HoF Map Finder/Generator Utility 2016-10-05

[Gyathaar]

I just downloaded MapFinder last night. It seemed to run fine during the 8 hours I left it on last night, BUT it rejected 588 maps and saved none.

Maybe I don't understand the AND/OR functions well enough. How do you tell it you want a river and either 2 cows, or 2 wheat (food bonuses?), or 1 cow and 1 wheat, and at least one lux and more than 2 bonus grasslands.

I believe this would be:
1st rule:
AND river > 0
OR cow > 1
OR wheat > 1

2nd rule:
AND cow > 0
AND wheat > 0
AND lux > 0
AND bonus grass > 2

Also, there are choices for both generic lux or specific ones. How do you ask for a specific one, but be willing to settle of one of the others?

This would be the same as asking for the presence of any generic lux since you are willing to settle for any lux

 

[gmaharriet]

Thank you, Gyathaar!!! Both rules make sense now, but would I need to set up 2 separate "rule files" or would they both go in the same file with one just above the other?

Afraid I'm seriously computer challenged.

 

[EMan]

Yes, 2 Rule Files.

After entering the parameters for the first Rule Set, hit Save (bottom right)......and give it a meaningful filename [to you] when prompted.

Then enter the parameters for the second Rule Set and Save it as a different filename.

Mapfinder will look at the Rule sets in the Rules folder, when it's running.

Yeah, that Moonsinger is a pretty sharp cookie!

 

[gmaharriet]

Yes, 2 Rule Files.

After entering the parameters for the first Rule Set, hit Save (bottom right)......and give it a meaningful filename [to you] when prompted.

Then enter the parameters for the second Rule Set and Save it as a different filename.

Mapfinder will look at the Rule sets in the Rules folder, when it's running.

Yeah, that Moonsinger is a pretty sharp cookie!

Thanks, Eman! And I totally agree about Moonsinger...this is an amazing program. Even with my lack of knowledge on rules, this program really delivers.

 

[Moonsinger]

Thank you for your kind words. I couldn't have done it without you guys' inputs and inspiration.

 

[denyd]

I'll add my to the growing admiration for this program.

I'd like to be the first to wish you a happy and brief respite from Civ.

 

[gmaharriet]

Just a tip for n00bs like me who have trouble with the AND/OR rules... Start with something simple and work your way up.

I started with AND rivers >1 AND food bonus >0...I got 210 saved maps in 8 hours...about 40% saved. (Yeah, like I'll play them all in THIS lifetime ) Last night I added to the rules luxuries >0 and got 30 maps in 15 hours.

I am SO pleased with this utility. It's hard enough to find time to play the game and I hate spending my time generating maps by hand. Thank you, Moonsinger!!!

 

[Tzar Sasha]

I never really understood what the domination limit was. So I played a map with a low domination limit on Regent. I've never won on regent. At this point, I've got double the score of my nearest competitor. It's the early to mid 1900's I can easily win by, domination, conquest, score, possibly even culture. Haven't started the space race, yet. But I could win with that too.

So domination limit means less land. Right? Cause that sure seems to be the case here.

Thanks to mapfinder for helping me find a map on Regent that I can win.

 

[Gyathaar]

The domination limit is the number of tiles (land and coast.. not sea or ocean) you need to control to get 66% (66.67% in vanilla/ptw) of the total area and win by domination.
So lower domination limit usually means less land (usually since coast is part of it too)

 

[eldar]

Hmm... I'm having some difficulties.
Aside from taking ages to work out how to change my keyboard layout to US (thanks Windows for making is sooooooooo easy, NOT!), I now keep getting an odd error:

"Cannot create C:\Civ3Map\<long string of strange characters>.jpg"

with MapFinder closing down. This always happens on the first game I start up. I'm not 100% convinced I'm running it correctly... but anyway, here's what I do:

Start C3C, New Game, pick settings, go to 4000BC, get the "You are etc. etc.", and close that dialog.
Start up MapFinder, confirm my rules, then start it.

Am I missing something?

This is WinXP Pro, SP1, with C3C 1.22. The C:\Civ3Map directory exists and is not read-only.

