#start and #specstart under 3.17

[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.

[Ballbarian]

Sorry for the confusion. As my initial post shows, I was frustrated and rather impatient.

I am not using notepad. As a matter of fact, I use VIM to view and edit the files normally. But this map file was originally generated by Dominions via the map editor and then modified by SemiRandom which is written in yabasic. Regardless, the point is that the start code worked fine previous versions of Dom3. I will have to do more testing however as it could be some weirdness introduced by Vista. I have not generated any SemiRandom maps since changing from XP.

@Edratman
Thanks for trying that out for me. I too found Ermor where it should be, but I hadn't found Ulm yet so I cannot confirm them. If you start the game as Hinnom, you should begin in province #126. If not then a preassigned AI nation start is being overridden.

It should be:
Code:

---

HUMAN (only #start <prov#> placed)

player 20     HINNOM      126



AI (using #specstart <nation#> <prov#>)

player 68     LANKA        13

player 2      ULM          17

player 1      ERMOR        67

player 14     FOMORIA      77

player 13     TIR NA N'OG  88

player 10     CTIS        111

---

[Edratman]

Hinnom starts in 126.

I can play every nation from the setup screen because the last entries in the file are "#allowedplayer <> <>". Your post and the map program itself seems to indicate that you want make Hinnom the Human and the other 7 computer controlled.

In the nation setup section you make these nations computer players using "#computerplayer <> <>" which is then followed by the lines that allow them to be open to chosen. I wonder if having both notations in there is a problem?


I also have VIM, but prefer the 2 I mentioned, for no reason that I can think of.