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Treating the vacated across clues as y, x coordinates gives the name of 4 cities, but if I highlight the map cells indicated by the vacated down clues and answers, I can see the name of the country (the 6 capital letters?) but also a bunch of cells that don't appear to mean anything. It's also not clear to me what the "overall area" is that needs highlighting. The relation between the length of the endgame and the ease of the gridfill is all out of whack on this one!

Yes kilgore trout - it's a very poor balance between grid-fill and endgame.

If I could get the 6 capitals you've found I'd happily leave it there, so could you please explain in a bit more detail how you find them?
I've tried highlighting the coordinates you mention - down clues and answers - but I'm not seeing anything sensible (I'm assuming the native language for there to be 6 letters?).

I get very close to an outline of the country by putting a dot in the squares given by the down clue coordinates and joining them up (and even then there are a couple of strays). It's the clue answers that I'm really struggling with.

I think the 4th letter of the country name should be all by itself in the lower left corner. You can also see the first and fifth letters almost alone, up and to the left, and up and to the right respectively. I found the other letters by looking for them basically evenly spaced in the grid (two diagonal lines running SW to NE). This involved willfully ignoring many other filled in coordinates!

So I am really nowhere as far as the endgame.

Well, if I connect the cells that are NOT part of the 6 capital letters, I do get an outline that, if I squint, could be the country.

Thank you kilgore trout - that's the end of it!

It all looks quite pretty with the letters blocked out in red and the country outlined in blue behind them (but I'm not sure it was worth the effort - or the eye-strain).

@Scarlett - I'm sorry I didn't reply to you last night - I decided to leave it for the morning and went in front of the box.

Now back at it, with the help of others on this thread I've got four easily gotten city names, and chewing my pencil over the other six.

So still not quite there!

The other 6 are the capital letters shown by highlighting the cells given by the coordinates from all of the answers. Not what I'd expected from Harribobs - it's just a case of interpreting the preamble this time.

Sorry I missed your question scarlett. I was still trying to get six place names from the answers at that stage in the thread - what a waste of time!

i think i must have misinterpreted how to plot everything as my new grid doesn't make any sense...
row 1......PN CSO
row 2 M R M
row 3 LTRTASI

Help please....

scarlett - I'm unsure about your N in row1 and your first M in row2 but row3 is ok (although maybe you need another letter at the start of row3 - I'd have to check my grid carefully to know for sure).

Anyway, you've got the right idea - you just have to persevere because the 6 letters don't shape up until you're at the end of the process.

It's a good idea to use a different colour highlighter for the final stage (all of the coordinates from the answers lead to cells that should be coloured in, whereas the down clues lead to the outline - and they overlap!).