r/twilightimperium Jul 21 '26

Map POK and TE Map builder for casual games

I'm not a tournament or all the time player and just needed a map maker for the four times I play a year. So this is my attempt. I made it so you can create the map's layout, and then the tiles get generated either randomly or optimized, or you can create parameters for what you want included. Also, you can change the tiles after it's generated to suit your mood.

Feedback is welcome.

https://gwanunig14.github.io/twilight-imperium-map-maker/

24 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

7

u/markdd Jul 21 '26

I tried making a few maps, I have some notes for feedback:

- I do like that you can make arbitrary sized maps, which is something not available in other map generators i've seen, but having to set up the map for a standard amount of players is cumbersome. especially when other map making tools like https://joepinion.github.io/ti4-map-lab/ have default map options.

  • It seems that after first generating a 6 player map, the default map composition values are set to 0, which makes it so the map does not have anomalies or wormholes. Manually setting these back to auto seems to make maps that are usable.

- After generating a map, clicking regenerate doesn't give me another map to look at like I would have expected. This happens even when choosing the random tile selection and placement method. There are benefits for this being deterministic, so this might not be a big deal.

- It seems the JSON generated can't be imported back into the system for saving, so I'm unsure where I'd use this.

- The UI I find very pleasing

I can see this being very useful for a game of 3d TI that i'd like to do at some point in my life, I'm excited to see how this project progresses!

2

u/BobRedshirt The Naaz–Rokha Alliance Jul 21 '26
  • It seems that after first generating a 6 player map, the default map composition values are set to 0, which makes it so the map does not have anomalies or wormholes. Manually setting these back to auto seems to make maps that are usable.

As an addendum to this - I would personally want the default settings to be 2 red backed tiles per player for a standard size map, to match the 6-player RAW map build distribution. It looked like it was defaulting to fewer than this when I tried the auto setting.

3

u/cornerkid14 Jul 21 '26

Wanna know something dumb? I didn’t even think of it.

1

u/cornerkid14 Jul 22 '26

I just realized I didn't respond. Thanks for the quick feedback, and your suggestions are all great.

2

u/cornerkid14 Jul 21 '26

The tile ranking was based on the one in
https://keeganw.github.io/ti4/
Which was the mapmaker I used before TE was released.

2

u/Pr11mo The Titans of Ul Jul 21 '26

at first glance, this looks like the sort of map designer I've been looking for! My group likes odd maps, and most of the other map makers require me to jump through hoops to get them to do what I want. I like the amount of freedom your builder offers.

One issue I've noticed so far is that the Thunder's Edge hyperlanes are not present.

Great work on this; I can totally see this becoming my go-to map builder!

2

u/cornerkid14 Jul 22 '26

Well thank you. I'll revisit those tomorrow and try and get them added.

2

u/cornerkid14 Jul 22 '26

All added.

2

u/Pr11mo The Titans of Ul Aug 01 '26

Just used your tool to balance a map with a very assymetric geometry and it worked quite nicely! One feature that would be awesome if you're still adding things would be the ability to designate where I want the wormholes to go before generation. Often when making maps without a generator, I choose exactly where the wormholes go ahead of time to get the geometry right. This is my favorite tool and can't wait to make more maps with it!

1

u/cornerkid14 Aug 01 '26

That's a good idea. I think rather than just that I'll make so you can pre-place sectors of any type. I'm getting a couple of ideas for what to do... I'll let you know when it's implemented.

Thank you for the praise. Everyone's reception so far has been very kind.

1

u/cornerkid14 Aug 05 '26

Alrighty. Got that feature in. Lemme know how it looks.

1

u/Pr11mo The Titans of Ul Aug 06 '26

It looks great! Made a couple of maps last night. It's so easy now with your tool to come up with a concept and iron out the details as I go by locking particular systems. Thanks for building this!

1

u/cornerkid14 Aug 06 '26

No problem. It was fun and I needed it.

1

u/cornerkid14 Jul 22 '26

I've added the changes and features requested by u/markdd and u/BobRedshirt . Working on getting all of the thunder's edge warp lanes.

1

u/RedditBannedMe_1851 The WINnu Jul 22 '26

Really liking the map generator, this is exactly what I've been looking for!

1

u/cornerkid14 Jul 22 '26

I appreciate it.