Topic: random mining resources

Hello!

From what I see, the placement of mining resources (iron, coal, gold, granite) is fixed on the map, i.e. each metal/mineral is always in the same place. If you remember the map, you don't have to send the geologists, know exactly where to expand and so on. It would make replaying the same map more interesting, if the resources were placed more randomly.

It could be done like this: (1) Depending on the size of a mountain (by a mountain I mean a cluster of fields with mining resources and by its size I mean the number of these fields), the number of different resource patches in the mountain would be calculated. (2) Then the mountain would be randomly divided into as many patches. (3) A type of resource would be assigned to each of them. To ensure more or less even distribution of each resource on the whole map the ratio of iron/coal/gold/granite could be constant (or perhaps not, maybe there could be an option to chose this ratio when setting up a new game).

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I agree with Foaly: The fixed destribution is a problem, but it has to be solved differently. Map resources a part of balancing. Imagine an imperial player with no marble in the mountains. He has no real chance to win the game, although the map maker has placed enough marble near his start position.

"Only few people know how much one has to know in order to know how little one knows." - Werner Heisenberg

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tosz wrote:

The distribution of mining resources could be calculated after placement of players and take balance into account. E.g. the distribution algorithm would always place some granite within a certain range from the imperial start location or in the closest mountain (and maybe some granite, but less, for the Atlanteans).

No offence meant, but could you provide such algorithm?

Two is the oddest prime.

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hi tosz,

please don't get me wrong - suggestions are very welcome and you are of course free to further discuss or even write a patch for the feature you suggest - however, I doubt that such a feature will be merged into widelands. the base of this position are basically some discussions about other features, that would have changed a map based on a setting (e.g. random port build spaces). the main reason against such a feature were "we don't want feature creep - less options are better than a whole bunch" and "the map designer knew best, how the map should be"

as I wrote before, this does not mean, that your idea is bad, just that it is unlikely, that it will ever be implemented in widelands.

further I personally don't see the big improvement of such a feature. as important as to know where the ores are placed, is the knowledge of how the terrain is build up. I would even go further and say that that knowledge is even more important, as build space an tactical important positions are two important factors for building up a strong economy and a good defense in widelands.

so this basically leads us to complete random maps, which are already implemented

and last but not least, you can still create a map yourself or change existing ones and add a scenario script, which places the ressources randomly.

cheers Nasenbaer

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Well... no problem at all tosz :).

Unfortunally the random map feature is still not 100% complete and it has the disadvantage, that it is hidden in the editor. Because of that you A) see the map, between generation and saving and possibly do not even get aware of it, as long as you haven't worked with the Editor, yet.

Because of that it is planned to implement a user interface in the map select menu, to create a random map and play it over the internet without seeing it in the editor and without manual saving of the map.

But well... there is not even one line of code for that feature until now... let's see who will and when it will be implemented.

Cheers Nasenbaer

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