that worked, thank you so much for that. it's been a thorn in my side for 2 days now. the only thing stopping me from playtesting now is that either my startup script is not working or something. maybe you can help with that too? when i type ./startup & i get this message:
bash: ./startup: /bin/csh: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

here's my startup script, with the /bin/csh mentioned on the first line.

#! /bin/csh -f
# Written by Furey.
# With additions from Tony.

# Set the port number.
set port = 4444
if ( "$1" != "" ) set port="$1"

# Change to area directory.
# autokill 60 >> ~/area/autokill.txt &
cd ../area

# Set limits.
nohup
nice
#ulimit -c unlimited
#limit stack 1024k
if ( -e shutdown.txt ) rm -f shutdown.txt

while ( 1 )
    # If you want to have logs in a different directory,
    #   change the 'set logfile' line to reflect the directory name.
    set index = 1000
    while ( 1 )
	set logfile = ../log/$index.log
	if ( ! -e $logfile ) break
	@ index++
    end

    # Run merc.
    ../src/merc $port >&! $logfile

    # Restart, giving old connections a chance to die.
    if ( -e shutdown.txt ) then
	rm -f shutdown.txt
	exit 0
    endif
    sleep 5
end

i thought the problem was that there was no bin directory so i created it and tried again with the same resulting message.
[Edit to add this]
I get the same problem when i try to startup my rom codebase as well, i'm beginning to think this is a cygwin problem not a startup script problem.

You need to install csh. I'm unaware of how to install packages in cygwin but that is what you are missing. In debian it would just be "apt-get install csh". You will have to check into package installation for that thing though. =P

the only thing i found in the cygwin install options is scsh and the descriptor for it is open-source unix shell embedded within scheme. if it's something else i can't find it.

[edit] and thats in the interpreters category by the way.

Get that and change the reference in the makefile to scsh and see if that works.

EDIT:
Better idea: See if you can use tcsh, I just read somewhere that cygwin comes with it.

ok it's installed and startup file is changed accordingly, i tried startup again and it says unknown switch -f then gives me a list of valid switches, since i can't copy and paste from cygwin i'll summarize them below:

-e <entry-point> specify top level entry point
-o <structure> open structure in current package
-m <package> switch to package
-n <new package> switch to new package

-lm <module-file-name> load module into config package
-le <exec-file-name> load file into exec package
-l <file-name> load file into current package

-ll <module-file-name> as in -lm but search library path list
-lel < exec-file-name> as in -le " "
+lp <dir> add <dir> to front of library path list
lp+ <dir> add <dir> to end of library path list
+lpe <dir> +lp with env var and ~user expansion
lpe+ <dir> lp+ " "
+lpsd add script-file's dir to front of path list
lpsd+ add to end of path list
-lp-clear clear library path list to ().
-lp-default reset library path list to system default

-ds do script
-dm do script module
-de do script exec.

end option:
-s <script> specify script
-sfd <num> script is on file descriptor <num>.
-c <exp> evaluate expression
– interactive session.

my thoughts are that the -f should be changed to -l (i'm assuming the -f means file-name but it's different with scsh for some odd reason)

[edit] just saw your edit, there is no tcsh that i could find in the installation package but i'll scan through it again, there's about 200 different utilities that can be selected from so i could have just missed it or something.

If you're only doing playtesting, the startup file is, for the moment, irrelevent. From the area directory, try typing ../src/merc <port number>, then connecting to localhost:<port number>

awesome, thanks for the help.