ROTK11 Random Scenarios

[Calamitus]

Great work, Zetta. I also would like to see "RoH style" button because I used to play only RoH scenario before.

[Zetta]

Thanks for the update Zetta. Just a quick question about items, does it include the Imperial Seal and Bronze Pheasant items when randomizing them? I tried a while back to add the Bronze Pheasant item to a Sovereign but even though it shows up on their item list, it doesn't seem to give the effect since they can't build the tower. I even tried once to make multiple copies of it in the blank items and didn't have the effect either, so I guess you have to have triggered the event to build the tower even if you already own it?

Yes, the item randomizer uses all item slots. I don't really know about the pheasant tower though, since I never (EVER) found or had the item... But I guess you're right, you might need to trigger the event before being able to build anything with it. Same with the Imperial Seal. It's a bit of a shame though.

RoH option

So maybe have a RoH button

Great work, Zetta. I also would like to see "RoH style" button because I used to play only RoH scenario before.

I guess I'll add it in 1.07 then ! It's not a lot of work, just a tweak here and there. I've also noticed a bug with item randomization that is going to get fixed, along with a few other things.


I'm playing a scenario with random liked/disliked officers (with all family-sworn ties cut) and it's pretty crazy how quickly loyalty drops and how easily some officers can switch sides or "have a secret talk with someone". I've never seen that before with normal scenarios, it gives a more unpredictable and lively feel to it ! The stats randomizer is crazy too. I have one officer with 1 LDR and 100 WAR... I feel like it's too much randomness.

[Valvatorez]

I don't really know about the pheasant tower though, since I never (EVER) found or had the item... But I guess you're right, you might need to trigger the event before being able to build anything with it. Same with the Imperial Seal. It's a bit of a shame though.

I see, it would be kinda neat to see some random leader claim himself emperor by having the seal. I only found the seal once by destroying a random shrine but was already emperor at that point so not sure how it does work. And for the Pheasant Tower, just move your sovereign to Ye when you have around 10-13 cities and you should get the event for it, and the item, on the next turn. But you probably knew that.

I'm playing a scenario with random liked/disliked officers (with all family-sworn ties cut) and it's pretty crazy how quickly loyalty drops and how easily some officers can switch sides or "have a secret talk with someone". I've never seen that before with normal scenarios, it gives a more unpredictable and lively feel to it ! The stats randomizer is crazy too. I have one officer with 1 LDR and 100 WAR... I feel like it's too much randomness.

That's interesting actually, makes me think of the few times I played the PuK version and having to be very careful who you put in charge of cities since they could betray you and you lose the city. Kinda adds another bit of strategy or planning into it, which is good.

[Zyzyfer]

Something weird I noticed, playing a scenario from the version 5 randomizer. Lu Meng actually started off with standard INT instead of his hampered INT from the normal scenarios. This is of particular interest because, somehow, the randomizer nullified his event. I am not sure if it's a one-off bug or whatever but it was pretty cool.

[Zyzyfer]

I see, it would be kinda neat to see some random leader claim himself emperor by having the seal. I only found the seal once by destroying a random shrine but was already emperor at that point so not sure how it does work.

I am fairly certain that event is only for Yuan Shu, unfortunately. Obtaining the seal with anyone else is only supposed to give you a small boost to TP per turn.

And for the Pheasant Tower, just move your sovereign to Ye when you have around 10-13 cities and you should get the event for it, and the item, on the next turn. But you probably knew that.

It should be 14 cities.

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I kept playing that scenario where Lu Meng had his normal stats for a while longer. I was playing as Liu Bei, who was based in Zitong with a couple of OK officers but nothing amazing. Since Chengdu was empty at first and Gongsun Zan in Hanzhong didn't have Adept March research, I put all of my efforts into recruiting free officers from all over the country, which I later realized basically kills random scenarios that start in the early years and have a high number of forces.

The AI just seems to have a really hard time when stuck with just a few officers, so once I built up some steam and flattened the other rulers in Yi, things just got too easy. Getting good commanders like Guan Yu, Sun Ce, and Lu Bu also went a long way. I ended up taking a break from that game because there is no way I'll end up facing real competition unless I banish half of my officers.

Got started with a new random game created from version 6. So the cities have random output, specialties, and so on. Created force based in Tianshui, Zhang Bao has Hanzhong and Changan, Han Sui has Anding, Tao Qian has Wuwei. I forgot that created forces get made after the randomizer has done its work, so they just get basic supplies and never get tech to start. Which could serve to up the challenge, potentially.

