Land and Decorate
Shape terrain in the Land tab -- sculpt height, paint ground and mountains, lay water, rivers, and bridges -- then scatter cosmetic props in the Decorate tab.
Two of the editor’s four tabs handle the look and shape of the world: ⛰ Land builds the terrain that gameplay runs on, and ✿ Decorate dresses it up. See the Map Editor Overview for the full tour.
The ⛰ Land Tab
The Land tab is where you shape the terrain.
Sculpt Tools
Height is built in discrete steps, and tall drop-offs become cliffs automatically. The sculpt tools are:
- Raise and Dig — push terrain up or down.
- Flatten and Smooth — level or soften an area.
- Bumpy — add rough, uneven variation.
- Set Height — fix terrain to a specific level.
- Ramp — grade a walkable slope between two heights; R cycles through every direction that fits. Cliffs of two or more steps are impassable without one.
- Erase — clear edits.
Copy Area copies a rectangle of terrain and pastes it elsewhere, mirrored if you like — the fast way to build a symmetric map by hand.
Brush Controls
Every sculpt and paint action uses a brush you can tune:
- Size — how wide the brush reaches.
- Shape — Round, Square, Line, or Fill.
- Mirror — Off, X, Z, or XZ, so symmetric edits stay balanced across the map.
Ground Paint
Paint the surface with Grass, Dirt, Sand, and Rock. Mountains are separate: a crag brush that adds impassable rock, which blocks movement and sight. Alt+click samples a tile’s height and paint into the brush.
Biomes
Choose a biome to recolor the whole map: meadow, desert, tundra, wetland, volcanic, or autumn. Biomes are purely visual — they recolor the map only and never change gameplay.
Water
Water comes in three forms:
- A global water table — set the water level for the entire map.
- Free-form Water Areas you paint by hand.
- Rivers that wind across the terrain.
Bridges are rotatable spans you place over water so units can cross.
Obstacles
Place Obstacle drops a solid object that units cannot walk through and cannot see past: big tree, boulder, outcrop, rock pile, deadfall, and menhir, at any scale. R turns one while placing, right-click removes the nearest, and Alt+click samples one into the picker. Obstacles are terrain — use them to make choke points, blind corners and cover. (Decorations, below, are the walk-through kind.) The bundled Obstacle & Decoration Showcase map shows every kind at every scale.
No-Build
Paint No-Build zones where nothing may be constructed — to keep a choke open, or to stop a player walling off a resource.
The ✿ Decorate Tab
The Decorate tab scatters cosmetic Decorations across your map: trees, rocks, reeds, crystals, stumps, ruins, flowers, sprouts, pebbles, and banners, at any scale up to twelve times normal. Decorations are purely for looks — units walk straight through them, and they stay small so that reads as deliberate. Want something solid? That is an Obstacle on the Land tab. R turns a decoration while placing, right-click removes the nearest, Alt+click samples one.
Next Steps
Once the land is shaped, place your forces and script your mission in Armies and Scenario, then save and share your work from the Library.