Randominator Mod

Sounds excellent, will give this a go when I have time.

      

I don't think I'm up for that level of randomness in my games, but it is a very cool idea!

How much does it randomize? Like could it say make the beginning techs as expensive as top teir techs or does it randomize only within a certain range, say and increase or decrease of 50%?

Variation is between 50-150% of the initial values. Half of this is specific to that particular tech/improvement/whatever, half of this variation is due to global changes (for instance, all beam weapon techs might have slightly higher cost than missile or mass driver techs).

Other more instantly noticable changes include shuffling of the race order, which affects which races get which AIs, as well as giving the possibility of a minor race being promoted to a major (and vice versa).

Randominator v1.1 is now available in the library.

v1.1 New features:

- Can now choose which parts of the game to randomise.
- Can choose whether or not to remove core ships.
- Option to include Total Randomination- random changes that massively affect how the game is played, such as setting all logistics costs to zero or making ships more expensive.
- Option to balance the promoted Minor Races, removing their large economy bonus in return for some starting techs.

Will this work for Dark Avatar?

Ok, this is a GREAT mod, just what I'm looking for except...it won't work for Dark Avatar add-on, at least not directly, only DL.

What I may have to do is copy the whole DA Data directory into the DL directory and call it, say, something like "DA Data". Then point the target to that and hope that works.

I wish the maker of this mod would update it for DA...

PLZ?

If there's demand for it, I guess I could. Problem is that I haven't had much time of late, so I've hardly been playing DA at all, let alone worry about how to mod it. I've still only just finished my first skirmish!

As I said, I haven't had a look at the DA xml files yet, so I'm not sure how much has changed. If it's merely a case of switching the target directory then it shouldn't take too long to update for DA. My main worry is how to get it to work with the way the races now work- I suspect there may have been quite a few changes to raceconfig.xml what with two new races and custom civs.

I'll take a look at it, probably tomorrow.

Thank you.

Progress update:

I've updated everything that needed to be updated for DA, and submitted it to the library. It'll probably take a little while to be approved.

I have tested it, but I'd appreciate it if people let me know if they do run into any problems. It isn't easy to debug since things happen randomly! Fingers crossed that there won't be any issues but... nobody's perfect, especially not me.

Thx for sending this to me.

I've just noticed that the remove core ships option doesn't seem to work though (on either version I think).

That's odd, it works fine for me.

What settings are you using? I'll see if I can reproduce it and see what's going wrong.

Note that 'Remove Core ships' doesn't remove the core templates in the shipyard, or the core ships you start the game with (no way to get rid of those). It just gets rid of 'Colony Ship', 'Constructor', and so on that clutter up the shipyard without ever being used.

Also, why do you say to take back ups of a couple of files (for stars and races)? Does your program overwrite original files at all?

The order of the stars list is randomised. Gal Civ seems to prefer to use the names towards the top, so this should give you the chance to see all of the names pop up, even in smaller games. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the mod folder can't be used to include a custom stars list, so I have to change the one in the normal data folder. This is purely a cosmetic change, so feel free to turn it off if you'd rather leave them alone.

As for the race files- I have to move the custom race xmls for major races that are demoted to minor races, otherwise they'll still show up as available opponents. If you then select them, you could end up with the same civ as both a major and a minor race in the same game.

These files are not deleted, they are just moved to a backup folder, and are retrieved when the race becomes major again. However, they won't be retrieved if you switch back to the normal GCII, so I gave the location in the readme. If you stick with Randominator, or haven't customised the default races, then this shouldn't affect you at all.

These aren't data files for the game anyway, just records of customisation of the races. You can edit them in-game using the edit civ button.