Map: Designing Awesome Maps

Hello, this is my second post, and this article is going to guide you through making some pretty cool maps that you can enjoy playing with your friends from school, or from around the world. 

Step 1, choose the playing type, is it going to be land based, sea based, both are there going to be air units? 

Step 2, once you have chosen the playing type choose a size for your map. If it's just land based chances are your map doesn't have to be that large, but if it's naval and air, and land based you might want to make the dimensions bigger, which you can do from the start menu. 

Step 3, Choose the amount of players: 2, 3, or 4. 2 player battles are usually preferred over Wi-Fi because most veteran players hate battling the AI because they can out think them in a second. I'm getting to that stage. When I'm playing by myself, I like to do 2 or 4 player matches those are the most fun. 

Step 4, Ok, so you've chosen everything about your map except rules, but we should do that last one we've actually made the map and we know how many buildings there are. So let's play it simple, we'll make a land based map. Keep it the default size 20x20. We want to start by filling the entire map with plains which can be done from the Start Menu > Fill option. 

Step 5, Well your map is all plane and bare. Assuming this is a 2 player map, select a top corner of the map, add a Red HQ, 3 factories, and 3 cities. Do the same for your opponent on the bottom corner. 

Step 5, Cool, bases and all this map is ready for playing - woah hold up there. Not yet, your map isn't even half way. No one wants to play on a barren map with no strategy involved besides build a crap load of War Tanks and send them to smash into your opponents War Tanks. So, let's add some mountains in the middle 5-10 will do, and some woods surrounding them, this makes good placement hubs for artillery, and it forces vehicles to go around a set path, making it harder and easier for you. You also want to put neutral buildings that can be captured to increase your funds and give players a goal. Place 4 of these ensuring that each player has equal access. 

So far your map should have 2 bases, some mountains, forest which also prove useful for hiding in fog of war, and seeing, plus they give defensive bonus and you have some neutral cities. 

Step 6, Time to set the rules of your map. Judging by the size and amount of buildings that you start with, I'd make the income 1000, that seems fair. Or, if you'd like it even more strategic 500. Leave it clear sky, and planes for now, and that's that, an awesome beginner's map!