Using the map editor that ships with Railroad Tycoon II is fairly straightforward, but there are many tools and options that you’ll need to use. This chapter will cover the basics, which should be enough to get you started.

There are two ways to start editing a map—from scratch, and from an image. If you don’t have an image to use, don’t worry about it. Working from scratch will give you good experience with the editor. If you do plan to use an existing image, pay close attention to the requirements for imported images below. Start the game, and select Editor from the main menu.

Starting from Scratch

If you don’t have a map to import into the editor, but you have an idea what you’d like to design, then starting from scratch is the way to go:

1 Select New Map from the Editor menu. You can also click Load Map to select a map from the game itself to edit. Loading a map takes you directly into the editor, so skip the next step if you decide to load one.

2 If you chose New Map, set the Width and Height of your map to your preference, then click From Scratch to enter the editor. (If you want to use an existing image from outside the program, skip to the next section, "Importing an Image.")

Importing an Image

TIP: A 500 x 500 map is huge—stick to something smaller for your first editing attempt. If you only have 16 MB of RAM, then keep your dimension total equal to 125,000 squares or less, for example 500 x 250 = 125,000.

If you want to import a map image rather than make a map from scratch or from a game map, then click From Image when you reach Step 2 above. In order to import an image into the game, it must be an indexed, grayscale image. Nothing else will work, so convert the image in your favorite image editor before trying to import it. A sample image, the North American continent, is included with the game—we’ll use it for this demonstration.

Railroad Tycoon II imports absolute black as the lowest points, and absolute white as the highest. Remember this when importing an image that doesn’t fit this standard—you’ll need to convert it first. To import an image:

1 Select New Map, then set your Width and Height just as you would for a from-scratch map. Instead of From Scratch, click From Image.

2 The file import dialog will appear. You’ll see that the sample file, Example.pcx, is shown in the File to be Imported box. Unless you’re importing your own image, click OK to import this image. If you’re importing your own image, then type the path to it in the box and click OK.

3 The next dialog that appears allows you to set the Height Scale of the imported image. A higher number will result in deeper valleys and taller mountains. For this example, leave this setting at the default 100 and click OK to enter the editor.

To load a map from one of the game’s existing map files, or to load a map you have already been working on, click Load Map on the Editor menu. From the dialog box that appears, scroll down the list and click the map you want to load. If you’re choosing a map that’s already in the game, you’ll see the text description of the map as well as an overhead view of it. Be careful—if you select one of the game’s existing maps, edit it, then save it, it won’t play correctly in the game.

Once you’ve selected your map, click OK in the Load Map dialog box to enter the editor.

The main editor screen should look very familiar to you—it’s virtually the same as the main game interface. All the game views—Radar Area, List Box, Detail View, Activity Box, and the main window—are here. The main difference is in the editing tools surrounding the main window. The same buttons you use within the game are here, but there are several additional tools you’ll need to use in editing the map. In all, there are 19 buttons—four just above the Activity Box, nine down the left side of the screen, and six more along the right edge of the screen.

Navigating the Map

The four buttons just above the Activity Box are still used to navigate the map. You can rotate the map left or right, or zoom in and out using these oval-shaped buttons. The Radar Area in the lower left corner of the editor screen allows you to click on it to center the main window view. In large maps, it’s much easier to click and drag in the Radar Area than scroll around in the main window.

When you select an editing tool, the List Box will change to give you the options for that tool. Another important tool is the Undo tool. This is the double-arrow icon on the right side of the screen. Click it to Undo the last action you performed.

Map Editing Tools

In the tools surrounding the editor screen, there are six map editing tools—a

Map Options tool, and seven game play buttons (you can’t use these, even in the editor, until you control a company). For our purposes, we’ll skip all the game play icons—Lay Track, Bulldoze Objects, Build a New Station, Purchase

a New Train, Stock Market, Control Panel, and File Options—since they are all covered in Chapter 2, Tutorial and in Chapter 3, The Main Window.

The six map editing tools are:

Raise/Lower Ground

This tool enables you to raise or lower the terrain under the cursor. There are three options in the List Box when you select this tool, as well as a brush size selection panel on the right side of the List Box. The three options are:

• Raise or Lower Ground—Click and hold as you move your mouse up or down to alternately raise or lower the terrain.

• Smooth Out an Area—This takes sharp cliff edges and rough terrain features and smoothes them into more gentle curves without sacrificing height.

• Lower an Area to Sea Level—This world-changing option will bring mountains to their knees. Use it to radically modify your map.

Use the brush size selector to choose the area for any of these three effects.

Paint Terrain

This is the tool you use to paint various types of terrain on your map. Everything from dry, desolate deserts to lush, green grasslands are available to customize your maps. When you click this button, the List Box becomes a palette, allowing you to choose your terrain. In addition to the palette, there’s a brush size selection tool on the far right side of the List Box, and two more tools as well:

• Solid—This paints the terrain solid with the texture you choose from the List Box.