 

[Gyathaar]

I have never had to change my keyboard mapping to make it work btw (I use norwegian mapping.. and UK mapping should be the same as US one anyway)

Did you create the C:\Civ3Map\ directory where you want the results to go?

Edit: Nevermind.. didnt see the last line in your post

 

[Moonsinger]

Hmm... I'm having some difficulties.
Aside from taking ages to work out how to change my keyboard layout to US (thanks Windows for making is sooooooooo easy, NOT!), I now keep getting an odd error:

"Cannot create C:\Civ3Map\<long string of strange characters>.jpg"

with MapFinder closing down. This always happens on the first game I start up. I'm not 100% convinced I'm running it correctly... but anyway, here's what I do:

Start C3C, New Game, pick settings, go to 4000BC, get the "You are etc. etc.", and close that dialog.
Start up MapFinder, confirm my rules, then start it.

Am I missing something?

This is WinXP Pro, SP1, with C3C 1.22. The C:\Civ3Map directory exists and is not read-only.

Which version of MapFinder are you using? What is the speed of your system? In the directory where you installed MapFinder, there is a "MapFinder.INI" file; would you post a copy of it here. All the config/setup values for running MapFinder is inside that file, I would like to take a look at what you have told it so far. Thanks!

PS: Please note that the MapFinder version from last year may not work with a none US keyboard. MapFinder version 6.5 is the latest one (the link for it is at the beginning of the second post of this thread). I have a feeling that you may be using one of the very old version.

 

[Moonsinger]

@denyd, gmaharriet, Tzar Sasha: Thank you for your kind words! That's very encouraging. I'm glad it works out for you guys.

And Gyathaar and EMan: Thanks for sticking around to help out the newbies.

 

[eldar]

Okay - I have MapFinder 6.3 (according to the Zip file in my C:\mapfinder directory).

Contents of my mapfinder.ini file:

[Config]
Delay4NewGame=5000
Delay4SaveGame=5000
Delay4RestartC3C=15000
OutputDir=c:\Civ3Map
AutoSaveDir=C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Saves\Auto
Counter=10
Delay4Keystrokes=500
Delay4CivDialogs=5000
MaxAcceptGame=25
QuickStartGame=1
NoRun2RestartC3C=50
JPGCompressionQuality=70
DisableRuleSetWarning=1

I'm running a P4 2.4Ghz machine with 1Gb of 266 DDR RAM.

 

[eldar]

...and I see the answer immediately (also reading back a page helped!)

I have the wrong auto-save directory set for C3C map-finding!

 

[Moonsinger]

...and I see the answer immediately (also reading back a page helped!)

I have the wrong auto-save directory set for C3C map-finding!

I'm just about to say that. Btw, version 6.5 is a big jump from version 6.3, you may want to consider upgrading it to 6.5.

//Edit: Your "NoRun2RestartC3C=50" (number of iterations before restarting C3C) is too high! May want to set it down to 30.

 

[eldar]

Thanks - I have 6.5 running nicely Though in the end I went with the random map I generated to kick it off - a cow, a grassland wheat, a plains wheat, a river and a few hills was a perfectly acceptable start!

 

[GorfTheWanderer]

Am I missing something? I've DL'ed the mapfinder utility and have gotten it to run after setting it up.... but all it does is keep loading and reloading the last savegame I have... The ottomans @ around 310BC. Am I doing something wrong here?

 

[Gyathaar]

Am I missing something? I've DL'ed the mapfinder utility and have gotten it to run after setting it up.... but all it does is keep loading and reloading the last savegame I have... The ottomans @ around 310BC. Am I doing something wrong here?

Start a new game with the 'New Game' option before you start mapfinder.. if you use quickstart to create a new game, it will sometimes pick the next game option on the list to attempt quickstarting game.. and the next option is 'load game' instead of 'quick start' (which is below 'new game')

 

[Moonsinger]

Am I missing something? I've DL'ed the mapfinder utility and have gotten it to run after setting it up.... but all it does is keep loading and reloading the last savegame I have... The ottomans @ around 310BC. Am I doing something wrong here?

In addition to what Gyathaar said, also don't forget to point it to the correct autosave directory! There are three different autosave directories for Civ3 (vanilla, PTW, or C3C). Unless you tell it correctly which version you are playing, it won't work!