This will require further digging as I REALLY want to understand why this happened but strangely-------if you auto deploy troops it runs OK and if you rearrage units after auto deploy it runs OK......but try to simply deploy units and it locks the game up.
I have tried the same thing with other maps made from that time period and so far everything works perfectly. I tried making a small change to the map and resaved in another slot but it still locked up on a simple deploy.....why autodeploy is OK is a mystery ATM
Further....... there seems to be an issue with hex 1,1. Earlier when I auto deployed I only went as far and seeing that they had deployed and move a couple to another position.......this time I tried scrolling the map upwards and when it got to the top it went black......it did not lock up the game but the entire map screen was black but the side deploy menu was OK and it just happened again when I simply loaded the map....and that corrupts any map you try to load afterwards unless you restart the game.
I just tried loading the original map after a restart and it was OK until I scrolled to the top row.....after a restart I tried doing some editing to the grass areas to see if I could re-set the map save..... I set up a scenario and loaded the map then bought units for both sides....player one in this case was a right side deploy and it went perfectly.....player 2 was a left side deploy and the game locked up because on manual deploy there is a unit placed on hex 1,1. ( or at least the top row
Bottom line here is.....DON'T USE THAT MAP
and I will continue to poke around with it but this problem seems to be confined to this map only as others I have tried from 2004 and earlier work perfectly.........right now I'm putting this down to serious data corruption in the DAT file that is not being "fixed" by editing and resaving
Or, put another way...that map is cursed