User Guide

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LAYOUT DO’S AND DON’TS
The previous section alludes to a number of the critical design considerations for any map. Whether it is a
single-player, multiplayer, or Skirmish map, the following Do’s and Don’ts apply.
DON’T
✯ Don’t litter the map with sources of money. For good balance, each player should have access to
$40,000 to $60,000 with comparatively the same difficulty in gaining and holding the resources. Be
careful in the number of oil derricks that you leave on the map, as these permanent sources of funds can
affect the balance of play at the end of a game. In general, too much money on a map results in massive
slugfests that can take a long time to play and can slow frame rate in the process.
✯ Don’t confine yourself to the rectangular or symmetrical map. Although the map perimeter is defined
with a rectangle, you can build impassable terrain such as mountains or bodies of water along the edges
to reshape the playable area of your map. Additionally, you can script changes in the active map
perimeter, effectively opening new terrain. While maps of differing sizes, shapes, and symmetries do limit
the possibilities, they can be a lot of fun to play.
✯ Don’t put larger buildings and objects in the front and center of your maps. While players can rotate the
camera, they tend to keep it in the standard view. So, objects that you place behind these larger objects
can get hidden. Place large objects towards the rear and the extremities of the map.
✯ Don’t become infatuated with choke points. It’s easy to fall into the trap of creating choke points where
a few units can hold off a whole army. If you have too many choke points, the game can be slowed
down too much. It’s probably a good idea to have, at most, one choke point per base. When you do
create a choke point, it should be as wide as least five tank lengths at a minimum.
✯ Don’t isolate bases. Don’t make them difficult to access either through protection by natural resources,
hiding them behind a maze of mountains, or on islands. The GLA, in particular, needs room to
maneuver.
✯ Don’t make the only access to a base area over a bridge. It sounds like a fun idea to make the Bridge
Over the River Kwai, but such maps make for bad games. Bridges are frustrating attack routes and
usually offer advantages to the defenders. If a bridge is a set piece to your map, make sure that there’s at
least one other way to cross the gap.
✯ Don’t build King of the Hill maps. If you create one base area in the middle, then that army must fight
all of the others. If that general is successful, then everyone else is frustrated. Either have all of the base
areas in the middle or all of them on the perimeter.
✯ Don’t overlap textures. Choose a good macrotexture, and build your texture fields so that they do not
overlap. It’s very easy to create long seams of three-way blended textures by overlapping. You can create
nice effects without the overlap.
✯ Don’t use massive objects like the Fortress Wall or a Dam in your maps often. If you must, make them
Indestructible and Unselectable.
✯ Don’t build lots of flowing rivers. Flowing rivers are expensive in terms of system resources. Instead, try
to build rivers that cut into the map and then cut back out.
✯ Don’t go crazy building fences. Each individual unit in a shrub fence, for example, is an object. A long
string of fences of this type is a big hit on system resources.
✯ Don’t build mazes in your maps. It causes problems for pathfinding units and slows down the game.
Generally, maze maps aren’t much fun either.