This guide has been formated to be 79 characters wide (you can count them).
Welcome to the apparent first guide showing how to use the map editor! I prefer
to use editors to modify the game as opposed to actually playing it. My only
reason for playing is to learn more about the game mechanics, but now that I
know those, I've decided to devote myself to editing, or playing through the
campaign with Guiler's guide in hand. But I want to help others edit too! So
I decided to do my first guide ever on an editor. Anyway, on to the guide.
WARNING!!! This guide was made with an unpatched version of the editor. I
cannot take responsiblity if these commands don't work in a patched version.
Table of contents
To find anything, use Ctrl+F to open find, then type in the number of the
section plus the period and parenthese.
0.) Version history
1.) The Basics
2.) Advanced Stuff
3.) Making a map walkthrough
4.) Turning our map into a campaign
5.) HELP!!!
6.) Legal Stuff
7.) Credits
8.) Contact info
0.) Version History
Version 1.0
8/?/2004
Campaign map 2 done, no updates until I get more info. As a side note, my
editor did a crash to desktop as opposed to a usual freeze and displayed:
"Exiting AoW 2Ed Saving map to temp" Hmmm, maybe I should do an update for the
AoW 2 folks who don't have the new game yet. Hmmmm.
I also went digging around in the Shadow Magic folder and found an executable
named ILEd.exe, short for Image Library Editor. This would be how to do the
custom Wizards and sprites. You could also possibly redraw some of the units,
I just have no idea how. If someone who knows about graphics editing can help
me on this, it would be greatly appreciated and I would give full credit and
ask your permission before letting anyone use this guide.
Version 0.75
8/9/2004
Finally finished the tutorial map. Now to do map number 2. This one could
take a while, because I did start the tutorial map before I started the guide,
so I didn't have as much to do there. Still, isn't summer break great?
Version 0.5
8/5/2004
Done up through the Advanced stuff. Need to finish the tutorial map before I
add it to the guide. Hopefully this helps.
1.) The Basics
The first thing you see when you open up the editor is... a blank screen. Let's
change that, shall we?
To start a new map, go File>New. Now you have a window that lets you input the
specifications for your map. In my opinion, the easiest map to learn on is
medium, because you won't be intimidated by the size of an Extra Large map, and
you can place more stuff than on a Small map. So I'm opening a medium map (not
that it makes any difference except for size that I can tell).
Next you have to decide how many players to put in. I usually go with 2
because you can change it later and I like to keep things simple.
Now for Map Levels. You can add Underground and Shadow World later, but if you
feel like adding them now, you can always take them out later if you decide you
don't want them.
Finally you have to decide if you want a blank map or a Random one. If you have
a favorite randomly made map from the generator, you can open it up and find
the seed under Options (I can't remember where) and put that in the seed slot
and then go edit the map to your heart's content, but I prefer to start with a
blank map. If you choose Blank Map, you have to decide a terain to fill the
map with, I usually choose grass, unless I know I want to do something
different.
Whew! Now that we've gotten through the first window, let's explain what
everything does. In this section I'll explain how to place stuff (for lack of
a better word) on the map, delete stuff you messed up on, and choose what
faction said stuff belongs to.
Now look at the bottom of your screen. You should see a bar displaying 3
things. First the location of the cursor. This is in the X:Y:L format, where
X is horizontal, Y is vertical, and L is the level of the map (surface is 0,
Underground is 1, Shadow World is 2). Second the terrain the cursor is
hovering over. Third, any structure on said terrain. If you don't, minimize
the program and then restore it to normal size. This also removes the desktop
from the top of the screen if you have the window maximized (which makes things
much easier).
First the bar of buttons at the top of the screen. The folder lets you open a
map you started before, or just want to go back and tweak. The floppy disk is
just a faster way to save (which you should do often). The checkmark lets you
find out if the map will run when you open it (it won't at this point, unless
you started putting stuff down already).
The 3 black circles determine brush size. The smallest is one hex, the size of
your average unit. The second is 7 hexes, the size of your average town. The
third is 19 hexes, the size of your average town with crop fields included.
The curved arrows let you move up and down terrain levels (surface, underground
and Shadow World) so you can edit them at your leisure.
The next 2 (I don't know how to describe them) raise and lower terrain
respectivly. The Eraser is, an eraser and removes stuff from the map. The
final one of those 4 is the Select Object button, and this one turns on if you
right click.
The final 2 sit alone, one is the Overwrite Terrain, which I don't see much
point to, because the editor does it by default.
The final button is the Preview Map button. It shows you to examine your map
in all it's glory (or lack thereof). You can use the arrow keys to scroll,
and Escape to go back to editing.
Speaking of arrow keys, you have 2 ways to move the screen. One is by using
the arrow keys. The other is by clicking and dragging the box on the mini-map.
I prefer the arrow keys, unless I have to move all the way across the map. You
can also just click on one spot on the mini-map and the box will jump, but I've
seen this not work ocassionally.
Now for the fun part: we get to put down stuff on the map! The first thing we
have to do is decide who gets it. We can do this through the Players menu at
the top of the screen. The easiest thing to do is put down Independents at the
moment if you have no clue as to who should get the stuff. The player can
always capture it later, right? Right.
You should save somewhere along here, so I would do it now. I named my map
The Basics, but you can name it whatever you want. Rule Number 1, Save Early,
Save Often. You can either click the disk or go File>Save. I generally use
the menu, but that's just me, either way works.
Once you open up the Players menu, you'll find the names of your Wizards
(there's another way, but I'll get to that later). I got Anon and Fangir. I
will still refer to them by player numbers, but if I goof, be patient.