• Mix—Clicking this tool changes the palette in the List Box to mixtures of terrain, rather than solid types. Consider using this tool when you want to cover large areas without making it look too uniform.

Fill Terrain

The Fill Terrain tool works much like the Paint Terrain tool, with one important difference—it completely fills the selected area, based upon the choices you make from the right side of the List Box when this tool is selected. There are five options to choose from. You must first toggle the All or Adj. Buttons on, before selecting Match, Above, or Below.

In the List Box, select one of these two:

• All—When toggled on, this button fills terrain across the entire map. Useful for covering an all-land map with one texture.

• Adj.—This toggle sets the Fill Terrain tool to fill terrain adjacent to the selected square.

Then select from these three options:

• Match—Use this tool to fill terrain that matches the type (such as desert) of the selected square. This is useful for quick replacement of a terrain you want to change across the entire map.

• Above—Use this tool to fill terrain at or above the selected square. This is an elevation-based fill tool that works best for filling small areas that vary in height.

• Below—Use this tool to fill terrain at or below the selected square. This is the opposite of the Above tool. Use this tool to fill in your oceans quickly.

Add Trees

Trees are optional, but they definitely give your creations a finished look. Everything from pines, to jungle vegetation, and even desert cacti are available from the List Box when you select this tool. Use the tools on the right side of the List Box to either Add Trees, or Cut Trees Down if you change your mind. Use the brush size menu to select an area to fill with trees.

Territories

You can set up territories by using this tool. Click the tool, then double-click the Unnamed territory in the List Box. The Territory Setup box will appear. You can set the following options for each territory:

• Name—Here you can enter the name of this territory.

• Default Goodwill—Set this level from 1 to 100 to determine the territory’s overall goodwill tendency toward players: 1 is horrible, 100 is good.

• Border Visible—This toggles border visibility on the map (your first territory must have a visible border). Invisible territories can be used to trigger events.

• Allow Separate Rights Purchases—Clicking this check box means that for this territory, Run Trains and Lay Track require separate access rights. Leaving a box empty means that both access rights are always granted for that action.

• Buyable—Click this box to set a price for access rights in the territory. Leave this setting unchecked to never allow the rights to be purchased.

Once you’re done with your first one, you can add multiple territories by clicking Add a New Territory in the List Box.

Build a New Building

This tool enables you to do several things. When you click it, the List Box contains a list of all available buildings in the game, along with five Special commands:

• Add City—Cities are a quick way to add industry to your map. The game will place all the industry buildings within a city for you, based upon your choices. Clicking the map after clicking this command brings up the Add City dialog box. There are two tabs here: General and Industry.

General—Use this tab to set the city Type, Name, Size, and Architecture for its buildings.

Industry—This is the tab where you set the likelihood of an industry appearing in the city with the Industry Weighting sliders. When you do this, you don’t have to place all the industry buildings yourself—the game will randomly place them based upon these weights. This saves time when editing a map. A weight of 0 means that the industry has no chance of appearing in the city, while a weight of 200 means that it has twice the normal chance. For instance, you might give Detroit a 200 percent weighting for having an Auto Plant appear in it during the game.

• Add Region—A region is a larger area than a city that can be set up in the same way. Fill in the info on the General tab, then set the Industry weights just as you would for a city. Regions work well for incorporating a certain type of industry with a region of terrain. For example, set up a region in the mountains and give the region 200% weights for coal and iron mines with a very low building density to keep them spread out.

• Add Label—Labels are any text you want to add to the map. You might use labels for landmarks, rivers, or at territory borders.

• Lay River—Use this tool to place a river on the map. If a body of water is not laid down with this tool, players won’t be able to bridge it. Only use the Paint Terrain water set for areas you don’t want bridged.

• Reserve Cells—Because the game will randomly place industry buildings, you may want to reserve certain cells so that nothing is placed on them. Add a few of these to any city to provide an open spot for players to build stations.

Aside from using the special commands above, you can build a new building by selecting one from the List Box, then placing it on the map.

TIP: The icons that appear on the map when you use the Add City, Add Region, and Add Label commands will not show in the game. What you’ll see in the game is the fully generated City or Region, or the text Label located where you placed it.

Map Options

Build a New Building

This tool enables you to do several things. When you click it, the List Box contains a list of all available buildings in the game, along with five Special commands:

• Add City—Cities are a quick way to add industry to your map. The game will place all the industry buildings within a city for you, based upon your choices. Clicking the map after clicking this command brings up the Add City dialog box. There are two tabs here: General and Industry

. General—Use this tab to set the city Type, Name, Size, and Architecture for its buildings.

