Walkthrough for creating up a skirmish/multiplayer map for Empire Earth II (TM) NOTE: The Empire Earth II (TM) map

editor is not supported by Mad Doc Software, Sierra, or Vivendi Universal Games. Use at your own risk. Welcome to the walkthrough for making a multiplayer map for Empire Earth 2. Aft er working through this, you should be able to generate maps to be used for skir mish games against the computer or in multiplayer against friends and foes alike . 1. START EMPIRE EARTH II (TM) 2. OPEN THE EDITOR From the Main Menu, select Map Editor button - this will open the editor and gen erate a flat, blank 64 x 64 tile map. You will note that the map that has been generated already has some Territories assigned to it. This is an important first step when creating your maps, as many features of Empire Earth 2 are dependent on the size and numbers of Territories the map will have. Some more information regarding creation of Territories will be outlined below. The top row of the editor contains the Menu items, which include: File Edit Tools View Map

3. GENERATE THE MAP For the purposes of creating the Multiplayer map --> select File --> then New. From here you will see . Choosing to generate ap, which you can then dom map, will create a e presented to you. two choices, to create either a Flat map, or a Random map a Flat map will generate a featureless, evenly surfaced m tweak using the Terrain Tools. Choosing to generate a Ran map based on the choices you plug into the fields that ar

When you have a basic layout you like, Save the map. 4. TERRAIN FEATURE PAINTING When you are satisfied with the basic layout of the map geography, Select the To ols option from the Menu bar and then Terrain Modification This will then take you to a Selection of Terrain modification options labeled E levation, Terrain, Water and Cliffs. When placing water it is important to take into account that ships can only be g enerated in area painted with the Ocean Brush and that Rivers are painted using the River brush. Always remember, that Ocean is for naval units, Rivers are only traversable by bridges.

Each of these tabs has a set of parameters that you can adjust to make changes t o your map. Feel free to experiment with them and then when you are finished onc e more save the map. This set of windows will allow you to adjust things such as the size and shape o f the Brush used, Raising/Lowering of Terrain, Painting the terrain with a varie ty of Terrain textures, carving out Oceans and rivers and painting cliffs. Other options that are of particular use in making Skirmish or Multiplayer maps from the Tools menu are: Forest Painting Object Placement Starting Positions And Territories to place down various types of trees that are used to ga Starting positions is used to set the position that play at. The Territories option is the brush tool that is use Territory lines.

Forest Painting is used ther the wood resource. ers will start the game d to generate or adjust

Object Placement will only be used to place World Player objects, such as resour ces and ambient objects. Any player-specific objects, such as units and building s, will not be saved on a Skirmish/Multiplayer map. Make sure to place at least one or two of each resource type in each Territory. This will ensure that player 's will be able to expand into those areas to create resource centers. Selecting starting positions will generate a number of start points on the map ( where each player will begin with their first City) dependant on the size of the map and certain terrain features. These can be adjusted based on the parameters set in the Start Position window. The tool does auto-generate the first few sta rting positions, but you will have to place any additional starting positions do wn manually based on the max number of players you want on the map. Also keep in mind that you need to make sure there is plenty of flat land around the start p osition to ensure a city center can be placed there. Territories are very important when laying out the map. A good rule of thumb to follow is to make sure that there is enough room in each player's starting Terr itory to construct other buildings. It s a good idea to provide at least two or t hree Territories that players can expand into and claim, so that they can increa se their population limit, build more structures, harvest more resources, etc. T his also gives players more room to fight over later in the game. 5. SAVE THE MAP When you have the basic layout of the map you like, do not forget to Save. Do th is often so that you will not lose your work. In order to save this as a Skirmis h or Multiplayer map, you will need to save the map using the Save As Map choice . Using the Save As Map choice will save your work as a map file, rather than a sc enario file. ***This is an important step, as scenarios files will not be visible in the Map selection choice in the Multiplayer Lobby.*** 6. SET SEASONS

As a last step, select the View option from the Menu and then select Preview Sea sons. This will allow you to set the month and Time of Day for your map. When yo u know what you want your choices to be, click apply and then save the map. Congratulations! You have successfully created a skirmish/multiplayer map for Empire Earth 2. Wh en you set up a multiplayer game, select the option to load a custom map. Selec t your map, and when you launch the game, the other players will download the ma p automatically.