How to make scenarios better

A universal guide on how to make interesting maps for the steam workshop in Ages of Conflict! Become a real Austrian painter in the world of maps

Introduction

Do you have a lot of ideas for maps, but you don't know how to design them correctly? Do your works get few views in the Steam workshop? Has your wife left you for another map author?

It doesn't matter! My guide will help you quickly and easily understand how to make high-quality maps in the game Ages of Conflict.



First of all, my young friend, we need to resolve a few issues: you make a map for people to PLAY it, not for them to just look at it and delete it. Of course, you can do a great job with precise boundaries, but do it in an uninteresting setting and with little detail.

I will consider exactly how to make the map more lively, elaborated and interesting for the game, not how to draw borders. If you need to understand how to use the map and scenario editors, you can refer to the official developer's guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2935977091

We have to figure out three important things:

• Choosing the basics

  
  

• Adding game objects

  
  

• Country design

Basis of the scenario

In order to make an interesting map, you need to have an understanding of what you are going to do. To create personal creative projects, I advise you not to resort to frames - follow the flight of your imagination, but do not forget to correctly and beautifully design the overall appearance of your idea.

If you want to make a historical scenario, you need to consider several aspects when choosing the period and location of your scenario:

1.

How well do you know the period/event in order to recreate it in detail and reliably;

2.

How feasible is your idea? That is, how much work you have to do to create and implement the script. It would be best to take someone's ready-made map with the outline that you need, on the basis of which you will create your own scenario;

3.

Interest and coverage of the period. If you decide to do the ancient Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal war, you are a very cool dude, I support you! But I doubt that anyone will be as interested in your project as you are. At the same time, it is important not to choose too mainstream periods, because there are already so many works, for example, about the Second World War in the workshop, that you will have to make an effort to get an audience.

When inspiration comes to you and you choose the theme of the script - create!

Objects on the map

In order to make your map interesting at the gameplay level, you need to create at least some conditions for this gameplay. Let's be honest - there is no gameplay in this game. You either make maps, or you observe the actions of the AI, slightly controlling it, or you do both things at once. Usually, players come to the Steam workshop precisely in order to find an interesting scenario in which they can observe the actions of the AI.

Therefore, your primary goal is to make the map as detailed as possible so that the actions of the countries on the map are accompanied by something other than border changes and the player can feel the weight of every movement of the front line.

Let's start with a simple one. Localities.

The script editor has a button for creating cities and other objects for a reason, right? Use it and tap as often as you can!

If you are making a map of a particular region in a real historical period, then depending on the scale, you can add military facilities (airports, military bases, seaports), as well as civilian settlements (cities, villages, districts of large cities) to the map.

This will make the gameplay more immersive and the player will be able to watch the sides fighting for individual points on the map. It's more exciting than just looking at a bare field.

For example, on the map below you can see how well the borders are made and how poorly the map details are made. The map gives aesthetic pleasure, but it will not be able to bring long-lasting joy from the gameplay:



This is an example of how cities influence interest. Here is a map of the war in Syria. As you can see, there are quite a lot of cities and some important military facilities on it, which makes even the usual observation of the AI war more interesting:



Therefore, you should not be lazy and make details for your script. This greatly improves the overall appearance and quality of the map.

Country design

It would seem that one of the small, but significant enough details for the scenario is the color palette and the overall design of the states. The design of the states includes:

1.

Characteristics of States. Creating balanced statistics on the start-up capital of countries, the strength of their armies and their allies. This will avoid creating an unnecessary routine with setting up countries for the person who downloads your script.;

2.

The general color scheme of the countries. You need to choose approximately the same colors, but in different RGB ranges. Do not mix too different cold and warm shades, follow the style of the color. PLEASE DON'T MAKE ACID MAPS, MY EYES HURT AFTER THEM.

3.

Boundaries. Yes, it may seem obvious, but you need to follow the logic within the borders of the states. If everything is very clear with historical maps and scenarios (what boundaries you should draw), then you need to be careful with your alternative history and your own worlds. Try to logically back up border changes so that they don't look like nonsense.

At the end

I hope that my guide will help you create more interesting scenarios and you will learn something new for yourself. Create and don't forget that the main thing is to enjoy your own work!

[solarsystem61]

a map with very high contrast i think

[Bagelsir]

What's an acid map

[koishi komeiji]

[awroskqqqqqqqqq]

поцан красава вихидний ваще отпад емммммм + rep

[UnofficialName]

Pretty cool and in depth! My only issue is that you called the scenario editor a script editor (alongside the other times you used script, but mainly the script editor).