Import, Export, and Generation

Who This Page Is For

This page is for players who want more than the basic edit-save-publish loop.

Use it if you want to:

• Back up maps as files
• Move maps between devices
• Start from generated layouts instead of a blank map
• Rebuild the same generated map from a seed
• Recover recent work after a refresh or crash

Importing A Map From JSON

Use Import JSON when you want to replace the current editor contents with a file.

The editor will:

1. Ask you to choose a .json file
2. Validate the file structure
3. Show a confirmation dialog before replacing your current work
4. Load the imported map into the editor

Important behavior:

• Importing replaces the current editor contents
• It updates the map name, description, size, tiles, buildings, and spawn data
• Importing does not automatically publish the map

If you care about the current work, save or export it first.

Exporting A Map To JSON

Use Export JSON to download the map currently loaded in the editor.

This is useful for:

• Personal backups
• Sharing work-in-progress
• Copying maps between browsers or machines
• Keeping versions outside the game

Export works on the current editor state, even if you have not saved the map to your account yet.

Random Map Generation

When creating a new map, you can open the Random Generator section in the sidebar.

Generation Options

The generator gives you control over:

• Player count — 2 to 8 players
• Map style — choose the overall terrain shape
• Balance mode — balanced or asymmetric
• Seed — reuse a seed to recreate the same layout

Map Styles

Five styles control how the terrain is shaped:

Style	What it produces
Archipelago	Islands and scattered landmasses separated by water
Continent	A central landmass with peninsulas and coastal variation
Lakes	Mostly land with significant internal lakes
Pangaea	A large super-continent with irregular edges
Channels	Land divided by canal-like water passages

Each style produces different strategic situations. Archipelago maps force naval or island-hopping play, while Pangaea maps create large connected fronts.

Balance Mode

Two modes control how fair the generated map is:

• Balanced — the generator tries up to 10 seeds looking for a map that scores well on fairness and has confirmed connectivity between all bases. This is the default and recommended for competitive play.
• Asymmetric — takes the first result with no retry. Good for casual or scenario-style maps where perfect fairness is not the goal.

After generation, a balance score is shown as a percentage with color coding:

• Green (above 80%) — fair for all players
• Yellow (above 60%) — playable but one side may have an advantage
• Red (below 60%) — significant imbalance

The score considers three factors: how much reachable land each player has, how many neutral buildings are near each base, and how far each base is from the central objective.

Terrain Types

The generator produces a mix of terrain including:

• Grass — standard open terrain
• Forest — provides defensive cover
• Mountain — strong defensive position, high movement cost
• Desert — moderate movement penalty, no defensive bonus
• Swamp — highest movement cost for land terrain
• Roads — fast movement, connecting key locations
• Shallow and deep water — impassable for most land units

The generator automatically clusters terrain into natural-looking patches and ensures defensive terrain appears near objectives.

Flood-Fill Generate Mode

The Fill tool in Terrain mode also has a Generate option. This works differently from the full-map random generator:

• It only affects the contiguous region you click
• It keeps buildings and roads inside that region intact
• It uses a fresh random seed each time, so repeated clicks can give different results

Important: Generate does not preserve the original outline of the region exactly.

It regenerates terrain inside the selected area, so narrow peninsulas, thin land bridges, and small bays can change shape. On very thin regions, edge tiles may turn into water because the generator blends against the surrounding terrain outside the region.

In practice, this means flood-generate is best for:

• Adding natural variation to large land areas
• Breaking up flat grassland into forests, hills, desert, swamp, and water
• Quickly exploring ideas before hand-tuning the final coastline

It is less reliable when you want to keep a very specific shoreline or a one-tile-wide land connection. In those cases, generate first and then clean up the edge manually, or paint the coastline by hand before publishing.

Reusing Seeds

After generating a map, the editor shows the seed it used.

You can:

• Keep the seed for later
• Share it with another player
• Enter it again and regenerate the same base layout

This is helpful when you want to experiment with one generated map concept without losing the original starting point.

Draft Saving And Publishing

The editor separates normal saving from publishing:

• Save keeps your work as a draft
• Publish tries to make the map available as a finished map

This matters because drafts are flexible, while publishing runs validation checks first.

A good workflow is:

1. Save often while building
2. Publish only after the structure is stable
3. If needed, Unpublish to move the map back into draft state for larger changes

Auto-Restore And Recovery

The editor keeps recent local auto-save data and may offer to restore it if you reopen the same work soon after leaving.

This is useful if:

• Your browser refreshed unexpectedly
• You closed the editor by mistake
• You were working on a new map and lost the tab

Auto-restore is a recovery feature, not a substitute for saving proper drafts. If the map matters, save it to your account.

Resizing And Generated Content

You can change map width and height from the sidebar at any time.

Be careful when shrinking the map:

• Tiles outside the new bounds are removed
• Buildings outside the new bounds are removed
• Spawn points outside the new bounds are removed

If you are making a major size change, exporting first is a good safety step.

Recommended Power-User Workflow

If you are iterating quickly, this workflow works well:

1. Generate a rough map
2. Save a draft
3. Export a JSON backup
4. Refine terrain and spawns
5. Publish once validation passes

That gives you a saved in-game version and a file-based fallback.

Next Steps

• Map Editor: Beginner overview
• Creating Your First Map: Basic workflow from blank map to publish
• Map Editor Tools: Controls, palettes, and shortcuts