User Guide
NOTE: You cannot limit a start location to a particular army, so do not design start areas of
your map to be for the GLA only, for example.
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Don’t isolate bases from each other. Isolation inherently favors sides with air power, so the GLA is at an
immediate disadvantage on those maps.
GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION, AND TIME OF DAY
What time of day does the battle begin? Where is your map located in the world? Is it a desert environment?
Is it up in the mountains? How many trees do you want in your map?
Making decisions about the location and time of day at the beginning of development can impact the design
of your map. For example, if you’re placing it in wooded terrain, remember that trees are objects that can
impact performance. After you have decided the when, where, and what of your map, you should spend
some time in the object library and texture library assessing which elements are going to work for your map.
For more information,
➤
Object Library on p. 47.
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY
Particularly for single-player missions, the degree of difficulty is an important consideration and covers many
aspects of design.
Do the challenges grow as the player expands his control towards CPU-controlled locations? And finally, do
you want the player to be able to have a different experience depending on the Normal, Hard, or Brutal
difficulty setting that he selects in the game?
EA TIP: In general, the approach to difficulty ramping based on user-controlled settings is to
create the map under either the easiest or the hardest setting. Then, you can scale up or back
in units, structures, and behaviors for the other settings. For more information,
➤ Ramping Difficulty on p. 63.
Degree of difficulty also covers design elements that have nothing to do with hostile opposition. For
example, if the base area closest to a player’s start location is very small, then the player must fortify that
location and expand into new territory early in the game. His forces are extended, making him more
vulnerable.
OTHER DIFFICULTY FACTORS
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Are players able to begin building full bases easily? Most designs provide a supply depot close to the
user’s start point, but interesting possibilities are available if the user enters the map with a strike force
that he must use to find supplies and start a base at some distance from his start point. Note that
collection units cannot automatically collect supplies from depots far from the base; the player must
direct them to the location.
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How hard is it to find additional resources? You can increase the challenge by placing supply depots
close to or far from a player’s start point. If one player must travel significant distance to reach a supply
depot while another has two depots close to his start location, the first player faces a greater challenge.
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How many entrances are there for each base location? While each base entrance should have at least
three entrances to it, you can create a different kind of challenge by having only one entrance to an area
that is sunken below the surrounding terrain. So, while the player can defend the entrances to his base
easily, it is important for him to gain control of the terrain above his base location.
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What are the terrain advantages? Are there terrain disadvantages? Is the shortest route to the enemy’s
base fraught with peril? Will the successful general drive a blitzkrieg force through a terrain disadvantage,
or should he circumnavigate the danger area with a much larger, occupying force? The best maps, of
course, allow all of these possibilities and more.
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Are there bridges? A bridge in a well-designed map offers a tactical advantage for the team that can
control it, yet the advantage should be counterbalanced by the difficulty of defending the bridge. Never
let a bridge be the only path between two areas of the map.
In multiplayer missions, the degree of difficulty is a factor, yet you should tend towards keeping the map
open, even, and conducive to combat.
While you may not have answers to all of the above questions, it’s important that you know what you don’t
know. It’s reasonable to postpone resolution until you’re actually shaping the map with the tools. However,
you should be aware that making large-scale changes can take a long time when you are far into
development.
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