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Getting started

This page takes you from installing AoE2RMSIDE to your first generated map.

Install

Download the installer or the portable ZIP from the releases page.

  • Installer: installs AoE2RMSIDE for your Windows user. It also offers AoE2RMSIDE in Windows' Open with list for .rms and .rms2 files, and adds Open folder in AoE2RMSIDE to the right-click menu of folders in Windows Explorer.
  • Portable ZIP: unpack it into a folder of your choice and start the app from there. It does not register anything with Windows.

The app is not code-signed. If Windows SmartScreen warns about an unknown publisher, choose More info, then Run anyway.

To make AoE2RMSIDE the app that opens .rms and .rms2 files on double-click, use File → Choose Default App for RMS Files… in an installed build. It opens Windows' default apps settings, where you confirm the choice yourself.

Uninstalling leaves your scripts and your deployed mods untouched. Your AoE2RMSIDE settings stay too, in %APPDATA%\@rmside\desktop; delete that folder if you want to remove them as well.

The window

The window has three areas side by side:

  • the Explorer on the left, with the files of the open folder;
  • the editor in the middle;
  • the preview on the right, where the generated map appears.

Below them, the bottom panel has the Output and Problems tabs. Output shows each run as one line (script, seed, size, players, time and result) that opens to show its messages, plus deployments, live tests and anything that went wrong, in plain words with a Details part for bug reports. Problems lists the errors and warnings in your scripts, grouped by file; click a line number to go there. Output does not repeat them.

The buttons next to the tabs show how many errors, warnings and notes there are, and turn each kind on or off. Output shows all three by default. The Clear output button next to them removes the messages and finished runs from Output; a run that is still going keeps its messages. Problems hides notes by default; turn them on to see small hints such as names in the game's own files that count as 0. Both lists follow the newest lines. Scroll up and they stay where you are, even while new lines arrive; scroll back to the bottom, or press Jump to latest, and they follow again.

The buttons at the far left of the title bar and on the editor tab bar collapse and expand the Explorer and the preview. View → Reset Layout restores the default sizes. View → Theme switches between System, Light and Dark. The View menu also holds Show Live Generation Stages for the preview, Show Inlay Hints and Lint Rules for the editor, and Language… for the interface language.

Interface language

The menus, dialogs and messages of AoE2RMSIDE are available in 20 languages: English, Deutsch, Français, Español (España), Español (México), Italiano, Português (Brasil), Русский, Polski, Türkçe, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, Tiếng Việt, Bahasa Melayu, हिन्दी, Українська, Čeština and Nederlands.

When you start it for the first time, AoE2RMSIDE uses your Windows display language, or English if it does not speak that language. To switch:

  1. Choose View → Language….
  2. Open the list in the Language dialog and pick a language. Each language is listed by its own name. The first entry, Windows display language, follows Windows again.
  3. Menus, dialogs and messages change at once. Press Close.

AoE2RMSIDE remembers your choice. The code editor's own small menus, such as its right-click menu and search box, change the next time you start the app; the dialog says so when this applies. If you follow the Windows display language and change it in Windows, AoE2RMSIDE follows at its next start.

Some things always stay as they are:

  • RMS commands, constants and labels, and the code you write;
  • the messages that come from checking and generating your scripts, such as the errors and warnings in Problems and the results of map tests. They stay in English, with their codes, so they read the same in every bug report;
  • logs and support bundles.

These documentation pages are in English.

With a linked game folder, object and terrain names, for example in the selection list, use the game's own names in your language when the game has them, and English otherwise.

You can skip this step. Preview and map tests work without the game.

Steam installations of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition are found automatically: on startup, AoE2RMSIDE looks for the Steam installation and links it. Installations from the Xbox app or the Microsoft Store can be linked by selecting their game folder; they are untested. If you pick a folder that does not hold a complete installation of the game, AoE2RMSIDE tells you so.

When you link a folder yourself, Output shows a line like Using local AoE2DE 101.103.54800.0.

