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Painting the merchant's town (heights)

Hit the toggle button again (or press the space bar). Now you're editing heights. Click on any square to raise its height by one, and hold down Ctrl while clicking on a square to lower its height by one. You can use to 'Set Height' tool to change the height of a rectangle of squares (the default height is 5). The tool works the same way as the 'Fill Rectangle' tool. You'll notice that when you raise or lower a square, you're forming cliffs or pits, instead of creating slopes that the party can walk on. This is because 'automatic hills' is turned off by default. There are two different ways to add these slopes.

One way is to turn 'automatic hills' on. Click the circled button and start making hills and pits as before. The Editor will automatically add slope terrains to your hills and pits. However, there is a danger to having 'automatic hills' turned on. If you make hills too close to terrains you've already placed, the slope terrains might overwrite those terrains. As a rule of thumb, the only time it's safe to have 'automatic hills' turned on is if you don't have any other terrains placed yet.

The other solution is keep 'automatic hills' turned off, and place the slope terrains manually. This way, you won't risk destroying your previous work. Begin by making your hills and pits — say, put all the pools of water in their own depressions — then add the slope terrains to make it look natural. There are slope terrains for grass, dirt, and cave floors, as well as staircases.

At times, it can be tricky lining the slopes up in the 3D Editor. It can also be difficult seeing the tops of really high cliffs, or the bottoms of really deep pits. At times like these, it's often easier to edit with the 2D Editor. The 3D Editor has a button which changes its view to be like the original Editor. When you're using the 2D view, you notice that the height of each square is displayed when you are in heights mode.

Other than the damage you take when jumping off a cliff and being unable to climb a cliff, heights have no effect on the game. Still, they go a long way towards making a town or outdoors look good. Now we're finally done 'landscaping' the town, and it's time to move on in the tutorial.