Discussion between Robson and Malekai

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08:54

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Q: Randomised Terrain Generation in Board Game

I'm designing a Board Game, where as more sections of the Board are added, terrain is randomly placed on the new board section. The Board section itself is 2 feet by 1 foot so the idea we are currently working with is using Dice to randomise the coordinates (4D6 for the X and 2D6 for the Y). For ...

Robson

2 feet by 1 foot is a large thing, is your game field large like warhammer fields?

Malekai

the total length is 4 feet by 2 feet, tiles are added to the board as the game progresses.

Robson

so there is a total of just 4 board sections?

Malekai

yes that is correct

Robson

oh ok, so you add terrain "tokens" to the section right? is there a fixed amount of terrain tokens on each section?

Malekai

08:54

That too is correct, as players move across the board, new sections are added, as sections are added the idea is to add terrain tokens to the new section. We haven't decided on how many tokens are added yet either, that will probably be another question :)

Robson

hey there, i moved the discussion to a chat =)

Malekai

Hello

Good idea

Robson

dices are indeed random

but the problem is,

how long will it take to roll for all those terrain tokens?

Malekai

well we are currently working with 4 terrain tokens, so it takes 8 sets of dice

4 lots of 4 and 4 lots of 2

4 tokens is just a preliminary idea we are using, we would also like to change this rule but thats for another question

Robson

so the total space in a section is 24x12 right?

Malekai

08:57

inches, yes

a terrain token is roughly 2 inch by 1 inch (but again this is subject to change)

Robson

no, i'm talking about spaces where you will place terrain tokens

Malekai

the board is not in a grid if thats what you mean

Robson

ok

Malekai

it is just a plain (ignoring art work) 2 foot by 1 foot board, with no marking

Robson

but is there any division in the section?

Malekai

08:58

no

Robson

and so how you place the terrains?

and what you mean with X and Y

Malekai

players move in terms of inches, not spaces

Robson

ah ok

Malekai

so currently we just say for eachterrain piece, roll 4D6 and measure across the long edge, then roll 2D6 and measure the short edge. then place the terrain at where these 2 lines would meet

Robson

nice

but the minimum value for X will be 4 and for Y will be 2

Malekai

09:00

but we find that terrain tends to bunch together nearer the middle of the board

yes

another problem we have is as you say, minimum values

Robson

well... the dices are Ok for randomization I guess, I don't think it is a good idea to add something like an Android application to support the game

so dices are OK

you will just have to create some rules for when the terrains overlap I guess

Malekai

the diagram may show better my point

Robson

I did understand it

Malekai

you would place the terrain piece on the X

ah ok

good, we were just looking for a more inventive solution as rolling the dice can be long winded, has minimum values etc

Robson

well

you can have a 24 sided dice XD

and a 12 sided dice

so you will ahve to include them in your final product I guess

anyway you would have to include the 4+2 D6 in the product anyway

Malekai

09:05

yes the project would come with roughly 40 dice we think

Robson

40? WOW

never seen that amount even in a RPG table XD

Malekai

lol yeah. each player has to have 8, and then we thought 8 was a good number to have for none player related rolling (terrain)

Robson

well then, if you use a 24 sided dice and a 12 sided dice for that you solve the minimum values and also reduce the space needed to roll the dices

anyway you will end up with the possibility of overlapping terrains

and still you have to define some rules

Malekai

yeah in which case we would just have them reroll the result

Robson

OR =)

you could use an 8 sided dice

to chose the direction where to put the overlapping terrain

Malekai

09:08

true

Robson

1 for north, 2 for north east, 3 for east and so on...

and you could modify the 8 sided dice to have N, NE, E instead of the numbers XD

Malekai

any other ideas on how we could place the terrain? as I said we were looking for a more inventive way of randomising where to place things

Robson

use cards I guess

instead of dices?

Malekai

what do you mean cards? cards with coordinates on?

Robson

yes

so you would need something like 12x12 cards so 144 total cards

one for each possible terrain position

but shuffling 144 cards might be not that good

Malekai

09:13

what if we had say 8-12 cards, each had a diagram showing the position and number of terrain pieces?

then you laid out the section as the card showed

Robson

still you would have overlapping stuff

oh wait, no overlapping stuff, but the "layout" would be always the same

Malekai

yes

but each seciton would be randomised

you'd draw a random section from the card pile

Robson

pseudo randomized

Malekai

and then you'd add the terrain as the card shows

yea

so each section is one of a possible 12 layouts?

Robson

no

Malekai

09:16

and all you're doing is randomly choosing a layout from the desk

deck*

Robson

with your idea each section will be the same layout, but different terrains

Malekai

yeah, sorry by layout I mean terrain

Robson

oh understtod

*understood

Malekai

each section has one of twelve possible terrain layouts

Robson

i guess you can make more than 12 cards then

Malekai

09:18

true, aslong as we designed the board layouts

Robson

make it something like 50 or 60, like a magic the gathering deck

to give more "randomness" to the game

Malekai

yeah thats a good idea

think we've got it there :)

thanks for your time mate, and thats for the help

thanks*

Robson

actually

Malekai

?

Robson

combination(12,4)= 1485 possibilities?

something wrong in my math here

12!/(4!8!)

Malekai

09:23

im not following you

Robson

nvm

with 12 layout cards

the total number of boards you can create is 495

Malekai

ah right, i follow

not a bad number :)

Robson

with 60 cards that would be 487635

Malekai

may be over kill lol

Robson

^^

but let me check how many cards you can make with that fixed amount of stuff

i mean terrain spaces

how many terrain types will you ahve?

Malekai

09:29

well, probably 5-6 different sized tokens

Robson

also, if you plan on just adding 4 terrain tokens of 2x1 inches, will the rest of the board be blank with no terrain?

or will you just fill the whole board with terrains?

Malekai

the board will be mostly plain, but with a set number (4 is just a test number for now) of terrain pieces on there

Robson

hmm

so they will not be just 2in x 1in right?

Malekai

no, typically AT THE MOMENT, theyre about 1in by 2in

but in the final thing there will be many different types of terrain in varying sizes

Robson

got it

have you ever played Diablo 3, the pc game from blizzard?

they have a cool way radomizing the maps

they have loads of terrains with different shapes, that have some "linking points"

each terrain will link to another with their "linking points"

Malekai

09:42

yeah I have

see the board sections will link like that

Robson

yeah, but you got only 4

Malekai

hang on, drawing a diagram

Robson

but with the cards you are randomizing the layouts

you could do something like blizzard, but you will need a real good artwork on those sections

Malekai

so, basically. the blue line is just an imaginary line

the red wavey line is artwork on the board sections

and the green dots are the random terrain

both the red and blue lines are nothing in game terms or rules

only the terrain actually has an effect on the game

aslong as the red lines meet the blue at the board edge, each tile will line up as part of the board

(if you havent guessed already by now, the board is a road :) )

each tile on the board can be drawn onto a card (ignoring the red and blue lines) and then drawn randomly as we said

Robson

can't you have something like this?

freekvd

09:51

I tried my best to explain the issue with using dice for randomization, though judging from what you two are talking about here you might want to broaden the scope of your question a bit

Malekai

@Robson no the board is just laid out as a straight road

@freekvd thanks for the answer, it helped me to understand why I was seeing the problems with the randomisation using dice

Robson

@freekvd how have you done that diagram? did you use any site? =)

freekvd

I found it on Math SE

Malekai

well, thanks for your time guys. Think I've got my answer for now. Cheers, take care

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Discussion between Robson and Malekai