Editor gripes, desires and workarounds

[SourPatchKidd]

I only started using the Editor yesterday, and I'm already noticing a few inconveniences surrounding it.

For one, it seems Retold has inherited the issues where AI scripts fail to start in custom maps. In my own test, I created a Giant Nomad world with 12 players because I wanted a much larger map. I then reduced the number of players to 5. In my play test, only Player 3's AI seems to go, whereas Players 2, 4 and 5 do not. No error message or anything. They just do nothing.

Second, I don't ever remember older versions of Mythology having a texture limited, but I could be wrong. I started creating a Giant world that I wanted to have some biome diversity, and I suddenly got a warning saying that there is a terrain limit of 48 textures. Would be nice to see this increased at some point in the future. For now, I can only assume it's a limitation of the engine, and having more than a certain number of textures probably causes some sort of instability. Mind you, I have yet to play test this scenario.

Third, when editing a body of water, I believe that older versions of Mythology would only count connected bodies of water is they water was the same, whereas if you say, had connected bodies where part was Aegean Sea and another was Greek River, it would recognize this and would not select the connected Greek River if you were to select the Aegean Sea portion. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong in this, Either way-- it would be nice if Retold would at least give us the option to only select connected bodies of water if they're the same type.

Anyway, I have yet to get too deep into the Editor, but I will add things as I notice them. Please add your own experiences and wishes to this as discussion, and if you have any workarounds to issues posted by others, please add them. Hopefully the devs see this thread and address them. I get that multiplayer and overall gameplay is probably the main priority for them at the moment, especially since the game isn't technically officially out yet, but I remember the scenario editor scene being a sizable part of the AoM community back in the day, especially with adventure maps and what not.

[Shellshock]

I was also looking forward to the editor but after playing around a bit I can't help but feel disappointed as well.

* All water and cliff types share the same thumbnail, in the original each had their own
* You cannot scale units/ objects anymore, at least I haven't found a way to do so. In the original you could scale units using K to increase their size and Shift K to decrease.
* There are still no bridges, like come on
* Beautifying water doesn't do anything besides from changing the surrounding terrain. In the original, the game added trees, plants etc.
* It would be great to have an option to disable the left and right arrow keys increasing/ decreasing the brush size. I use the arrow keys to move around quickly and the size change feels more like a hindrance than an actual QoL feature

[Paraleo]

might be just me but you don't seem to be able to load campaign maps anymore?
I want to start with a premade map and tweak it a bit and save it separately

[soldier6661111]

I just happened upon this thread due to noticing a 48 terrain type limit as well (which is insane because that is very low for a large map of diverse areas). However, I can help you out with scaling units.

Under "Objects" select Advanced Transformation Tool, Enable Gizmo and select Scale under transformation mode.

[Duke H. Vytantis]

As a vivid player of the OG AOM, this is concerning and the more i read about this "Retold" the less i dare to purchase it.
Custom maps was half the content of this game , the other being rank 1v1 / 2v2. And seeing how there's also complaints about that. Well it's pretty awkward to buy this just for the SP campaign alone rofl

[soldier6661111]

Originally posted by Duke H. Vytantis:

As a vivid player of the OG AOM, this is concerning and the more i read about this "Retold" the less i dare to purchase it.
Custom maps was half the content of this game , the other being rank 1v1 / 2v2. And seeing how there's also complaints about that. Well it's pretty awkward to buy this just for the SP campaign alone rofl

Skirmish is fun, and I will only comment on the terrain type limit I will say this should really only be an issue on very large maps, but if the plan for a map is the same climate throughout it, then it is a non issue.

The water issue can be worked around by temporarily disconnecting bodies of water.

Anyways, I believe custom maps can and will still be made despite these limitations though I hope the terrain limit is a soft limit only and that it will be increased to be able to use all terrain types in one map.

And regarding bridges, I believe they can be made in some way but have not tested it yet (have not reached that part of the map yet).

[Lord Haart]

What do you think to the ed's auto-gen on maps ?

[johnny1tap]

One thing i noticed while laying in some mountains, my arrow key controls over the camera started only working in the up/down direction. Also in many instances you lose camera control to any means other than edge pan completely. Which is bad.

[Spartian Omega]

I am having issues creating my own custom water. When I attempt it, I am limited on what textures I can use. This is frustrating as I can't even recreate a vanilla water (AtlanteanRiver). I am trying to find a work around, I noticed that a file called "water_bodies.xml" is created (in Game\Data\map_definitions\) whenever I save a water edit. However, manually editing this file is not being reflected ingame for some reason.

[Spartian Omega]

Originally posted by Spartian Omega:

I am having issues creating my own custom water. When I attempt it, I am limited on what textures I can use. This is frustrating as I can't even recreate a vanilla water (AtlanteanRiver). I am trying to find a work around, I noticed that a file called "water_bodies.xml" is created (in Game\Data\map_definitions\) whenever I save a water edit. However, manually editing this file is not being reflected ingame for some reason.

Also discovered that the water I made using the in-game editor was replaced with a vanilla water type when I reloaded the map after a client reboot. That was painful, I thought I might lose it from the pallette but I didn't think it would replace what I had painted on the map...

[Spartian Omega]

Originally posted by Shellshock:

I was also looking forward to the editor but after playing around a bit I can't help but feel disappointed as well.

* All water and cliff types share the same thumbnail, in the original each had their own
* You cannot scale units/ objects anymore, at least I haven't found a way to do so. In the original you could scale units using K to increase their size and Shift K to decrease.
* There are still no bridges, like come on
* Beautifying water doesn't do anything besides from changing the surrounding terrain. In the original, the game added trees, plants etc.
* It would be great to have an option to disable the left and right arrow keys increasing/ decreasing the brush size. I use the arrow keys to move around quickly and the size change feels more like a hindrance than an actual QoL feature

As mentioned here beautify water is still not fully functional. It would also be nice if they gave the water brush options like the cliff tool. Beautify, paint shore, paint terrain, and etc.

[Spartian Omega]

It would be nice to have the option for setting a player slot as optional.

Further especially for multiplayer scenarios, it would be nice to have the flexibility to set a player as being either human or computer rather than restricting the slot.

[Noonga]

Originally posted by Duke H. Vytantis:

As a vivid player of the OG AOM, this is concerning and the more i read about this "Retold" the less i dare to purchase it.
Custom maps was half the content of this game , the other being rank 1v1 / 2v2. And seeing how there's also complaints about that. Well it's pretty awkward to buy this just for the SP campaign alone rofl

We need more people making maps yes, Im one of them, I made around 20 back in the day, all for SP, never uploaded any. Iv nearly finished 1 for retold, they are balanced, well will be, my first is a bit unbalanced. And I will upload them this time, when I get around to it, im more keen on playing than making maps rn. Shady pines is a cool one to get atm, I just hope I don't run into AI issues once Its done, probably should test that, make a map with obstacles and terrain for them to path around and just test it would be smart haha.

Missing the proper beautify texture does my head in, now I have to manually add seaweed, trees, rocks, its so tedious, why devs!, ill make another post so they see it, so far they have added my suggestions :)