Edit the game Mylord?

I'm happy to announce the release of a Custom Game Map Editor for Lords of the Realm 2. You can find a screenshot of the Editor attached to this post.

New - Updated to Version 1.02

The Editor comes packaged with a proof of concept map called "Gauntlet", ready to import and play.

This Editor is not for editing Battlefields like the Editor packaged with LotR2, now it is easily possible to create complete new game maps or change any existing ones.

While I am not the creator I have the permission to release the editor. Feel free to ask if there are any questions and of course feel free to share your maps!

The following features are available with Version 0.98:
- editing new maps or changing existing ones
- easy creating of map packages
- additional Importer to share single maps without needing the editor
- easy to use map helpers to quickly sketch map ideas and making them playable
- complete control about starting countries and trade routes
- auto generation of minimap
- brush editor for quickly editing and altering of terrain, roads, woods, sea
- brief manual
- quickstart guide
- proof of concept map created completely in the editor ready to import and play

New Features in L2EditII Version 1.02:
- Compatible to old GOG-Version and current GOG-Version
- Countryname suggestions via a name generator which can be easily expanded or adjusted by the user
- Undo function (1 step)
- Easy and convenient "Save Snapshot" with autonaming
- "Load Last Snapshot" directly or choose which Snap Shot to Load via "Load Single Map..."
- New bright Palette or slightly adjusted old dark Palette
- Show starting Points of Traders on map
- Visualising of Traderroutes by lines or numbers directly on map
- improved Traderoutes Helper
- Check Function for Pathfinding related problems
- Some improvements in existing checks
- Visual Viewer for Climate Zones (no joke!)
- Divinator for possible AI Preferences on start (this is an educated guess, but there are many factors involved, so it is a guess only)
- "Recalculate Road connections" function to autoclean possible errors
- reworked and empowered Brush-Tool for faster workflow
- Select tool optionaly shows X and Y distances
- Powerful "Shift Map" function to adjust complete maps
- "Paste Special" Tool to rotate selections or Mirror them, then place them completely with everything but Domainrelated settings
- Roadtool to quickly implement roads with 2 different styles
- Exchanging of Domainnumbers with "Switch Domain Nr..." function
- Option to show where Blacksmiths will be placed in game (this is dynamically generated by the game and cannot directly be edited, just prepared by editing the rest accordingly)
- New Quick Select Buttons for Buildings and Mountains
- Navigate on Map in addition to arrows also with WASD
- Informationbar for country stats (towns, ressources, fields)
- New included Map InnerRealm (small changes since uploaded RC1)
- Centered Version of Proof of Concept Map Gauntlet (yes, that was ugly)
- updated quick manual
- Introduction of a Basic Patcher for the Lords2.Exe (GOG Version only):
-- Option to fix the starting position for players to Position 1 (instead of sort of random placement) and reverting back to random; this function helps tons to test maps from a specific starting position
-- Option to grant an selectible number of Grain to Country Status "Medium" or revert to 0; while even "Weak" Country status awards starting grain, Medium for some reason doesn't (this is probably a bug, so feel free to fix this if you want to do so)

0.98 Bugs Fixed:
- Fixed a bug where castles and towns would disappear when pasting
- Fixed a bug where auto-creating border tiles could produce an error
- Improved cliff creation (hopefully)
- Additional Minor tweaks and other Bug fixing

Installation:
Just unpack the files to a location where the program may write to. After starting you will be asked for your LotR2 directory. Of course write permission there is necessary as well (to change or insert new game maps).

Link:
https://cloud.obsidian-storm.de/index.php/s/Pavmcf1dBXyKzHI

Files included (and their use):
- L2EditII.exe (the Editor)
- L2MapImport.exe (stand alone Importer for maps)
- L2Patcher.exe (OPTIONAL: Exe-Patcher for Lords2.exe, read Features list!)
- names.txt (editable file with names for the random country name generator)
- L2Edit Manual.pdf (Manual and Reference)
- L2Edit Quickstart.pdf (Quickstart Guide, not fully updated yet)
- InnerRealm_rel.l2map (Map package of a custom map)
- Gauntlet_rel_V2.l2map (Map package of a custom map, updated version)
- License.txt (License text)
- readme.txt (informations)

More maps can be found here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/lords_of_the_realm_lords_of_magic_series/lords_of_the_realm_ii_release_custom_maps/post1

Update 28/11/2018
Fixed L2Patcher.exe, please redownload the Patcher from this link:
https://cloud.obsidian-storm.de/index.php/s/FXOsALFKahDOjcT

You now have more right to edit new maps than most of them....

Truly, you are a god among men. I have wanted something like this ever since the game was released in the 1990s.

You are very welcome, I am glad, you are happy!

I actually really know what you mean. This was the one thing I always missed since the game was released. In the end someone coded it for me ...

Best thing was even getting my feature requests implemented promptly so I got faster working on maps each time.

I had already so much fun building the packaged map with it and quite a number of test maps. There are a few things you got to test maps though as the AI is sometimes a bit quirky (both traders and enemies). But that is a perfect excuse to playtest your own maps time after time.

Feel free to shout if you need any help!

Dude, thanks! Excellent work there.

Wow, that's some exciting news!

Indeed something my world missed for ages. Hell, I even did some hex editing on some maps back in my time (mostly just maxing number of fields though, but some other stuff too, even moved mountains of England around for no good reason).

Too bad I'm not likely up to test this to the full extent any time soon it seems.