Now let's place a city! I chose one for Player 1, and I put it at 14:28:0 on my
medium map. Feel free to place it where ever you like, for whichever player
you like. I chose my spot simply because it was Player 1 and on the left side
of the map. The city can be found under the Tiles tab, and then under places.
It's the thing in the top right.
Now to edit the city, because at the moment it's random, and we might have Anon
(for the sake of example) wind up with Undead as his race. Not good! To edit,
right click to bring up the Object Selection tool, left click on the city to
select it, and right click on the city. This opens a menu that lets you
Edit, Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete. Who needs Nomads when you can Cut and
Paste?
Once in the edit window, you see the town name, which at the moment is Noname.
I usually change that after I pick the race, but you can do it in any order you
want. For the player, you can choose Independents, Player 1, Player 2, and so
on until you run out of players. For the race, pick a race that suits the
Wizard you picked. PLEASE DON'T GIVE ANON UNDEAD (or any other unfair
combination).
Now we get to Size. This can range from Outpost to City. The next one down
lets you choose Maximum Size. Next to Defenders you can choose if the city is
Razed. A particularly nasty combination is a Razed Outpost with Max Size
Outpost, but I would never do that (I have no control over what you do, and if
you learn anything from this, it should be that you should be nice to the
players, because without them, who will play your map?). The Defenders box
lets you decide if there are any Randomly Generated Defenders in the city (I
will refer to all sizes as city, just because I don't feel like typing Outpost,
Village, Town, or City every time I refer to one of the above). This can be
good if you're in a hurry, but I prefer to place my defenders manually.
Down below all that, you'll see a list of city upgrades. Note that if you
click on Teleportation Gate, it will automatically fill in Wizard's Towers 1-3.
If you uncheck Wizard's Tower 1, it will uncheck everything dependent on it.
You don't have to give the city any upgrades, but I like to give the player's
starting city at least a Wooden Wall and a Barracks. This lets me put
them under siege from the start :) If I plan a particularly nasty siege, I
add a Wizard's Tower.
Now to add a garrison to the city. If you left Defenders off like me, the
city has no units in it. Since I have an Archon city, I'll add Archon units.
A general rule of thumb for a starting city is 2 archers, 2 level 1 infantry
(not the basic unit, Infantry for the Humans, or its equvilent). To add units,
click on the Units tab and click on the button for the type you want to add.
Then place the units you want. If you can't recognize them by type *waves hand
in air* then hover the cursor over one until the name pops up.
Now that we have a city with some people, let's add the Wizard (it is his/her
starting city after all). Click on the Wizards Tab to bring up the list of
Wizards for the map. This is the other way to check which Wizards are on the
map. Click on the top Wizard (Player 1 for those keeping track). No figure
will appear on the map until you click and then poof! You now have a Wizard. I
hope you placed him/her on his/her city. The status for Player 1 should change
to placed on map.
Now do the above for Players 2-whatever you picked, except pick a different
location for the other cities. It's okay. I'll wait.
If you feel like it, you can click on the tab corrosponding to your terrain
and add trees and the like, but I don't, so my map won't have any. They do
make your map look better, so add them if you wish.
Now that we have our cities, we need some nodes, income sites, heros, and
items. I mean, have you ever played a good map without a single income site on
it? What about nodes? Anyway, let's get down to business.
I'll start with mines because those appear first. We could give control of one
to each player, but I prefer to make them work for them. I placed my mine at
the top of Player 1's domain, and placed a Human Halberdier and Crossbowman on
top of it. I also did the same thing for Player 2, except I used an Undead
Zombie and Archer. Now we need to give the Players a way to capture the mines
without using their garrison. 2 Level 2 mounted units should sufice. Place
them one hex above the garrison, to make sure the player doesn't confuse them
with the garrison.
Do relativly the same for Windmills at the bottom, and add a Watchtower in the
corner closest to the other player. For a Watchtower you should take a cue
from the map generator and place 2 basic ranged units on it (archers, darters,
whatever).
Now let's add a node of the type of your choice to the domains. Be nice and
pick a type that conforms to the Wizard's sphere (or spheres as the case may
be, they forgot to take out the cosmos node). Under the units tab, pick
creatures and scroll down until you reach the summoned creatures (near the
bottom). Place one appropriate to each node on the nodes.
Heros. What would a map be without them? Boring. *yawns* Anyway, we can do
one of 3 things. 1) place a hero on the map and make sure they're available
for hire by the player. 2)place and inn with heros in it in the middle of
the map. 3) make a scripted event to make the hero appear, which I will cover
in the advanced section. For now, let's do 1) and 2).
To place a hero on the map, open the Heroes tab, click on the hero of your
choice, right click on them AFTER left clicking on them to find out more about
them, and click on the map like with the Wizards. Then set behavior to Auto
in order to make them not attack. Auto also makes them hireable by Wizards.
You could make them free by making behavior Refuge, but that defeats the point,
right?
Now for the inn. Go to Tiles>Places and scroll down until you find the inn.
Then place it near the center of the map. On a medium map, this is about
45:33:0. After you've placed it, go to edit it the same way you edited your
cities, and you now have a very big and confusing window. Have no fear, my
guide is here! Sorry, I've always wanted to say something like that. Now click
on the Heroes tab and you get the list of heroes you saw before. Add the
heroes you feel appropriate to your map and hit OK. Also make Random Units
None. 3 heroes is generally good. Place a few defensive units (I picked 3
random flyers) and save your map.
Now for the last part of the Basics section: Items! Items turn those weak
heroes and Wizards into the mighty units they are. To place an item, you
merely go to the Items tab, pick the item like a hero, and place it on the map.
Joy. Pick the items you like, put them where you like, and have fun. I'm
really fond of the Ancient Armor, but that's just me.
