Sometimes no news is good news.Moonsinger said:
I finished a huge map 20K last night, and haven't had time to play with it yet. But it looks like it going to be even more useful than before. Thanks for your efforts.
- Thread starter Moonsinger
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I finished a huge map 20K last night, and haven't had time to play with it yet. But it looks like it going to be even more useful than before. Thanks for your efforts.
Im having some trouble with this program and am seeking any help you all can give me. Thanks in advance.
Problem #1: As was mentioned in this thread I start up a game picking all the desired settings and wait until the game actually starts before running Mapfinder. Once I get Mapfinder running it begins running through quickstarts as it is supposed to. The problem I am having is I dont know how to control it. In other words it just keeps loading quickstarts and than exiting out of them.
Questions: How do I play out a start? How do I save a start? How can I briefly pause or slow it down so I can look at a start?
Problem #2: When setting up Mapfinder and choosing my AND/OR statements I do not believe I am doing it correctly. The problem I am having is if I set it up for AND using a luxury, river, coastal tile etc. none of it is seen on the quickstarts. I have been setting up the AND/OR statements and than beginning the generate map.
Questions: Am I supposed to be pressing something before generating maps?
Problem #1: As was mentioned in this thread I start up a game picking all the desired settings and wait until the game actually starts before running Mapfinder. Once I get Mapfinder running it begins running through quickstarts as it is supposed to. The problem I am having is I dont know how to control it. In other words it just keeps loading quickstarts and than exiting out of them.
Questions: How do I play out a start? How do I save a start? How can I briefly pause or slow it down so I can look at a start?
Problem #2: When setting up Mapfinder and choosing my AND/OR statements I do not believe I am doing it correctly. The problem I am having is if I set it up for AND using a luxury, river, coastal tile etc. none of it is seen on the quickstarts. I have been setting up the AND/OR statements and than beginning the generate map.
Questions: Am I supposed to be pressing something before generating maps?
Methos said:
So basically, are you saying that it quickstarts a game, then quit the game at 4000BC screen, then quickstart another one? And it continue to do that forever until you stop it or until it found the number of acceptable map...sound pretty normal to me!
That's the primary purpose of MapFinder!What does the "Accept" and "Reject" counter say? If the accept counter is zero, it means it has found zero acceptable maps. If the accept counter isn't zero, you can stop it to look at the maps that have been found. To stop it, just click on the "Stop" button. Note: if your timing is too fast or too slow, you may have to hit the "Stop" button more than once until it's stopped.
Just tell me what type of map you are looking for, and I will tell you what AND/OR to use.
You just have to press the "Start" button once then press the "Stop" a couple hours/days later. That's all to it!
Tzar Sasha
Tzar of Nowheresville
Methos said:
maps which meet your selected criteria will automaticly be saved by Mapfinder. You can not pause mapfinder to look at a map. You can not play a map from mapfinder. You have to let Mapfinder do it's job first. Once Mapfinder is done, you can look at the generated report. You'll have the option to view an image of the map. This is where you can get a longer look. To play a specific map found, the easiest thing to do is to copy that file into the correct game save folder for the version you were running mapfinder on. Note it's the parent folder that the autosave folder is in....
I don't think you need to press anything else. You just need to let Mapfinder do it's job. Think about it for a minute. The more stuff you tell Mapfinder to require before it can save, the more maps it will need to generate in order to find the required stuff. There are how many terrain and resource options? The random combinations which the game can develop are quite high if not countless. Mapfinder only scans the random combinations it cannot tell the game what type of map to create....
The newest version maybe a little different in use.... So take my info based on using the older versions with a grain of salt....
Looking at the way you state your problem, I think you are misunderstanding how mapfinder works..Methos said:
Mapfinder does NOT tell civ3 to only generate maps that fill your criteria...
What Mapfinder does is make civ3 generate a lot of maps, and then filter out and save those that match your criteria.
