Vassal Game Finder

Ubercat · September 16, 2013, 10:20:30 AM

Thanks! We went to The Glasbern, about ten minutes from our house. That website doesn't do it justice. We had a top floor room of an old converted barn with a high, vaulted ceiling and a skylight. The whole place was like a fairytale land. We took a walk and met a couple of the properties 3 barn cats. One was up a hill, massacring a grasshopper almost as big as she was. Later that night after dinner, I walked up the same hill in the dark to see if she was still around. She came out, not having strayed from the area, and we hung out for a minute before I called it a night.

As for games, yeah, I installed Roads to Gettysburg in Vassal last year on my friend Marks recommendation. It looks interesting but we didn't end up playing it. I've never been into ACW below the strategic level in the past, but I'd be up for trying it.

Another giant game with multiple commanders would be MMP's grand tactical series. I was disappointed to discover that there is only a module for The Devils Cauldron, but not for Where Eagles Dare, which I own. Is it OK to still play a game you own on Vassal, even if you're leaving it in shrinkwrap!? There were a group of guys who constructed a custom made table at WBC and left both games set up for the entire week. They were playing pretty much all day, every day and teaching whoever came by how to play and letting them control a formations activation. I think they only got through about half of Market Garden in that week, though they had a good idea who would win by the last day. The combined maps required a table about 15 ft long, curved at an angle half way through, and about 6 ft wide.

Ubercat · September 17, 2013, 06:24:14 PM

Quote from: GJK on September 14, 2013, 11:54:20 PM
Holy s*** I really want to get in to FTP now! Great blog - I wish that it would of gone on deeper in to the game but what you have there gives some really good insight in to the game. I remember how much that I enjoyed E.L. Smiths classic "Civil War" (VG) but this looks like it takes it up a notch with the CDG aspect; they look to add quite a bit to the game. I'll start reading the rules - maybe we could meet online some time to kick around a turn or so or maybe get a pbem game started.

Give me a shout when you are ready.

GJK · September 17, 2013, 08:56:56 PM

Quote from: Ubercat on September 17, 2013, 06:24:14 PM
Quote from: GJK on September 14, 2013, 11:54:20 PM
Holy s*** I really want to get in to FTP now! Great blog - I wish that it would of gone on deeper in to the game but what you have there gives some really good insight in to the game. I remember how much that I enjoyed E.L. Smiths classic "Civil War" (VG) but this looks like it takes it up a notch with the CDG aspect; they look to add quite a bit to the game. I'll start reading the rules - maybe we could meet online some time to kick around a turn or so or maybe get a pbem game started.

Give me a shout when you are ready.

I'll start reading the rules tonight. Would this one work in team play? Would be cool to get a few commanders out there for this one. Any other takers?

Bison · September 17, 2013, 09:13:31 PM

I just blew my quarterly gaming wad on Panzer! Haha. I would like to see an AAR if you guys do take up this game.

Ubercat · September 17, 2013, 09:38:03 PM

Not FtP. Multiple commanders would be needlessly complicated. Who would control a sides hand of cards? It would be like turning chess into a team game. It's a six(ish) hour game for 2 people. Adding more people also just adds exponential difficulties in getting everyone playing, together or in a reasonably coordinated fashion.

If you're set on 4+ players in a game, lets save that for something bigger.

Bison · September 25, 2013, 11:17:20 PM

Well I'm pretty sure I've got VASL setup correctly on my Windows machine. I still want to set it up on my Mac too.

GJK - We can try figure out a night we can setup an ASLSK1 battle to stumble through the rules. Most likely it'd have to be late Saturday night.

GJK · September 26, 2013, 05:28:42 AM

Quote from: Bison on September 25, 2013, 11:17:20 PM
Well I'm pretty sure I've got VASL setup correctly on my Windows machine. I still want to set it up on my Mac too.

GJK - We can try figure out a night we can setup an ASLSK1 battle to stumble through the rules. Most likely it'd have to be late Saturday night.

Saturday night *should* be good to go for me. I'm playing some ASL at the FLGS at around 8:00 p.m. CST *maybe*. Let's play it by ear but we should at least connect on Skype so that we can have that set up for chatting during the game. My Skype name is "gjk_asl" (no quotes) if you would like to send over an invite.

Bison · September 26, 2013, 11:33:08 AM

It might not be this Saturday. Ill be at some sort of octoberfest most of the day. But Saturday night is my open night to play games.

GJK · October 29, 2013, 09:33:10 AM

Quote from: GJK on September 17, 2013, 08:56:56 PM
Quote from: Ubercat on September 17, 2013, 06:24:14 PM
Quote from: GJK on September 14, 2013, 11:54:20 PM
Holy s*** I really want to get in to FTP now! Great blog - I wish that it would of gone on deeper in to the game but what you have there gives some really good insight in to the game. I remember how much that I enjoyed E.L. Smiths classic "Civil War" (VG) but this looks like it takes it up a notch with the CDG aspect; they look to add quite a bit to the game. I'll start reading the rules - maybe we could meet online some time to kick around a turn or so or maybe get a pbem game started.

