This is as good a place as any to start gathering Q&A for the editor...

I guess placing the 'Ascension Crystals' doesn't do anything yet?

What does 'Prestige' do in the planet properties?

It's in the Galciv2 folder under \GalCiv2\Twilight\Tools\GC2MapEditor

Another question. How do I load a custom map in the game?
I assumed saving a map to \CustomMaps would place it in the map dialog in TA. Doesn't seem to work though.

I saved my map to \CustomMaps as well, and the 'custom maps' dialouge box is still empty.

Prestige is the base influence of the planet.

I had disabled custom maps for the beta because I didn't want to debug problems caused with custom maps and it didn't occur to me to re-enable them now that we released the map editor.  It'll have to wait for next week to be enabled.

Oooh, so many editors to be released. I also had a question, how exactly does the "Allow Homeless players" button work? Does it mean if a players last planet is taken, they can wander as nomads and take another world (provided they have transports) or is it there to allow events like pirates?

Ah, ok. Thanks for the response.

Ow..   

I actually just remembered ok for the planets is it possible to have both a ring and a moon for satellite. Just wondering...

The first time I opened the Map Editor I quickly ran into ran into problems.

I double-clicked the titlebar to resize the window from fullscreen however I could not double click it to make it fullscreen again and I cannot use the fullscreen button in the top corner.

When I used the top buttons to minimize to taskbar and then brought the window back up it is blank white and I have to restart the program to use it again.

Also after a few seconds a window popped up saying my direct3d device could not be restarted and the program had to close.

So because I use a laptop and dont have a wired mouse i cant zoom in or out? That prevents me from using the editor at all.

the map editor totally lags my system out. hardware is not an issue, or shouldn't be as it is all top of the line. software? chances are as i'm on XP 64. i can post\pm full system specs if it helps.

????

Startup gadget? I'm not sure what you are talking about. When I first downloaded the update, I couldn't find it so I made a quick look in the TA directories and made myself a desktop shortcut.

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Although the map editor looks interesting, I do have a few problems.

1. When placing something on the map I have no means to move. I have to place the object first, maybe delete, and them move into position.

I have two solutions:
A. Give the keyboard basic movement controls: using the arrow keys to give us up, down, left, and right. You could maybe give us the zooming functions using "page up", and "page down" keys.
B. Give the mouse the ability to use one button to move, and another to place.

2. When starting up the program, give us the option to open an existing map instead of generating a new one.

3. Allow us to select a planet, edit a few details, and then maybe move around to select another one without having to close the window that allows us to edit details.

4. Maybe give the editor a function that copies solar systems, planets, or maybe even sectors (possibly allowing us to rotate or even mirror when moving them around for symetrical maps).

5. Special place holders. For instance, I might want a map to import a civ's home solar system when they particiapate. For instance, the Thalans would import their class 15 homeworld, and the Terrans would get Earth and Mars.

Other stuff could in theory be added into those place holder possitions as well. Does any one reading this post have any ideas?

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Thats it for now. I'll come back to comment later.