When looking for a lux, a river and a coast, it may take hours before such a map actually appears if you are unlucky (and depending on map settings)
@Methos, just to give you an idea what Gyathaar is meaning, my last MapFinder run was using the rules "AND FreshWater > 0" + "AND 5food > 2". Only 1 in 1000 maps met this criteria, and that was on huge. Even less would meet the 5food criteria on a smaller map as resources are more scarce.
@Methos: Before you set out to find something really scarce, I recommend to work with something simple first...to learn to know to program better, to give you a chance to fine tune those delay timers. Here are some rules I recommend you to try first:
Rule Set#1: Water and at least One Grass Cows
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Cattle on Grassland > 0
Rule Set#2: Water and at least Two Grass Cows
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Cattle on Grassland > 1
Rule Set#2: Water and at least Three Grass Cows
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Cattle on Grassland > 2
Rule Set#3: Water and at least two extra food bonus
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Food Bonus > 1
Rule Set#4: Water and at least one cows or deers
AND FreshWater > 0
OR Cattle on Grassland > 0
OR Deer on Forest > 0
Rule Set#5: Water, and (Huts or Luxury)
AND FreshWater > 0
OR Hut > 0
OR Luxury > 0
That should give you plenty of good maps to play with after about running MapFinder for a few hours.
Rule Set#1: Water and at least One Grass Cows
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Cattle on Grassland > 0
Rule Set#2: Water and at least Two Grass Cows
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Cattle on Grassland > 1
Rule Set#2: Water and at least Three Grass Cows
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Cattle on Grassland > 2
Rule Set#3: Water and at least two extra food bonus
AND FreshWater > 0
AND Food Bonus > 1
Rule Set#4: Water and at least one cows or deers
AND FreshWater > 0
OR Cattle on Grassland > 0
OR Deer on Forest > 0
Rule Set#5: Water, and (Huts or Luxury)
AND FreshWater > 0
OR Hut > 0
OR Luxury > 0
That should give you plenty of good maps to play with after about running MapFinder for a few hours.
I generated 145 maps across 6 rules with 6239 iterations in about 8 hours. An embarrassment of riches. 
I think the highest number of overlaping rules on a single map was only 3.
I like the new report program.
I don't think a slide show is necessary just clicking the next button is all I need. (Of course, if you want to enable to mouse scroll wheel for next/previous, I wouldn't turn my nose up at it. 
)
One difference I noticed was that the column sort appears to be only be descending. Being able to toggle between Asc/Desc was a good feature. (i.e. sort Dom Limit ascending then cows descending.)
A couple of suggestions:
1) Could you display the map information in the header of the screenshot tab? Something like you did in the old save file name would be enough.
2) Could you enable the Right-Click menu option to "Save map as" on the screenshot tab?
Thanks for all your work on this excellent utility.
I think the highest number of overlaping rules on a single map was only 3. I like the new report program.
I don't think a slide show is necessary just clicking the next button is all I need. (Of course, if you want to enable to mouse scroll wheel for next/previous, I wouldn't turn my nose up at it. )One difference I noticed was that the column sort appears to be only be descending. Being able to toggle between Asc/Desc was a good feature. (i.e. sort Dom Limit ascending then cows descending.)
A couple of suggestions:
1) Could you display the map information in the header of the screenshot tab? Something like you did in the old save file name would be enough.
2) Could you enable the Right-Click menu option to "Save map as" on the screenshot tab?
Thanks for all your work on this excellent utility.
Gyathaar said:
Yes, you are correct. I was misunderstanding how it worked completely. Thanks, this explains much.
Thanks everyone for your help. I'll attempt another search while I'm at work. Thanks again.
Update:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/MapFinder_v64b.zip
Just add a few more options to the report. If you have a slow dial-up modem, you may want to download only the report:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/MapReport_v64.zip
New features:
#1. Save/Export multiple game files. To select multiple rows, just click on a row, then drag the mouse to include other rows...then popup the "save as"...
#2. Mass deletion. Similar technique as #1, except "delete" instead of "save"
#3. Add status display as suggested by Denniz (instead of header, it will be on the status bar at the bottom of the screen). Just some basic info for now...when I have time, I probably will have it to display more.
