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for those with no attention span or who are only having a glance: CHECK THE FIRST POST UNDER THE OP FOR A PLAYABLE MISSION AND THE FULL / EXPANDED TILESET. THE OP HAS ADDITIONAL INFO AND A VANILLA-COMPATIBLE 800-TILES VERSION OF THE TILESET, WHICH MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR MAPPERS LOOKING TO MAP FOR CO-OP BECAUSE MULTIPLAYER DOESN'T HAVE THE COOL NEW FEATURES YET. HOPEFULLY SOON THOUGH. ANYWAY, YEAH. hallo. this thing is almost done, so I guess I'll put it out there kinda sorta maybe a little. technically the tileset is complete, but I'm still working on the playable example mission (check the post after the OP), and I'll be continuing to make tweaks to the tileset until that's done, so... ya know, it ain't official just yet it's official now! good luck and have fun! anyway, here's a full map image of the current state an earlier draft of the debut mission-to-be: and here's an image of just the starting area. this is the sort of thing that will be pictured in the tactical map, so it's not a spoiler. I mean, you clicked on this thread to get a look at the new tileset, yeah? surely this is fine! nobody had better come complaining to me later about spoilers when I hid the full map image!! this tileset is hand-drawn primarily by ZoeO, AKA my sister who did the lovely splash art for the Summers' Solstice campaign, among other things like those new Barracks we've been seeing in-game, the new smuggler sand mouse or mercenary rock dragon minimap emblems, and more this download link is for d2k editor v2.0-compatible mapping assets. again, nothing playable here just yet, but check the second post in this thread for a playable example mission. if you're a mapper and want to mess around with the tileset, knock your socks off with this zip. you can find a summarizing list of credits under the FAQs section around the bottom of this post. also included are .r16s of the recolored crater assets. auto-smooth works for water and water bridges too, making that easier to map with https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gb2I4-xpLj1UG5rShNWdwna-RSloT6yG/view what's auto-smooth? it's that feature you might be familiar with from Arrakis maps that automatically paints borders. shift+click the edge of a whole buncha painted water tiles like the first screenie here, and you'll wind up with the second screenie. makes painting water or water bridges very simple and easy EDIT: I was made aware of an issue with auto-smoothing on vertical bridges. for some reason I'm not yet aware of, horizontal bridges are auto-smoothed perfectly around water, but vertical bridges are not. you can paint a vertical bridge on any other terrain, auto-smooth it there, and then use select mode to drop them where they're meant to be. my apologies for the inconvenience. also, the bridges MUST be square! they don't have turns and whatnot! EDIT 9/27/25: turns out there was a conflict between an editor attribute and the paint group vertical bridges are in. for some reason, that messes up auto-smooth. I updated the zip and moved the paint group over one. it's the same link; just redownload it and vertical bridges will auto-smooth as expected before I continue, here's a clip testing the first five minutes or so of the debut mission-to-be linked in the second post in this thread https://streamable.com/04dlae EDIT 9/27/25: also, I did a lot more polish on this here test mission. took some more clips, threw 'em up on Streamable... spoiler alert! https://streamable.com/g04e9w https://streamable.com/sxc06d https://streamable.com/9n5o07 https://streamable.com/eitr1b this is the entire mission, so, spoiler alert, obviously xD apologies for my cruddy macro; it was like 5 in the morning and we did some insomnia ahh gaming. still, this should be a decent showcase of the new features this mission is released, and you can find a link in the second post in this thread. I'll be working on the art assets for these new units now that the debut mission and the expanded tileset are released all that said, the details for that first Streamable link from before this edit in the post continue below: this streamable link will expire eventually, but it's here for now to give a peek at what will be the first playable mission, by me at least, on the tileset it's rough around the edges and totally unbalanced at this stage. my intent with this test was merely to examine the macro game rebalancing, and I got a pretty good look at how the early game goes. very safe build order, lots of production off two refs and four harvs with hard mode's build costs, and I would have had more income after getting a couple of rigs up on the southern island. when I tweak the AI so they don't send end-tech stuff in their first attack, this should feel pretty good anyway, below is a list of features, some purely about the aesthetic and some involving concepts and plans I have for this tileset. no spoilers, really, this is just hidden for the purpose of sectioning and condensing the thread. it features: I've been detailing progress on the creation of this tileset in a dedicated channel over in Feda's Landsraad discord server. if y'all wanna check out my diary, you can find it there. spoiler alert, obviously, but you could hang around the server anyway for all sorts of other d2k stuff. here's a link to the pinned thread which itself has a link to said server: I'll go on to elaborate on the development process and list answers to some frequently asked questions here though first, here are a buncha development screenies. apologies in advance for crashing your computer if you look under here; there are a ton of images. I guess maybe it might help that most of them are hidden under secondary spoilers? maybe? it is impossible to fathom how much effort this was without witnessing the absurdity of the development process. this is the extent of my sister's generosity - she's owed our highest praise for all her hard work! and I make sure any she receives is passed along to her, as she doesn't frequent this locale I will be doing my best to justify all her efforts: make this tileset simple to draw for other mappers through carefully customized editor presets, come up with remaps for Arrakis tilesets so they can be quickly converted, characterizing it strongly through a passionately-crafted series of campaigns including old and new factions... all that stuff here are some FAQs that's all for now. check back later the next post in this thread for the debut mission

