No one needs to buy ADC2 to use maps made with my symbols with POA2. ADC2 is simply being used as a map editor. I am using it as a symbol editor as well, but no one else will need to do that once the set is complete. If you want to make maps for POA2, you will need to use ADC2 to do so, however, you would need to do that even if you were using the default symbol set as POA2 has no map editor of its own.
Here is how all of this works. POA2 has a directory called Symbol Sets. Inside this directory are separate folders which contain symbol sets for summer, winter, box-type symbols sets, etc. The ECX file that goes with each scenario tells POA2 which symbol set to use and which TEC file to use. POA2 can have multiple TEC files (terrain effects chart), and the scenario tells the program which one to use. A new TEC file will accompany my symbol set when it is released. The reason for that is because I renamed a few of the symbols to make things easier to find, added a few new symbols, and changed the order in which the symbols appear. The default TEC will not work with the new symbol set. My TEC will be identical to the old one, it will simply have some different names in it. This will be transparent to the end user.
When I am done with this it will be pretty simple for everyone to set up. Players will need to download a few files: a TEC file, revised symbol set files. That's it. The current TEC is called standard.TEC. I will name the new one alternate.TEC or something like that and it simply goes right into the same folder (very small download). The new symbol files will go into a new folder inside the symbol set directory (large download). That's all there is to it.
The ECX files that accompanies each map tells POA2 whether it should use the default symbol set or the revised one. It also tells the program which TEC to use. Map authors simply choose which symbol set they want to use when they first start a map, and ADC2 will do the rest.
Because I have made significant changes to the order of the symbols, I don't think there is any way to get the original maps to work with the revised set. The new symbols will become the standard for non-topographic maps made after the new set is released and will be officially hosted by HPS. I seriously doubt that anyone will attempt to make any other symbol sets. There are over 3,000 symbols in the default set so you can imagine how much work it has been for me to alter all these.
Using ADC2 to make really complex maps with a lot of different elevations takes some work, but it's really not that difficult once you understand what to do. It's just time consuming if you want to add all sorts of little details that make the maps look better. That's the key word: look. The vast majority of symbols in POA2 are merely cosmetic. They're little cuts and fills to make the roads and fields looks just so. You don't need to use all those if you don't want to. Map authors can stick to a very limited number of base symbols, which will yield a map with about the same level of detail as the average Panzer Campaigns map.
