Kingdoms Map Making Guide

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Written by Mark Harrison

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Player start positions are in the topmost "Special" element group in the directory window. At the top of the directory window is a pull down list box for selecting player number. For each player you want to support, select a player number and place a start position. Games can be played with fewer players than start positions, but not more.

Make mana sites easy to find. On their own, mana sites are hard to see in the game. Your map needs to compensate for this because mana sites, as the sole source of resources, are critical to gameplay. The standard way to enhance site visibility is to surround a site with standing stones. It also helps to place sites near paths or player start positions.

Test walls and buildings as you start to place them. Run the game, load your map, and walk you monarch over to these features. Map elements are sensitive to location. They sometimes fail to appear in the game, regardless of how they look in Cartographer. Excessive overlap frequently prevents an element from showing up in game. Sometimes walls have holes that are hard to see. In this screenshot I walked my monarch right through the wall -- but she didn't go through the visible hole to the right of the tower. She went above the tower. I had two holes in my wall.

Waves move, and they don't know where the water ends. Waves placed too close to shore will ride up on land, and that doesn't look good. The waves placed in this screen shot are an appropriate distance from shore.

Don't place units (swordsmen, archers, wolves, etc.), unless you want to make a scripted map. Scripted maps are an advanced topic. If you don't know how to make a scripted map, and you put units on your map, odds are the map won't work at all.

To learn more about advanced topics, such as scripted maps, read Blackthorn and CAP's Cartographer 101 & 102, and visit mapmaking forums. Links for these are collected below. I contacted Blackthorn and CAP for extra mapmaking wisdom while writing this guide, and here are some gems they had to offer:

On the possibility of placing starting units on non scripted maps:
"Not yet. We are gonna try as soon as HPIpack comes out. =/"

On making maps that are fun:
"Think of the theme or the gameplay style, then mold the map around it. People don't always like the same old same thing."

On determining which units can make it up ramps, and tips for ramp placement:
"Land units are determined in each unit via a max slope setting. Units like cannoneers, stonegiants, and catapults are limited in slope movement. Use Zaxxon's TAK guide and look at the stats for all the units. Ramp placement...don't lock the map out so all units cannot move around. If there are 3 high ground paths, maybe make a narrow low ground path for the big slow poke units."

On the most useful cheat codes for map testing:
"+NOWISEE, +CONTOUR0 (0-9), and +ATM
These are the three most used ones. Nowisee shows the map, contour shows heights, and atm gives you mana."

On Cartographer bugs the user should be warned of:
"Go to www.angelfire.com/ga/gnugs/takbuglist.html"

Provide a minimap with your map. To make a minimap run the game, select your map, and while still on the map selection screen press [alt][print screen] to take a screen shot. Then load you favorite graphics program, such as Paint, and use the paste function to import the screen shot from the clipboard. Select the image of your map from within the screen shot, crop to it, and save the result as a JPG. Some map sites will want you to adjust the size of your minimap to a specific width first. The minimap, a descriptive readme, and the map itself can be zipped together in one file for uploading.

 

Dimension Product	MB Required
under 100	32
100 to 160	64
161 to 300	128
over 300	192

Before you upload a map to share it with others, test it. Also make sure you have filled in its properties. In Cartographer, pull down the menu for scenario, select properties, and fill in the blanks. The scenario description should include map size, number of players, and memory required. A simplistic rule for memory is to multiply the map dimensions and look it up on this table. For more accurate memory requirements, you'll want to study Cartographer 101 & 102.

Useful Links

Annihilated.com
A forum on third party enhancements, including maps, at one of the larger fan sites.

TA Map Evaluation Center
Rating and exchanging maps for Kingdoms and it's predecessor.

TA:K Map Creation Center
Rating and exchanging only Kingdoms maps. Useful forum. Has Cartographer 101 & 102 for download.