Have you any thoughts on a tech tree? How will it progress? Sorry to say, the techtree needs to be balanced as well. And this might be the hardest job. Since you introduce a player to a new unit. The mission might depend on that particular unit. And the multiplayer techtree should be balanced as well. I think, the latter is even more important than the single player campaign. Because a new unit might actually be over powered for its first job. Just for the fun of it It is how I introduced some of my units in the past. "o my, we don't have enough resources for dealing with the bunkers. Let's get 1 artillery unit, we know it is expensive, but that attack range of 13 is more than enough to protect it from wandering survivors".

thanks very much!! ah, I don't like to restrict the player too much even on missions with pure defense objectives, I've gotta account for if the player's gonna be aggressive and attack the enemy and stuff. quite a few players have been taken off guard on S02V1 by trying to beat up the high-tech enemy lol there are some exceptions, of course. like, S02V2 was designed to introduce hero units in a controlled environment, to teach the player to sacrifice ANYTHING to keep them alive, and show their strength without the macro game in the picture. that was only for like... 22.5k ticks or something? and I don't think we'll need missions like that in the next series. no hero units so yeah, defense-oriented missions, sure, but I gotta spice it up if it's pure defense, somehow xD ah yeah, and the Wings of Liberty campaign had that one with the supernova and the banshees and all that. terran buildings being able to pick up and wander the map was integral to that one. fun concept, very memorable it took the forefront in that mission though, whereas the natural progression of wandering the map for resources is, uhh... more of an encouraged course of action than a necessity. an underlying gameplay mechanic supporting the main gameplay loop, the focus remains on defeating the enemy. less, uhh... distinct, but hopefully more fun to be had with more flexibility on more missions. less linearity and stuff damn, mate. aye, I've lost some missions too. dang computers perhaps what I refer to as gimmicks are what you're referring to here as secondary objectives ^^ I would classify the end stage of S06V2 as being its secondary objective. the production goals on SBON2 are secondary objectives. perhaps 'xyz hero unit must survive' is more of a secondary objective than a gimmick even if it's all primary though, missions can remain interesting with a strong enough gameplay loop. I've replayed Halo: CE lots of times just because its gameplay loop is so well-conceived, despite its repetition in mission layout and stuff aye, that's the plan ^^ actually, that was chiefly what I was looking for in Kipp's test run of the variables example map in the thread I linked in the last post! he had to expand a bit to support his offensive, but wasn't overwhelmed by the enemy before he could do that. target hard mode balance achieved! and now I've got the data to go off of for future missions' designs. a factor in helping to balance this debut mission, despite it being very different from that variables example map didn't mean it was perfect from the get-go though. not that that was my fault... during this process, we discovered the AI on hard mode in d2k gets a x.75 modifier on its unit build rate, which was enough to screw up my calculations without an AI parameter-adjusting event using the index number of the assigned variable as opposed to the variable's stored value too. that also happened. what a headache xD after those problems were accounted for though, the theoretical balance I had been aiming for worked out perfectly. the testers reported it was quite manageable! thank goodness Klofkac really went all the way with enabling us mappers to do stuff ^^ impossible to overstate the meaning of his contributions aye. the variables example map was more dramatic on this front, allowing the player to start in the top right, bottom left or bottom right corners, so you'd get three very different ways to approach the rest of the map. this debut mission already introduces lotsa new units, not to mention the new environment, so the three start locations here just change the order in which you get the units you're meant to start with. the player gets an MCV at the same place on the debut mission no matter which start location was chosen oh, yeah well, time will tell about the Keravnos. it's probably in a pretty good spot for an MBT, but some other units may need adjustment. the Diakotn for one feels weak, but with its low cost and some other stuff, maybe that's just fine. I already made some other adjustments, like to its armor type