I just wanted to let you know, that a new version of the L2EditII is still in the works. You can expect some bugfixes as well as quality of life features and even some new tools.

For me the workflow of the nightly build feels now much more comfortable and faster. I can now sketch a playable large map in about 3 hours.

Focus right now for new features is making the map testing and adjusting more convenient. This polishing takes more time than the actual map creation by now.

Some of the new features will be:
- reworked and empowered Brush-Tool for faster workflow
- better Domain-control
- Informationbar for country stats (Towns, ressources, fields)
- better and more verification checks for maps
- Countryname suggestions via a name generator which can be easily expanded or adjusted by the user (This was actually breaking my workflow of quickly building a map from scratch more than once, so the creator went really wild on that as well - awesome!)

I will also add a new map with the next release that was used to test the new features and a different workflow.

One more thing:
Please let me know if you encounter any bugs or if you would see any features added. While I cannot promise anything - every input is appreciated!

Fantastic news! You'll let us know when you're ready to release it, right?

Great stuff. I am not an editor at all, but I would love to play some new maps anyone is creating.

Happy if you like it!

At this time I do not know of many maps out in the wild. So far there is one bundled with the editor and I will bundle another with the update.

I'm testing the new build these days. This usually means I have to do a complete mapping cycle including playtesting the map in order to see how the AI can cope with it.

If the map I'm editing right now works out nicely I might package it as well, but it is way to early to even guess that. As I want to test out some cool features of the editor I came up with a map idea to do so. I actually have been toying for a while with that idea. That means though, I have to change my workflow and that means it takes some more time to get it done. I also do not know what the AI will make out of it, but it will be interesting to see.

Testing the new build (and mapping in progress to do so) is progressing slower than planned. But as some might only be on the look out for new maps I have uploaded the map that I planned to throw in with the next L2EditII version.

I consider the map done, but there might be changes. Of course you can always tweak it more to your liking!

You will need to import it via the L2EditII.exe or simply the L2Mapimport.exe included with the Editor-Bundle.

Link to map:
Edit: Link removed - Newer Version is included in Editor Version 1.02

The Link for the Editor is in the first post of the thread. there are no changes on the Editor-Bundle yet, so you do not need to redownload it if you got it already.

About the Map:
I had to go to some lengths here as the AI didn't understand some of the layout. To make sure the AI doesn't mess up I had to seperate some countries by wildlands and water. Some of the new boundaries actually look nicer now than before and give a few locations a more distinctive feeling.

Fun fact: The country names are in part generated by the new name generator for country names.

By trying to understand what can be done with the Lords 2 engine and with some accident I noticed that layering of mountains or using forest on fields covered by mountains you can often achieve very interesting combinations. As there are few basic forms of mountains this is a huge improvement. The best thing is, the Editor now supports layering and gives you a solid clue how it will turn out.

If you find any bugs, like usually give me a shout.

Glad you like it and thanks for your offer to help!

I just got the newest Release Candidate tonight. As I was too slow to test the last RC there were some cool changes and bigger features again. They really need to go into the next public version.

On the downside, I got to put it through the paces - again.

As many features are implemented at my request I'm probably pretty biased about them. But I think the time sinks of map editing are adressed better with each iteration. I really think you will like the newest build as soon as it's out.

It definitely would be cool to get to see more maps from more people. But if the editor just helps to adjust the vanilla maps to a personal playstyle - that's great as well.

At the moment there is no open sourcing of the code planned - as far as I know. If there are though any bugs that can be squashed for the next release please shout.

P.S.: I added you friend :)
P.P.S: Added pic of newest build

I don't use the word hero often, Lyranaar.

But you Lyranaar, are the greatest man to ever live (In the history of LotR2).

It would be great if we could all pool custom made maps in a single location.

I'm really glad you like it!

If there are any maps anyone would like to share that is no problem. I'm happy to host and put links up for any (working) maps. If there are some day more than a few I can always compile a map pack and put it up.

For now I feel this gog forum thread is a great place to gather the links. I'm no web designer and even google search finds the map editor here.

Please feel free any time to contact me if you have a map you would like to share. I'll send you a link to upload it.

I have been looking for this every other year for about 10 years.

Might be nice to include a list of preset things that you cannot change (yet?), like:
Size: 64x64
Max Counties: 16
Max Traders: 6 (3 destinations each)
etc.

Suggestions:
Have a "No edit" type (so you dont accidentally overwrite domains or tiles)
Default to "Brushes" instead of "Maptiles", as they look nicer.
Put "Domains" under "brushes" instead of its own catagory, and make the brush work on domains.
"Set" all unclaimed territory to owned by 32

Traders: Where do they start? I am pretty sure they can be preset to certain zones, but when I attempted to have it be the very first on the route they didn't always start there.

Bugs:
Setting domains on Castles / other things turns the land to water (maybe if you had water there instead of painting as land, but I am not sure). Refreshing removes this from the display, but in game it is still water sometimes.

I was unable to set borderlines.
The map I was working on (which was mainly supposed to be a proof of concept, taken from an image that I made two years ago if such a tool had existed) somehow got "corrupted", and it only shows the top right slice of the map (from top, to right, and downleft of that line) when in the editor. I can still get into it in the game, but it is not finished yet. It looks close though.
Zugriffsverletzung bei Adresse 0047837C in Modul 'L2EditII.exe', Lesen von Adresse 797F7070