Since my neighbors are all still relatively small and don't have amazing talent, I had fun spamming ceasefires with my Negotiator officer to build up her INT. Banned myself from some forms of active recruiting and let the guys who were serving Tao Qian free if they didn't want to join after I defeated him. Need to keep my eyes open for Lu Meng again, see if he has full stats or not.

[Zyzyfer]

I'm still playing around with the randomizer. Noticed a couple of issues with v6. I realize this thread has been quiet for a while, but will go ahead and post them.

1. Random lifespans - I believe I activated this option in my current game. I also activated random new officers. I realized that the random lifespan option can be really random. I was wondering why a few rulers were random schlubs like Su You so I checked the new random officer bios, and found that some of the main rulers had been made dead and replaced. Also held true for officers in general, they randomly just fall over and die (especially older ones). I guess it's not bad per se, just surprising. Curious what the age range is.

2. Random city specialties - Might need to be re-coded because it's very simple and overlooks one key element. The big cities all are able to have 150K troops, but this isn't altered with random specialties, so Changan for instance is still effectively a big city, while Shangyong becoming one means very little. Perhaps more complex coding is required to alter this, or it might be simpler to just not do anything to the big cities, and just randomize the specialties of all the other ones. Or if big cities get randomized, it could possibly alter the max troops (and HP?) accordingly. Maybe also set a better range for gold/food output. That's my humble suggestion.

I also noticed in my current game that there are a bunch of workshop-specialty cities. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it might be a tad bit excessive of a ratio? Kind of funny to have so many, haha

3. Random ruler AI - Seeing some odd stuff. I went with no active recruiting in my current game so the AI opponents could get more officers. But AI rulers seem stagnant. Could just be bad luck on my part, but wanted to document this observation.

For instance, I took Xinye from Wan, and Yuan Shu held Runan and Shouchun. He was surrounded by plenty of juicy targets and had sufficient troops and equipment to do some campaigning, but he refused to budge until I allied with him. Once I had done that, he went nuts on Jiangxia. This seems to be a general trend, forces just kind of sitting idle for extended periods. That said, I'll have to try some different things out before commenting further.

Edit - Lu Meng's stats reverted to their weird version again this time around. I was sad. :(

[Zetta]

Hey Zyzyfer ! Thank you for your feedback. I've been away for a while but I already made the few changesall of you asked for (especially a Rise Of Heroes option). It was pretty straightforward.

I'm still playing around with the randomizer. Noticed a couple of issues with v6. I realize this thread has been quiet for a while, but will go ahead and post them.

1. Random lifespans - I believe I activated this option in my current game. I also activated random new officers. I realized that the random lifespan option can be really random. I was wondering why a few rulers were random schlubs like Su You so I checked the new random officer bios, and found that some of the main rulers had been made dead and replaced. Also held true for officers in general, they randomly just fall over and die (especially older ones). I guess it's not bad per se, just surprising. Curious what the age range is.

The random age option goes like this : the code checks the available and birth date, then creates a random death date.
death date = birth date + random numer (30 to 99)
and modifies the availability date :
available date = birth date + random numer (15 to 29)
then of course, the rest of the code goes on : if an officer is dead, his status becomes 08, if he's available it's 07 and so on...
However one problem might show up when you randomize too much the same scenario with this option and fake officers. All lifespans are changed and the more you randomize it (and randomize the starting date), the more historical officers are going to disappear and be replaced, while in earlier years nobody becomes available. I recommend using a "fresh" scenario instead of an already randomized one.

2. Random city specialties - Might need to be re-coded because it's very simple and overlooks one key element. The big cities all are able to have 150K troops, but this isn't altered with random specialties, so Changan for instance is still effectively a big city, while Shangyong becoming one means very little. Perhaps more complex coding is required to alter this, or it might be simpler to just not do anything to the big cities, and just randomize the specialties of all the other ones. Or if big cities get randomized, it could possibly alter the max troops (and HP?) accordingly. Maybe also set a better range for gold/food output. That's my humble suggestion.
I also noticed in my current game that there are a bunch of workshop-specialty cities. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it might be a tad bit excessive of a ratio? Kind of funny to have so many, haha

I'd like to change that as well. I'll look into and try to change their HP / max troops and eventually gold / food output. The specialty is evenly distributed (1/7 chance to appear for each) but yeah, I agree... Too many workshop cities! I'll check a classic scenario to see what's the distribution .