I like your train of thoughts. I like that you also considered balance around resource managment. But also allow for turtling. That is a very awesome approach. I am glad that you called them RTS enjoyers. It is true, campers on RTS are enjoying their line of defence. I had this in Warcraft 2, Starcraft and also in Tiberiun dawn and sun. Would be funny though, if you slip in 1 mission that requires the player to camp first for an hour or something. Like, being stuck in the mountains with limited resources that grow slowly overtime. I did something similar in regards to resources. Although resources were limited. And expansion should be done if you are an agressive player. A turtle player could camp. till the resources were depleted. Then all the forces should move. That kind of deal. That was a so called mission 8 I once made in Starcraft. (It is lost forever ) In short, you could camp with the correct defenders. And for an attack, you could either repair/heal them almost indifinately. And after defeating 1 of the 2 bases, you got that expand. I literly made that mission with the goal in mind. Defeat 1 base, and you could spend the remaining resources entirely on only half your units. As for secondairy objectives. I feel like they should be there from time to time. Especially in later missions. But they should be there for adding a reward for the player, during the mission. Which would help the player. One such secondairy objective was often the capture of enemy structures in C&C td. But the resque of units or whatever, are also valuable options. Unless, you have secondairy objectives being part of the primairy one. Then it is simply all primairy though. Perhaps, when the campaign is almost done. You could test the different difficulties, together with the resource managment. Where on easy difficulty, expansion is not needed. On normal, recommended. And on hard, a nessesary objective. Something like that. It is very hard to achieve though. So, if you manage, you can consider it as a trophy as designer. I will come back later on that editor. I never used it. But you mentioned it by name specifically. Once I have more time. And after playing the mission. I might ask for the other stuff. Wow, you can allow the player to select their start location? That is awesome! I always liked that. Ehm. you mentioned theoratical balance at the end for multiplayer. I meant that theoratical balance is solely based on numbers and formula's. For all the other balances to grow on. An example would be that the bazooka infantry in C&C td costs 300. But testing already showed that they are too weak that way. Practically speaking, they needed more health or cost less. This was even the case for single player. In multiplayer, they are only used as anti air units at the start. They were....tested very late. You can see the result in tiberian sun. Where the Nod rocket soldier has A. more health, and B. costs 250.

I will put it in my todo list. Although, it is one mission. I understand you need proper feedback on it. Since I did one on Barkhan, why not. Right now, I am in a flow, right before a very busy month. So, earliest would be December I think. Would love to poke around. But it is new territory for me. Still, it is similar to how Forge looked like. So a traditional editor. I will find my way. (I mis Forge) I got some insights on balance. It can be a tricky thing. There are several steps (not in order). - Theoratical balance; all designs follow the same formula. This formula is based on the combat mechanics. Unique to every RTS. All numbers that I like to crush. - Practical balance; some designs might be a bit too unique, or are part of a group of similar designs. Uniqueness means less choice. And it depends on how it can be countered, thus a buff or nerv would be required by mapping the RPS between designs. Practical balance is also depending on a map layout. Personally, I like adding new units to cover this section. Or redesign others. - Skill balance; due to certain players being extra good. Some units might be overpowered. If they are bad in the hands of noobs, you are all good. But if they are also good in the hands of noobs, they certainly need a nerv. - Single player balance; can often be different than the multiplayer balance. All steps are important. Most discussions appear around the practical balance. But their true roots are in skill balance. I had one a couple of days ago about the new axethrowers and archers in the remaster of WC2. The skilled player felt it was too powerfull for now for him. He mostly plays chokepoint maps. Yet the balance that Blizzard had in mind was for the single player campaign. The balance that YOU pick, is YOURS. You can ask for Feedback from others. But YOU as the game designer are never wrong in this for YOUR own game. Meaning, no matter what I or others throw at you. The decision is yours. You need to feel comfortable playing your own game. Well, having said that. Consider Feedback as advice. And you can organise advice. So, if you want to collect the massive feedback in landsraad. Perhaps make a simple tickbox poll. Not sure if it is possible. But a table per unit design would be usefull for you. The columns could be: cost, health, damage, firerate etc. While the rows cold be: way to low, to low, good, to high, way to high. People could change the tickboxes. Maybe prepare an excel file with this and some explanation. Firerate....i know it as Rate of Fire, Cooldown, DPS. Well, people gave it all kind of names. But make sure that you and the one filling in the questionaire are on the same wavelength. Because some think of Rate of Fire as Cooldown, yet they are each others opposites. Rate of Fire in physics means, the rate, on firing. Thus higher is faster. Cooldown is the time between shots. I don't care if people still get it wrong and strongly believe they are right, just make sure you are on the same wavelength. I also spotted time between shots, this is good, there is salvo. I could explain to you in a PM/DM how salvo balancing works It is theoratical though. Well, cheers, X3M

Looks awesome... ... Went back to the start... watched the video... Wow.... Went back to the start again. Read it all. This is a remarkeble work dude!!! Many of us must have dreamt to be able to such a thing like what you did. You got an entire new theme to it all. Although, dark and purple is in these days. Yet, you just did it. My hats of for you. And your sister, she did an awesome job on the tileset etc. I couldn't help, but chuckle at the voice lines. Still, you got your own voice lines. Consider the chuckle as a nod to a job well done! I love to crush numbers. Care to share the stats you are using for your designs? Once you are done with the campaign etc. Would love to play it, if you know what I mean.

