In relation to my post here I'd like to list some things I wish for in a map editor. You're free to list your own wishes and discuss these as well. I truly can't be the only one who's missed having a map editor for the past Settlers games!
To the extent I'm able to, I will make sample videos or screenshots to describe functions from other map editors I like.
Terrain
- Terrain sculpting
- Custom brushes (preferably in a 16-bit format such as TIF, PNG or EXR)
- Heightmap import (preferably in a 16-bit format such as TIF, PNG or EXR)
- River tool
- River path (made with a spline?) which digs into the terrain automatically, and adjusts flow and flow strength based on the underlying terrain.
- Flow direction is based on first and last point in the spline
- Water bucket tool which will fill a hole with water.
Ground textures
- Automatically apply textures based on slope and possibly height (Snow above a certain level for instance)
- Import masks for texture placement of sand, grass, dirt, rock, for enhanced effect of erosion from tools such as World Machine or World Creator
- Brush to manually paint a texture. This would override the imported mask. Erase to go back to the default texture - or in case of an imported mask, revert to the mask
Flora
- Option to use masks from tools such as World Machine and World Creator to place trees (or even tree types, such as broadleaf or needle), rocks and boulders in areas such as erosion, cliffs, slopes
- Option for 'paint brush' placement. Select from a few select asset types, and the brush will make a natural looking selection of all types.
- Option to place single assets at a time in areas which require more detailing (especially for custom campaigns/scenarios)
- Randomly swap the asset variant (within the asset group), rotation and scale after click-to-place to make it easier to get a more natural looking scene with ease
- Possible option for procedural placement of foliage based on given rules such as concave/convex, slope, height, sun direction, and apply a perlin noise mask to make it more natural and uneven
- Grass and flowers spawn automatically based on slope and height
Fauna
- Place fish spawn, whether it's a river or a lake, both should work
- Place deer spawn
- Place other wild animals spawn (in case hunting bear, fox, or other animals the will yield fur for clothing)
- Place cow, horse or sheep spawn (in case they live in the wild and can be tamed for breeding and food)
- Birds spawn automatically based on forest density
Scenery
- Paths tool
- Placement of stone walls, fences or other repeating patterns using a spline please! No more tedious placement one by one (unless wanted)
- Option to place items one at a time in the case of detailing
- Placement of structures like buildings, scaffolding, props
- Option to switch 'on' random rotation
- Placement of cliffs, boulders and rocks
- A proper gizmo to translate and rotate, like in Maya and similar 3D tools
- Placement of local fog or weather effects
- Set global weather settings (like chance of rain, chance of fog)
- Set whether to force day/night cycle or only daylight
Game objectives
- Set player start and starting area
- Set side missions to help the player gain certain technology or other aids to win
- Set win conditions
There, that's what I could come up with at the moment. The list may be added to at any time.![]()
I for one would love to make maps with World Machine and see how it would look and play in Settlers!
Why not take it another step with mod support? From my experience past settler games have become stale pretty quickly. I have always loved the singleplayer, slow and steady aspect of the games and would have loved some full additional campaigns, new balances, new races etc. Maybe Ubisoft won't provide that but with some mod support I know there are a lot of create "Settlers" who would love to tweak, add, increase the gameplay experience!
I’m sorry I haven’t been able to produce videos and images of the tools I like from other game engines and games. I’ll do my best to do something about that.
One of the reasons is I’ve not been able to post on the forum for a long time except through my phone which is a bit cumbersome...
There’s something up with the forum so I can’t post when I use Chrome. And when I use Edge (according to a Ubisoft support document, try tons of different things, you know..) It’s quite bugged. Looks like my post didn’t happen, but then it does..
This is a bit off topic: do others than me have problems replying/making threads in the forum?! It happened suddenly a few months back.
Just chiming in to give full support to this thread. The ability to create new content from the game's engine and assets (or even the possibility to import new assets) would have a substantial impact on replayability.
Mod support can only be beneficial. Great gaming communities are built around the possibility to create content around the game.
I'm not a fan of map editors (used to love them, but not anymore) as I prefer to not know what kind of map you're getting or where your enemies are
Mod support would be amazing, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. Haven't seen that in any other Settlers games. It could really make a game stay fresh for a longer time and probably get more players to the game
Good ideas and like your thinking! If im not mistaken we actually wont need a map editor because I think each map is procedural generated but no information on exactly just how much is procedurally done though. The thing with side missions though do sound more like a scenario editor rather than a map editor which I would be totally for as well, anything to help garner more gameplay, is only a win win for me.