Master of Magic Clone WIP - Map Generation

from Elemental Forums

NOTE - You have to have installed the Unity Web Player to see my map generator

Hey all,

   As a long time fan of Master of Magic I have kicked around the idea of doing a fan remake of the game for some time.  With the release of Unity 2.5 for Windows I found a game engine that has the power to do everything I want to do while being simple enough for me to understand (I'm a SQL / Cold Fusion / Javascript programmer not a C++ programmer).  Here is my map generation WIP - http://www.pittsburghautisticspectrum.org/Test/Map_Creation.html
It does not include a 'water map' for river generation or swamp placement yet, nor does it place special tiles, villages, or starting cities.

   Let me know if you think the maps look playable in a MoM / Civ style game.

 

Thanks,

Sammual 

Edit - Now with screenshot

Map Screenshot

More screenshots can be found at  http://www.pittsburghautisticspectrum.org/Test

elemental
16,566 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Pretty cool.  I have not heard of the Unity Web Player.  Need to look into this.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

ho ho ho, see what I told you.  already a responce

hmm....  I seem to have downloaded the player... to no change.   it doesn't start any map generator

(I'm running the Win 7 beta right now, as to not risk harm to my release client version)

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 2
ho ho ho, see what I told you.  already a responce

hmm....  I seem to have downloaded the player... to no change.   it doesn't start any map generator

(I'm running the Win 7 beta right now, as to not risk harm to my release client version)

You were right.

You installed the player and can't see anything on my page?  Did you try reloading the page?

Sammual

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Screenshot added along with a link to more of them.

Sammual

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the screenshot...

I must say, the examples you posted look playable to me, but a lot will depends on starting places and resources and such. I would hate to start on one of those two small islands...

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

My plan for the weekend is to finish Map Generation.

The second to last step will be starting locations.

I have a DB setup that has all the tile types and how much they are worth to each race.  I will calculate the city value for every spot on the map and place each players starting city in one of the top X spots (Where X is the number of players).  Doing it this way your starting city will be in a great spot.

The last step will be to add the special locations (Gold, Gems, nodes, etc).  For any player who got a starting location that was not as good as everyone else they will get a special added to the area around thier city to balance things out.

Doing things this way you may end up on an island but it would be large enough to let you city hit max size.

Sammual

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

this makes me want to play settlers of catan (yeah, its still not running for some reason)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sammual, reply 6
My plan for the weekend is to finish Map Generation.

The second to last step will be starting locations.

I have a DB setup that has all the tile types and how much they are worth to each race.  I will calculate the city value for every spot on the map and place each players starting city in one of the top X spots (Where X is the number of players).  Doing it this way your starting city will be in a great spot.

The last step will be to add the special locations (Gold, Gems, nodes, etc).  For any player who got a starting location that was not as good as everyone else they will get a special added to the area around thier city to balance things out.

Doing things this way you may end up on an island but it would be large enough to let you city hit max size.

Sammual

 

 

Why not just let everyone start off with a "super settler" so they can put their home castle wherever they want?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 7
this makes me want to play settlers of catan (yeah, its still not running for some reason)

Are you getting an error or is it just displaying the 'download the plugin' message?

Sammual

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting drrob, reply 8

Why not just let everyone start off with a "super settler" so they can put their home castle wherever they want?

I haven't ruled that out yet but I want to see how good I can get auto placement.

Sammual

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Looks like good stuff in the making! :andrew:

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

one thing that  I must comment,  I like the shapes the continents formed in the screenshot.  If it yields results like that often (obviously, we wouldn't want the exact same) then I'd say its pretty solid.  I think that looks more 'natural' than most of the Elemental maps we've seen so far, though its been stated that map generation isn't finished yet.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 12
I like the shapes the continents formed in the screenshot.  If it yields results like that often (obviously, we wouldn't want the exact same) then I'd say its pretty solid. 

Thanks, I put a lot of work into making the continents look 'organic'.  I have never seen two maps that even look alike so far (I am well over 1,000 maps generated) and 99%+ look good.  The 1% I am fighting with meets all the criteria I created but they look bad.  They are a series of 'super' hex clusters (A hex surrounded by two rings of hexes) the have only a single hex connection to each other, thus making them continents and not a collection of islands.

Sammual

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm trying to find the "bugged tile"   anybody else see it?

 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

*grin*  They are the cloud covered mountains that appear in or bordering the poles. 

They should not be there but I haven't had the chance to track down why they keep showing up.

 

Sammual

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sammual, reply 15
*grin*  They are the cloud covered mountains that appear in or bordering the poles. 

They should not be there but I haven't had the chance to track down why they keep showing up.

 

Sammual

Even knowing what to look for I still can't find them (I also tried to find them when I first looked at the screenshots)... 

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 16

Even knowing what to look for I still can't find them (I also tried to find them when I first looked at the screenshots)... 

Good.  That means I have hidden them well.  The ver of the program in the web player just turns tiles that are out of height range into the highest tile (Impassable mountains - Cloud covered mountains OR Snow covered mountains at the poles).  As long is this is not throwing the number of Mountains or Impassable tiles out of range I don't think I am going to bother with tracking the issue down.

My current ver also generates swamps, deserts, rivers, river deltas, and starting cities.  As soon as I create some programmer art for these I will post this ver to the web player.

Sammual