The game is written in C++

the time has come! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vjWZ9eoLXpar6STEkWh8i9-ijP7VsRWz/ ^^^ you'll find it under "Atreides" in "All Missions" in the Mission Launcher, as "Arkanon Debut Mission." many thanks to, primarily, Nguyen, Fo-ehn and PsYcHo, for having a look at so many drafts of this debut mission! y'all really helped during the design process details and, if you need them, install instructions below: here's some info about the new guys' roster of units, or at least those that are finished so far, along with VA credits if the units have new voiceovers already that's all for now, guys. although this debut mission is a bit rough around the edges, I hope it proves to be a beautiful show of the new tileset, and a fun play nonetheless. it is NOT designed to be difficult, either, since it's meant to just show new stuff. still, you will find substantial differences between easy, normal and hard. even if it's easier on any of those difficulties than you might expect. enjoy! hopefully!! EDIT 9/30/25: I'm told that the debut mission is a little harder than expected xD at least on hard mode. so, umm... well, here's Nguyen's run from, uhh... today. and some other details about design goals and also a helpful build order in this section ah, I'm rambling. I have spritework to do, so I guess I'll get on with that. this all has merely been some insight into my thought process, I suppose EDIT 10/1/25: some other folks are saying the debut mission is not hard enough fine!! here's a "hell mode" version of the mission for y'all masochists out there then!!! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kZOtzJr--mwttcEE1aHarocH-A_8X3_j this zip assumes you have the regular game assets in place from the first zip in this post, such as the cutting-edge exe. be sure to download that first! i also tested the first ~20m. seems totally doable to me! so, good luck! https://streamable.com/b8rwm8 https://streamable.com/23vtej i noticed the special weapons were broken due to an oversight in my last round of bug-fixing. that's only in these clips; they work properly in the uploaded draft if you thought easy was too easy or normal was too normal and want a bit more spice without going up to the level of hard in the prior version of the map, you can give them a shot in 'hell mode.' details for that are in this section here there. take it!! take it and like it!! EDIT 10/2/25: updated the regular version of the debut mission with the new sidebar icons, and moved them into their proper places. AK Lasgunners, Lyovros and Diakotns now are represented on the sidebar. this is just a cosmetic change, so... ya know, no worries about redownloading or replaying if you already checked out the map or w/e. just saying. it's the same link at the top of this post the unknown mimicry used by the Imperials doesn't have a sidebar icon yet, so that one's still got a placeholder if you happen to capture an Imperial Heavy Factory please note that if you redownload anyway and have a saved game on the version without the new sidebar icons, I expect that saved game would be broken! moving stuff around on the sidebar involves a mod change!