Industry—This is the tab where you set the likelihood of an industry appearing in the city with the Industry Weighting sliders. When you do this, you don’t have to place all the industry buildings yourself—the game will randomly place them based upon these weights. This saves time when editing a map. A weight of 0 means that the industry has no chance of appearing in the city, while a weight of 200 means that it has twice the normal chance. For instance, you might give Detroit a 200 percent weighting for having an Auto Plant appear in it during the game.

• Add Region—A region is a larger area than a city that can be set up in the same way. Fill in the info on the General tab, then set the Industry weights just as you would for a city. Regions work well for incorporating a certain type of industry with a region of terrain. For example, set up a region in the mountains and give the region 200% weights for coal and iron mines with a very low building density to keep them spread out.

• Add Label—Labels are any text you want to add to the map. You might use labels for landmarks, rivers, or at territory borders.

• Lay River—Use this tool to place a river on the map. If a body of water is not laid down with this tool, players won’t be able to bridge it. Only use the Paint Terrain water set for areas you don’t want bridged.

• Reserve Cells—Because the game will randomly place industry buildings, you may want to reserve certain cells so that nothing is placed on them. Add a few of these to any city to provide an open spot for players to build stations.

Aside from using the special commands above, you can build a new building by selecting one from the List Box, then placing it on the map.

TIP: The icons that appear on the map when you use the Add City, Add Region, and Add Label commands will not show in the game. What you’ll see in the game is the fully generated City or Region, or the text Label located where you placed it.

Map Options

Located just below the Undo tool, the Map Options tool is extremely important. Here is where you’ll set the properties of your map, by clicking on each of

these items:

• General—Once you have Map Options open, General is the first section you need to fill in. The map’s Description, which is the text that appears when a player selects this map for play, can be filled in here. In addition, you can set the Start Year, or a range of years starting with a Minimum Start Year, and ending with a Maximum Start Year.

• Events—To add an Event to your map, you first click Add on the Events screen. The list of settings on the left—Trigger, Message Text, Frequency, Effect, and Comments—all inter-relate. A change you make to one of them directly effects another, so take your time here in order to get things right. Here’s a summary listing of the events:

Trigger—This set of options enables you to choose what sort of event you are setting up, as well as setting up the trigger formula itself. Since trigger creation is a fairly complex task that most users won’t want to delve into, a full documentation of trigger usage is included in a separate file—editor.txt—on the Railroad Tycoon II CD.

Message Text—This set of options enables you input the text that will be displayed when the event happens. It can be displayed as a Dialog, Newspaper headline, or as a Choice. If you select Choice, you will then have to code two effects, one for each choice.

Frequency—How often do you want your trigger tested to see if the event occurs? Set it up from here.

Effect—When the event is triggered, the settings you make here will dictate what happens in the game. You can make these effects Permanent or Temporary. Scroll though the list of Effects, click the ones you want, then move their sliders to left or right to engage them. Each slider has different settings, so experiment to find the exact settings you want.

Comments—Here you can include comments about this event. These are for your reference only—your comments will not be seen in the game.

Players—The Players tab is where you set the number and identities of all players in the map. In the grid at the top of this screen, Add the number of player slots you want. They will all show as Unassigned for now. Highlight one of the Unassigned slots, then, in the area below the grid, click the up or down arrows to select players for each slot. You can set players to be Mandatory or Optional, Human, Computer, or Either. . The Cash box is where you enter the amount of cash each player will start the game with.

Player Pool—The Player Pool screen is where you dictate the players that can be chosen for the map. Player positions that are Unassigned are drawn from this pool, which can be set to a North American, European, or World player set.

Managers—Select the Managers you want allowed in the game from this screen. If they are not checked here, they won’t be in the game except in special circumstances such as for an Event, or if the game runs out of allowed managers to use.

Economy—In the Economy screen, you can set the Starting Economic Level, as well as the Annual Growth Rate for the economy. Follow the recommended settings, unless you want some very interesting—and unrealistic—results.

Engines—You may want to limit the Engines that can be in the game. Any Engines left un-checked on this screen will not appear in the game for this map, unless you have set up an Event that allows them.

Industries—This screen enables you to select only those Industries you want on your map. This won’t effect any you have placed directly, but it will effect the random placement done for cities and regions.

Restrictions—The Restrictions screen contains a list of game actions that you can disallow. Restrictions are things that can’t be done in this map. Checking them keeps your selections from happening.

Ports—This section screen is where you set up what each port supplies and demands. Note that Ports are global in nature, so you don’t set these settings for individual ports. If you set a demand and a supply for an entry, the demand must be delivered to generate the supply.

Robbers—Unless you want to reflect a crime-ridden society that even Superman would be hard-pressed to keep in line, don’t set the Overall Robbery Level at the upper end of the scale. The Jesse James era, circa 1875, would be about 200 on this scale, while a more crime-free period would be around 30.