Feature request: Randomness and variations

[Psychedelic_hands]

Speaking of random, what about randomly generated maps? 

[Zoythrus]

Speaking of random, what about randomly generated maps? 

that would be nice...it would add spice to your standard network game

[Gabbe]

Also, lots of randoms could be cool..

Random textures (variety in the army)
Random models (female male)
Random events (such as treasures, a raid by some animals etc.)
Random tech ( already mentioned but still)
Random map (see the up)
Random teams (is this already? long time since playing now..)
Random hit points (that a army with smaller amount of soldiers can with a low chance win a battle)
Random resources (randomly generated for example  100-200 gold and 50-100 wood)
Random resource location (randomly generate huge piles of resource stocks on place, and maybe smaller in another, maybe toggleable, just for the fun.. )

[wyvern]

I would like the randoms such as in wesnoth, where units have variable abilities(dextrous, resilient, strong etc), maps, I think teams, and factions can be random, and for some units elven archers, mages and nagas and some other specific units can be male or female,obviously in glest I would prefer if the random things were in only some roles, like workers could be male/female, as could mages and technicians, on the other hand some units would only be male or female.

[Psychedelic_hands]

Also, lots of randoms could be cool..

Random textures (variety in the army)
Random models (female male)
Random events (such as treasures, a raid by some animals etc.)
Random tech ( already mentioned but still)
Random map (see the up)
Random teams (is this already? long time since playing now..)
Random hit points (that a army with smaller amount of soldiers can with a low chance win a battle)
Random resources (randomly generated for example  100-200 gold and 50-100 wood)
Random resource location (randomly generate huge piles of resource stocks on place, and maybe smaller in another, maybe toggleable, just for the fun.. )

Hell yes to random textures, models, techs, maps and teams
The rest I can live without but I like your thinking 

[John.d.h]

Split for more brain-storming.

[Zoythrus]

i support random models, texes, resources, teams, and maps; that is all. everything else is pointless and too hard to implement.

[Psychedelic_hands]

This is something I've always wanted to see in a game....
How about instead of setting every option to random, we just have a random match button? That generates everything randomly, no player choice at all.

[Zoythrus]

This is something I've always wanted to see in a game....
How about instead of setting every option to random, we just have a random match button? That generates everything randomly, no player choice at all.

this would make multiplayer matches interesting...

[Gabbe]

This is something I've always wanted to see in a game....
How about instead of setting every option to random, we just have a random match button? That generates everything randomly, no player choice at all.

this would make multiplayer matches interesting...

and maybe sometimes unfair but still, could be sorta fun..

[Zoythrus]

This is something I've always wanted to see in a game....
How about instead of setting every option to random, we just have a random match button? That generates everything randomly, no player choice at all.

this would make multiplayer matches interesting...

and maybe sometimes unfair but still, could be sorta fun..

it'd be cool nonetheless...

[ultifd]

Random textures (variety in the army)
Random models (female male)
Random events (such as treasures, a raid by some animals etc.)
Random tech ( already mentioned but still)
Random map (see the up)
Random teams (is this already? long time since playing now..)
Random hit points (that a army with smaller amount of soldiers can with a low chance win a battle)
Random resources (randomly generated for example  100-200 gold and 50-100 wood)
Random resource location (randomly generate huge piles of resource stocks on place, and maybe smaller in another, maybe toggleable, just for the fun.. )

You're asking for a lot...
I think some would be cool, but a lot would be hard to implement. Also, some might rip up the gameplay...
Yeah, I thought about this too. Maybe in the future...

[tomreyn]

I'm with Ulti there. Most of thee suggestions are tricky to implement if you want to do it in a way which doesn't break things.

For example:

• If on a random map, all possible elements were just randomly positioned on the map (with equal probabilities), then the map would both look very weird and, what's worse, would likely be unplayable since there would be few to no passages (blocking elements) and workers would often be unable to exit a players' main building, and even if they were able to, you'd have to walk for miles to the next single pile of a given resource.
• Random textures would, unless you create multiple new textures for each faction, just spoil the fun. You would not want to have an indian worker look like a golem or vice versa.
• Random teams would almost always result in unfair game setups, and games would thus end very quickly. Imagine what would happen on a map where several start positions are close to each other since it is a cooperative map, but these start positions are used by hostile teams, and imagine how it would be when several experienced players or ultra CPUs are teamed up against unexperienced players or standard CPU.

So you could most likely do optimize some of these randomizations by using weighting and exempting or limiting randomization of certain characteristics, but this is where it gets quite tricky programatically.

Having said this, I do like the idea of more random elements in our games (actually I hope for it myself at some point), but I think it requires more in-depth planning on what can be tweaked within which boundaries without breaking gameplay/fun.

[Mark]

So who is going to make the new textures, animations, and models?  This kind of thing would work in most other games, which have a standard human body mesh, rig, texture setup (albeit with separate texture files of course) and animations, but in glest? Pshaw, forget it!

[emscape]

but I have an idea for generating random maps.

maybe, just maybe I have a solution that will bring forth good maps 9/10 times

first randomise the heights like the ed allready can.
then make the map full of trees
randomise players and cut out the trees needed to provide building space
drop recourses near players
drop recourses on other random places of the map
cut out the treees to make paths to every "hotspot" on the map
randomly spawn a few bushes, old trees, rocks, water objects and stuff like that, not too much, because it will screw up your map elsways.

random textures however would s*ck i think.
random teams would be cool however, I think its not neccesairy because there are a lot of other functions that would make more difference to the game.
random events would be awesome but hard to implement
random tech allready exists.
random map see this post. maybe just take a random existing map?
random hit points allready exists, soldiers allready do random damage within given borders.

