Worldbuilder

From Civilization V Wiki

Contents 1 Overview 2 Requirements 3 Map Generation 3.1 Continent Types 3.2 Building Scenarios 3.3 Importing Data 3.4 Tips for Building Realistic Maps 4 Distributing Maps 5 Limitations

Overview

WorldBuilder is a utility to build and customize maps for use in Civilization 5.

Requirements

• WorldBuilder is included in the Civilization V SDK, which is currently available for download from Steam as a utility.
• WorldBuilder requires Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 or later to be installed.

Map Generation

Once you have started WorldBuilder, you will be presented with a blank map made entirely of ocean. On the left pane there are basic options to get started including 2 sliders to set the size of the map, and a button to regenerate the map to the selected size. Below these are more options to regenerate the map with any of the available scripts in your civ5 folder including script options such as world age, temperature and sea level. When you are happy with an inital start (whether generated or blank), press the 'Accept map' button to progress to the map modification utilities.

Once you have a good base to start from, you can now focus on the right hand panel to choose what you wish to populate the rest of the map with. If you need to flesh out your map, start off with the 'Paint' tab to place basic terrain objects such as ocean / coast / grassland / plains / desert and then layer terrain features such as trees / floodplains / ice on top of the base terrain. Finally you can flesh out the terrain by going to the 'Plopper' tab and adding resources, existing improvements, and natural wonders to individual hexes. For fine tuning, select the 'Edit Plot' tab and highlight the hex you wish to view / edit.

Continent Types

Continent Types delineate the different art assets to be used. There are 5 different continental art styles in the original game:

0) Ocean

1) America

2) Asia

3) Africa

4) Europe

A word of warning from MapGenerator.lua:

Mixing and matching continent types could look extremely bad, but there is nothing technical to prevent it. The worst that will happen is that it can't find a blend and draws red checkerboards.

Building Scenarios

To build scenarios with advanced starts or specific civilizations, there is a 'Scenario Editor' in the menu across the top of the WorldBuilder. Adding specific players and civilizations into this section allows cities and units to be placed onto the map through the map editor tools.

Importing Data

Tips for Building Realistic Maps

• Find a digital image (or use google maps) and scale to fill ~80% of the screen. Then open up WorldBuilder over top of it and use <alt+tab> to swap between both maps. This way you get an immediate impression of how close the map is and transpose new features. For larger-than-screen-size maps, use major features such as towns, mountains & islands to align both maps.
• Be prepared to embellish. Good maps capture the feel of the landscape more than the literal landscape. Start with vital features and build out from there.

Distributing Maps

Map creators can use Mod Buddy to create a package of one or more maps. When picking the type of mod to create, choose "Map Pack".

Limitations

• WorldBuilder preloads all world generation scripts upon start, so if you are using WorldBuilder to test lua scripts you need to restart WorldBuilder each time.
• WorldBuilder does not indicate scripted starting points for civilizations when generated by a script.
• Generating maps with an odd number of Y values (map height) can cause disruption to scripts and internal game logic.