Tutorial How to make Historical Battles

[Ricky]

Hi~Ricky

Hi all after posting one of my historical battles up on members projects 'The Battle of Hastings' I thought "Why don't we see so many historical battles on battle.net?" Well the general answer would be most people don't like these types of games so they don't play them so any thats have been made just get left and not re hosted. But in some cases people don't know how to make a historical battle well. Some who have seen my game The Battle of Hastings would think that is a rubbish game and would feel me unfit to write this tut but i can help beginners and sometimes more experienced map makers by telling them how to make the basics and what to do next to make it more interesting. So if you read this tut you very likely to learn something.

Before i begin i must say i don't have the editor in front of me so just bare with me.Thx. So lets Begin.

Now first your going to decide what battle to do, for this tut I'm going to do mine on The Battle of Stamford Bridge. After deciding what battle to do you should look it up on the Internet to get enough facts to make you map 'Historical' . You might, like me already know enough to begin straight away.
So next we have to open up the map editor and make a new map the size and ground cover can be whatever suites your battle mine will be grassy and a medium size for Battle of Stamford Bridge. You will have to make the terrain as much as you can like the real place from pictures and historical facts, for me theres a big river going through the middle of the map with a bridge over it in the center then forest all the way along the river banks then on one side make another forest with a thin path leading off the map. On the other side of the river directly across the bridge a camp with a forest path leading to water which i use the lower ground tool to make it look like the sea.
Put other terraining effects to add realism on yours there might be a waterfall if so i would recommend the use of another tut as i can make waterfalls but i shan't explain in this tut.

Next you will have to make the units for this battle for me i will have several different viking units with there leader (hero) Harald Hadraada.According to the historical facts the vikings were mostly sleeping when the Saxons attacked so i will get ride of the armor bonuses. Also i shall have Saxon troops pretty much the same as on The Battle of Hastings.

Next you will have to put in the props and uncontrollable (in game) effects. For me the camp will be made first i will want tents facing maybe random locations and campfires, i will need a big command tent. i might also put other props to make it more real. your will be different but since i don't know what battle your making i cant tell you what props to use. For me i will also have props along the roads maybe dead bodies of people who have died on the way i might also put villagers along these paths.

Now you will have to set the players based on your battle. For me it will only be the Saxons and vikings as Harold brothers were not in this fight and the vikings had no second in command.

Now for the best part placing in the units. You will have to deploy the men in the places corresponding to the actually battle for me i put the Saxons along the road and the vikings around the camp.

Now you will want to put the map description/settings and everything like that how you want them. For the map description i would put a slight introduction to the actual battle then put any important messages that players need to know Before starting to play.

Next for the triggers. Open up the trigger editor and go to the map initialization trigger. Set the actions to whatever you want to set up the battle mine would be :

Map Initialization
    Events
        Map initialization
    Conditions
    Actions
        Game - Set the time of day to 24.00
        Game - Turn the day/night cycle Off

Now you will have to do the victory conditions make a new trigger (one for each of the players) and put the events that make of defeat as you want for each player and what happened after.Mine would be :

Saxons win
    Events
        Unit - Viking leader 0021 <gen> Dies
    Conditions
    Actions
        Game - Victory Player 1 (Red) (Show dialogs, Show scores)
        Game - Defeat Player 2 (Blue) with the message: Defeat!

Because have only two players i only need 2 triggers:

Vikings win
    Events
        Unit - King of England 0020 <gen> Dies
    Conditions
    Actions
        Game - Victory Player 2 (Blue) (Show dialogs, Show scores)
        Game - Defeat Player 1 (Red) with the message: Defeat!

Now that i think would be all you need to make a very basic Historical Battle

Advanced Aspects

Now first to make it a bit more advanced you would want to make quests giving information on the actually battle this is done in the trigger editor.Also you should make quests helping players with the battle maybe hints to secrets you might make for your battle.
Next you might want to make special events occur like on the battle of hastings when one of the brothers die there army flees from the battlefield and disappears of the edge. For my game I'm going to make a timer until there is a regroup with the vikings this may take several triggers:

Regroup start
    Events
        Map initialization
    Conditions
    Actions
        Countdown Timer - Start Timer as a One-shot timer that will expire in 300.00 seconds
        Countdown Timer - Create a timer window for (Last started timer) with title Viking Regroup

Timer is a variable you can make in variable editor which you will need to make a timer now i need to effects for when the timer runs out:

Viking regroup
    Events
        Time - Timer expires
    Conditions
    Actions
        Countdown Timer - Destroy (Last created timer window)
        Unit - Create 20 Footman for Player 2 (Blue) at (Center of Region 000 <gen>) facing Default building facing degrees
        Game - Display to (All players) the text: The Vikings have fo...

you can make lots of different effects and bonuses using this event as a base.
If you want you can make a trigger to tell people about how to do some things or rules or maybe advertise another map you have made mine is this:

Advertisement
    Events
        Time - Every 120.00 seconds of game time
    Conditions
    Actions
        Game - Display to (All players) the text: Play my new map the...

anyway play around a bit with ideas and who knows what you might come up with!

Well thats about it for now use this to learn how to make great historical maps!

Any criticism is welcome as long as it is constructive.Thanks

 

[pheonixashes]

Ricky, this tutorial is simply about a single battle, you might want to change it so it's basically "general guidelines" for making such a map.

Plus, its "Historical," not "Historicle."

You might want to paste it into a program with spell check.

 

[Ricky]

Yes, but.......

Ricky, this tutorial is simply about a single battle, you might want to change it so it's basically "general guidelines" for making such a map.

Plus, its "Historical," not "Historicle."

You might want to paste it into a program with spell check.

telling them how to make the baisics

Yes. Baisically this is how to make a single battle based on historical facts. It is completely true but isnt that what most historical battles are?single battles? As i quoted above it does say baisic at the beggining of a tut. But it does give idea of what to do next but only directly after finishing the baisic parts. If you want i could make another tut simply about the advanced aspects of these types of maps?

 

[The Helper]

I went through your tutorial and fixed your mispelling of historical.

 

[Ricky]

thx

I went through your tutorial and fixed your mispelling of historical.

Thanks

 

[Miz]

I like the tutorial the yellow letters are hard to read I think you should make it red or orange or a mix of Orange and yellow

after that I think its

4/5 Stars Congrats

 

[Ricky]

Thx

I like the tutorial the yellow letters are hard to read I think you should make it red or orange or a mix of Orange and yellow

after that I think its

4/5 Stars Congrats

Thx a lot for your reply

 

[Ricky]

Hi

Hi~Ricky

BUMP

Hi all, i just want to say that all my tutorials are in the middle of a revamp! The expected changes are:

Non freehand codes

spell checker usuage

updating

This revamp includes this tutorial