This is a tutorial on map making in Battalion: Arena. It will give examples of what to do and what to not do.

Making the map look good
Making the map fun to battle on
Different map ideas

Making your map look good

Don’t make water in squares.
Which of these images looks better?


The correct answer is the second. Water never stays in a square (unless you are making a moat for a castle or something). So always make your water interesting. Bringing me to my next point.

Do make your water interesting!
BORING!
INTERESTING!

See how the second picture looks better? Water also isn’t simply there. Theres stuff in the water! It has shores! Your maps will be more popular if they are interesting to look at!

Don’t Overdue it!

Look at this picture. Its cluttered and overdone. Too many things make the map yucky! No one wants to play a map cluttered with stuff. It looks messy and bad.

Don’t fill your map with one thing

NO! This is boring and uninteresting. Never do something like this! If you fill the map with one thing it will be horrible! Like water, don’t overdue it! A small clump of forest here, maybe some over there… Like this:

Do involve a little of everything

As long as there is a bit of everything and not to little or to much your map should look much better than if it was plain. However there is one problem with this map. What is it?

Don’t make roads going up the side of the map

Because the road goes up the side of the map it links to the side. This causes it to look crappy.

EDIT: THIS HAS SINCE BEEN FIXED. YOU CAN HAVE ROADS GO ON THE SIDES!

Don’t make your roads like this

This is a war game, not a parking lot.

Don’t place more than 2 high bridges in a row

Please, don’t.

Reserved for more do’s and don’ts.

My biggest advice: Don’t make huge maps with heavy defenses. If you make an enormous 4-player map where everyone has barricades and 4 turrets, the game will never end. It will simply turn into a battle of who can get an attack off once every few turns to prevent a death by no-combat morale loss.

Heavy defenses sound like fun in theory because they’re fun to defend. But remember that players need to ATTACK as well! And that part… not so fun.

Nice work JediDude. Aesthetics really are an important part of every map. :)

Making your map fun to battle on.

Now that you know how to make your map look good you are going to want to make it fun to battle on. Greg made a really good point.

Don’t make massive barricade!

This is extreme but you get the point.

Do make it even for everyone!

If it’s even, everyone will play and have a blast. If its uneven and one player has more power than another, they are more likely to quit.

Be Creative!!

If your map is creative, more people will play it!

D&D’s of building placement

1. Do not fill up an area with buildings, neutral or not.
2. Do not put 2 or more oil rigs next to each other.
3. Do not put buildings on shores. This looks bad. For exception see 4.
4. Do put factories on shores if you want them to be able to make water units. This is essential on most water maps.
5. Don’t use only one kind of oil refinery. Use more regular ones than doubles.

FTA!!!
First turn advantage. A massive problem with most maps. Here JohnnyCrunk wrote a good bit of information on it.

bq. Many maps are unbalanced because of First-Turn-Advantage. Remember, if the map is small, there WILL be FTA. Small maps should NOT be symmetrical! To fix FTA, move some things around or change some starting units so that the second player has a slight advantage somewhere else (this will balance it out). If the map is large, then there usually won’t be a noticeable FTA. However, most of these large maps are at max size, with many starting units, making the game last a very long time (it is likely that players will leave).

Basically,
=bad
=better

My advice: When starting off, don’t put too many units on the same map (for example: 20 rows of Annihilators, etc). Too many units means more lag and less enjoyment.

Nice guide. Normally with map editors in games, the freedom allows newbies to make random and completely uneven maps but with this guide, the amount of bad maps will be drastically reduced (assuming people read this).

EDIT(had to put this here):

Make sure the map is balanced:

Many maps are unbalanced because of First-Turn-Advantage. Remember, if the map is small, there WILL be FTA. Small maps should NOT be symmetrical! To fix FTA, move some things around or change some starting units so that the second player has a slight advantage somewhere else (this will balance it out). If the map is large, then there usually won’t be a noticeable FTA. However, most of these large maps are at max size, with many starting units, making the game last a very long time (it is likely that players will leave).

