Land Grab

By Alcritas

256 Terrain Slots. That’s nowhere near enough, let’s face it. And to make matters worse, you can’t even modify the first 91! They almost mock you with how inefficient they are. The four cave walls with a secret door built in. (Couldn’t I just use a secret door special node... Please? Actually, better yet, don’t put secret doors into cave walls! They make absolutely no freaking sense!) The hill and ocean terrain set — which automatically format no matter which # you select. There’s fully 41 terrain slots in the first 91 that are redundant. But alas, you can’t do anything about them other than change their name or graphic, so just leave it be..
That leaves 165 terrain slots for you to play around with. In a short homogenous scenario that’s plenty. In a long scenario, you’ll run into real problems fitting everything in. Trust me, I have. Now when I begin a scenario, I anticipate and compensate, it makes things much easier and simpler in the long run.
My suggestion : Clear terrain right at the start, and add custom terrain as you need it. It’s easy to think that you’ll just change ‘X’ terrain slot when you need it, but you’re just lying to yourself. As the scenario progresses, you’ll forget exactly what terrain you’ve used where. By the time you’re on town 45, can you exactly what terrain you used in town #14? Have you used the Round Rug on vahanatti floor yet? You think you haven’t, change Round Rug to Slime Pit, only to have your beta tester’s puzzled when they visit the kindly old hermit Wizard’s home. The best way to avoid this is clear default slots right up front. Take every terrain slot that you don’t think you’ll need, and give a blank graphic. That way, whenever you need a new piece of custom terrain, you can add it without fear that you’re changing your past work.
To this end, here are the terrain slots that I recommend you think about clearing:

The three “moldy with no signs of being moldy” walls — 135, 152, 167
The two tables with dishes — 182, 183
Are you going to use conveyer belts? If not, clear all four — 252, 253, 254, 255
The three part city on grass looks nice, but at three terrain slots it’s horribly inefficient. Consider clearing 243, 244, 245, and using the village graphic, or making a custom city graphic that only takes up one space. (Alternatively, consider clearing 244, and using just the left and right ends for a “fortress” look.)
Do you really need all four cave entrances? If not — clear one or two of 237, 238, 239, 240. (The default starts with the topside cavern entrances, but consider doing the same for the underground cavern entrances.)
The table set on vahanatti floor doesn’t look all that impressive, and takes up 5 slots. Consider clearing all of 226, 227, 228, 229, 230.
The human statue graphic doesn’t look all that impressive, and on PCs, the monster graphic is notably different anyway. Clear 190 if you can.
You probably only need one wall set for the outdoor world. Try to clear either 116, 117 or 119, 120.
Are you going to use either vahanatai or marble floor in your scenario? The default set for both is far inferior to the common silver or brick floor, and while a change of pace is nice, it takes up a lot of custom graphics. Consider clearing one or both of 210 — 216; 217 — 231.

In addition, for underground scenarios clear:
110 (Boulder)
121 (Sign on Grass), 234 (Town on Grass)
245 (Eastern Edge of City on Grass)
250 (Grass w. Special)
251 (Hills w. Special)

For topside scenarios clear:
104 (Campfire)
109 (Slith Statue)

(Chances are for topside scenarios the party might still go into a cave, hence the reason for leaving most of the cave graphics untouched.)
Don’t underestimate the need for terrain slots — you’ll often find you need to have identical looking terrain with different properties. By setting aside a chunk of the slots at the beginning, you’ll allow yourself to design more quickly, without the worry of accidently making retroactive changes you didn’t desire.

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