Now for (In My Opinion) the worst part about making a map. Playtesting. You
now get to play the map, and you also get to give the map to any friends with
the game so they can try it out and add comments. Every author hates to have
their pride and joy picked apart to pieces. I should know, I haven't gotten
published yet because I can't make the changes I need and still stay under the
word limit, so I've moved to Gamefaqs Guides. But that is neither here or now,
so go playtest it, but remember to click Validate Map first, so you don't get
laughed at when it doesn't work.
2.) Advanced Stuff
This section goes into more detail about what you can do with the editor. I
would highly advise reading section 1) The Basics section before you start on
this, because I will take for granted you can do what I explained there.
Now take the map you made in section 1), or make a new one you like better. I'm
making a new one, but that's just me. I'm making a new one because we'll be
editing Wizards, making our own Heroes, and our own Items. We'll also look at
event scripting and the other parts of the map settings window.
The first thing I did on this map was to make 2 cities, but left them as
random. This let me modify them later without having to do drastic changes.
You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but I can't stand looking at an
empty map.
Now go into Options>Map Settings. This is where we make all the non-field
related changes to the map. Come up with a catchy name for your map and move
on.
Map Author(s): The person/people that made the map. Put your name down,
obviously! I'm not giving you many specific instructions now, and this is your
map, so take credit for it.
Password: You can put a password in here if you want, just don't do what my
brother does and forget it the day after he makes the map. I'm not going to
try and edit your map. I can't vouch for your little brother, however.
Map Description: This is what appears in that box below the files at the bottom
of the Pick Scenario screen. It shows that you put some effort into your map.
I'm leaving it blank until I get to the campaign map.
Map Songs: Ever get bored with the designers music selections? Here you can
force the players to listen to your favorite songs over and over and, well you
get the idea. Although I don't think they'll be paying much attention when
that party of 8 level 4 units comes knocking at their door. Just please add
the Combat01 and Combat02. They're really good music and at least let the
player listen to something instead of being bored out of their wits while
waiting for the AI's next move.
At some point in here, you should hit OK and go save. I do it after each tab,
and at the point I mention later.
Now go to the Settings tab. This is where we modify our Wizards and the races
on the map. We can also tweak the Independent AI.
I'm going with 2 players on the map. If you decide you have too many, or don't
have enough, you can change it here.
Now for the Customize Wizards box. We'll be tweaking the Wizards in a moment,
but do we want the player messing up all our hard work? You decide, but I'm
clicking the Fixed boxes.
Do you want to add Area Guards for the map? You've seen them on the AI, and you
decide if you want them running rampant on your map. You can place AI blocks
to prevent them from moving beyond a certain boundary, but I don't like putting
them on what I call a beginner map. The AI block is under Tiles>Places. It's
that little red no sign with AI in white letters in the middle. You can do it
if you want, and I might decide to do it later. Who knows. There are other AI
modes, and this adjusts all their difficulties, so do what you want.
Now for races on map. I just leave everything on by default, unless I'm making
a map where the players can only get specific races (Yaka vs. Artica, Tigrans
and Frostlings).
Now open the Players Tab. You will see the Player 1 Wizard, whomerver he/she
is. This part gets finiky and complicated, so don't worry if you don't get it
right the first time. I know what I'm doing, and it still takes me 2 or 3
tries to get it to work. First, click on the change button. This gives you
the portraits of all the Wizards in the game. If you want to make your own
(which I will do, because it goes into more detail), click Customize.
At the General tab, you can type in the Wizard's name. Change lets you pick a
portrait out of the set shipped with the game. Browse lets you import a jpeg
of your choice to be your Wizard's portrait. You would probably have to make
sprites for the Wizard also, and I have no clue how to do that, so I'm using
one from the game. If you do know how to make the sprites and all that, let me
know (detailed in section 5) HELP!!!).
You can have one skill point spent. Please notice that the penalties give you
-1 skill points, so you can put on the usual 3 skills. To show my addiction to
Final Fantasy, I'm picking the Artica portrait and naming my Wizard Shiva.
Make the gender match the portrait, please. I don't want to hear about female
Yakas or the like. (Late breaking news: My brother reports that you can give
the Wizards more skills than just the normal 3. I believe that this would
unbalance the game, or mess it up when you play the map, but he has been able
to do it, but he hasn't playtested the map yet.)
Under the Description tab, you get to write up a description about the Wizard.
About 3 lines in that box is good. Any more and the reader will be
overwhealmed, any less and they'll feel like you left stuff out. I don't care
what you write, so long as it's good.
Now for the fun part. STATISTICS! This is where we decide what skills and
stats the Wizard has up their sleeve. You can go with the defaults, but that's
so boring, and why not do something that can unbalance the game, right? But
before we get started with the stats, go save. And while you're at it, change
the name in the drop-down menu to the name of your Wizard. You don't want to
confuse yourself, do you?
Back in the Statistics tab, this is where the game gets finiky. Only certain
skills can be deleted, until you add a different skill. I added Magic Bolts
and Marksmanship 1, but I couldn't delete them until I put on Mountaineering.
But then I couldn't delete that until I put on Path of Frost, which I couldn't
delete, so I canceled out. See why I told you to save? Pick the stuff you
like best, but don't add too much. I stick with Magic Bolts and Marksmanship 1
for my Wizards. Which makes sense, I mean these guys can alter creation on a
whim, and you're telling me that a Monk has better range capabilities? Sheesh,
now you know why I choose to customize, right?
Once you get through there, and I know you could spend all day tweaking stats,
but, as one of my teachers said, "Let's do something academic guys." We have
more important issues to deal with. After all, this was made to explain
everything, and we're just getting started, so let's move on.
