starting map position

[jeffreyLebowski]

i'm working on a map of helm's deep (from lotr:ttt). i've got the basic architecture and terrain down, so i decided to fire it up in a custom game as a test. much to my surprise, i found my ATTACKING forces behind the walls of helm's deep, being automatically slaughtered by castle defenses. any idea how i control where the armies start?

[barocca]

can't be changed, sorry,
see the FAQ pinned to the top of the dungeon page...

[jeffreyLebowski]

wow. no offense to the devs if they happen to read this, but damn...that's pretty weak. i guess i get to totally remake my entire map because of that. borderline not worth it at this point.

[Kraellin]

actually, you can control where armies start to some extent. i'm guessing you've got a castle in an oddball place or something and it ends up being in the deployment zone of the attacker, yes? there are no flags or anything that you can set to designate starting positions, but if you understand how the game works castles, impassable zones, red zones and water, you can force certain things. play around with it some more or look at some other maps that do this.

K.

[Alrowan]

attackers on a normal map are in the north, if you want a wall that divides the map in two, make it roughly 2/3 of the way up the map, that way it wont interfere with the defenders position.

Another way to force the edge of deployment zones is to ad a river.. they divide the map in two, but remember it has to be in the middle, or there abouts

[Lion King]

thats one of the limitations i was talking about... to define where the defenders will be, you have to close the castle AFAIK.
you can also add impassable areas so the defenders/attackers have to focus their positioning in only one place.

[jeffreyLebowski]

thanks for the info, guys. i've redone the map, with the fortress to the south. the attackers now appear in the correct spot. the defenders spawned on top of the cliffs surrounding helm's deep, which, while funny as hell, kinda sucks. i think that once i make those cliffs impassable terrain, i should be in business. then its on to texturing.

[Lion King]

this is kinda stupid question, but how do i make things impassable???

[barocca]

jeffreyLebowski
the castle may not be "closed", that may be why the defenders won't spawn inside it, did you use use the "snap to" function?

Lion King
a combination of height and tiles
(46 to 50) and (63 to 67) i am unsure if tiles 68, 69 and 70 combined with height will make impassable zones or not...

[Kraellin]

water and models are also impassable.

hmmm, if i think of it later, i'll post a map that demonstrates how to force the AI to set up where you want it, or at least one of the ways.

K.