I like the map editor in this game. Its sort of a StarCraft Editor Lite. Both of which have the

the freedom allows newbies to make random and completely uneven maps

problem.

Keep in mind that all perfectly symmetrical maps will be unbalanced.

Originally posted by JediDude:

4. Do put factories on shores if this is a water map. This allows them to build water units.

True, but there are times when the map maker wants the factory to build water units.

Originally posted by JohnnyCrunk:

Originally posted by JediDude:


4. Do put factories on shores if this is a water map. This allows them to build water units.

True, but there are times when map makers want the factory to build water units.

I see your point, updating now.

I liek it nice tut, I might later, to lazy now =P

Would it would be possible for the game engine to fix the “car park” and road along edge of map issues?

The game would just need to fill in the corner with a slightly different graphic (grey tarmac right into the corner) if the square has road on two sides and the corner square between those sides.

Since logically the squares just off of the edge of the map are treated as road, this should fix both issues.

Not being able to have roads up the edge of the map is restrictive, and it might be useful to have a large tarmacked area.

COMING SOON: What was that about not placing roads near the edges of maps?

p.s. Jammer battle ftl

Depleted Ore Deposit?
Ore Deposit?
ENRICHED Ore Deposit?

Are those going to allow you to build mines over them?

The road update looks good!

Edit: Oh danget, nevermind this post. Completely forgot about blitz mode. (-_-)

Originally posted by greg:

My biggest advice: Don’t make huge maps with heavy defenses. If you make an enormous 4-player map where everyone has barricades and 4 turrets, the game will never end. It will simply turn into a battle of who can get an attack off once every few turns to prevent a death by no-combat morale loss.

Heavy defenses sound like fun in theory because they’re fun to defend. But remember that players need to ATTACK as well! And that part… not so fun.

you do have a good point.

Originally posted by JediDude:

[Snipped]

you steal I did one of yours.

Thanks for quoting that whole guide, we so needed that.

Originally posted by Babadingldoo:

Thanks for quoting that whole guide, we so needed that.

…?

Sarcasm is ment to be noticed…

you steal I did one of yours.

Um, what did I steal?

Different Kinds of Maps

“What kind of map should I make?” you ask. Here are a few different Ideas to get you started.

Classic Maps

Classic mode is generally for longer games. Bigger maps will be longer battles and smaller maps will be shorter battles.

Water Maps

General Do’s of water Maps
Place factories on shores, this allows you to build water units.
MAKE SURE to have a sea control building, otherwise you will not be able to make water units.
I also highly recommend having ground control to attack the enemy base.
I recommend using more than 10×10, although I will use them to make it easier to see.

Sea Maps

Sea maps have a large space of water with small islands for bases.

The River Map

Rivers can go any what way. Top to bottom, diagonal, side to side, ect. They are smaller than seas and I would not put in reefs since they are only rivers. Generally the map is around half water, half ground. Be creative with the river flow.

The Lake

The lake can be made in a few different ways. 1 way is the way I have shown in the picture. A huge lake in the middle while the battles must be waged on the outsides of it or in the air. You can also make it so that ships can fight in the lake.

Reserved for more.

Blitz Maps

Blitz maps are generally quick action filled battles. Some special things about Blitz mode are,

The War Machine, and Ore deposits.

The War Machine (left) is a mobile factory with deadly guns. The weapons on a war machine do 60 normal damage, making them quiet dangerous. It can build unites using ore which is mined from ore deposits (right). The ore deposits pictured are (from left to right), empty (gives no ore), normal (allowed to be mined once), and full (allowed to be mined twice). When making any kind of blitz I recommend placing lots of these.

“Do make it even for everyone!”
the map shown isnt even for everyone though…
the player that goes first will have the advantage
even maps are never fair as they give first turn advantages.

apart from that, brilliant guide :D

If ur making a 3on1 map, the ganged up player should have a lot of units and barricades

Originally posted by dota08:

If ur making a 3on1 map, the ganged up player should have a lot of units and barricades

But it’s entirely up to the people playing the map what the teams will be so you can’t really design a map for a 3 on 1

But most people won’t find this useful, because only you can play your own maps! :O