This is a guide on how to create environments for Dawn of Man.

Environments are used in scenarios, if you don't know what scenarios are please read the scenario creation guide first.

Environments define the terrain, trees, resources and seasons in a game.

Creating an environment for your scenarios is optional, as you can use one of the builtin ones:

eurasia - Standard environment, used in the Continental Dawn freeplay scenario.
eurasia_north - Longer winters, few resources, only perennial trees, used in the The Northlands freeplay scenario.
eurasia_conflict - Like eurasia but with less resources, used in the Ancient Warriors freeplay scenario.
eurasia_warm - More resources, shorter winters. Used in Creative Mode.

There are other scenarios tailored to some of the challenges too, like: eurasia_flatlands and eurasia_glacial.

You can download the buitin scenarios from here[madrugaworks.com]

If you have any questions, issues or feedback, please post in our modding board.

Environments must have xml extension, and must be located the Environments subfolder relative to the scenario definition file.

So if your scenario is called my_scenario.scn.xml and your environment is in Environments/my_environment.xml, you can then reference it from the scenario like this:

We will be using most of the options in eurasia_flatlands to illustrate this section.

Most options in the environment file are optional, if not present the defaults will be used.

TERRAIN


Terrain in Dawn of Man, like in most games, is generated by combining noise of different frequencies: Large mountains are low-frequency high amplitude, small bumps are high-frequency low amplitude.

This line allows you to modify the amplitudes of the different noise layers, the initial numbers define the amplitudes of the low-frequencies (the height of large mountains), and the later numbers define the amplitudes of the high_frequencies (the height of the small bumps).


TERRAIN FEATURES

What trees are present in the level.
See here[madrugaworks.com] for a list of trees.

The global tree density in the environment, allowed values go from 0 to 1.

What types of deposit are present in the level.
See here[madrugaworks.com] for a list of deposits.

How much bigger are mountains at the edge of map.

The amount of resources in the map. 1.0 is the default.

The average distance between river fords, 1.0 is the default.


MISC

Change the size of backdrops (the mountains you see beyond the map).

How high is the sun in the sky, 1.0 is the default.

You can alter various season options by adding code like this:


For each season you can define some parameters, like duration, rain chance, wind parameters etc...

duration: How long this season is, in terms of a fraction of a year, all season durations have to add up to 1.

precipitation_chance: How likely it is to rain/snow in this season.

windy_chance/very_windy_chance: How likely it is for it to be windy/very windy in this season.

reduced_fauna: Define whether this season has reduced fauna, in which case the number of animals will match the min value defined in scenario, or not, in which case the number of animals will be the max value defined in scenario.

fish_boost: Fish in banks will replenish by this amount at the beginning of this season.

min_temperature/max_temperature: Temperature will randomly oscillate between these 2 values (in Celsius).

Environments allow you to alter the placement of all environment objects, in the same way us developers do.
Environment objects are divided in 4 categories: Trees, Details, Props and Deposits, please see the Terrain Entity ID list[madrugaworks.com] for a list of the objects of each type.

To alter the location of objects in the environment you need to add this sort of code to the environment file:


Where OBJECT_TYPE is one of "tree", "detail" , "prop" or "deposit" (with no quotes).

For each object you can specify one of several parameters. Only the id is required, if any of the other parameters are missing the defaults are used.

id. The name of the object, use the IDs from the Terrain Entity ID list[madrugaworks.com]

density. The amount of objects of this type to place, has to be in the range [0, 1]

min_altitude, max_altitude. The min and max altitudes at which this object is placed, in meters. 0 means water level, negative values might make sense for certain objects like reeds or rocks that are placed underwater.

min_angle, max_angle. The min and max slope angles in degrees at which this object is placed. Values range from 0 (flat), to 60 (very steep). Negative values of up to -10 are allowed to ensure you get max density at 0 degrees, as there is a transition zone.

min_humidity, max_humidity. Only valid for detail objects. The min and max humidity at which this detail object is placed, humidity is close to 1 near rivers and forests, and 0 in other places.

Some examples:

Cover the entire map in flowers:
Note the -10 min angle, this is because there is a transition zone between the areas with and without detail, so the -10 angle ensures we get 100% details in flat areas.

Place flint and copper deposits in flat sections of map:

Cover map with birches:

Place a ton megaliths in slopes:

If you release a scenario to the Steam Workshop, and you then change it's environment in a way that alters the terrain or objects in any way, you are very likely going to break the savegames for the people that are using it.

If you want people that had savegames with the old version of the environment to be able to keep on playing them, the best option is to duplicate the scenario, name it something else like my_scenario_v2.scn.xml, and tag the old one as hidden by adding the <visible value="false"/> tag in it (note this goes in the scenario file, not the environment file). This way people won't be able to start a game using the old version, but will still be able to load savegames that use it.