By looking at current map generation, its still "unbalanced" in AOE2:DE, specially for 1v1 (in TGs luck tends to balance across players).
I guess no1 wants to mess with the map generation algorithms because the code is probably quite old as it does a nice job generating random maps. But that degree of randomness is quite a risk for tournaments.
I never tried any modding in aoe, but would like to try (or just give the idea to developers if they are around), is it possible to add a post-processing phase to the map generation?
I guess/hope the map is just a matrix with the positions of everything (including TCs).
By looking at the unbalance, 99% is caused because of the distance to gold and stone (at least the 2-nearest ones to the player).
What I would like is to measure the distance between both TCs and their key resources and enemy key resources (aka maybe 2-nearest gold and stones) in 1vs1 in order to validate if a map is valid or balanced. This strategy should cover both distance and also if they are in front or behind the TC (which is also a key factor). Having this "quality-metric" then you can set a threshold, choose the best out of X generations or whatever... (I know for tournaments something like this has been done manually, but it has leaking risks and is also a nightmare to do manually)
Maybe trees can be taken into account too, but I guess that's heavier work.
Nowadays we have CPUs which are very strong, so I doubt having to generate the map 10 times would make any difference (+ in tourneys I doubt any1 would complain).
I have coding skills in C++ and others (not so much time tho D: ) so I can research by myself, but would like to know if the game (specially DE...) allows to do something like this, or I would be just wasting my time.
PS: If not possible, it would be great if DE developers implemented the tools to allow modders implement their own rules, now that you are messing with the code and are probably familiar with it. Community will probably find a way to get balanced maps eventually creating rules like this (at least for tournaments).
I guess no1 wants to mess with the map generation algorithms because the code is probably quite old as it does a nice job generating random maps. But that degree of randomness is quite a risk for tournaments.
I never tried any modding in aoe, but would like to try (or just give the idea to developers if they are around), is it possible to add a post-processing phase to the map generation?
I guess/hope the map is just a matrix with the positions of everything (including TCs).
By looking at the unbalance, 99% is caused because of the distance to gold and stone (at least the 2-nearest ones to the player).
What I would like is to measure the distance between both TCs and their key resources and enemy key resources (aka maybe 2-nearest gold and stones) in 1vs1 in order to validate if a map is valid or balanced. This strategy should cover both distance and also if they are in front or behind the TC (which is also a key factor). Having this "quality-metric" then you can set a threshold, choose the best out of X generations or whatever... (I know for tournaments something like this has been done manually, but it has leaking risks and is also a nightmare to do manually)
Maybe trees can be taken into account too, but I guess that's heavier work.
Nowadays we have CPUs which are very strong, so I doubt having to generate the map 10 times would make any difference (+ in tourneys I doubt any1 would complain).
I have coding skills in C++ and others (not so much time tho D: ) so I can research by myself, but would like to know if the game (specially DE...) allows to do something like this, or I would be just wasting my time.
PS: If not possible, it would be great if DE developers implemented the tools to allow modders implement their own rules, now that you are messing with the code and are probably familiar with it. Community will probably find a way to get balanced maps eventually creating rules like this (at least for tournaments).
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