[Psychedelic_hands]

Well, I don't know how to make random maps. But other games have it so it's not impossible....

[Omega]

Random maps are too complex for the meantime. However, I should note that most of these random maps you know aren't truly random (I've only tried 2 games with random maps to be honest, that I remember, Civ4 and AoE2). They work by using a script to tell how to make the random map, and to be frank, it's not easy (My first 5 or so attempts to make a very basic map produced laughably bad, unplayable games). For the most part, tilesets add that feeling of difference that "random" maps were meant to do. Plus, Glest has so many different maps available that it adds up. For the most part, a random tileset would be a better and much easier alternative to random maps, since the maps can feel quite different. As well, random rotation of the maps change things too. We already have random starting locations, combine that with different tilesets and for most players, the maps feel different every time.

Random textures would be fine, since you could just add a few very minor details to an alternative texture for very little work (ie: change the hue, add a scar, etc) to give the feeling of individuality among units.

Random models would be fun, since, like the textures, you could add a minor difference that wouldn't take a long time to model/animate and could yet add notable changes. For example, having units do different actions for their stop animation could be interesting.

Random teams isn't a good idea, since the best team maps partner players up with their teammate, which wouldn't work with random teams...

Random events....meh.

Random techs are already available.

Random hit points is pointless really. Weaker units shouldn't beat stronger ones by rushing, but by proper strategies and command. The ability to deal "random" damage already exists though.

[Zoythrus]

we do need a random map feature, just in case you dont know which map to play on...

(if it is random, the game should state what map it is, for reference of course)

[Omega]

we do need a random map feature, just in case you dont know which map to play on...

(if it is random, the game should state what map it is, for reference of course)

As I mentioned, random maps are a bit complex at the moment. Perhaps just randomly choosing from existing maps would be a nice and simple alternative?

[Zoythrus]

sorry, i meant to say that the map would be randomly chosen from your map list.

[tomreyn]

sorry, i meant to say that the map would be randomly chosen from your map list.

Personally I think this hardly makes sense at this stage (no offense!), even if you apply the randomization within constraints of a given number of players (as defined by the map filter), since with e.g. 4 player maps, you will still have 1-vs-3, 2-vs-2, 1-vs-1-vs-1-vs-1 maps, where the players' start positions are defined accordingly. For example, competnig against another player which starts right next to you is silly, it just depends on the faction you play there whether or not you will win or loose, and one of you (or a CPU player) will have a pretty short game.

This could make sense later if the game will be able to 'understand the differences' (basically this would require manual categorization) of the varios maps, into 1-vs-3, 2-vs-2, 1-vs-1-vs-1-vs-1 etc. Then, once there are enough maps available for each of these categories for every map of total player count X, a randominzer might actually make sense. But I think introducing this earlier would rather spoil the fun...

[Gabbe]

I'm with Ulti there. Most of thee suggestions are tricky to implement if you want to do it in a way which doesn't break things.

For example:

• If on a random map, all possible elements were just randomly positioned on the map (with equal probabilities), then the map would both look very weird and, what's worse, would likely be unplayable since there would be few to no passages (blocking elements) and workers would often be unable to exit a players' main building, and even if they were able to, you'd have to walk for miles to the next single pile of a given resource.
• Random textures would, unless you create multiple new textures for each faction, just spoil the fun. You would not want to have an indian worker look like a golem or vice versa.
• Random teams would almost always result in unfair game setups, and games would thus end very quickly. Imagine what would happen on a map where several start positions are close to each other since it is a cooperative map, but these start positions are used by hostile teams, and imagine how it would be when several experienced players or ultra CPUs are teamed up against unexperienced players or standard CPU.

So you could most likely do optimize some of these randomizations by using weighting and exempting or limiting randomization of certain characteristics, but this is where it gets quite tricky programatically.

Having said this, I do like the idea of more random elements in our games (actually I hope for it myself at some point), but I think it requires more in-depth planning on what can be tweaked within which boundaries without breaking gameplay/fun.

You got it wrong, i ment with textures, that you have for example 5 different textures, or maybe even two, for each of the random models. It wouldnt be hard to make once in a engine, becuase all you have to do is maybe just change the haircolous of something in the game, or add colour corrections to get a rougher feel. Agreed about weighting About the map, make the computer select a random glest map and make minor changes in threes, heights and passages. Random teams would maybe result in unfair game setup, but, sya with 6 CPUs and you got two ultra and four normal CPUs, then it could put all the normal CPUs on one team and the ultras on one, making it more fair. Maybe a option to "add your skill level 1-10 here: [8] just for an example. And then arrange teams fair, but random as there would be a lot of combinations you can have with 8 different skill leveled players/CPUs.

[Psychedelic_hands]

Random textures would just be cool for different designs on shields. I'd love it for that, and that alone.

[Mark]

Random textures would just be cool for different designs on shields. I'd love it for that, and that alone.

Medieval 2 total war does that, and so does 0 ad.

[Zoythrus]

Medieval 2 total war does that,

good game, we need to implement some stuff from that game like the multiple shield thing