My US History scenario is coming along nicely. Having started in the 1820s, I have entered events part way into the great depression. I have over 180 events already in, and I have about that many more to go (including all of the presidential election headlines). My objective is to teach some history by having players experience it. Most of the events are one-time headliners, but most of those cascade effects via variables to about 30 events I'll have at the bottom of the stack to do the heavy lifting against companies and territories. I've read elsewhere that too many events can cause crashes, but I've also read about track destruction under moving trains doing likewise. In my testing so far, having a long list of events does not crash the game as long as I am careful to always stop trains before disasters. I'll offer up my scenario to y'all later to replicate my testing. I've also read that having many events can slow the game. As a programmer with experience going back to the 70s, I have an eye for efficiency. Besides collapsing many events into simple one-timers backed up by a few generics, I am also distributing event load among year-start, month-start, month-end, year-end and company-start. I am also confident that hardware improvements in the decade since RRT2's release will render performance issues moot. Expect an alpha release before Christmas (2011)! (It will be bundled with a modded v1.56 that enables military industries and cargoes in time for the civil war) EDIT: Since the OP is easy to find, this is always the place to find the latest US History map attached EDIT: Most bugs are now "fixed". Event count is near 400. News headlines are being polished. EDIT 7-Oct-2011: I think it now works as intended (unless my last adjustments screwed up something else). It should now be ready for wider distribution, but I'll stand ready to make a patch if any new bugs are discovered. EDIT 7-Jan-2012: Added and tested Civil War arms race (North v South). It works if you have mil buildings and loads enabled, as in my mod of RT2_Plat.exe. I also corrected a subtle bug where some small sub-territories were falling through the cracks of certain events acting on their parent territories. EDIT 13-Jan-2012: Edited TGV events to reflect fix to game mod in another thread. The TGV introductions are now actually back to the order of the original game (which will please players who can't use the mod). EDIT 1-Feb-2012: Fixed some late-20th C bugs where having too much money fouls up triggers based on revenue (because interest income isn't included in "revenue", but but my "tax" miscellaneous charge is). I really hope these "fixes" stick because testing events in the 1970-2020 time frame is difficult for a scenario that can start in 1823! EDIT 7-Mar-2012: Only cosmetic changes to headline texts, reserved cells etc. The scenario finally seems to be running as intended. This zip file also includes my most recent mod of the platinum v1.56 patch and a couple data sheets to go with it. If you don't like (or can't use) mods, then just delete them. As always, back up files before replacing them with modded versions. EDIT 9-Apr-2012: Corrected some briefing texts, especially the earliest game start date in which a player can win silver or gold by starting a Mexican company. EDIT 28-Oct-2012: Cleaned up a few odds and ends (like making the waste delivered status vanish after 2017, when it becomes unimportant). Unless I messed something up, this map is now "done". EDIT 25-Jan-2013: I guess a programmer's job is never done! This version adds some snow events that slow trains in Canada every winter, and slow trains in blizzard-prone US territories in random (infrequent) winters. It also touches up the map and responds to some recent feedback. This zip includes a revised game mod that "fixes" some problems with managers' salaries. Most notably, I boosted Siemens from 6k to 86k so his massive 30% electric engine discount is something you might actually see when you can use him rather than seeing him only in the age of steam. I also finally hunted down and adjusted the TGVx intro date. I have included cargo, locomotive and manager spreadsheets to use as play-aids. I've also included the full EXE Data spreadsheet for anyone else who is interested in modding. EDIT 28-Feb-2013 (minor): Touched up some reserve cells and enhanced the George Pullman recruiting event. Now if you "buy" George, he stays bought even if you hire a different manager later. On Feb 1 every year, Mr Pullman will come back to you. As always, when substituting a modded EXE in place of an original, be sure that you've backed up the original (or last working copy). EDIT 27-Apr-13 (minor): Added WWI statuses; tweaked magnitudes in electric fuel events; tweaked advertising trigger; added "Obama Re-elected" historical event; pushed fictional future events 4-years forward. Mod adds 20% electric track build and electric engine maint bonuses to Siemens. EDIT 22-Aug-2014 (minor): Simplified (de-geeked) some text messages; Added E-track cells status; Fussed w rsv cells around Atlantic City; tried to protect against book-value overflow in nationalization income calc; shortened bankruptcy headline. EDIT 4-Sep-2014 (experimental): Patched map file attempting to fix demand recovery at ports. Created port-patch ('PP') version of map, adding new zip file for testing. "EXE Data.ods" updated too, but other files are unchanged. EDIT 24-Jan-2016: Finished testing patched ports. The map file retains a -P to remind everyone (especially me) that the map has had bytes tweaked (which will become untweaked if the port settings are ever edited again). I hope this is the final version of the map. Revised File "US History 201601.zip" contains: US History-P.MP2 (ports patched) RT2_PLAT.exe.j10 (modded v1.56 of CD version) default2.lng.x3 EXE Data.ods LocomotiveData.ods Cargo v156xj.ods Managers v156x10.xls US History 201601.zip