Editor stuff

[Erik2]

1) You cannot place a road on a hill, at least it is not visible. If you replace the hill with plain, the previously laid road appear.
I do not know if this is just in the editor and that roads on hills are ok in the game (it should be).

2) The relationship between sea and land hexes is somewhat unfriendly. For instance, I start with an all-sea map. I would like to create a narrow 1-hex wide sea-lane. To do this I need to create land hexes that have two sea hexes between them (instead of just one). Ohterwise the sea-lane is filled with land. So it appears that the land terrain spills onto the neighbouring sea-hex. Also replacing a coast tile with a sea tile is a bit of hit & miss. It appears that you have to do this in an unknown specific way.

3) The east-west hill tile is coloured somewhat differently (more yellowish) than the other hill tiles, this makes it stand out as a sore thumb.

4) When you lay an object, the object name is by default something along 'light urban area'. It would be better if the name field was blank by default since you either want it blank or replaced with a real name. Currently you need to edit/remove a lot of txt.

5) An option to resize a map would be nice, add/remove a certain number of hexes top/bottom/right/left.

Thanks for listening
Erik

[Ronald Wendt]

Hello,

thanks for your good points, we will take them into account depending on out changes.

Regards,

[Erik2]

Good, here are some more suggestions.

6) Ability to paint tiles, this would speed up map making. Currently you need to click on each single hex.

7) Fill function wich would be used inside a border of identical tiles. Speeding up the map process.

8) There is a large,grey, unusable area (10-20 hexes) on the top and bottom of the map. These should be removed so you would only scroll to the top/bottom of the actual map.

9) Scrolling is very fast and unpredictable. I find it almost impossible to get a certain part of map visible. You usually get too far to the right/left/top/bottom. Please give an option to deactivate edge scrolling and use keyboard arrow scrolling instead (using say 5 hexes scroll for each time you hit one of the Arrows.

10) Click on a hex to lay a tile and move to the next hex is quite sluggish, I have to wait for the 'hex-spotlight' to catch up. I think the 'spotlight' could easily be removed if it would help speeding up the process. No need for fancy alphachannel fade ins/outs in an editor.

11) Question: Is a coastal hex considered land or sea? It displays as half/half. If it is a sea hex, is there any point in putting a Harbor Object on a coastal hex? This object looks a bit silly further inland.

That's all folks [:)]

[Erik2]

Question:
You can edit the Terrain name in the editor, will this name be displayed on the map in the game itself?
I would rather not have Forest written all over the map...

Thanks
Erik

Edit: On second thought, this is probably for naming rivers and other specific terrain. Please disregard.

[Erik2]

When you use terrain ornament, this little bugger pops up and hides a small part of the screen.
It does not seem to serve any useful prupose, so I'd rather get rid of this.
Closing it doesn't help, it pops up gain when you click on the next hex.

Thanks
Erik

[Erik2]

I have come across a rather serious short-coming.
You can not place roads on hills, this must be an oversight.
At least they do not display in the editor.

Thanks
Erik

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Erik,

Thank you for the feedback - Ronald is away this week catching up with some sleep after the push to release, but there will be another update available when he returns. The editor did not get as much polish as the game, but we did use it to create all the in-game scenarios and I'm very glad to see you working with it. We'll address any issues as soon as possible.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik2]

Update:
Found a River Draw with some additional options under Terrain, I'll experiment a bit with this.

Can someone please explain how to create rivers?
River is not an Ornament like a road (simple to create), but a Material like grass, swamp forest ground etc. This is a bit strange.

There are a bewildering amount of river Materials:
River Connexion (connection?)
River Mouth, 4 types
River Source, 4 types
Riverbed, 15 types (!)

In the graphic preview, only the River Mouths looks anything remotely like a river...


Thanks
Erik

[Erik2]

All right, I have kind of managed to placr a river.
But the red shading in the screenshot indicates something is not 100% right.
I am also unable to place a river mouth or river source.
I save and reload and get the message below, but I do not know how to rectify this.

Thanks
Erik

[Erik2]

I can manage to create rivers, but it is a hit & miss thing.
I find this process very unpredictable and clearly the most difficult part of the map-making.

Here's an example. I want the red hex to the right to behave similar to what is selected in the terrain preview (screenshot left).
If I click on the left red hexes, the editor terminates the river under the bridge. It does not reach the coast.
If I click on the red coast hex, it creates a land hex and suddenly I've got six red hexes to contend with (screenshot right).

