500AD

[Zaratoughda]

I have uploaded a new version of ARHS to the community web site with the old ARHS_500BC ptmaster file updated and renamed to 500AD.

Decided to make this ptmaster file more true to the Roman Empire period, and thus the change in the name.

Extensive updates here, with new peoples (Gauls, Persians, Visigoths, etc), level 2 research for most SFTypes, cost balancing, etc, etc, almost a complete overhaul.

There are now 8 peoples, most with completely different fighting unit types and that IMO makes for an interesting random game generator, particuarly when using options like 'Countries at Start', 'Usurpers', 'Armies at Start', etc.

Also, I put in the second pass that I had been talking about re 'Countries at Start' sometimes generating unbalanced countries. With this (decided to make it automatic rather than as an option), after the first pass the total production for each regime is calculated and then a modifier is applied to each based on this production, and then a second pass is made. In testing this USUALLY makes for much better balance but, just so a player can be sure, I added a 'Production Report' option that will give you a report at the start of the game showing the production for each regime. With this, you can see if the game is STILL unbalanced and if so can go ahead and generate a new one rather than having to learn the hard way.

In any case, a lot of work (did balancing on the naval combat as well as lots of other updates) put into this one.

A 500AD_ReadMe.txt file is included in the download.

Comments solicited!

Zaratoughda

P.S. Oh, if someone is playing one of the other ARHS ptmaster files with the 'Countries at Start' option and wants the new 2-pass country generator, let me know and then the priority for me doing that goes up.

[Jeffrey H.]

Well, I play the WWII ptmaster almost exlusively and I would like to see the levelling code added to it.
 
The 500AD ptmaster looks interesting. I might give it a try, despite my lack of enthusiasm for the ancients period.
 
I'll give it a try and come back to add commments in a while.
 

[rich12545]

I'm just now learning the game but my favorite will be a ww2 random generator. So any improvements to that would be appreciated.

[Zaratoughda]

OK, I added the two pass country generator as well as the 'production report' option to ARHS_WW2 and got that out there on the community web site as ARHS 3.5.

Also, decided to go with ARHS_500AD instead of just 500AD. Renamed the readme file that goes with that to ARHS_500AD_ReadMe.txt.

More also, eliminated ARHS_WW2PR. When working on ARHS_500AD I figured out a way to check if the PR is active and put that check in ARHS_WW2, and if so it gets its AI set at 200, so no need for ARHS_WW2PR anymore and it has been deleted from the ARHS zip.

Comments solicited.

Zaratoughda

[rich12545]

That's very nice. Been too busy to spend much time, but when I get past the learning curve I believe this mod will see a lot of playing time.

[Jeffrey H.]

Hrrm. Would you say this is a balanced production report ? Not trying to be sarcastic or critical, just wondering if this is the expected result ?

[Zaratoughda]

I did a fair amount of testing with this..... looking at what was there after a first pass and then again what was there after a second pass and... in general things were better. The way it works is it checks the production for each regime and then sets an adder to the distance checks for each regime based on that production, and then runs the same routine again for setting each hex to a specific regime except in this pass the adders are non-zero.

The thing is, there could be a clumb of cities right at the edge of a regime's borders and with the adders that regime loses all those cities. So, in that case a regime could go from significantly higher than average to significantly below average. Also, I saw regimes that had virtually nothing and then ended up with not much more than nothing, because there simply were no cities anywhere's near them.

The purpose of the production report is NOT to verify that the regimes have been balanced, but to let the player decide if they are balanced enough or not. If you feel they are not balanced enough, you can regen the random game rather than having to play through it and then find it is too unbalanced for your liking.

Of course, once could conceive of other ways of balancing, like more than two passes at balancing but, the balancing routine takes significant time to run and in those cases it would get excessive IMO.

In short, the two pass balancing balances the regimes better than the 1 pass was giving, and the production report is there so you can see HOW balanced the regimes are, and let you decide whether you want to continue with that random game or not.

Zaratoughda

[Zaratoughda]

Jeffrey.....

Looking at your post a bit closer... it is apparent you selected the 'Usurpers' option, as in that case the average is based solely on the AI's production not any human players (because human players only get their capital city).

So, in this case any balancing is kinda moot because with 1 AI it gets ALL the cities other than the human player's city, if the 'Usurpers' option is used.

So, in the case you posted, the report is on the money.... OTHER than my misspelling of the word 'divided'.... which I will fix.

Zaratoughda

[Zaratoughda]

Uploaded a version 3.6 to the community web site. Only changes are the fix of the misspelling of the word 'divided' in the production report (in ARHS_500AD and ARHS_WW2) and some stronger language on the balancing being 'about as good as you can get but not perfect'.

Hmmmm.... thought I was not taking into account different total production than I had tested at and started putting code in to deal with that, starting doing it one way and then got rid of that and went to a second way, got rid of that decided on a third way and then, looking at the code closely, realized I was already doing that <g>.

Must be smarter than I think I am.

Zaratoughda

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

Jeffrey.....

Looking at your post a bit closer... it is apparent you selected the 'Usurpers' option, as in that case the average is based solely on the AI's production not any human players (because human players only get their capital city).

So, in this case any balancing is kinda moot because with 1 AI it gets ALL the cities other than the human player's city, if the 'Usurpers' option is used.