#4. Popup menu in the screen shot view (suggested by Denniz)
That was it! Just some quickies for now.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/MapFinder_v64b.zip
Just add a few more options to the report. If you have a slow dial-up modem, you may want to download only the report:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/MapReport_v64.zip
New features:
#1. Save/Export multiple game files. To select multiple rows, just click on a row, then drag the mouse to include other rows...then popup the "save as"...
#2. Mass deletion. Similar technique as #1, except "delete" instead of "save"
#3. Add status display as suggested by Denniz (instead of header, it will be on the status bar at the bottom of the screen). Just some basic info for now...when I have time, I probably will have it to display more.
#4. Popup menu in the screen shot view (suggested by Denniz)
That was it! Just some quickies for now.
Gogf
Indescribable
Hey Moonsinger! I just downloaded vesrion 6.4, and after configuring the Rules Set, I told it to "Start Map Generator." It came up with this warning:
What's wrong?
EDIT: Nevermind, got it to work!
What's wrong?
EDIT: Nevermind, got it to work
!
Salamandre
King
Thank you for mapfinder, great tool. I still have a problem running it. It starts well, but it closes C3Cafter a while (10 min-fixed to 256 iterations!) and then waits forever to start C3C again. But it doesnt. Am I missing something?
Try increasing the time parameter on the Set-up window.......the one at the bottom referring to "time delay before restarting C3C".
Gogf said:Hey Moonsinger! I just downloaded vesrion 6.4, and after configuring the Rules Set, I told it to "Start Map Generator." It came up with this warning:
What's wrong?
EDIT: Nevermind, got it to work
Well, not me. I created a rule set (domination greater than 3600), I saved it. and I get the same error as above (no search criteria found). What am I doing wrong?
Salamandre
King
Thank you Eman. Indeed that was the solution!!
Someone must stick it because I read many people have this problem.
When C3C doesnt relaunch just make the delay higher.
One important question: is there a way to skip the intro and/or make C3C run in window so I can launch mapfinder while surfing the net? Well, those are 2 separates questions but it will make life easier if could be done
If I check the 'launch in window mode" option it still launch full screen
Someone must stick it because I read many people have this problem.
When C3C doesnt relaunch just make the delay higher.
One important question: is there a way to skip the intro and/or make C3C run in window so I can launch mapfinder while surfing the net? Well, those are 2 separates questions but it will make life easier if could be done
If I check the 'launch in window mode" option it still launch full screen
Jachyra said:
Where did you save it to? You have to save it to the "rules" directory which is a subdirectory of where you installed MapFinder. That's the only offical rule directory that MapFinder will look for. Note: This is a feature of version 6.4 or later. The older version do not support multiple rule sets.
Salamandre said:
MapFinder has already skip the intro in C3C. However, you can't run MapFinder while surfing the net?
MapFinder is designed to run while you are sleeping, not while you are surfing!Moonsinger said:
the *.dat file (rule set I created) is in the "rules" directory of where I installed MapFinder.
I've been using mapfinder for a while, but it's the first time I try to use the version 6 or above... I'm lost here
Edit: btw, the specs, if it can help:
WinXP pro SP2
C3C 1.22
AMD 3200
1 Gig of RAM
Jachyra said:the *.dat file (rule set I created) is in the "rules" directory of where I installed MapFinder.
I've been using mapfinder for a while, but it's the first time I try to use the version 6 or above... I'm lost here
Would you open up your *.dat file to see if there is anything in it? I mean you use MapFinder to open/load it up the *.dat file. Anyway, I suspect that you may have use the mouse to select an item then click save before moving onto the next row, it may not accept your input. Of course, I'm going to fix this in the next version, but for now, make sure you hit "enter" key to move to the next row before hit "save"; otherwise, it may not accept your input for the new row.
Moonsinger said:
Still no go
But you were right, I was using the mouse and didn't press enter. I erased the file I had, and created a new one the way you just described. But like I said, still no go.
I attached the resulting *.dat file, to see if you can find anything wrong with it.
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