Now we get to tweak the start race, color, and type of player. I generally
make player 1 human, unless I have something that the AI desperatly needs to do
first, but I can usually do that with clever scripting. After you've chosen
human or computer, you can click the Fixed button to make sure that the player
can't give this wonderful wizard to the AI, or take it for himself if you
decided to give it to the computer.
After that you get to Starting Gold (adjust based on starting units), Starting
Mana (adjust based on researched spells) External Gold Income (gold income
unaffected by anything on the map) and External Mana Income (same as above,
just for mana). Tweak these to represent storyline or for balancing. If one
player needs a lot of units before they get any citys or income sites, raise
external gold. If they need to cast a lot of spells or summons, raise external
mana income. This can turn unbalancing later in the game, when they have lots
of income and then they can hurry productions or get more spells researched, or
have 40 spells active at once (don't laugh, I've had 60, without any external
mana income, what if they had 100 mana income? 30 enchant weapons anyone?)
Now for Researched spells. Pick ones that fit the Wizards (no Fireballs for
Artica, as cool as that would be). Although you can give them a spell or 2
outside their sphere, just for flavor (Healing Showers for Artica is a nice
touch). If I add one outside their sphere, I generally go with two Sphere
spells and one other, or just two other. Otherwise I go with 3-5 sphere
spells, depending on the map.
Now we do the same for the second computer. If you have more than 2 Players,
do them all. See why I usually only go with 2?
Please note that if you choose Cosmos as the sphere, you will have to divide
the spheres as in the game, only you do it here. It will give you an error
until you give the Wizard 6 points. I generally stick with specialist unless
I have something specific in mind.
Now for Diplomacy. You can start the player with specific alliances or wars,
but it's so much more fun to script them and give tailored messages, right?
If you don't feel like coming up with something cool, just do the settings
here, but most players like the extra touch. I'll start on scripting with a
war message, so feel free to follow it, or just toggle war by clicking the
question mark untilyou see the crossed swords. The dove with olive branch
means peace, and the scroll means alliance.
The Advanced tab lets you tweak the exact rules of the map. You can set the
maximum number of heroes per player (max of 10), the maximum hero level (30),
ban certain structures, determine whether the player can build outposts, have
cities grow, or Teleport Items. Turning off Teleport Items is mean, but if you
have a reason for it that fits the map, go for it. Just don't expect me to
play unless you have a good reason.
I am intentionally ignoring the Campaign tab for now, but I will put it under
its own section later.
Now populate the map as described in The Basics, but modify the starting
locations of the income sites and similar stuff. Add some Independent cities,
do whatever you want. We'll get into scripting when you finish, just don't add
any heroes or items yet.
Creating heroes is easy. Click on the Heroes tab and click the little hood
with the green plus sign next to it. Make one that fits your human player's
starting race, and one for the computer. The class you pick determines the
skills you can choose from, and the skills the player will get at later levels.
You'll notice that the new hero has 30 skill points. Every time you level up
the hero (just click the level arrows) the hero gets 10 more skill points. You
can level up the hero to the point listed in the Advanced Settings. Although
I would keep the hero's level low to let the player level it up. What's the
fun in starting with a level 30 hero that you can't change short of an Item
Forge? Where's the suspense as to whether you can level it up without dying?
It makes the game boring. But that's just my opinion and if you want to start
with a level 30 hero, go right ahead. Just don't complain when it takes
forever to get its stats and skills to level 30. Just don't place the hero
yet.
Now for items. After all the trouble of creating a hero, making an item is
easy. You have no skill limit! Tweak the stats however you want so that you
have a weapon/armor/helm/ring/useable worthy of your hero. Now go back into
the hero by clicking on the portrait and clicking Edit Hero (it's the one with
the pencil). Click on the item tab. Click on the item you just made, click on
the respective body portion, and click Add. Your hero now has your item! I
like to put Ancient Armor somewhere on the map because it bestows Physical
Immunity. That's all for items.
Okay, Event Scripting, or just scripting. It's the hardest part of making a
good map, so don't feel discouraged if it's too hard. It took me several hours
just to figure out how it worked, and I've had multiple computer programming
classes. The first thing on our to do list is to have player 2 declare war on
player 1. Click on the Events tab right above the Mini-map. Now take a deep
breath and click on New. Now click on the drag down bar for type, and choose
Diplomatic Action. Come up with a good name for the event, and type it in
name. Now we need to go to action, open the pull down menu and choose
eaDeclareWar. This makes player someone declare war on someone else. Now
click on the PlayerFrom. This should make a little grey box with 3 dots in it
appear. Click on it and choose whoever you put on player 2 from the menu.
Then do the same for PlayerTo, except insert Player 1. Now click on the box
with (TStrings), next to Message, and then click on the box with the three
dots. Now type in your cool message that will impress all the people who
playtest the map. To make it appear on day one, put New Turn into the trigger
box.
Now, before we do heroes, I'd like to show you the Stats button. Maybe you
clicked on it already, but it shows you the income of mana and gold for each
Wizard, and what cities they have.
Now go back to events and make a new event. Change the type to hero join.
We'll now give the human player whatever hero we made. So click on the hero
tab, and scroll down to find your hero. It should be easy to locate, because
it shouldn't have a title like the other ones. Unless you figured out how to,
in which case tell me. Check the ID number at the bottom of the hero box, and
insert it into the box under the Events tab, with your Hero Join event, named
HeroID. The box labeled XYL is the location on the map. Hover the cursor
over the spot you want your hero to join at, check it at the bottom, and type
it in. The box labeled Gold is how much gold it costs for them to join. Make
it about equivelent to the power of the items (heroes should have a base cost
of 125 gold), but don't make it out of range of the players. A good tip: if
you make the hero cost more than 500 gold, you've made it too powerful. Go
back and take off some properties of the items. Then make the trigger New Turn
and the hero will join up on day 1. The boxes will get a little finiky and
delete what's in them when you change the window or start another event. You
can prevent this by double-clicking on the box you want to change, and then
double-clicking again to bring up the same window that came up when you clicked
the box with three dots in it.
