Xconq testing: Win2K

["Erik Jessen" <ejessen at adelphia dot net>]

I did some testing with a very simple map, where I actually had some
terrain listed on the map, that hadn't been declared.

Effects:
1) warning that the game might not be able to continue.
    I chose 'continue'
2) internal error, followed by hang, when I attempted to place a unit in
the topmost hex row.

Recommendations:
1) somehow ignore the invalid terrain cleanly; new users are bound to
mess things up, and internal errors will throw them for a loop.

Notes/thoughts:
1) since (I think) all games are supposed to be stored in 'lib', have
the 'open file' button default to starting there.

2) I am working on the model of:
   a) a 'standard config' file that declares all terrain types & unit
types
      and their interactions.  This is normally hand-typed.
   b) a map file.  This is normally entered via gui, and saved "binary".
   c) a unit placement file (scenario, if you will).  This is normally
       entered via gui, but might be hand-edited, and saved "binary".
   d) a 'game' is a small file that pulls all of the above together.
      This permits a map of W. Europe to be used for various eras, and
      Set of standard "modern" units to be used in various campaigns.

   This allows the following to be done:
   - create a single config file that describes Ancient Rome.
   - create maps for each battlefield
   - create various unit deployments for each battle

   I would really, really like an easy way to save off the map &
unit-placement as separate files in the GUI; it's been a while, but I
recall that it was really complicated to save off just what one wanted
to each file.

I would also like to be able to strip out a specific terrain-type, in
case I bungled the job & created an extra few early on, and would like
to clean things up.  Maybe the ability of the map-save function to not
list any terrain for which there were no placements would do this
perfectly?

I am hoping that the approach listed in (2) will encourage newcomers to
build new games: the normal game will be pretty small (because it'll
just include in 3 larger files), so the user will only have to edit one
or two
Of the file to create new games from existing ones.

For power users, it would be nice if there was an easy way to do
things like:
- shift a particular region of the map up/left/right/down/mirror.
- enlarge the map on any side(s)
- shrink the map (deleting terrain that fell off the face of the earth)

Erik