TOAW 1 scenarios and 3.4

[Telumar]

I've been able (to my surprise) to load a Vol. I scenario into the TOAW 3 editor. But somehow it seems not to be stable. The editor is reacting slowly and playing the scenario equally leads to long reaction times/lags by the engine. Anyone knows why?

It's the Operation Marita scenario from Rugged Defence (WWII/Balkan Theatre).

Previously i had to load Vol. I scenarios into the "small" ACOW exe, save, load into the normal ACOW exe, save again and then only these scenarios could be loaded into the TOAW 3 editor. Marita however couldn't be loaded into the small ACOW exe. Might have to do for/under which Vol. I patch the scenario has been created (?).

[berto]

Speaking of bang for the buck:

Another major win for this game would be easing the conversion of older TOAW scenarios (from whatever version--original, WOTY, COW, III, etc.) to the latest and greatest game version (now 3.4).

It's been described elsewhere how one might attempt to migrate older scenarios. The process goes something like:

--load version x scenario in version x+1 of game
--save as migrated version x+1 scenario

Wash, rinse, repeat as many times as necessary to migrate scenario forward to latest game version.

Unless something breaks along the way. Which appears to be all too frequent. [:(]

Another problem is, one needs the older game versions. I've owned every version of this game going back to the original, but with each new version, I've tossed the earlier version install disks (floppies in the very first version? and who still has a working, functional floppy disk drive?). So I can't do the above described procedure.

What would be great is for the current latest scenario editor to have the unfailing, perfect ability to load and save all scenarios, from whatever version of TOAW, even going back so far as version 1. It could do this transparently--i.e., autosense the scenario native game version, and invoke the appropriate internal load and translation routines automatically--else the current scenario designer/modder has to manually specify the game version in the load/import step.

Short of fixing the current scenario editor in that fashion, would this alternative approach bear fruit:

Do all versions of the scenario editor (going back to version 1) have the scenario dump feature? Where the dumped file is in plain text format?

If so, it might be possible to write a "universal translator" program to convert one version's dump file to another's. So the overall process would go something like:

--load version x scenario file(s) into game version x
--export the scenario to a dump file
--run the version x dump file through the universal translator program to output in version y format
--import the translated version y dump file into version y scenario editor
--save in version y scenario-file format

Clear? (as mud?)

I have long-time experience dealing with text and data file conversion (see my sig). It would be an interesting challenge to write such a dump-file translator (setting aside the problem that I no longer have any previous game version, before the Matrix-downloadable version 3.0 that is).

Best of all would be a universal translator program that avoids the use of interim version dump files altogether; that renders completely unnecessary the requirement to have older game versions. Instead, just do this directly:

game version x scenario file(s) -> universal translator -> game version y scenario file(s)

Whatever, however. I maintain that it would be a vast help if we had the capability to access and convert any scenario from any game version, and with the least pain possible. So I don't have to look on with frustration at, for example, game version 1 WW2 Pacific scenarios available at Rugged Defense or The Strategist that are effectively inaccessible/unusable to me because I lack TOAW v1 (and any other required arcane scenario editor expertise).

Verstehen?

Meanwhile, I'm off to uninstall several more of my older games that I've finally decided to abandon (hint, hint) ...

[Telumar]

Hm, maybe the TOAW 3 scenario viewer could be used as a template for such a thing? It was able to read this sce, too.