Submitted by Aubergine, Merrill the Just

First, let's look at how to get to the "edit height" palette and see what it offers... When you enter the map editing mode, make sure you are in terrain mode by clicking o­n the "tree" button:

If you click o­n the "edit height" button, which looks like some mountains next to the animals (rabbit) button, you should see the following selection of tools:

First row, left to right, these are:

• Hill - creates a hill which will not exceed hi-plain land height
• Mountain - creates a mountain which will not exceed hi-plain land height
• Min Height - creates land of the lowest height (or so it would seem)
• Max Height - creates land of the highest height (or so it would seem) - Approximately 140 clicks higher than Min Height
• Equalize - smoothes terrain of different heights

Second row, left to right, these are:

• Raise Land - allows land to be incremenatlly raised (in most cases)
• Lower Land - allows land to be incrementally lowered (in most cases)
• Mid Plain - terrain of medium height - 72 clicks above Min Height
• Hi Plain - terrain of high height - 121 clicks higher than Min Height (trying to raise higher will actually reduce the height by 1 click)

Ok, now we know where those tools are, let's look at each o­ne in more detail...

Hill and Mountain

These two items are very similar - the mountain is just a bigger (in land area) version of a hill!

The most notable feature about these tools is that they will "max out" at hi-plain. This is very useful if you want a hi-plain platau, but then again why not just use the hi-plain tool?

The reason is simple - when you use the hill or mountain tool, rather than immediately raising the land to hi-plain (like the hi-plain tool), they will start at whatever terrain height you currently have and raise the land upwards until it gets to hi-plain.

If you start with land that is higher than hi-plain, then these tools will immediately lower the land so it is no higher than hi-plain.

To put things in perspective, take a look at this cross-section of a mountain we created. We made the mountain reach hi-plain and then using the other tools painted sections of min-height, mid-plain, hi-plain and max-height.

Min and Max Height

These tools provide the normal minimum and maximum terrain heights. Painting with these tools will instantly set most terrain to the minimum or maximum heights.

Equalize

The equalize tool blends land heights. If you have some min-height and mid-plain side by side, you would normally see a cliff. However, with the equalize tool, you can quickly and easily smooth the land heights between them to create a slope as shown below (with the original nid-plain and hi-plain in the background):

This feature of the map editor is of critical importance when it comes to making land passible by civilian and military units. If the difference in height between two land tiles is more than 16 clicks (see below for definition of "clicks"), the unit will not be able to move from o­ne tile to the other.

Rasie and Lower Land

The raise and lower land tools are vital to precise height control and allow you to incrementally raise and lower most land heights.

This is also where we introduce the term "clicks": A "click" refers to a single click of the raise or lower land tool.

Mid and Hi Plain

Mid and Hi Plain (which we usually refer to as mid-plain and hi-plain) are two pre-detemined heights that the editor provides. Using these tools, most land will be instantly taken to the selected height.

Higher than Max Height: HIMALAYA

Although the map editor would have you believe that max-height is the highest terrain, there is o­ne higher terrain type as shown in the picture below:

To find out more about Himalaya, how to create it and some of it's unique properties, view this tutorial.

Lower than Minimum Height: HADES

Just as max height is not the highest height, min height is not the lowest height! It is the height that beach and sea terrain are placed at.

Please read this tutorial with more details about this terrain level we've called Hades.

Enjoy landscaping!