#start and #specstart under 3.17

[Ballbarian]

I am at my wits end. (Not a long trip. )

I tried to start up a game on a map adjusted with my RanDom project (fixed for 3.17) and kept getting strange start placements with the #start province set aside for me (the human player) being ignored and finding myself placed next to AI home provinces. Spent a couple of days deciphering my own code (note to self: more comments and less hacking!). Finally I adjusted the code to add a no start value (512) to the neighboring provinces. Never had to do this before as long as every player had a preassigned start location. Now I find my nation using one of the #specstart locations reserved for another nation and the other nation swiping the start of yet a third nation. The result is a jumbled mess with only a few nations taking their assigned locations.

I have attached the map image and the map file to this post and trimmed out the GAN map code which only added defenders, sites, etc. since it should have absolutely no effect on start locations in this situation. Should make it a little easier to browse the file.

If someone else could confirm this unexpected behavior I would really appreciate it. I am hoping that I just have introduced an error in my code or something simple and not found a bug with the 317 patch. I found no mention of dom3's start placement code being changed in the logs, but maybe their were some unexpected effects caused by some other changes?

My sanity thanks you in advance!

[NTJedi]

There's more annoyances to be discovered using mapedit commands... such as #fort . After a few discussions I found out from Illwinter that notepad from Windows isn't exactly supported for using mapedit commands. It works for the most part, but does have some issues such as what you're experiencing.

An updated mapedit PDF should be provided which includes advising what txt editors are supported.

Another note is that #god only works for the capital of its province... lost an hour of testing to find this fun piece of knowledge.

[Edratman]

I use 2 text editors that work fine, that I downloaded for free. They are "cream" and "PS Pad". When I opened your notebook file with PS PAd it looked okay to me (quick scan only). I saved it with PS pad and later on I'll see if it works.

[Edratman]

I converted your file to text file. Works fine and both Ulm and Ermor start where you want, 17 and 67. That's are far as I took it.

Your trouble must be something funky with notepad. Who knows?

I give you credit for doing it correctly in notepad. You have a lot more patience than I. I can't even read a map file in notepad.

[Edi]

Notepad uses nonstandard (for Unix/Linux) endlines. On top of that, it does not even recognize the normal endlines, so if you open up a text file that uses those, it's all mashed together in one big row of text and probably contains errors too. Notepad is crapware.

So anything that uses the standard endline will work just fine. Personally, I recommend Crimson Editor. It's free for personal use and absolutely kickass for all kinds of things, including coding.

[Edratman]

There is something even worse. Once you download a text editor and see what the map and dm files look like on an editor, you will be dope slapping yourself for weeks.

Edi, if you don't like notepad, just come out and say it.