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Terrain layout and placement is a sticking point in some groups for a variety of reasons.

Various methods of player based placement often leads to stale layouts as each player tries to optimize things for his side.

There would be two versions, but the output is basically the same

The basic generator would just output a black and white image of any size table divided into 1 foot grids. Black rectangles of various sizes represent terrain objects that the players then choose and position according to the generator. This generator could account for things like angles and heights.

The advanced version could also dictate the types of terrain, such as trenches, forest/wooded zones, water, etc... You could also change the settings to generate terrain that fits a kind of locations, like city, wooded. For the city preset, it would place things in an king city block structure leaving open lanes for streets, although with some rubble in the streets. It could also randomize the placement of objectives (although maintaining rules for balance).

What I figure is you already have such things done for video games, why not put some of that towards making wargaming better and more interesting.

Doesn't it have a camera? Could you photograph your terrain and have the program build maps using your terrain?

That'd be pretty awesome.

George Spiggott wrote:Doesn't it have a camera? Could you photograph your terrain and have the program build maps using your terrain?

That'd be pretty awesome.

The iPhone does, but the iTouch doesn't (they are the same OS).

I would personally love an Army Builder for my iTouch..

I'm really thinking I like the idea of 'Terrain Cards' the D6 Generation guys talked about... Applying this to an application would be relatively simple if I knew how to program.

Have an interface to create cards. Cards have an image, a grid location, a size, and some text fields for description, game effects, etc. Maybe key game effects so you can have multiple game effects lists for Warmachine, 40k, Heavy Gear, etc.

Then there's a 'build' mode where it accepts a table size and desired # of pieces (or even density) and randomly generates a layout. Additionally, it should be possibly to use this subset of selected terrain to randomly pick pieces for objectives, etc.

Then a 'play' mode where pieces can be looked up quickly and easily.