Give me a shout when you are ready.

I'll start reading the rules tonight. Would this one work in team play? Would be cool to get a few commanders out there for this one. Any other takers?

Ubercat: I've *finally* gotten around to start poking around with the rules for For the People. I'm shooting to get the game on the table this weekend for a quick scenario with my son. I'll see if you're up for a live or pbem session of the game after that.

W8taminute · October 29, 2013, 12:32:34 PM

Registering in this thread so I can track it. You've got my attention folks. I'm also curious about Zun Tzu. It seems to be a better box creator than Vassal no?

GJK · October 29, 2013, 01:14:48 PM

ZunTzu is an *easier* gamebox creator. I can whip together a ZT gamebox in no time compared to a VASSAL module. ZT is no frills though - the designer's intent was to make a board game experience on the computer not a computer aided and enhanced board game emulator. That means that you get the map, the pieces and tabs for the charts. You have to move the piece from the countersheet and place it on the map. VASSAL has ways of flagging moved pieces, moving pieces to the "destroyed units box" with a menu command, etc. ZT has none of that. That said, I think that ZT presents the game better. It's easy to zoom and scroll and you get the neat animation that actually shows the dice being rolled. I really like it.

Jerome (ZunTzu creator) has started ZT 2.0 but it has been some time since an update was given. The ZT website is falling apart as well; many of the gamebox's that people created have dead links since Jerome opted to not actually host the gamebox's on his site (but only link to them on 3rd party websites). Also, the forum that he has there sees very little activity. Still, ZT works as is and if you're looking to create a gamebox quickly and easily, ZT is a definite first choice.

W8taminute · October 29, 2013, 02:20:20 PM

Good to know GJK. Thanks for the brief intro. Pity ZT has been inactive or low activity though. I like the look and feel of ZT better than Vassal as well. But Vassal sounds like it offers more power to the gamer by aiding him in gaming admin work. I'm more about looks however and I don't mind manually moving pieces around. Plus manually moving the pieces tends to help me understand a board game better.

I'm going to look into both Vassal and Zun Tzu this weekend to see if I can try to make my own gamebox. :)

GJK · October 29, 2013, 05:12:54 PM

The ZT site has step by step copy and paste instructions. There's two XML files that you create; one for the gamebox and one for the "scenario" place holder. The hardest part of making a ZT gamebox is getting the x.y coordinates of each of the rows of counters on each of the countersheets. So what did I do? I wrote a utility to make that part easier. You can play with it here:

http://garykrockover.com/zuntzu/getxy.html

I need to put instructions on the page, but a section is a section of counters that are connected. In most traditional games, it's two rows of 10 each in a "block" or "section" and a sheet of counters have something like 8 to 10 (sometimes 12) "sections".

Once on the image of the countersheet, you click the upper left corner of a section and then the lower right corner of the section. Go section by section until you've clicked on all the upper left/lower right corner of each section. If you indicated that your countersheet has a back, it will show you that sheet after you've clicked out the front. On the back you start from the right and go left. I can explain in more detail if you think that it's something that you'll use. I would need to upload your countersheet scans as well of course.

The rest of making the gamebox - VERY simple.

Ubercat · October 29, 2013, 10:11:06 PM

Quote from: GJK on October 29, 2013, 09:33:10 AM
Quote from: GJK on September 17, 2013, 08:56:56 PM
Quote from: GJK on September 14, 2013, 11:54:20 PM
Holy s*** I really want to get in to FTP now! Great blog - I wish that it would of gone on deeper in to the game but what you have there gives some really good insight in to the game. I remember how much that I enjoyed E.L. Smiths classic "Civil War" (VG) but this looks like it takes it up a notch with the CDG aspect; they look to add quite a bit to the game. I'll start reading the rules - maybe we could meet online some time to kick around a turn or so or maybe get a pbem game started.

I'll start reading the rules tonight. Would this one work in team play? Would be cool to get a few commanders out there for this one. Any other takers?

Ubercat: I've *finally* gotten around to start poking around with the rules for For the People. I'm shooting to get the game on the table this weekend for a quick scenario with my son. I'll see if you're up for a live or pbem session of the game after that.

Edit to fix screwed up formatting.
Cool. Just let me know how it goes. I've been playing FtP live for the last couple of weeks with someone from BGG. We're averaging a turn every other night (1 turn each time we play). It was easier to play in the mornings because I was fresher and we could go for a few hours. I'm too beat at night to play that long.

Give me a shout when you are ready.

W8taminute · October 30, 2013, 08:10:07 AM

Many thanks for that util on counter making GJK. That makes doing the counters a bit easier.