There are several editing modes: raising/lowering, flattening, smoothing and creating slopes. Terrain editing has all the basic tools required to manipulate the terrain as the map maker sees fit. Also the outside connections are required to be build there, going outside the map borders. There lies the open water of the ocean and the high mountain ranges. The areas outside the boundaries are mostly for eye candy. While irregular terrain can be a nice challenge and create varied city plans, it is in general a good idea to keep most of the area within the boundaries relatively smooth to not limit the building space too much. The boundaries of the buildable area are also a good indicator when creating the terrain formations. The grid of the playable/unlockable area of the map. This does not affect the overall buildable area or its form the starting tile can even be located at the edge of the buildable area if the map maker chooses so. They can simply open Map Settings panel and select a new starting tile. Perhaps the map maker wants to have a large lake in the center of the map and requires that the starting tile is located on the northern shore of said lake. At any point during the map making process the starting tile can be changed. Here they can see the boundaries of the buildable area and also select the starting map tile if the default center tile is not their preferred choice. When a new map is started the map tile grid is clearly visible to the map maker. The checklist keeps track of the features required and recommended for the map. The requirements are a must while the recommended (natural resources) are optional and usually they are there to make the city building more strategic than if they were not there. The checklist has two categories, requirements and recommended features.

And as you keep adding stuff into the map, it automatically checks the boxes that have been done properly. To make the process of creating a map about doing the cool stuff like modeling the mountains and digging up riverbeds and not keeping up with the minutia the map editor has an easy-to-use checklist that tracks all the important aspects of the map’s playability so that you don’t have to. These include water areas like rivers and lakes, outside connections such as highways and railways, natural resources and so on. There are various things that a good map needs before it becomes playable.

Good news, everyone! We have a new developer diary and this time it’s about the map editor!

Cities skylines river map