Now make another hero spawn event for whoever you made as computer, and go
playtest the map. I'll give a brief rundown of the different events and
triggers along with a brief description of anything confusing in them.
Also on the Activate tab. Always makes it keep happening. Use it with the
New Turn trigger to make a countdown until the end of the game. Once makes it
fire once a game. Good for spawning Heroes. Once a player Makes it happen for
every player in the Trigger section. Good for random destruction or messages.
Events:
Center View. This centers the view at the XYL coordinates that you specify.
Good for when you want to show them something. You can make the trigger Enter
Area and you now know how they made reflecting pools! There is one other part
though, Explore Area.
Change Terrain. Pretty self explanatory. USeful when you want to create the
effects of a world-changing spell for the AI and don't want to rely on them
being smart enough to cast it. The XYL is the center of the location, and the
radius is the radius, in hexes, that it covers. A Wizard's tower 1 gives a
domain radius of 15 hexes, plus one more if you count the Wizard itself, which
I'm not sure if it counts the center. I don't think it does, but I'm not sure.
The TerrainType brings up a drop-down menu that you can just pick the terrain
you want to change it too. You can change terrain to the type it already is,
if you wanted to just affect a small fringe or two.
Control Counter. This is one of the best events to use. The player can't see
it, but it keeps moving up and when the time strikes... Well, let's just say
that you don't want to be around when it goes off, unless you use it to trigger
something good, which you can using the Counter Change trigger. Counter ID is
the counter you want (I don't know the limit, but it's high). Mode is whether
you want it to add, or you want to set it to some predetermined value, both
useful in their own ways. Value is how much you either want to add or set it
to.
Control Flag. I have not been able to figure out what this does.
Control Player Relations. You might know that the computer uses a range of
0-100 for it's scale of how much a player likes you. This could be good for
making the computer declare war or make alliances with no direct interference
from you. PlayerFrom and PlayerTo work as stated above, and modifier can be
any number, positive or negative. From what I can tell, if it excedes 100, the
game sets it to 100, and if it falls below 0, the game sets it to 0.
Control Race Relation. The races fall on the same scale the players fall on
(that's what led me to figure it out). Modify it much the same as you would
the Player Relations, but modify the race instead of one player, and Players
brings up a box that lets you determine what Players are affected, and the
trigger sets the cause of all this trouble. You can also add a reason, which
will not, as far as I can tell, appear in the game. At least, I haven't been
able to get it to appear, so it looks like it's just a reminder for you.
Diplomatic Action. This lets you determine what happens when someone does
anything. Want to declar war if they so much as grab a certain neutral city.
You can do it here. *laughs evilly* Anyway it can pretty much be used to have
any player do anything. From what I've seen of AoW2, not this one, the editor
is mostly the same, they used this command a lot in the campaign. They even
use it at least once a map in Shadow Magic from what I've seen.
Explore Area. All the reflecting pools I've seen both clear an area of the map
and center your view on it. This will clear the fog centered on the location
you specify, with the radius you specify. Again, I don't know if radius
includes the center tile. I don't think so, but I can't be sure.
Flag Structure. This gives control of any one structure (anything from a mine
to a City) to whoever you want. Send a message on one turn, and cause a
rebellion in a city. Life is good. To find a Structure ID, bring up the edit
window of any structure. ID should be a greyed out box.
Gold Reward. Have a difficult task for a player? Give them some gold at the
end! Anyway, you can set it to give them a random amount of gold between two
parameters, or you can give them a fixed amount by making both the same.
Hero Join I already explained, but it's still cool. Compagnions is misspelled,
it should read companions. Double-clicking it brings up a complete set of
non-hero units. Want your hero to have a massive army for you to use? Have
fun.
Hero Upgrade. Type in the ID, and your hero will get a free level! Very
useful if you're outclassed militarily. Gives you a good help from the
designer.
Kill Unit. Just what it says. This will allow you to kill any unit on the
map, including heroes! You just have to know the ID number, and before the
unit spawns, that can be difficult. I can't see a pattern to it, unless the
game labels units and structures with the same system, which would just get
confusing.
Lose Game. The ultimate in Evilness. You can cause this at any time. Give
them a limited amount of turns until the game ends. Great for a blitz player,
bad for me. I try to research everything before moving off the map.
Mana Reward. Works Just like Gold Reward, except for Mana. Easy spell power.
Play FX. I'm not completely sure what this does, but I suspect it plays the
spell effect of your choice. Remember the Global Spells? I haven't yet figured
out how to control it.
Play Movie. This lets you play that end of map victory movie that they show at
the end of the campaign maps. This can get very old very quickly, so be nice.
You can also do movies if they lose.
Quest. Most of the stuff under this is the same as other tabs. The new stuff
is Spirit, who gives you the quest; MissionDescription, telling you what to do;
MissionDays, how long you have to do it; QuestName, what you're calling it;
AutoReward, will the computer generate a reward, or will you do it; Difficulty,
how hard it is; Popup and PopupHeader I don't know.
Quest Control. You can make them fail a quest for any reason! Joy. You can
also give them an instant victory if you want. Just type in the right QuestID,
I mean you wouldn't want them to fail a quest they never got, right?
Raze Structure. Slash and burn. Who needs infantry when you have a good
designer? All you need is StructureID.
