Question about modding castles

[macsen rufus]

You can make new castle maps with the game's in-built battle map editor. There are a few things to be aware of - you will need a map for each level of castle in a series, for a start, so doing new ones for XL will probably involve 15 maps per castle.

There are rules on how castle walls work - they must be enclosed, for instance, you need to be careful with alignment to make sure everything meets at the edges - always use "snap to grid" in the editor, you will need to switch between snap to corner, snap to edge, and snap to centre to get walls of different alignments to meet.

It's best to start with an "empty" terrain map, do the landscape first, then set out a flat area for where your castle will stand, then build it up by degrees, saving each level as you add extra curtain walls, towers, upgrade from pallisade to stone etc. The file naming can be tricky, so bear in mind the following:

* file name must be along the lines of castlehilly01_x_x and there are two parts - a jjm file which is the "image", and an inf file which is a txt file that sets various parameters. These are both outputted by the editor, you just need to remember to copy them both into your battle/maps directory. New maps are found in the savemap directory when you create them (you can play CUSTOM BATTLEs on maps in the savemap directory - great for testing).
* the x_x part of the filename tells the game which level of castle it is, and what upgrades it has. In MTW (VI IS DIFFERENT!) a level 1 castle is a fort - hence 1_0 is your first level, 1_1 would be fort + motte, 1_2 is fort + motte + bailey. Look at existing castlemaps in your battle/maps directory and make sure you match the numbering in there for the new ones to work.
* mapseries need to follow on from where exisiting ones end, so if you have castlehilly04_x_x, then your new map should be called castlehilly05_x_x UNLESS it is a special map that you want to call for a specific province only, in which case you can call it castlehilly06_x_x - this means it will not be called up randomly (because the series is broken by jumping from 04 to 06), and will only appear if you use your province attributes entry in the startpos to call for castlemapgroup 6 (terrain type must match also).
* remember that in castle maps, the attackers always deploy in the south, defenders within the castle area. If there are two or more "layers" to the castle then defenders deploy in the outermost zone.
* a useful trick for de-bugging - I use a code based on different types of field, or different types of hut, in the map, so that I can encode the map-name into the landscape (eg six ploughed fields + two huts means it's a level 6_2 map, for example)

Really the best advice is suck it and see - have a play with the battle map editor (it's great fun, really!), maybe try some field maps first to get the feel of it, then try some castles, and let your imagination run riot

EDIT: Also read this thread - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=29944 some excellent advice from Antalis, who did the maps for Hellenic TW (still, IMHO, some of the best maps ever created for MTW games... )