Hi Brent, Thanks a lot for all these comments and suggestions. For the sake of completeness, my answers below so you get a picture of the current state of the project. Here a few other pending items:
1. I currently display the names of the irregular grid locations. It helps because they are written according to the accepted order abbreviations for tournament and pbem Diplo. Yet my pieces as defined using the image tool in the Editor cover part of the location name. My current workaround is that I abandonned image tool definition and created piece images with a transparency foot that artificially shifts the counter image several pixels above the location text. Any more elegant solution is welcome. 2. I consider creating an overlay map that could display the location abbreviations on demand. I would add a button in the menus, and a simple click would toggle the location names overlay. More elegant than having the little ugly names displayed at the locations by the irregular grid tool. 3. I still need to design private windows to enable one-to-one negociations, maybe allowing to open a negotiation room to more than two persons, possibly even allowing evesdropping like in real gaming conditions (that's perhaps too far fetched). I guess the first objective is easy to set up. Maybe it even comes standard with Vassal and is not Module specific ? (the first Module I ever looked at had it: Air Force) 4. I need an order recording window, where each Power records their official orders for the period to come, and that keeps track of official, recorded orders for referee adjudication. This bit might require more design on my side... 5. I am currently using a scanned image of the 1977 Diplomacy map, from Parker, in its german edition. I anticipate that this could obstruct copyright requirements when I ever post the module on the Vassal site. But I really like that map ;D Well, that's my "to do" list, including some points where I'm still clueless as how to tackle them. Michel. --- In [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> , "Brent Easton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 1. > No, 'Does Not Stack' just prevents pieces from stacking together, it does not prevent them from being in the same place. So if you put two 'Does Not Stack' pieces in the same place, they end up exactly on top of each other and hide the bottom one. > > If I was you, I would forget about having VASSAL trying to prevent having multiple pieces in a location and have the players do this instead. Does a paper Diplomacy board stop a player putting two Armies in one location? No - all the other players yelling at the offender does. > > Same principle. There is a limit to what 'rules of the game' you can get VASSAL to enforce. This is one of them. I would make the pieces stackable so it is obvious when multiple units end up in the same location. > Got the message, and I now clearly understand the function of "stack (able)" in Vassal thanks to you. My main concern was that I dearly want to restrict the total available number of game pieces of each type, and not being able to notice that there might be two or more pieces stacked in one location could lead to problems searching for a needle in a haystack. Since having several armies in a single location makes absolutely no sense in Diplomacy, no player would actually voluntarily do so. Simply just activating the automatic shift of stackable pieces will point players at possible errors of several pieces in a single loc. 2. > > > Stacking only applies when there is a grid to stack to. Making your pieces Stackable (as above) will help. > point taken :) > Where do you want your players to keep their off-board pieces? In a private window, or in a shared off-board window somehere? > My main (and only) map consists of three boards: the game map of Europe where the game is played, and two Army Pool boards on either side, where I have defined as many zones as there are Powers (7). The zones are rectangles framed with the color of the Power and its name. These will be the repositories for the (yet) unused counters, and also the "return" locations to send the counters back when eliminated after a Winter period or because of direct elimination. > Either way, if you do not specify a grid in that location, the pieces can be stored there without restriction. An your 'Send to Stock' option is definitely a good idea. > :) > You idea to use a pre-defined setup with the 18 pieces layed out in each 'Force Pool' area is the way to go in my book. > :) :) > > Other areas you may want to (or already have) look at: > > - Define player sides and restrict access to a players own pieces. Does not always work if you want players to be able to remove opposing players pieces after a battle. > Done this, yep :) Only controlling Power and Referee have access. Something strange happened there, I had the Restricted access for Referee in the Prototype definition, and added the specific power at the level of single piece definition, but that didn't work. So now I removed that Prototype property and put both access at single piece level. > - An Irregular Grid on the map to provide a single snappable location for each board location. Helps prevent pieces creeping into adjacent locations and allows reporting of move to/from in the chat window. > That's indeed the way I figured out I had to work. > Actually, remembering Diplomacy, this wouldn't work for you as you need to place pieces on the borders to indicate Attacking and support. You could either add additional snap points on the borders, or use a Multi-zoned Grid and draw named zones over the top of each map area and report movement using the zone names. > Not fully correct actually. Location invasion is usually solved by comparing the written orders of all Powers. Moving the pieces towards the borders only provides visual help to assess the outcome of the orders. I'll have a closer look at zones definitions to assess how much they would help. There's an impressive Java application for pbem diplomacy, jDip <http://jdip.sourceforge.net/> , and I'd like to ask the author whether it would be possible to include his adjudicator engine in the Vassal module, because he's already done all the work of order formatting and updating. That's however for later on my agenda. My first goal is to be able to game online with my world-scattered buddies both quickly and without too much Module design effort . > > Hope these ideas help, > Cheers, > Brent. > Sure they do, many thanks !! Cheers, Michel. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vassalengine/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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