Lake) tile inside the 9 if you're planning on building Colossus, Lighthouse, Magellan.

For Milk Runs, I agree with you it doesn't matter that much since all the games finish in 2050AD.

 

[Gyathaar]

Well, I could give that a try to see what happen. Since I have been dealing with many users who don't understand anything about mutual exclusive, if we allow them to pick their own logics, they would some how cancel each other out with the AND rule, then screem at me that the program doesn't work. To make sure that this doesn't happen, I would still have to code a sophisticate user interface for rule selection.

I have an extra idea that will make this easier to deal with aswell..
Allow us to save (and load) the logic to an easilly readable (text)file.
This way if someone gets a weird problem, they can upload the query-file and have someone more knowledgable look at it.
This will also allow you have keep more than one search available for you to easilly switch between them
You could even take this one step further and put the civ3-game options in here and make mapfinder modify the civ3/ptw/conquest ini files before it starts generating maps.. allowing you a stored config that you just load and it automatically starts generating huge sized, wet warm 60% archepelagio with mayas as your civ and 8 other civs... with 4500+ domination limit, 5 cows and 6+ river tiles at starting position.. hehe

This would also allow people your share their favourite, complicated mapsearches in an easy way.

I could read any type of codes. I haven't yet encountered a code or a programming language that I couldn't read. Anyway, you don't have to dig up your backup because the core of that is simple enough. When I have time, I will work on that user interface.

Thou most programming languages are easy to read, it is also easy to write unreadable code in most programming languages...

int i;string t=" \\!]\"^#_-j/l";i=t[0]-20;
while(i--)t+=5-i/2+(i%2*2);
t=sprintf(t[(t[0]-37)..7],t[8]-9,t[9]-10,t[10]-11,t[11]-12);t[2]++;t[3]++;
printf(t,(t[0]+t[3])-77,(t[1]*t[2]-3622));
(this is written in the lpc language)

 

[Smirk]

int i;string t=" \\!]\"^#_-j/l";i=t[0]-20;
while(i--)t+=5-i/2+(i%2*2);
t=sprintf(t[(t[0]-37)..7],t[8]-9,t[9]-10,t[10]-11,t[11]-12);t[2]++;t[3]++;
printf(t,(t[0]+t[3])-77,(t[1]*t[2]-3622));
(this is written in the lpc language)

Thats pretty simple, sloppy code, but easy to read. Course adding some linebreaks in there would make it even easier. You want some difficult languages, check this link http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/ . Check out Orthogonal and Ook for instance, some good ones in B's as well, look at Befudge and Brain*$&!.

 

[dan14444]

Where is your autosave folder? Is there a fille "Civ3Conquests.exe" in the "..\save\autosave" of your autosave directory for C3C? Note: There are three different autosave directories for Civ3, one for vanilla Civ3, one for PTW, and one for C3C; make sure that you select the correct one for the version of Civ that you are running or it won't work!

I use .../civ3/conquests/save/auto directory for autosaves (I guess it wouldn't work otherwise, eh? ). Civ3Conquests.exe (or whatever is name of main game file) is in .../civ3/conquests.
I have seen different file and auto folder in .../civ3 but I didn't touch them...
It would be good to know what exactly file the program tries to restart based on ...auto path (although I think it's obvious .../civ3/conquests/Civ3Conquests.exe... But something goes wrong...).
Or may be I use a wrong version of Mapfinder? What is a link to the latest one?

 

[Dianthus]

Or may be I use a wrong version of Mapfinder? What is a link to the latest one?

The latest version is MapFinder 2005 v5.7 (updated Jan 24, 2005), and the link is on the first line of the 2nd post in this thread. Hopefully you'll be able to use the latest version and it'll just work .

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Just a FYI:

I had problems with MapFinder not being able to save accepted maps...until I noticed I need to remove the "WindowsFileBox=1" setting from the ini I normally have.
Problem in this case is that the game/tool in this case opens a Windows box first, but saving with this is not working with MapFinder; and the open box prevents further saving.

But without the line, it works like a charm .

 

[wildcard]

I'm sure I'm missing something very obvious here...I've scanned through several of the threads for this info and cannot find it.

I finally have a couple of maps that were not rejected by mapfinder based on my given criteria. Now how do I get a game started for one of these maps??? Did I Have to have my desired Civ and my opponents picked when mapfinder starts choosing the maps??

 

[EMan]

Did I Have to have my desired Civ and my opponents picked when mapfinder starts choosing the maps??

Yes.
You need to start Civ with all the set-up parameters until you get to the 4000BC start position......then fire up MF.

Now how do I get a game started for one of these maps???

Copy the desired .sav file from the Civ3Map directory to the Saves directory and then use the Load Game option from the Civ Start Menu.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

How can I get MapFinder to work properly with RaR? Don't care about the added resources, but for odd reasons MapFinder doesn't recognize Floodplains here .

 

[wildcard]

I realized what I was asking half way through hitting send on my message here last night. I set mapfinder back up and got a good map with which to begin practicing SirPleb's Unbelievable strats for early diplo victories. Finding that map with a river and two cows is not a quick thing though.


Thanks for the Help!

 

[Moonsinger]

How can I get MapFinder to work properly with RaR?

What is "RaR"?

 

[Dianthus]

What is "RaR"?

Rise and Rule. It's a mod for C3C of a similar size/scope to DyP. See Doc's sig.

 

[Moonsinger]

Rise and Rule. It's a mod for C3C of a similar size/scope to DyP. See Doc's sig.

In that case, it's really up to you, Dianthus because I'm not really into mod. My philosophy with mod has always been ... if you want a good starting position in a mod game, you could always "mod" it anyway you like; therefore, there is really no need for map finding. For example, if you want a map with 5 cows and 5 luxuries at the starting location, you can just simply add 5 cows and 5 luxuries to it.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

For example, if you want a map with 5 cows and 5 luxuries at the starting location, you can just simply add 5 cows and 5 luxuries to it.

But mods use random maps...we're not talking about a scenario.

Anyway, my only problem is why MF doesn't seem to recognize Flood Plains, while it can find any other base terrain (and base terrains are hardcoded, its not like you could add any here).

 

[Dianthus]

Anyway, my only problem is why MF doesn't seem to recognize Flood Plains, while it can find any other base terrain (and base terrains are hardcoded, its not like you could add any here).

It could well be a problem with my .sav reading code. I'll take a look at some point. I'm pretty busy at the moment though!

 

[Moonsinger]

Anyway, my only problem is why MF doesn't seem to recognize Flood Plains, while it can find any other base terrain (and base terrains are hardcoded, its not like you could add any here).

Like I said, it's really up to Dianthus! Since he has said he will take a look at it when he has time, it may be helpful if you would post a SAV of your RaR mod with flood plains visible at the starting position that you said MF couldn't recognize. That would help, I think.

 

[Dianthus]

Like I said, it's really up to Dianthus! Since he has said he will take a look at it when he has time, it may be helpful if you would post a SAV of your RaR mod with flood plains visible at the starting position that you said MF couldn't recognize. That would help, I think.

That would help, definitely. I've got RaR installed from when I did a little testing of CRpMapStat with it, so if I get a .sav as well I won't have many excuses left .