3. Random ruler AI - Seeing some odd stuff. I went with no active recruiting in my current game so the AI opponents could get more officers. But AI rulers seem stagnant. Could just be bad luck on my part, but wanted to document this observation.
For instance, I took Xinye from Wan, and Yuan Shu held Runan and Shouchun. He was surrounded by plenty of juicy targets and had sufficient troops and equipment to do some campaigning, but he refused to budge until I allied with him. Once I had done that, he went nuts on Jiangxia. This seems to be a general trend, forces just kind of sitting idle for extended periods. That said, I'll have to try some different things out before commenting further.

I felt that as well. I don't know why, but even with "aggressive behavior", they don't appear to be really active. The randomizer only changes district and force behavior bytes. Maybe it should change ruler aspiration as well ?

Edit - Lu Meng's stats reverted to their weird version again this time around. I was sad.

It might be something hardcoded, since it's always happening... I don't think I can do anything about that though...

[Lord_Cao_Cao]

After we did some work on force behaviour, there was an assumption that there is some hardcoding involved with regards to the officer position. If you substituted Liu Biao and Cao Cao with each other in the scenario file for example, Liu Biao would become much more aggressive.
If this assumption is correct, this hardcoding could actually affect all officers in some way. This could mean that the majority of officers is coded to be more passive than active in conquering territories, since they were of little note in history (people like Wang Zhong for example). Some kind of general hardcoded behaviour for the common officer. While on the other hand, the historical rulers and some more famous officers like Guan Yu could have special coding for them.

I've just come up with that theory, but if it's correct, then it makes sense if most officers are rather passive when they're in ruler positions. Unfortunately, in this case it wouldn't be something that could easily be modded.

[Zyzyfer]

The random age option goes like this : the code checks the available and birth date, then creates a random death date.
death date = birth date + random numer (30 to 99)
and modifies the availability date :
available date = birth date + random numer (15 to 29)
then of course, the rest of the code goes on : if an officer is dead, his status becomes 08, if he's available it's 07 and so on...

OK that sounds fine. I think I just have to bear in mind that if an officer is old, they are more likely to be replaced through this option.

However one problem might show up when you randomize too much the same scenario with this option and fake officers. All lifespans are changed and the more you randomize it (and randomize the starting date), the more historical officers are going to disappear and be replaced, while in earlier years nobody becomes available. I recommend using a "fresh" scenario instead of an already randomized one.

I got into the habit of using fresh ones anyway, but I hadn't thought about this. Good to know.

I'd like to change that as well. I'll look into and try to change their HP / max troops and eventually gold / food output. The specialty is evenly distributed (1/7 chance to appear for each) but yeah, I agree... Too many workshop cities! I'll check a classic scenario to see what's the distribution .

Nanpi, Xiaopei, Shangyong, and Yunnan. I believe those are the only ones originally?

That said, it's otherwise a nice option. Things like Liang not being so dependent on cavalry and all the ship cities not being in the south give certain regions some freshness.

I felt that as well. I don't know why, but even with "aggressive behavior", they don't appear to be really active. The randomizer only changes district and force behavior bytes. Maybe it should change ruler aspiration as well ?

Honestly, I have been playing scenarios with lots of small starting forces and I think that might be part of the problem. I should really try some other options out. Aspiration might help some but, as LCC pointed out, elements of AI aggressiveness are hard-coded.

I think my main point was more, I'm seeing some behaviors that are even more bizarre than normal. Take Yuan Huan, for instance. Yuan Huan keeps taking Xuchang from Luoyang and then going idle. He won't touch Chenliu. Eventually he loses Xuchang and repeats the process. He did try to take Wan when Han Xuan was on his last legs, but I took it first. Then he went into this Xuchang loop.

There are other things as well. Gongsun Zan was totally bizarre. But in his case at least, I think it's just bad rolls for his behavior stats, because he was doing stuff like doggedly reinforcing a distant port just to spite my efforts to make him lose it to another force, and some other weird activities that didn't make sense, even for the AI.

It might be something hardcoded, since it's always happening... I don't think I can do anything about that though...

Sure. It's weird how I got around this in one random scenario, and Lu Meng was normal at last. But I deleted it and now he's back to crappy. Early Lu Meng with mid-80s INT was nice. :(

[Zyzyfer]

For v6, I just realized that the remove ties option removes the parents, but not the clan byte, so newcomers still end up joining the clan head regardless.