TerrainCodesWML
Note: the old (1.2) terrain system is no longer documented here. If you have 1.2 maps you will need to convert them using wmllint.
Contents
Terrain strings
The following rules hold for terrain strings. Note most of these rules are not validated since it would slow down Wesnoth; not following these rules might break Wesnoth.
- terrain strings are composed from one or more terrain codes of 2 to 4 characters each, separated by ^.
- terrain codes start with a capital letter and the following letters are lower case
- terrain strings can only contain letters, the symbols /|\ which are meant for directional items like bridges and the symbol ^
- the underscore is used as a leader for internal terrain codes
- the star '*' can be used for wildcards in some places where a terrain code is required
- the symbol ^ indicates that a terrain is created with layers, for example Gs^Fp means Forest(Fp) overlayer on Savanna(Gs).
Starting positions are defined by a number followed by 1 space and then the terrain string; this means that a starting position is no longer automatically a keep.
The letters Y,y,Z,z are reserved for UMC so any string containing any of these letters is a custom terrain. Other undefined terrain strings are reserved for future expansion within Wesnoth.
Terrain Table
The list of terrains can be found at TerrainCodeTableWML. Since most overlays can be combined with most bases the list is not complete.
Adding terrains
When adding terrains make sure the following files are also checked:
data/multiplayer/factions/* contains favorite positions for the different factions, this is only used for the random map generator at the moment so it is not very important.
data/core/macros/abilities.cfg contains the definition of submerge and ambush so depending on the change these need to be updated.
Decoding the Terrain Codes
The initial letters of each terrain code have a standard meaning, though some are not obvious.
- A = “Arctic” i.e. frozen
- B = “Bridge”
- C = “Castle”
- D = “Desert”
- E = "Embellishment"
- F = “Forest”
- G = “Grass”
- H = “Hills”
- I = "Interior" (possible future use)
- J = testing
- K = “Keep”
- L
- M = “Mountains”
- N
- O
- P
- Q = "Un-walkable"
- R = “Road”
- S = “Swamp”
- T
- U = “Underground”
- V = “Village”
- W = “Water”
- X = "Impassable"
- Y = Reserved for UMC
- Z = Reserved for UMC
- _ = "special system stuff"
Additional letters are not always follow the same meaning, but are as consistent as possible.
- \, |, / = for indicating the direction of bridges
- a =
- b =
- c = "city"
- d = "dry or desert, deciduous"
- e = "encampment"
- f = "flowers, fall"
- g
- h = "human"
- i = "ice"
- j
- k
- l = "lava"
- m = "mixed"
- n
- o = "orc"
- p = "pine"
- q
- r
- s = "simple"
- t
- u = "underground"
- v = "elvish"
- w
- x = "chasm"
- y = Reserved for UMC
- z = Reserved for UMC