So, in the case you posted, the report is on the money.... OTHER than my misspelling of the word 'divided'.... which I will fix.

Zaratoughda

That explains a lot. I'll fiddle with this some more tonight if I can find the time.

[Grymme]

Zaratoughda

Maybe you should put these posts in the mod & scenario forum.

[Zaratoughda]

If I have a question about scenario development... typically for Vic... I post that to the 'Scenarios and Mods' forum. But, if I have an announcement as to the availability of a scenario, released onto the community web site, I place it here.

Others (e.g. Boonierat in the TOAW forums) do things similarly.

Possibly you should consider doing the same.

Zaratoughda

[Grymme]

I am not a moderater, so its not up to me. I just try to do as intended by the forum designers. You might read this.

Mods and Scenarios 
Discuss and post your mods and scenarios here for others to download.

I understand if you want as many people as possible to read about your mods, but pretty much everyone else in the AT-forum posts their mods in the mod thread.

[Zaratoughda]

Yes, you are NOT a moderator.. and it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS where I post.

The text you refer to is standard forum text and others are doing things a bit dofferent than exactly that and nobody has had a problem with it before.

Vic... Erik... this guy has caused problems along these lines before and here he is at it again. Yeah, trying REAL HARD not to get personal here.

Zaratoughda

[Zaratoughda]

Oh, and gee wiz.... another beute here... I looked in the Scenarios and Mods sub-forum and you are posting there about your game against Lunaticus... and that belongs in the AAR sub-forum.

So, are you familar with the term 'hypocrite'??

Zaratoughda

P.S. Yeah, maybe I should just IGNORE this guy... or simply state that I am so ignoring him.

[Grymme]

Why do you become so angry all the time? I am trying to be polite here. A tip is to try and read, then wait an hour, then read again. Maybe that would help.

[Zaratoughda]

Grymme.... I am ignoring any further posts from you... other to state that I am so ignoring them.

Zaratoughda

[Zaratoughda]

Oh... Vic... Matrix.... one thing I want to say here also....

Looking at the 'Mods and Scenarios' sub-forum.... IMO it should read 'Mod and Scenario Development'.

All the pinned posts there are relative to mod and scenario development, and there are lots of questions about this and that re development... and IMO a lot of forum users that are not doing scenario development do not read those forums because they do not want to have to go through all the this and that of scenario developement that you see there.

But, there are a lot of announcements of scenarios now being available that, IMO, a lot of forum users miss because they don't read that sub-forum... the Space Opera scenario, the WaW scenario, etc.

Ug.... just checked the TOAW forum and they call their sub-forum there 'Scenario Design'.... so.... guess there is no Matrix standard here... totally your call Vic.

Zaratoughda

[Grymme]

As for the Case Blue mod thread. I did post something like 7 screenshots with comments along with the 80 or so posts about the development of the scenario. If someone (moderater or not) suggested it better belonged in the AAR section i would certainly listen to their arguments instead of getting all angry at them.

Actually your last post seem very productive, even if i dont agree with you i totally respect your newfound interest for reading up on the forum structure. Ill let this go now since you seem to have understood what i meant. To bad there has to be an argument before that happens.

I promise i am not "out to get you".

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

Jeffrey.....

Looking at your post a bit closer... it is apparent you selected the 'Usurpers' option, as in that case the average is based solely on the AI's production not any human players (because human players only get their capital city).

So, in this case any balancing is kinda moot because with 1 AI it gets ALL the cities other than the human player's city, if the 'Usurpers' option is used.

So, in the case you posted, the report is on the money.... OTHER than my misspelling of the word 'divided'.... which I will fix.

Zaratoughda

That explains a lot. I'll fiddle with this some more tonight if I can find the time.

Well I played through another trial run on the v3.6 of the AHRS mod. Unfortuantely I seem to forget the settings I used for the setup but I can say I used the default sliders for the map generation, except I added a few regimes to bring the total number to 4 including a human.

The averaging report did a correct job of it this time. However it was a bit hard to determine how the averaging carried through to the game itself. It seemed like all the city produciton values were more or less unchanged ? Was it only capitol cities that were scaled ? I'm still a bit confused about how the averaging worked out. From my loose observations, the in game produciton capacity for my capitol city was unchanged. Also, as I captured the AI's cities, it seemed like they were standard values without any special scaling. The averaging only occurs once in a game, only during setup, right ?

The game itself was very fun. The AI fought a good battle, much better than the standard game. Many thanks for your efforts, the improvement really shows IMHO.

The agressive AI and the initial armies had me pinned down in the first few turns and I was on the ropes, holding on to the 4 or so hexes surrounding my capitol. I was able to expand out of there as I wore down the AI's initial armies but that put me at a production/time integral disadvantage against the other AI's, especially one that had conquered another capitol.

The production mix of the non capitol cities was limited to nationalities in a nice quasi historic sense. This really helped guide the AI into producing an appropriate mix of SFT's in units. It also helped balance research activiy, or so it seemed. The AI challenged my air superioirity several times, both by building AAA and by building fighters. It lost eventually because it could not bring itself to commit to it wholly. The AI advanced technologies in a meaningful way and kept even pace with my own developments, occasiionally catching me offguard and forcing me to adapt.

It was a very fun game, quite addicting and suprising, even to someone like me who's been playing this game for years.

This idea of limiting production in cities is a good idea and it makes me think we could use this to bench test production models against one another.