HAG (Heroscape Army Generator)

[shawndelton]

For those of you using HAG and wondering how to add your custom units, I have added a comment about this on the download page. Here is the comment for your convience:

Sorry, there is no quick GUI way to add a new unit, but it is fairly easy. There is a sub-directory called 'Army Cards' that holds the '.hac' files. These are Heroscape Army Card files, and are just plain text (open with notepad). Just copy, rename and edit one of these files. You should recognize most of the attributes. The 'preference' attribute is a ittle more complicated and I won't get into it unless someone wants to hear about it, so just eliminate it or leave it blank. Next time you start the program the army will show up in the list.

[Xotli]

Originally Posted by shawndelton

For those of you using HAG ...

I'm not, but perhaps I should be ... is there a link?

[shawndelton]

HAG is available in the software downloads section of Heroscapers. The one major requirement is the .NET Framework 1.1, so any Linux users may be out of luck. Although, I would be interested to hear if it works (or not) in Mono.

I am currently working on version 2.0, which is a complete re-write. This next version will have more emphasis on collection management. Now is the time for any suggestions

[Xotli]

Originally Posted by shawndelton

HAG is available in the software downloads section of Heroscapers. The one major requirement is the .NET Framework 1.1, so any Linux users may be out of luck. Although, I would be interested to hear if it works (or not) in Mono.

I'll try it in Mono and let you know how it goes.

[elphiecoyle]

Shawn,

Thank you for the sweetest program to grace our tournaments in Australia!

Could you please go into *great* detail on the preference attribute? I've gone and changed all of the units preferences already so that it makes more synergistic teams, but I would love to check i'm doing it all fine, especially when it comes to those i've put multiple preferences on.

Cheers,
Elf.

[shawndelton]

The preference attribute is really very simple if you know SQL. It is not as powerful as I would like it to be, which is why I have been planning a rewrite of the application. So far I have only done the army management rewrite, and have not started a rewrite of the generator.

I think the best way to explain it is with a simple example, so I will jump right in the middle of a generation. Say a player already has a few amy cards that have been selected, and has 200 points left in his pool.

Among his army cards are:

Marro Drones with a preference attribute of: (name = 'Marro Drones')

and

Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider with a preference of: (species = 'Orc')

The player may have other army cards selected already, but none have preferences. If preferences are being used, the generator goes through each army card the player has already, and builds a query to get a list of army cards to choose from. In this case the query WHERE clause would look like this:

count > 0 AND points <= 200 AND ((species = 'Orc') OR (name = 'Marro Drones'));

count > 0 : is to only select army cards that are still left in the pool.

points <= 200 : is to select only army cards that this player can afford.

The AND clause is to select only army cards that match atleast one of the preferences (each preference is separated by an OR, so only one preference has to be met).

An army card is then chosen at random to add to the player's selected cards. If no army cards were returned by the query, then a query without preferences is done:

count > 0 AND points <= 200

If no armies are returned from this query, then the player is done selecting.

There may be a few other things added to the query depending upon what other settings you have. This has to do with what uniqueness level you selected, and whether you require a hero. But this really isn't important to this discussion.

Here is a list of available columns and their type:
column - type
---------------------
count - int
name - string
general - string
uniqueness - string
points - int
species - string
type - string
classification - string
personality - string
size - string
height - int
quantity - int

I believe I turned off case sensativity on the column names, so case shouldn't matter in the query. (species = 'Orc') should be the same as (Species = 'Orc').

Enjoy!

By the way, I LOVE your country. My wife and I took a vacation there a couple years back. We flew into Sydney and spent a night there, then drove to the Melbourne area. Stayed at a little resort in Kynton for a week before coming home. The Great Ocean Road was a wonderful drive. The wife had to drive, because I just didn't even want to think of driving on the left side

[elphiecoyle]

Wowsers!

When i requested detail, I wasn't expecting that, but what a great surprise!
You've brought back my SQL teachings that were cobwebbed in the back of my brain.

Many thanks, that clarifies heaps, and means I've been on the right path with editing all the preferences. We found that in its original state people were getting rather crappy pics with one dude getting an orc army. If you want I can shoot u my edits and some of the updated units ive been working on. Although its rather basic, just adding their own names as preferences with Common cards and the like. We found the teams made rock hard in tourneys.

Possibly a consideration for future versions is "levels" of preferencing, thus giving a bit of a choice on just how random picks are?

On the note of our lovely country, you're more than welcome up here in Sunny Queensland, consider the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast next trip and I'll hold a tourney/fun day in ure honour whilst your here.

Many thx again and looking forward to ure next version.

Elf.

[jetjake]

shawndelton - is there anyway to have the software not put two units together (like both drakes). I have added most of the new units but this is always a possibility.

[shawndelton]

The 'Army Uniqueness' level can prevent two of the same unit from being together, as long as it is a unique unit.

There is no way to prevent two different units from being put together.

It has been a long while since I have looked at the code, but I can take a peek and maybe do an update if you want the functionality.

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by shawndelton

The 'Army Uniqueness' level can prevent two of the same unit from being together, as long as it is a unique unit.

There is no way to prevent two different units from being put together.

It has been a long while since I have looked at the code, but I can take a peek and maybe do an update if you want the functionality.

Well, Drake (old) and Drake (new) are the same unit, according to the rules (the 2 cannot be used on the same team (same with Raelin 1 and 2).

[shawndelton]

Originally Posted by Cavalier

Well, Drake (old) and Drake (new) are the same unit, according to the rules (the 2 cannot be used on the same team (same with Raelin 1 and 2).

Alright, so that is what is meant by both drakes. So, the answer is no, it can not be done at the moment because each Drake is considered a different unit. I will take a look at it though.

[holland227]

I enjoy this program. After I got it all figured out how to add the cards I am in the process of listing my guys to create random battles for me and my friends who play. It comes up with some strange teams!!!