Brandywine Creek Map

**Robert86** · May 13, 2009, 11:10 AM

Can this map be made useable in custom battles, so that one can choose the armies for each side and actually have the chance to deploy there own troops. How would I do this?

**badger1815** · May 18, 2009, 11:50 AM

i believe so yes, you'll have to duplicate the brandywine map record in the battles table, set the map type to classic instead of historic & make sure the last 6 numbers in the unknown part are 01 01 01.

cheers
B

**Robert86** · May 18, 2009, 12:11 PM

well, I gave that a try and it didn't seem to work. Going to see if any files need to be moved arround to make it playable in custom battles

**Officerpuppy** · May 19, 2009, 11:00 AM

That would be cool, its a unique map in that it has that crossing in the middle, unlike the other custom battle maps that seem to be a varriation of just hills and trees.

**badger1815** · May 19, 2009, 05:11 PM

apparently, the default brandywine map doesn't include a deployment zones file, as that is included in the SP script.

Adding a data/battleterrain/presets/brandywine/deploymentzones.xml to you pack, and editing in the correct values in the battles table & loc file might do the trick. I'll try tomorrow.

cheers
B

**nigelnire** · May 20, 2009, 05:04 PM

Id love to be able to play that map in custom battle if you guys can make this work out it will be awesome.

**nigelnire** · May 26, 2009, 06:16 PM

Any update about this? The big let down for me with Empire is the lack of maps for custom battles the few we have dont even have rivers or buildings like farms that can be captured and you always start from the same side of the map.

**Robert86** · May 27, 2009, 10:36 AM

I've attempted to add this map a few times now, after some playing arround I got it to show in the list of playable maps but it crashes every time I try to open it. I haven't worked on it for a couple weeks now as I've been camping my days off and working the rest of the time.

I too am pretty dissapointed by the lack of variety in the maps. Little to no difficult terrain, no buildings. Mostly just big open feilds. And the few maps with cliffs and large hills and stuff are set ouit of the deployment zones. I had hopped the Brandywine map was a preview of the detail and quality of the maps we'd get to play in the game but it seems that the game is very lacking in that catagory. I keep hoping CA or someone will make a release a map pack with highly detailed maps that will add a lot of variety to the custom battles.

**Aradiel** · May 28, 2009, 06:37 AM

Originally Posted by Robert86

I keep hoping CA or someone will make a release a map pack with highly detailed maps that will add a lot of variety to the custom battles.

I wouldnt count on ca, but you can count on the community. The first historic battle has already been released, while we keep working on more. It shows many features, that you refer to, and it can be used for any custom battles well. In the near future, you can expect citys, and highly detailed landscapes based on real map information. If you want to check it out, follow my sig.

**Robert86** · May 29, 2009, 10:22 AM

I get a link not valid message...

**Aradiel** · May 30, 2009, 03:43 AM

I fixed the link, although i dont know why it became messed up initially

**Mooncabbage** · July 14, 2009, 11:49 PM

I believe there was a thread somewhere about editing the unfinished CA maps like culloden etc for MP use. Does anyone know anything about this? From memory it pretty much covered what everyone here wants to know.

Right, I've looked into it, and simply put, you can't make brandywine creek a classic battle because it lacks deployment zones. So basically until someone cracks the bmd.dat format that the maps in game use, or works out how to add deployment zones to existing maps (it might be possible to simple add the deployment zone .xml in regardless), it won't be possible.

**Officerpuppy** · July 16, 2009, 01:24 PM

The siege of Boston map is pretty unique too, too bad we would run into the same issues as the Brandywine map.

**Flavious** · July 08, 2010, 12:09 AM

I'm making a custom battle map for ETW solo and mp play - hisatorical, using satellite elevation data, for White Plains (10/28/1776).
See my W.I.P. thread on The American Revolution mod subforum.

**Flavious** · August 21, 2010, 12:52 PM

I've found you can open bmd.dat files using the esf editor tool. You can look at all the battleterrain files that way. But I can't figure out how to extract a single file from the bmd.dat (for example, farm_manager) so it can be added to a map via Pack File Manager. If we could do that, we'd have it cracked. The "save as" command in the esf editor seems not to work -- it stays locked on the name bmd.dat and won't let me change it.

**MathiasOfAthens** · August 21, 2010, 03:25 PM

The boston map would be pretty cool if you could fight in the city as well.

**Robert86** · August 21, 2010, 10:17 PM

Thats awesome. I'm downloading the esf editor and playing arround with that to see what can be done.

**Flavious** · August 21, 2010, 10:40 PM

Excellent, Robert. See my discussion thread here to follow our progress so far in trying to figure out how to get walls and fences onto a custom map:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=380387

**Robert86** · August 23, 2010, 12:47 PM

For some reason every time I download the esf editor the download messes up the file and it wont work. I'm trying to get together with a friend and download it at his place, save on a flash drive, and see it that'll work. Flavious, that is some awesome work you've done with that map. So far I have sucessfully made only one map that was almost all flat and pretty bland. I'm not even sure what I did to make it playable, it just kind of was... And not much fun. A lot of the modding knowhow is still beyond me for now but guys like you sure help guys like me alot

I'm reading through all the work on your map and attatched links trying to learn more.

**Flavious** · August 23, 2010, 06:37 PM

Here's another tip if you're tired of flat battle maps: The settings in a map's definition.xml file have a huge effect on the way a map will actually look in-game. Pay particular attention to the "scale" setting. As the mapping tutorial says:

scale

is the height range of the map, the higher the values, the more hilly. If all 4 dds maps
have the same color range (white to black eg) the values need to be same across all 4

definition files.

So even if your heightmap has its highest hill at 106 meters and its lowest at 49 meters, your map in-game could look like a flat swamp or the Swiss alps depending on its scale setting. It's worth tweaking this setting once you have a working map, to see what the different scale settings do to the terrain.