Battle Editor Question

[Orda Khan]

Epistolery Richard reported opening this feature by adding

[features]
editor=true

in the Med2.preferences.cfg file. This adds Battle Editor in the options screen and a map can be generated by selection. It works OK but no matter where I selected (even steppe areas) I failed to find a flat map or at least flat enough to be considered fun and fair in team battles. Every map generated featured considerable hills and a rock face or two. Nothing wrong with hills or impassable areas but in every map?
Even Ukraine steppe, elevation 190 was hills. Having to 'iron out' every map to make it fair for a map pack is a bit of a pain.

Another feature, Ctrl+F5 is supposed to show impassable and restricted areas but it would not work.
(I do not know if this feature only works when armies and deployment are created. I would expect it would work anyway to prevent you from deploying on those areas)

Booting up the PC the following day, restarting the game....no Battle Editor in the options list. Investigating the Med2.preferences.cfg file and the new lines are now missing, even though the changes were saved?

..........Orda

[Whacker]

Things....

Ave Orda

It would appear that you've discovered some... err... "features" of the new battle editor, which I can second after trying to do some of what you just did over the course of a few minutes. I would submit to you, that you should post these as bugs in the "bugs" thread. My advance response to "that's for official bugs only" would be that these are indeed bugs, and as such should be addressed. The battle editor, while not an "official" feature, is still one that was highly touted and hyped by CA, and as such there is an expectation that it is going to work in a clean and logical manner, with (relatively) few bugs.

Cheers

[Lusted]

Strange, i've enabled it in my game. It didn't work the first time i added it, but that was because i was alt-tabbed out of the game at the time, as the game discards any maunal changes you make to the preference file whilst your alt-tabbed out of it.

EDIT: No wait its gone, that is probably a bug.

[Orda Khan]

Yes I thought it seemed odd.
I didn't post this in the bugs thread as I wanted some clarity first. I may have done something wrong. If others post the same find then feel free to move it.
Did you try the Ctrl+F5 feature, Lusted?

.....Orda

[Lusted]

No, i only had a quick dabble in the battle editor, which mainly consisted of me going "wow" at the Scottish highland map tile i chose to load in the editor. They really have doen a great job with terrain in M2TW.

[Orda Khan]

The terrain is wonderful, I agree.
Try to find a flat area though. I know you can flatten any map with editing but it is such a chore. I must have gone over the whole steppe area and the Carpathian basin.
I found some decent maps this way in RTW, they were nice and fair as they were

......Orda

[Orda Khan]

Request to Moderator.
Please can you move this thread to reported bugs.

Having added this feature numerous times only to find the addition has been deleted when the game is restarted convinces me this has to be a bug. I have to admit I did not edit any map to create a new one. Sometimes this can require quite a few tweaks to finalise and over a few days perhaps. Imagine doing all that to find the map has been deleted next time you start up the game? I have no idea if this is the case but since the preferences.cfg file is reverting to its original state, there is every possibility that map information will not be saved either

......Orda

[Orda Khan]

Please move to Bugs thread

......Orda

[econ21]

Please move to Bugs thread

......Orda

I've copied your original post and linked to this thread. Ideally I want to keep the bugs thread concise, with one post per bug.

[repman]

You have to change the properties of the cfg file to only_readable after the manipulation to avoid the overwriting by restarting the game

repman

[Whacker]

You have to change the properties of the cfg file to only_readable after the manipulation to avoid the overwriting by restarting the game

repman

Good call... But it does prevent one from saving any changes to the game from the settings menu.

[Orda Khan]

Thanks repman, I should have thought about that after reading basically the same with the descr_strats file

......Orda

[econ21]

So problem solved, I can take this out of the bugs thread?

[Whacker]

So problem solved, I can take this out of the bugs thread?

Erm, I would offer that no it's still a bug. Making the config file read_only indeed does resolve the problem of the config file re-write, but in doing so any changes I make to the settings through the options menu aren't saved. So any time I want to make changes to the graphics/gameplay/sound settings/etc, I have to go back in and unflag the cfg as read_only, then re-add the line to enable the battle map editor, THEN set it to read_only again.

[ShadowStriker]

When i start the editor, all I see on the map is a big black sphere and white around it... and I can't edit it or anything.

[Burns]

Is there a way of using the TW camera in the editor. I find the current selection unwieldy.

[Yankee1950]

So problem solved, I can take this out of the bugs thread?

There are definitely other bugs in the battle editor:

1. only a few of terrain textures work correctly - painting swamp areas,
forest etc. do not work.
2. agree about the general terrain - it does not always seem accurate for
the area that you are trying to build a map for.
3. once you place any pre-fab textures - city, village etc. you cannot
delete them from the map (supposed to be able to via the RMB).
4. changing the terrain by creating high ground or low ground will randomly
CTD.

This is really a great tool for building new histirical battles - I hope CA will take the time to fix these bugs. Unfortunately the "bugs" limit the designer's ability to replicate the terrain based upon known historical information.

These are just a few that I have noticed while I have created some new historical battles for M2TW.

Sagrajas 1086 AD Spain vs Moors
http://www.filecrunch.com/file/~0qmws4

Maldon 991 AD Vikings vs Saxons
http://www.filecrunch.com/file/~56gfxc

Falkirk 1298 AD William Wallace's Scots vs Edward Longshanks English
http://www.filecrunch.com/file/~vtdgjo

Regards

Yankee1950

[DarkKnight]

When i start the editor, all I see on the map is a big black sphere and white around it... and I can't edit it or anything.

Did you forget to delete the geography files after unpacking?

1. only a few of terrain textures work correctly - painting swamp areas,
forest etc. do not work.

To paint a forest use the vegitation editor. It works fine.


Bugs I have noticed:
1) CTD sometimes when quick saving
2) Cannot rotate camera with mouse (have to use keyboard)
3) Water seems to be very buggy
4) Not a bug...but it would be nice to have a decent camera (TW camera) and an unrestricted one

Also I have a completely flat, completely clean, completely green map that I will upload soon for people to use as a base.

[ShadowStriker]

Did you forget to delete the geography files after unpacking?

They are deleted now, but it still is like that.

EDIT: NVM I got it working, oh and is there a tutorial for the battle editor?

[noodles]

n00b question .--- does this mean smb could mod the cities to make place for more accurate landmarks in the campagin game ?