Also, to succefully connect river parts, they need to have the water flow in the same direction (now, that must landmark in a war-game [:D] )
Problem is that the red-shaded hexes makes it impossible to see the direction of the flow.

[Erik2]

Here are a few suggestions for faster and more flexible unit creation.

1) Allow redeployment of on-map units. Scenario designers seldom get the deployment 100% correct the first time...
For instance, RMB click to remove unit and immediate click on the hex you want to move it to. If you click on the Unit creation/info panles you permanently remove it.

2) Copy existing on-map unit and paste it in another hex. For instance, Ctrl-click to duplicate.

3) Allow scenario designers to edit an unit's capacity fields like max strength/range/movement etc for the unit you are about to deploy.
It would also be nice if the designer could select the unit size symbol, div/reg/bn, to create more specialized units.

4) I would like unit type names that tell me a bit more about the type. There are 3-4 infantry types that are named 'Regular'. Better with 'Regular Romanian' etc.
Also the sub-sorting should be more consistent. Currently there appears to be no sort system, this leads to much scrolling.

Thanks
Erik

Edit

5) This game is an excellent way to introduce to new players to war-gaming. Add some caliber info to Russian artillery. There are probably other units that may benefit a more detailed description as well.

76mm Zis S-3 Mod42
122mm M30 Mod41
152mm ML 20

Added a screenshot to show the rather jumbled infantry list. Russians, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians etc in no particular order. Note that you need to be familiar with a nation's WWII flag to determine which nationality you are picking.

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Erik,

Thank you for the feedback - Ronald is away this week catching up with some sleep after the push to release, but there will be another update available when he returns. The editor did not get as much polish as the game, but we did use it to create all the in-game scenarios and I'm very glad to see you working with it. We'll address any issues as soon as possible.

Regards,

- Erik

Of course I agree. Priority one is the game and after that the editor.

[Erik2]

It looks like a couple of the Terrain Hill names are slightly incorrect.
The corresponding Material display the correct names.

Hill NW-SW => Hill NW-SE
Hill SW-NW => Hill SW-NE

Thanks
Erik

[Ronald Wendt]

Hello,

thanks for all the reports - the editor is among the less used parts of the game so there are likely some glitches left in it.

So its great to get some feedback on this. We are currently working on a better editor with more option and easy access, even for beginners.

Anyway we will mend all errors that occur in this one.
New features have a limited chance to get into the old one, but your suggestions can be considered for the new one.

Regards,

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: Ronald Wendt

Hello,

thanks for all the reports - the editor is among the less used parts of the game so there are likely some glitches left in it.

So its great to get some feedback on this. We are currently working on a better editor with more option and easy access, even for beginners.

Anyway we will mend all errors that occur in this one.
New features have a limited chance to get into the old one, but your suggestions can be considered for the new one.

Regards,

Thank you.
If you need someone to beta-test the editor, I'm your man [:D]
I am almost done with a test-map (the river creation is still bugging me), and hope to get a working scenario for testing soon.

Erik

[Ronald Wendt]

Hello,

ORIGINAL: Erik Nygaard

Thank you.
If you need someone to beta-test the editor, I'm your man [:D]
I am almost done with a test-map (the river creation is still bugging me), and hope to get a working scenario for testing soon.

Erik

good to know you would like to test the editor.

We are looking forward to your map!

Regards,

[Erik2]

Ronald, if you've got the time, could you please help out with this river mouth problem.
The three connecting rivers all flow in the same direction (north) to the sea.
But I cannot solve the two red hexes at the river mouth.
This kind of river problem is the most difficult one to get right.
Also, if there's a smart way to lay rivers (start with the source or mouth? etc), please share.

Thanks
Erik

[Ronald Wendt]

Hello,

there are not all combinations in the game yet, so for a river mouth in that situation you need a coastline like the on in the attached screenshot.

As to the drawing of rivers - it pretty much depends on the rivers.
I tend to "scribble" the river's current first and adjust details like river mouths or the direction later.

Regards,

[Erik2]

What is the difference between 'normal' objects and Z-mods?
The graphics for ie Airport appears to be identical.

Thanks
Erik

[Erik2]

I have rivers running through woods and swamps.
It would look much better if the ornaments were graphically blocked by a river (non-transparent).
I think using ornaments makes for a nicer, more interesting map.

Thank you
Erik