Auto-Generated Battle Maps(A forgotten gamplay part)

[Bjorn The Dead]

I am 99% of sure this is already too late to ask for this but I am going to ask it anyway.

I just watched a Resonant video( Revisiting Warband After Bannerlord... Was It REALLY ALL THAT GOOD? - YouTube ). At 2:38, he enters a battle with looters and baaaammmm! You are in a map you never experienced before. Your brain automatically starts how best use this terrain to your army advantage(yeah that battle in the video is with looters but you know what I mean).

First time, when I read these pre-made battle maps in a devblog, I was like "I guess this is not a big deal". After playing 200 hours just after release, I came to understanding that pre-made battle maps sucks(I know I was slow to figure it out). How many map you are gonna create will not change this since it is a sandbox game and we players will come to a point memorizing all of them.

But realizing pre-made battle map sucks did not mean I remembered how good was auto genereted ones. This video made me remember that and I realized those maps was huge gameplay part for me(I am sure this is same for most of you).

Let's just brainstorm here! Let's say TW decides they want auto-generated maps back in the game, how plausible is this?
I am almost sure they designed ai with respect to pre-made maps, so that is a huge obstacle.

 

[SGT_Night]

I am almost sure they designed ai with respect to pre-made maps, so that is a huge obstacle.

Thats one big problem, AI Pathfind need to be made by hand, there is an auto option, but is not good.

I saw one video (battle begins in 4:22) from resonant from a custom map and the AI was acting so dumb, probably the author don't made the strategic points correctly in the editor or don't place them at all (Is kinda of a fuction that made the AI recognise strategic points of the map, like a hill to stand and hold the attacking force, etc...)

 

[froggyluv]

Well hopefully they are working on pathing algorithms for AI to work in random maps on the fly -cant be that tough. Agree with the OP fully -im a terrain guy, my brain loves to instantly look at terrain and devise angles of attack, ambush and subterfuge

 

[Ashraam]

Agreed ! Pre-made maps are a huge step back from warband. I hope someone will find a way to implement random maps because this is the number one reason why I almost stopped playing bannerlord...

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

I hope someone will find a way to implement random maps

Well, I asked this @Bloc (second mod of Bannerlord and couple of others made by him) in Turkish forum, he said it is [near] impossible for a modder to that. His post is too much technical for me to translate. By any chance, releasing of modding tools changed this(I know you said modding tools would not help this situation)?

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Procedural battle maps would be a major improvement. Fighting on the same small selection of battlefields is one big thing that makes the game feel so repetitive after awhile. It would be really nice if the battlefields actually related to the geography of the map. Of course, that means programming a good map generator that doesn't make the 90 degree slopes you'd often see in some Warband scenes, so I'm sure its not a small task. Still, I believe this is an area that's worth investing the time and effort into. I'd rather they focus on this than a more complex economy.

At the very least, they ought to reassign most of the sceners who are handcrafting unique scenes for every single village and put them to work cranking out more battle scenes. They should be releasing a few new battlefields with every patch.

 

[TheMightyBoosh]

I was under the impression that more battle scenes were going to be coming before full release but here we are and havent seen many (if any) new ones added yet,

 

[Suspicious_Man]

...I guess I'll throw my two cents in here since I've done some exploratory work on this front:

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/mount-and-blade-ii-randomlord.416844/#post-9452869

From what I've seen so far it's going to be really hard to do. There is no way that I'm aware of to just interface with the scene editor while in game, since they're separate applications. What this means is that if I want to make this happen as a modder I not only need to come up with a complete terrain generation algorithm that I can use in C# (itself a massive undertaking, think essentially coding a ****ty World Machine in C#), but I need to then find a way to take the results of that generation process and format it/pack it into a binary that Bannerlord will understand as a scene without the help of the scene editor.

I will need to have generation algorithms for the navigation mesh and entity placement as well, both of which present a host of problems on their own, and both of which will need to be packed into Bannerlord readable formats as well.

I believe all this is technically possible but it will be a large amount of work, will require expertise regarding C# and the Bannerlord binaries which I don't currently possess, and the results will almost certainly not be nearly as good as hand crafted battle scenes/world maps. It might also take a while to run/generate each scene, given the level of detail in Bannerlord.

One other idea I've toyed around with but haven't had time to look into much is the possibility of handmaking a series of "tile" scenes which can be joined together with an algorithm to make a single continuous scene, similar to the scene generation process used in Path of Exile. This would retain the 'handmade' aspect of the scenes while still allowing for a large degree of randomization. Stitching the different scene tiles together would still require in depth knowledge about how the scene binaries are packed, so that's something I won't be able tackle for a while yet.

In the meantime, I am currently working on making a pack of single player battle scenes for use by whoever wants them (my goal was 10 scenes), but I've halted work on that for the time being because TW put out a contest for village scene creation... sorry. I just have limited bandwith and there's a lot of work to be done. I'm sure there are other scene makers who are working on battle scenes as well, though most of them are probably for mods and won't be released stand alone.

If there is interest in working on this stuff people can feel free to post on the thread I linked above, I would love help from folks who are knowledgeable about the binaries, good with C#, etc. So far no one has stepped forward so I'm going it alone, which is fine, but it will just take me a long time.

 

[Andreiutu05]

I am 99% of sure this is already too late to ask for this but I am going to ask it anyway.