Rebuild Structure. Raze their town on turn 1, rebuild it on turn 2. Life is
good.
Request. This is like the Quest, but the spirit does not demand that you do
it. It works the same as quest, except there is no turn limit.
Resurrect Hero. Exactly what it says. Have a hero that dies constantly
intentionaly? Use this a lot. It will help.
Set Timer. Good if you decide to give them a turn limit. It keeps track of
the turns you have left and makes life easier on you.
Show Message. Remember the dialogue from the Campaigns? This is all they used.
Well they probably used counters to keep track of when it came up, but that's
beside the point. It's easy to add one from a Spirit, and almost as easy for a
Wizard, unit, or hero. I think they went out of their way to make this easy
on whoever used it. They just forgot the documentation.
Spawn Units. Finally, some good stuff. Remember any point where the computer
swarmed you with infinite units? The designers, for whatever reason, decided to
use this. You can now return the favor.
Storm. Ah, Randomized Destruction. All this does is create a storm of the
type of your choice centered on the spot of your choice, with a random range.
Haven't tested all of them out yet, so I'll skip descriptions. It's easy to
use, just like most of this.
Teleport. Ah, joy! Seemingly randomly sending units around the map. You can
make people very mad at you with this, but they can trick the computer into
jumping too. Although once you figure out the system, you can use it as a
major advantage.
Units Join. Just like Hero Join, this makes units spawn and offer to join you.
Not really used much, but can be helpful. It can be used to give the Player
quick reinforcements instead of having to build them, but be careful not to
overuse it, or else they'll keep a low supply of units, expecting a Unit Join
later in the map.
Watch Area. I haven't fully figured this one out yet. Help would be
appreciated.
Win Game. Exactly what it says. The player wins when they meet a
predetermined condition other than removing all opposing Wizards.
Triggers. The harder part of making events. Still, if you feel like making
your own events, read on. In all of these, Players is the complete list of
who the event can occur for.
Contact Player. This occurs when someone makes finds another player. The
viewingPlayer is who sees the event. And Bidirectional determines if it occurs
for both players involved.
Counter Change. As far as I can tell (this doesn't actually appear in the
game), this keeps track of if the counter falls into a certain range, and then
triggers the event when it does. The CounterID is the counter it watches.
Diplomatic Action. This waits until the PlayerFrom makes the required Action
to PlayerTo. The Player doesn't know that this will happen, so have fun.
Enter Area. This gets annoying if you put in too many, but in moderation, you
can use it to display those little "traveling" messages that pop up when you
move somewhere.
Explore Structure. This is fun. If the player, for example, explores a Crypt
on the opponents side of the map, you could give a funny little message from a
computer opponent about how mad that Wizard is. Or you could do most anything.
Flag Structure. Flag means taking control of it, so this is like Explore
Structure except for it only applies to structures you can control. That's
still a pretty big list though.
Game Over. This is what happens when you lose. You could play a video or
somethig to entertain the player. I can't really make good videos though, so
I don't use them.
Gold Reached. This is cool. You can have an event trigger when the player
falls into a certain range for gold. For example, GoldMin 5000, GoldMax 5500.
On most maps, by the time I have that much, I'm usually making 1500-2000 Gold a
turn, so I would probably miss it. You could make a map a gold race, and give
an advantage on the next map to whoever won this one, maybe an item or hero.
Interface Click. I really don't know how to use this one, but the potential
is cheap. You could theoretically make them lose if they tried to save.
Kill Unit. Just what it says. Kill a unit with the UnitID you put in. Easy
way to remove a Wizard if he gets out of hand. Or you could just take out an
early, overpowered unit at a certain point.
Mana Reached. Just like Gold Reached and nearly as cool. I think this one
tends more towards items myself.
New Turn. Every time a turn starts, or at the first opportunity after the
other conditions are met. Turning Activate on Always makes it occur every
turn.
Pickup Item. Know of any maps where you have to get items to win? You don't
have to wipe out the Wizards? All they did was use this. It works out okay.
Quest. Ah, give the player a quest, and you can spawn units from it. Or
heroes. Anyway, the Quest trigger goes off when Quest number QuestID kicks in.
Raze Structure. Ah, remember when the Shadow Demon city blew up in Julia's
first map and you got a message? All that was there was two events. One that
razed the structure and the other had this trigger.
Rebuild Structure. When the Player rebuilds something, you could send them a
message! Who would have thought? I've seen this used a lot in the campaigns.
Request Reply. This is in response to the Request Event. It goes off when you
either fufill or decline the Request. Not that hard really.
Timer. This one simply goes off when the timer ends. Then the event goes off.
It works out pretty well when you have a timed situation. All you need is the
TimerID.
3.) Making a Map Walkthrough
Okay, now I'll walk you through the exact process of making a map, that I've
made and playtested, and I'll give you all the coordinates for everything,
although I will allow you some leeway, as you'll see later. What are we
waiting for? Let's get started.
Before we get started, I will warn you that my editor crashed for unknown
reasons while I was making this map (I guess froze except for the close button
would be a better description, but I do what I can), so REMEMBER TO SAVE!!!
Anyway, on to the 2 player map.
The first thing we have to do, is pick Wizards. Go into Map Options and pick
Julia as Player 1 and Serena as Player 2. You'll see why for the second part
of the campaign. Yes, I do have the story for these two planned out. Then
give Julia Bless, Enchant Weapon, Healing, and Unicorn. Make her green (just
because she's the good guy (good girl?) and I like green better for the elves),
and make Serena red. Make Julia a fixed Human, and Serena a fixed CPU Squire.
