Kristo's School of Quality Mapmaking
This space used to be empty ("Terra Firma")Step Five: The Other Stuff
The next step is the placement of all the little objects, such as creature generators, Monoliths, and Redwood Observatories, just to name a few. This is where you really start to fill up the map with stuff. The large empty spaces you had earlier are now smaller empty spaces, and you want to condense them even more. Don't overfill the map, but just fill up any place currently so bare that it's ugly. Also in this step is defending everything you place on the map (this ties in with the previous step). My rule of thumb is to defend stuff based on how important it is.
One thing I've noticed in many of the downloaded maps is the tendency to defend locations that are already defended. For example, a Dragon Utopia is already heavily defended with Dragons when you enter it so there's no need to place a huge stack of monsters in front of the entrance. The final part of this step is to place wandering armies to section off each player's starting area, if applicable. However, this is not always possible. If the map is designed in such a way that no one has a definitive piece of real estate, then the goal is to place the monsters so that players will be slowed down by being forced to fight them.
A Castle's beautification program ("Utopia of Greed")Step Six: Finishing Touches
We're almost done; this is the final step in the map design process. In this step you do all the little things to make your map look pretty. Add flowers, rocks, and other natural features that makes the map look more real. This is when you add all the little piles of resources and stuff in and around the players' starting areas. Be sure not to overdo it. Also, take care of all the map description and properties at this time. By now you have a good idea of how the map is supposed to play, so you can set up all that stuff accordingly.
But wait, there's more. You now have to playtest your map. Be sure to use the correct map cheat for your version of the game:
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Restoration of Erathia (nwcgeneraldirection)
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Armageddon's Blade (nwcrevealourselves)
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Shadow of Death (nwcwhatisthematrix).
I've put together a collection of map files as an example of how all this works. An explanatory text file is included. Download it here.
