The map seems to download correctly from
http://vasl.info/other.htm. I get a 6.6 MB file, bdRBv2.zip, and I extract the map from the outer .zip shell to get bdRBv2. If I open up the inner file, I see things I expect like a data file and various .gif files. When I try to use it in vasl, it seems to have some version confusion and tries to download a new map. Whatever it ends up downloading is not the same map as it results in a 57MB file, not the 6.6MB file I got by hand. That said, if you let it finish downloading the new map on my machine, vasl now works. However if you start vasl again and use the same (new) map, vasl does not like the versioning and downloads the 57MB file again.
There are a number of issues. First I have limited bandwidth here, and I'm guessing the code in vasl uses the main java thread to download the new file. This totally locks up my UI (of my whole X-windows session, not just vasl) until the download finishes, which is an annoyance. Second even though the data files look the same from my quick inspection, vasl insists that the version is wrong even when the new version is in place. I would have to run the code under a debugger to figure out what is happening there, and I probably will leave that for the vasl map elves instead. Third there are somehow two different versions of the bdRBv2 file at vasl.info, the version that you download by hand and the version that vasl downloads because it thinks it can't read the metadata.
I see an exception in the vassal log:
error log said:
*2017-03-02 13:02:01,598 [1-AWT-EventQueue-1] INFO VASL.build.module.map.boardArchive.BoardArchive - Unable to read the board metadata in board archive bdRBv2
2017-03-02 13:10:11,937 [1-AWT-EventQueue-1] INFO VASSAL.launch.TilingHandler - No images to tile.
*2017-03-02 13:10:11,937 [1-AWT-EventQueue-1] INFO VASL.build.module.map.boardArchive.BoardArchive - Unable to read the board metadata in board archive bdRBv2
It looks as if vasl can't figure out what to do with the original "data" file, downloads a new one (eight minutes to my house), and still can't figure out the data file. On my machine it then runs anyway, at least until you start vasl again.
If your experience is different, you may not be getting the whole second version of the map, or it may be too large for how you have java configured on your machine. In either case it looks as though the bdRBv2 map is in a state of confusion and needs to be sorted out first. The file should not be 57MB, so somehow the two versions need to be reconciled. Also vasl should not be downloading the map over and over again, so that means the "data" file is somehow not correct.
JR