The campaign gets rougher and I want the player to start off easy. We have
plenty of time to make the computer harder, and I'm not very good and can't
handle anything higher than CPU Knight. Give Serena Banish Summoned, Enchant
Weapon, and Holy Light. The computer always seems to go for Enchant Weapon
right away, so why not just give it to them.
I hope you read my note above and made this a 2 player map, otherwise you'll
have the chance to change it now that we've moved to the settings tab. Make
sure that all the boxes are checked, and Independent AI is on Easy. We
probably won't be adding Independents, but just in case (I don't have the map
100 percent complete yet, but I'm very close).
Under the General tab, name the map something cool, like Elven Duel. It makes
the map seem more exciting than it is at this point. Put yourself in the Map
Author(s) box, and add Jimbo8250 as well. Under map description, add what I
put in quotes "Serena has challenged Julia to a duel on the borders of their
two territories. Now's the time for Julia to get her revenge for the time
Serena kidnapped her and blamed Merlin!" You will have to remove the times I
hit enter, but that's easy. Set the playlist to what you like, but I picked
Combat01, Combat02, LifeSong, Majestic, and Whispers in the Trees for my music.
By the way, the description is a reference to AoW 2 mission 8, but that
probably spoiled some story for those of you who haven't played it.
Leave everything under Advanced checked, but make the Heroes max 2, and Max
Hero level 12. That gives them plenty of time to research and stuff, but
gives them an incentive to move onto the next map.
Keep Diplomacy as question marks, Serena will declare war on Julia on turn 1,
so we want to at least give the Player a witty comment, right?
Now close out of Map Settings and save your map. Remember the rule. Now put
Windmills at 12:7:0, 12:37:, 13:19:0, 11:26:0, 50:7:0, 48:18:0, 52:28:0, and
50:37:0. These should all be under Independent control.
Now put Julia's city at12:22:0, and Serena's at 50:22:0. This gives them some
room to expand, yet allows them to fight each other quickly, right? Wrong. For
our next project, we will create a medium brush river going vertically down the
map, starting with its center at 29:4:0, and ending at 29:43:0. How will they
get across? Well, seeing as bridges can only stretch one space, add one hex of
grass at 28:28:0, 28:29:0, 30:28:0, 30:29:0, 28:18:0, 28:19:0, 30:18:0, and
30:19:0.
Now to let them have advance warning when the other crosses that river. Put a
Watchtower at 23:18:0, 18:28:0, 42:28:0, and 41:18:0. Make these Independent
as well.
Now, to add some roads. Click on the road terrain, and start making roads to
connect the watchtowers on the same horizontal level. When you get to the
river, it should automatically make a bridge for you. If not, I don't know
what to do. I made my roads in a triangle pattern like so:
/|\/|\
\|/\|/
and so on. This will let the player move massive armies while still staying on
the road and not killing the grass :)
Now that we have the military aspect of the map planned out, let's add some
nodes. Place Life Nodes
at 13:16:0, 10:17:0, 7:22:0, 15:24:0, 54:24:0, and
51:17:0. Now you may notice that we have twice as many nodes on Julia's side
of the map as Serena's right? Does this mean Julia has twice the Power of
Serena? Short answer: No. Long answer: Julia is a Cosmos Wizard, Serena is
Life. Serena gets twice as much power from a Life Node as Julia will, so it
does balance out. I do hope you made the Nodes independent.
Now, Julia needs some magical help, so let's give her a spell. How about Chaos
Spawn? But we can't give it to her, that would not only unbalance the game, but
we just can't do it. Best tactic: Put a Magic Vault at 8:30:0 and make the
spell in it Chaos Spawn. You should know how to
edit the Magic Vault by now,
so go in and make the the Defenders Strong, and the spell Chaos Spawn. From
what I've seen, the spells and abilities are always sorted alphabetically, so
you shouldn't have too much trouble finding it.
And at this point, my editor froze. Fortunatly I saved right after I placed
the Vault, so it's no biggy. See why I say save often?
Elves live in forests, right? Forests have trees, right? How about we add both
to this map. Good boundaries for the trees are the Windmills furthest away
from the respective cities, the Watchtowers, and the edge of the map. This
should give you a nice forest for your elves to live in.
And while we're giving our elves forests, how about we give them some buildings
in their cities? A barracks, Wizards Tower, and Secret Glade work the best. Now
the Wizards have to search for each other.
We should probably add some other races to the map. Place a Dragon's Peak at
26:5:0, and a Marketplace at 30:41:0. Now, inside the Dragon's Peak add a
Flamer, a Flyer, and a Draconian Pioneer. This is the Pioneer closest to the
Draconian units. The Flyer is the level 3 with wings. Inside the Market Place
add a Dwarven Pioneer, a Cannon, a Ballista, a Catapult, and a Repeating
Ballista. For both of them make Defenders none and Random Units none.
Now, what would these structures be without some sort of defense? We put
Pioneers for races not otherwise on the map in these structures, so the
defenses had better be up to the point where they make them worthwhile. Put a
Red Dragon, 2 Flyers, and a Hydra on the Dragon's Peak. Then put a Steam Tank,
2 Runemasters, and a Gargoyle on the Market Place. The AI, from what I've
seen, tends to clear the units off, but not hire anything. This will benefit
the player, as the AI will give them free (alright, not so free) units and,
indirectly, cities. The units on these structures should be Independents set
to Guard.
Now that we have the map made, we have to move onto scripting, right? Wrong,
now we need to add a hero for us to place into the Player's army. Name the
Hero Birchblade, give him Block, First Strike, Leadership 1, and Attack and
Defense +1. Now for a description. I came up with this one, feel free to
slightly modify it. "Birchblade is an elven warrior who was outcast from his
city for refusing to break off from a battle with orcs, who attacked in the
wake of Julia leaving. As a result of his couragousness, the city was saved,
but the leaders had no choice but to exile him for failing to obay a direct
order. He wandered the lands, hireing himself out as a mercenary to good
aligned races, but part of him yearned to return home. When he heard that
Julia had returned, he raced back to the elven lands to see if he could be of
service. Let's hope he's not mistaking." Make his portrait 108 because I
think it looks cool (it's the same one as Oakleaf from Julia's campaign).