I just watched a Resonant video( Revisiting Warband After Bannerlord... Was It REALLY ALL THAT GOOD? - YouTube ). At 2:38, he enters a battle with looters and baaaammmm! You are in a map you never experienced before. Your brain automatically starts how best use this terrain to your army advantage(yeah that battle in the video is with looters but you know what I mean).

First time, when I read these pre-made battle maps in a devblog, I was like "I guess this is not a big deal". After playing 200 hours just after release, I came to understanding that pre-made battle maps sucks(I know I was slow to figure it out). How many map you are gonna create will not change this since it is a sandbox game and we players will come to a point memorizing all of them.

But realizing pre-made battle map sucks did not mean I remembered how good was auto genereted ones. This video made me remember that and I realized those maps was huge gameplay part for me(I am sure this is same for most of you).

Let's just brainstorm here! Let's say TW decides they want auto-generated maps back in the game, how plausible is this?
I am almost sure they designed ai with respect to pre-made maps, so that is a huge obstacle.

pre-made battles are ok, especially that you can create some epic ones for ambush-type battles and epic real life battles, im fine with them as long as they add more and more maps.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Hopefully modders will make some nicer maps anyways.
I was under the impression that the maps where just a placeholder for generated maps... but I guess that was wrong.
I'd like some kind of option to choose a map too, as if "go into the woods" "go to the field" "Go toward the hills"

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Thats one big problem, AI Pathfind need to be made by hand, there is an auto option, but is not good.

In warband since the maps didn't have any hard obstacles, there was no pathfinding, troops would just walk directly to the enemy. So long as there are no ridiculous cliffs I think this is fine.

If there is interest in working on this stuff people can feel free to post on the thread I linked above, I would love help from folks who are knowledgeable about the binaries, good with C#, etc. So far no one has stepped forward so I'm going it alone, which is fine, but it will just take me a long time.

I coded a system exactly like this for my game where it parses a generated heightmap into arrays of vert positions and triangle indices which I think are standard for most engines. If you ever need help with this part PM me if you want.

 

[Akka]

First time, when I read these pre-made battle maps in a devblog, I was like "I guess this is not a big deal". After playing 200 hours just after release, I came to understanding that pre-made battle maps sucks(I know I was slow to figure it out).

I have to say, anyone who didn't IMMEDIATELY think "this is completely stupid" was a bit slow. Don't feel bad though, there are many here that still haven't got it.
Pre-made battle maps are complete, utter sh*t except for fixed scenery features (like castles/villages/cities). The best method would be procedural maps taking coordinates as seed (so if you fight on the exact same localisation on the world map, you get the exact same map). But it's immediately obvious to anyone with a bit of game experience that it's not possible to provide enough hand-made maps for a game with so many battles over such a long duration without them becoming horribly repetitive.

The decision of using hand-made map was a very obviously abysmally bad one, and I can't figure why TW decided it (they don't get the "not experienced" excuse).

 

[Ashraam]

I really hope TW will look at this thread because this is a real issue for the long term health of this game...

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

snip

Thank you for your answer. I pray modding community will provide the help you need or anyone who will try to do this. But as I unsderstand it we will not see a mod about this which runs smoothly in 2-4 years ahead. But still, it is best if TW decide to do this even if the game will be in EA for two more years.

In warband since the maps didn't have any hard obstacles, there was no pathfinding, troops would just walk directly to the enemy. So long as there are no ridiculous cliffs I think this is fine.

In Bannelord, there are minimal obstacles in hand-made maps(I mean in open battle maps) and as far as I am concerned, there will be no gameplay difference without them for the player. In a mod or in a update which is done by TW, I think we don't need that rocky stuff in auto generated maps for decent maps for us to experience.

pre-made battles are ok, especially that you can create some epic ones for ambush-type battles and epic real life battles, im fine with them as long as they add more and more maps.

I am happy for you. But epicness is also subjective term.

I have to say, anyone who didn't IMMEDIATELY think "this is completely stupid" was a bit slow. Don't feel bad though, there are many here that still haven't got it.

I know. Feels bad, man.

 

[Lesbosisles]

If they could eradicate somehow the probability of fighting on the 90 degree mountains, the procedural maps would've been VERY cool.

 

[archaicwarrior]

or .. allow players to zoom in on the Strat map to see the underlying tactical battle map . Wellington "I've scouted the Waterloo area a few years back and I've kept it in my pocket !"

And yes, we need far more battle maps .. the current bridge map is a foot bridge in a forest.. connected to a goat track.

.

 

[Dejan]

The next patch may alleviate this issue somewhat through the introduction of additional battle terrains. Auto-generated terrains are not something we are currently exploring, but we intend to continue adding a range of custom battle terrains.

 

[SGT_Night]

The next patch may alleviate this issue somewhat through the introduction of additional battle terrains. Auto-generated terrains are not something we are currently exploring, but we intend to continue adding a range of custom battle terrains.

Glad to hear it! Thanks for the info!

 

[HugoTheFrenchMan]

The next patch may alleviate this issue somewhat through the introduction of additional battle terrains. Auto-generated terrains are not something we are currently exploring, but we intend to continue adding a range of custom battle terrains.

Very cool!

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

Auto-generated terrains are not something we are currently exploring

Thanks for the info!
I could be trying to find a meaning in your words which you did not mean but since you said "currently", there was a talk/debate about it among devs? Ofcourse, it is totally understandable not want to share this with community if it is just a talk/debate.