Official
Decides how many starting points a multiplayer scenario places houses from, and whether a listed multiplayer map is expected on every machine.
Unused copy
- Applies to
- scenarios
- File
map file- Section
[Basic]- Value
- boolean
- When omitted
no- Used by the game
- No — loaded but not used
The entry is read a first time at the very start of the scenario load, before the theater is chosen or the rules are prepared. That copy is placed in a local variable, immediately assigned to itself to keep the compiler quiet, and never looked at again; no gameplay path reads it.
The copy that does decide something is read again much later, from the same assignment.
Starting-point selection
- Applies to
- scenarios
- File
map file- Section
[Basic]- Value
- boolean
- When omitted
no
[Basic]Official=yesIn a multiplayer or skirmish game — and not on a generated random map — the same assignment is read again as the scenario finishes loading, and it decides how many starting points the placement pass looks for. Those points are the pool each house draws from: the first house takes one at random, and every house after it takes whichever remaining point lies furthest from the ones already taken.
Marked official, the pass looks for as many points as there are players and computer players together, or for however many of waypoints 0 onward are placed without a gap up to waypoint 7, whichever number is larger. Left at the default, it looks for exactly eight regardless of who is playing.
Either way, the pass then collects every placed waypoint below that count and makes up any shortfall with random cells on open ground.
Multiplayer map provenance
- Applies to
- multiplayer maps
- File
map file (.mpr)- Section
[Basic]- Value
- boolean
- When omitted
no
Loose .mpr files sitting in the game directory are scanned whenever the multiplayer map list is rebuilt, and this flag travels with the map into the lobby, where the host sends it to the guests along with the rest of the game options. What it decides is whether a guest who does not already hold the map may fetch it from the host.
The answer differs by path. A guest missing a map marked yes will not ask for it: on a LAN it reports that it cannot play and signs off. A map left unmarked is transferred from the host instead. In a Westwood Online game the guest asks the host for the file whichever way the flag reads, so the mark changes nothing there.
The generated random map is exempt from the refusal whatever the flag says, and maps packaged inside a .pkt list count as official without consulting any setting.
Name