Now to con-script him (Get it? Alright, not funny.) into Julia's Army. Make a
new Event of the type Hero Join, and get Birchblade to join Julia. Under
Compagnions, add a Syron Lightnig Catcher, a Dwarven Berserker, and a Halfling
Rogue. This will give the player some added early-game firepower. Make the
message the following: "Julia, good to see you again. I'm back to fight for
you, only as a mercenary. But, seeing as you're the Queen of the Elves, how
about a, say, 90 percent discount? I also brought a few friends I've made
along my travels." Make the condition for all of these events New Turn. Make
his Gold 100, so he only costs the player a small amount of their starting
resources. And finally make the X,Y,L 12,21,0.
Two Events left and the map is done! Hurray! Make a Diplomatic Action for the
player to recieve from Serena to Julia. Put this quote in under the Message:
"Good to see you. Now we fight as Wizards to determine who is superior!
Prepare to lose!"
Now for a message. The reason we put Hero Join first, is so he can now give a
message to Julia. But make the trigger on this one Diplomatic Action. Make it
occur to only Julia, and make it say "Cocky, isn't she? Let's show her what
real elves can do." Make the image 108 and don't touch anything else, and the
map is done!
Now that we've finished the map, you can go test it and make changes to it that
will make it your own. Feel free to take this map and tweak it for your own
use, but we will come back to it, so I would recommend saving the file as
some
thing else so you can put this in the campaign without disrupting the
storyline.
4.) Turning our map into a campaign
I don't have the second map done yet, so how can I make a campaign without the
second map? I'm working on it though, so please be patient.
5.) HELP!!!
This is the section where I list what I need to make this guide comprehensive.
If you find anything I left off, please let me know, and send it in if you can.
I would appreciate all submisions in Lucida Console 10 pt normal font. No bold
or italics. I can't use them so please don't. The only reason for this is so
I can do a direct copy and paste. This will let me get it up to the guide and
get it posted faster.
Making Portraits and Sprites. It is theoretically doable, and is a must before
you can add a custom Wizard portrait. A walkthrough on how to do it would be
the best, along with complete descriptions.
What the Play FX event, Watch Area Event, Control Flag Event, and Interface
Click trigger do and how to use the Interface Click trigger.
How to get the Event Conditions to work.
If there is a limit on ID numbers of any sort, and if there is one, is it the
same for each ID or different? (This might lead to filling up an Extra Large
map with units, but I have no idea how else to test unit ID limit.)
Any pattern for Units' ID that are placed on the map and the ones that are
created later.
If radius includes the center tile.
How to add a title (the Strong, the Bard) to a Hero.
Where the Seed number is in the actual game map. (I could check this myself,
but I don't have time to do it with school coming up. As is, I barely have
time to work on this guide.)
Also any spelling or grammer errors. I pride myself on my spelling, and I like
to quickly fix that which I have incorrect. Don't expect me to do a full
version update just to change one word though. It will probably wait until the
next normal update.
If you do submit (unless it's a spelling error), I will put your
name/alias/whatever
next to the section as well as in the credits. IF it's
just spelling, you'll find yourself in the credits. I put people in the
credits based on when I get their stuff, so let me know quickly.
6.) Legal Stuff
In the interest of full disclosure, if you do rip off my work, and then you
make any money off it, I get at least some and potentially all of that money.
If you really want it that badly, contact me and we can work something out.
Dispite what my siblings will tell you, I am not very greedy, I just want what
I've earned. I do have college coming up, and I do need some money, so I do
hope someone does rip this off so I can get said money.
I give permision to Gamefaqs.com and neoseeker.com and ONLY those two sites
(as of this writing
anyway) to put this on their site. If anyone sees it
elsewhere, or altered from what's on Gamefaqs.com or neoseeker.com, then
please let me know. And by the way, taking this section out or modifying is a
violation of Federal Law, and I don't think I have to tell you that that's a
very, very bad thing to violate.
**UPDATE** My sources tell me that stealing this guide would actually be a
violation of International Copyright Law. This means that I might be able to
get the local cops to come pounding on your door. You have been warned.
This guide is Copyright to James M. Anderson as of August 5, 2004, despite the
posting date on Gamefaqs or Neoseeker, because that's when I finished writing
the first version.
7.) Credits
As of this moment the only people I have to give credit to are:
CJayC, for Gamefaqs.com and having all these nifty guides so that I've stopped
buying strategy guides.
Gathering of Developers, for the game and editor, because without both, I
wouldn't be writing this.
Me, for actually sitting down and writing it (sorry, I do like to be
appreciated).
And, to quote another guide I read but I forgot whose:
You, for reading this guide!
8.) Contact info
You can contact me at my as-of-this-moment-but-as-soon-as-I-post-this-probably-
no-longer spam free e-mail jimbo[dot]anderson[at]us[dot]army[dot]mil. I don't
know if I could get anyone to hurt you for spamming me, but they do have very
good spam protection. If you do decide to e-mail me, put Shadow Magic Editing
Guide in the subject line so I know what it is. I don't want to accidentally
throw out good advice if I start getting spam. I do check my e-mail once a
week, so don't worry if I don't add it right away. Also let me know as what
you would like to be credited as.
I also post on a few message boards and play some games under the alias
Jimbo8250, but all my friends know me as that, so please don't take it.