To link a folder yourself:

  1. Open the Preview game version menu on the right side of the bottom panel bar.
  2. Choose Select game folder.
  3. Pick the game's installation folder. In your Steam library this is steamapps\common\AoE2DE, the folder that contains AoE2DE_s.exe. For the Xbox app or the Microsoft Store, pick the folder the game is installed in, the one that contains AoE2DE.exe.

You can also use Select game folder in the Run options menu (the arrow next to the Run button). While a folder is linked, File → Open Game Folder opens it in Windows Explorer and File → Unlink Game Folder removes the link.

AoE2RMSIDE only reads your game folder; it never changes the game's files. Graphics from your own game installation are only read locally and never leave your computer.

Open your scripts

  • File → Open Folder… (Ctrl+Shift+O), or the Open Folder button at the top of the Explorer, opens a folder in the Explorer. Use this for maps with include files, so the IDE can find them.
  • File → Open File… (Ctrl+O), or the Open File button next to it, opens single files. You can also drag files from Windows Explorer onto the window. Opened files appear as tabs; the Explorer keeps showing the folder you opened (or stays empty), as in Visual Studio Code. Dragging a folder onto the window opens that folder. Files dropped onto the Explorer's folder tree are opened too; they are not copied into the folder.
  • File → New File (Ctrl+N) creates a new .rms file with a small starter map.

There is no project file. The IDE works on plain folders.

The Search files box in the Explorer filters the folder tree as you type. The tree keeps only the matching files and folders and the folders that contain them, opens those folders for the search, and shows the matching part of each name in bold. Upper and lower case do not matter. A search with / matches paths inside the open folder, for example maps/arabia. Up and Down move through the matches, Enter opens the file or opens or closes the folder, and Escape clears the search. Once the box is empty, the tree is back as you left it.

Delete in the Explorer asks before deleting. Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel. Deleted items go to the Windows Recycle Bin. To delete permanently instead, turn on Edit → Skip Recycle Bin When Deleting; the confirmation then says the item will be deleted permanently and that this can't be undone. Permanent deletion works only inside the open folder.

To start from one of the game's own maps, use File → Browse Installed Maps… (needs a linked game folder). You can open a map read-only, or press Clone for Editing to copy the map and the include files next to it into a folder you choose. Next to the search box, three buttons show or hide maps by origin: Built-in maps that come with the game, Local mod maps from your own local mods, and Subscribed mod maps from mods you subscribed to. All three are on at first; point at a button to see how many of its maps match your search. Each map in the list shows its origin too. The app remembers which origins you turned on.

Your first map

When you start AoE2RMSIDE for the first time, the editor already shows a short starter map. It is a small, complete map that works without the game, and its first line points you to this documentation.

You can edit the starter right away. As soon as you change it, it becomes a normal unsaved file; save it with File → Save As…. If you open another file first, the untouched starter makes room for it.

File → New File creates the same starter map as a new unsaved file, whenever you want a fresh start.

Run it

Press the Run button (the play icon on the editor tab bar) or F5.

The map appears in the preview. Output shows the run as one line, for example Untitled-1.rms · seed 1234 · 168×168 · 2 players · 0.4 s · Generated. Only the newest run is open; older runs fold away and open with their arrow.

If your script uses commands that none of the maps recorded from the game used, the line ends with a note such as 3 commands not compared against the game instead of Generated. Open the line with its arrow to see these commands listed; click one to go to the first place your script uses it. The map is still generated; the note only tells you where the preview may differ from the game. See How AoE2RMSIDE is checked against the game.

Things to try next:

  • Change a number in the script and run again.
  • Open the preset menu at the top of the preview and change the map size or the number of players.
  • Open the Run options (the arrow next to Run) and change the Seed. The same seed with the same script, settings and game version always gives the same map.

While a run is in progress, the Run button shows a spinner. When you point at it, it turns into a Stop button. Click it or press F5 to stop the run.

Next steps

Help → Documentation in AoE2RMSIDE opens these pages.