Plan an exercise — from blank canvas to printed PDF

This page walks through a full exercise-planning session in map.army — from opening a fresh tab to handing a printed PDF to your team. It links out to the detail pages for each step rather than repeating them; treat it as the connecting thread.

What you will end up with

By the end of this walkthrough you will have:

  • A 2D map centred on your area of operations with an appropriate base map and coordinate grid.
  • Three working layers — blue, red, and graphics / control measures — each carrying the right MIL-STD-2525 symbols.
  • A .milxlyz archive of your work and a PDF export ready to brief.

Time budget: about 20 – 30 minutes the first time, much less after that.

1. Open the app and orient yourself

Open map.army in a browser and let the PWA load. The first time it can take 10 – 20 seconds; press Ctrl + F5 if it stalls.

The main window has buttons for Map Overlays, Print & Export, Options, Add new MSS Symbol, Symbol Editor, and a 2D / 3D toggle. The Introduction page has a button-by-button reference.

Stay in 2D edit mode for the rest of this walkthrough — 3D is read-only.

2. Configure the map view

Click the Options button and set up the visual context before you start drawing.

  1. Options → Map Settings → Style — pick the base map. OpenTopoMap is the cleanest topographic backdrop for exercise planning (no POI clutter); see Map display settings for the full list.
  2. Options → Map Coord → Coordinate Grid — pick the grid you plan to give orders against. MGRS for NATO tactical work; UTM for distance-heavy navigation. See Map coordinate system settings and the deep dive in Coordinate Grid.
  3. Options → General → Distance Unit / Angular Unit — set the units your team uses. See General Options.

Close Options and pan / zoom to your area of operations.

3. Lay out the layers

A clean exercise map uses several layers rather than one. Open the Map Overlays dialog (Layer Manager) and create the layers you need before placing any symbols.

A common starting set:

Layer nameHolds
Blue forcesFriendly units, planned positions, sustainment graphics
Red forcesHostile / opposing units and known templated positions
Control measuresPhase lines, boundaries, objectives, range rings

Click New Layer in the Layer Manager for each one. Rename via the gear icon next to the layer name. Use the pencil icon to mark the layer you are currently drawing on — only one layer is active at a time. See Edit Overlays for the full set of layer controls.

Hint: Splitting by side and by function pays back later: you can hide / show layers independently, hand one side a share that contains only its layers (see Wargaming), and re-export single layers as their own .milxlyz.

4. Place your unit symbols

For each side, activate the right layer and place units one by one.

  1. In the Layer Manager, click the layer you want to draw on — the pencil icon appears next to its name.
  2. Click Add new MSS Symbol and find the unit in the gallery. The Symbol Gallery page covers searching and the My Favorites shortcut.
  3. Place the symbol on the map.
  4. With the symbol selected, click the Symbol Editor button. Set Affiliation (friendly / hostile / neutral / unknown), Operational Condition (status), and the Text Modifiers (unit designator, higher formation, strength, …). See Symbol Editor.
  5. Repeat for the next unit.

The Add Your First Military Symbol page is the slowed-down version of this step if you have not placed a symbol before.

5. Add tactical graphics and control measures

Switch to your Control measures layer. Tactical graphics are placed and shaped with the Point Editor:

  • Phase lines, boundaries — pick the line symbol from the gallery, click each control point in turn, then press Space to close the geometry.
  • Range rings — see Range rings for the dedicated workflow.
  • Distance and area — use Map Tools → Measurement to check spacing; see Measurement tool.
  • Magnetic declination for compass-based movement — see Magnetic declination.

6. Save your work

Before doing anything else with the map, save the layers to disk. The hosted app keeps no per-user state on the server — see Project Model for why this matters.

  1. Open the Layer Manager.
  2. Click Save Layer. Pick Save all (one .milxlyz for the whole exercise) or Save selected (one file per side) depending on how you plan to brief.

Full details: Export Overlays. This is your “save as” — re-save after material changes.

7. Share or export for briefing

Two output paths, depending on the audience.

A printed / PDF briefing

If you need a hand-out:

  1. Click Print & Export → Create Export for a PDF. The export embeds a copyright label in the bottom-right corner; see Create an export for paper-size, base-map licence, and georeferencing options.
  2. For a paper printout, use Print & Export → Print Project and follow Print a project — pay attention to the Verify the printed scale section if the printed grid needs to match a real scale (e.g. 1:25 000).

A shared situation

If colleagues will keep working on the map:

  1. Click Create Share in the Layer Manager.
  2. Pick the share mode — Read Only for briefings, Edit & Copy for collaborative drafting, Edit & Overwrite for live multi-user editing. See How to create a share.
  3. For a two-sided exercise where each player must only see their own forces, use the three-share pattern from Wargaming with map.army.

Where to go next

  • Edit Overlays — moving symbols between layers, layer status (working vs approved), session persistence.
  • Import Overlays — adding a scanned map as a background, or pulling in an existing .milxlyz.
  • Free vs Pro — what the hosted demo deliberately leaves out.
  • Keyboard Shortcuts — the small set of shortcuts the app uses.