Bloody Ridge map strangeness

Speaking of maps, the map Bloody Ridge is giving me grief. The version named Bloody Ridge 2.1_iCCup.scx is strange in this way: It is a 2 player map, but BWTA2 says it has 3 starting positions, while BWAPI says it has 8 starting positions. I found out because the unexpected numbers caused a crash.

I found an older version named (2)Bloody Ridge 1.2.scx which seems fine.

Does anybody know what’s going on?

Update: The 8 start positions are (in tile coordinates) the real start locations (117,6) and (7,86) plus an array of 6 others in the upper left at (6,5) (10,5) (14,5) (6,8) (10,8) (14,8). I’m guessing this is an observer map? Though it’s supposed to be the regular version and there is a separate observer version. The original ICCup map page is broken now, so it’s hard to be sure. I don’t understand how observer maps work. Does BWAPI provide enough information to reject the spurious start locations? There is a base in the upper left, so apparently BWTA says “one of these looks like a real start location,” but BWAPI itself doesn’t do any further analysis.

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LetaBot on Friday, February 16. 2018:

Those other starting locations are indeed from observer slots. When you open a observer map in the map editor you can see where they are.

Jay Scott on Friday, February 16. 2018:

Thanks! There is still a lot I don’t understand. I found the intended observer version, which is called “Bloody Ridge 2.1_iccOB.scx”. In game, it shows 8 player slots, as you might expect. The supposed non-observer version I posted about only shows 2 slots in the game, though BWAPI sees 8 slots. Presumably the map is messed up in some way, or at least edited in a lazy way. How does Starcraft tell the difference? Is it possible to tell the difference via BWAPI? If anybody knows....

Antiga / Iruian on Friday, February 16. 2018:

This actually brings up a whole range of problems. In high level human tournaments generally you have 1 on 1 with a Caster in the game, along with a Ref or two and a tournament organizer. So it's isn't uncommon at pro level to have 3-4 addition players in the game itself and the maps used are almost always the observer versions. Preparing the bots with that future in the back of our minds I think is a good idea.

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