Impassable terrain in Battlemap editor

[Jimmytwohand]

Im taking my first tentative steps making maps and custom battles for RTW using the battlemap editor. Two questions though:

1) how do i create impassable terrain? My first attempt was a thermopylaesque map. Unfortunately, without being able to block out squares the troops meander everywhere and up sheer rock faces. This turns the models into some surreal dali-like figures. Not good.

2) Is there any way i can just create plain maps that can then be used in custom battles rather than historical battles. Id like to create a map that i can then slap different troops/factions into without using the editor again.

It only took me five years to get used to the STW and MTW editor.....guess you might be seeing a lot of me. Many thanks, James.

[Epistolary Richard]

Well, your welcome here.

1) For impassible terrain you have to rely on the objects that you can place, rather than just raising and lowering the terrain. This is a problem that modders who have tried to create the Thermopylae map have hit before. Thanks to dsyrow1's efforts in developing a different way to get objects onto battle maps, it's now possible to make impassible hills, but only if you have 3dsMax and the patience to learn.

2) I can't believe that this wouldn't be possible. I haven't read how to do it, though and I can't test it at present. Hopefully someone else will provide the answer.
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[Jimmytwohand]

Thanks for your swift reply,

Thats exactly what i wanted to know. The process does seem a little involved, however, and i think ill get used to the basic editing before i tackle that. It sounds like the sort of thing which i know from experience leads to computer shaped holes in plate glass windows.

Cheers, James

[Jimmytwohand]

Is this the best forum for queries of this type? Im slowly racking up a list such as how to rotate/delete terrain features once they are placed or whether there is an undo command like in the MTW editor (an absolute godsend that).........
I cant seem to find any resources for the editor except the v basic docs on the .com that someone directed me to.

[Epistolary Richard]

Yep, this is the best forum for questions about modding the game. I've used the editor a little, as I imagine others have, but there hasn't been much research about it (one is here, another here).

As you learn your way around the battle editor, you may find it useful to write a few tutorials as to anything you learn to do that the editor documents don't cover (we in the modding community are reliant on each other teaching us what they learn so we don't all have to reinvent the wheel). If you write a tutorial or a guide then you can post it in the Scriptorium.

If you want to make the impassable hills a reality, then I would suggest sending a PM to dsyrow1 and ask if there's any easy way he can help you do it (maybe by making the basic model you need, which you can then place in the battle editor). He's very busy putting the Eternal City together, but he may have time to help and I know a Thermopylae map would be of great interest within the community.
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[Jimmytwohand]

That first thread you gave looks great. I feel it will take a little time to get to grips with this thing. When i do, i may well ask for some help from the experienced modders here to get a good Thermo map going. Once more into the breach........

Thanks Richard.

[SigniferOne]

I should note something here. The fact that I have created custom versions of hills, with custom versions of textures and all that, does not impact the "passability" of the hills in any way. Think back to vanilla, there are no impassible areas, except for buildings. That, then, is your solution, the only one that I have thought up: if you want area X to be impassible, put some walls around it so that the soldiers cannot go through, and then make the textures of the walls transparent. Bingo, instant impassible area.

Here's another, more subtle but more elegant approach: for something like Thermopylae, where there are no settlements, you can use the wall borders. Ok this is how it works: the border { } section in the settlement plan describes the wall circuit for that settlement plan (city, presumably), upon which the game will automatically insert walls. The actual walls are not specified, only that border circuit, which is how you can upgrade those walls and have different wall models but the same city plan.

Now: Thermopylae map will not have a city, but! You can STILL use those borders to define the boundaries. Here's the trick I've discovered: the Z (height) coordinate of a border segment is irrelevant, which means you can place border segment 1 at height 0, and another at height 100, and the game will still link them together. So in general, you could just put that border around the hills, to make them impassible, and then simply make the Z coordinate of all of the border joints to be -500, so that no walls will ever be visible!

Finally, you may be asking, "But if the walls are not on the ground, that area will be passible, will it not?" No! The way RTW works is, the border boundary is IMPASSIBLE, regardless of how high or how low the walls are in the game above or below the ground. So, there you go! Create a nice "X" (Or > < )shaped border circuit using Adherbal's wall editor (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49292), then make the ground map in the Battle Editor that fits into the walls, then finally make the walls invisible by putting them underground, and you're DONE!

[Jimmytwohand]

Wow! That is fantastic information! Thank you. I decided to get around the problem by using the actual thermopylae area (136-138x, 61-64y) which includes a v wide plain between the mountains and coast. I hoped one of the developers might have had the same urge and already included a nice Thermopylae area as an Easter egg. I settled on 138x and 62y and added a new bay reaching inland to form a choke point and extended a spur of hill to border it on the other side. This spur reached down to just the unplayable side of the infamous "red line" meaning it formed the other impassable barrier. This is not very satisfactory as it does not allow the all important flanking attack and i would have had to simulate the retreat of the greeks guarding it by bringing them on to the map as reinforcements followed in short order by the persians. It did allow a nice plain on either side for deployment however. Now, new possibilities are opened up.

I see someone else has had the same idea about this historical battle and ill post a link to this thread there. This is v. valuable information. Thank you once again.

[Epistolary Richard]

All sounds very promising, make sure you post back in these forums if you have any trouble and when you finish it!
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[Jimmytwohand]

I will definitely be posting back when i have trouble and if i finish it!

[Jimmytwohand]

Im having a little trouble integrating the wall plan from the wall editor into a settlement plan so that it can be placed on the battle map. Ive tried replacing the original border plan in other settlements (e.g roman_fort.txt) with the new wall plan (in settlement_plans). This just CTDs however. I alsoo tried creating a new settlement plan, but i do not really have the expertise to work out all the ins and outs of this and even if it is right, it wont show up in the editor as an option to be placed. I have had a good look through the forum and tutorials but cant find an answer to this one, they are all much more advanced treatise. Could someone give me a pointer please?

[SigniferOne]

Try creating a very simple border plan using Adherbal's Wall Editor, and then replacing the borders in an already existing and working settlement plan with the walls you have created. If this already does not work, then you should write up a post about it in Adherbal's thread about his Wall Editor program, notifying him that something doesn't work. If you succeed in having the simple wall plan, then extending it further is just a matter of time.

[Jimmytwohand]

Ok, will do, thankyou.

[Jimmytwohand]

It seems i had managed to create a wall plan which was virtually identical to the one already used by the roman fort. It was working, sorry for all that malarkey.