MAP DESIGN - advice, tips & tricks

**Adherbal** · September 17, 2006, 01:35 PM

here's a list of "tips & tricks" involving map design. This is all copy pasted from threads in the dev forums, so forgive me if it is randomish or if things are being repeated:

BEFORE ACTUALY STARTING ON YOUR MAP, make sure you get the defenders and attackers position right. IIRC the camera starts in the middle of the map, facing the attacker's side. The first thing I always do is place a piece of stone road there (center of map) which can then be used as orientation point. TEST YOUR MAP IN CUSTOM BATTLE ASAP, so you are certain that you got the defender/attacker side right: TEAM I is the ATTACKER, TEAM II is the DEFENDER. This is not hardcoded, but it's a rule by which we are designing all maps. STICK TO IT.
maps are saved in napoleonic\data\world\maps\battle\custom. In order to make them available for custom battle, move the map's folder to napoleonic\data\world\maps\custom.
keep terrain features such as hills and forests SMALL, meaning they offer protection to 2 or 3 units but not more. Especially on the defenders side. If there is a big hill the defender will always deploy his entire army there which makes the rest of the map obsolete. If there is a big forest the defender will hide his entire army inside, making it invulnerable to artillery fire. Lots of little terrain features make maps interesting, flat open maps do not offer much strategic options other then a direct attack.
when designing a map, think about how the attacker can defeat the defender. You must make sure that the attacker can use specific terrain features against the defender. For example if there is a ridge that offers the defender protection from a frontal attack, create a village or hill on it's flank, from were the attacker's artillery can hit the defending units that are stationed behind the ridge, while being protected from the defender's artillery fire. This will force the defender to split his army between the ridge and that village/hill, so that the attacker can focus his attack on only a part of the defender's army.
if you want to change the texture underneath a village or other feature, do it before you place the feature and it works just fine. To get it right, you might need to delete the object and fix the terrain underneath a couple of times. Objects such as houses look a lot more realistic if they have darker or muddy terrain underneath, then when placed on plain grassfields.
If you place an object it'll create a flat square , and if the terrain was steep you will easily see this square being cut out of the terrain which looks ugly. Due to my newly aquired l33t mapping skills I found a decent solution for this:

First flatten the terrain in a large, round shape around the tile you want to place the object on. Do this with ctrl + left mouse button. Now place the object. Because the terrain was already flat it will not be affected. Now smooth the borders of flat round shape with shift + left mouse button. You'll end up with a much more natural result, nothing squarey.

shift + left mouse is also usefull if you decide to remove an object and want to make the terrain a bit less flat.
here is the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt file content:

grass_short 1.0 ;; normal speed
grass_long 1.0 ;; normal speed
sand 1.0 ;; normal speed
rock 0.5 ;; difficult terrain, slow down movement
forest_dense 0.7 ;; dense forests, slow down movement, affects combat stats
scrub_dense 1.0 ;; normal speed
swamp 1.0 ;; normal speed
mud 1.0 ;; normal speed
mud_road 1.5 ;; road
stone_road 1.0 ;; bridges
water 0.7 ;; H²O
ice 0.8 ;; yummy
snow 0.9 ;; brrrrr

here is an example of an (unfinished) map. Note the use of different shades in terrain, especially around forests, creeks, roads, on top of hills and in valleys. They represent different types and density of vegetation and make the map look more real.