Thank you Ceres for pulling back the veil a little on getting the svn.
Despite including cmd line utilities while installing tortoisesvn my 64bit windows 10 installation was having none of it using the command line. I launched tortoiesvn then setup a new project and pointed at https://svn.wildfiregames.com/public/ps/trunk/ which it contacted successfully but soon realized it hadn't downloaded anything.
This morning I noticed the tortoise listings when right clicking on my created directory(maybe after the extra reboot from last night) and saw 'create repository here'.
Clicking this indeed created a local depository, though still empty. I went back to right clicking and now noticed 'SVN checkout' and throwing caution to the wind I clicked it and it downloaded the repository. (I did get some clues from the tortoisesvn online manual)
Clicking pyrogenesis.exe brought up the game which made me disable autociv after which I spent a pleasant morning playing 2 4X4s with the AI. I will likely post my impressions elsewhere, but my final question is:
To download further revisions do I use SVN checkout? Will launching from the depository pyrogenesis automatically recognize the changes?
PS I saved my .cfg file in a safe location but I don't think I'm going back to A24 again. Thankfully my beloved Romans seem to still be able to get the job done in A25
thanks again!