More Vassel

Don't set up a board at home -- you'll spend all your time making sure it's in sync with the official board on Vassal.

Most of the modules on Vassal are maintained by volunteers, so often a game like Arkham Horror is incomplete simply because the schmoe stupid enough to volunteer hasn't had time to type in (or scan in) all 3200 cards. For more popular games module updates occur regularly. Some of the oldies aren't even compatible with the new system anymore.

I'll try Memoir, but I haven't played in about four years so I'll be starting from scratch.

S.

Frank...and anyone really...I am quite fond of M'44 with VASSAL! I also quite like Battlelore, but best to start to 44 before you introduce the extra interrupt rules needed to use lore.

If you are keen on a game I am willing to play and walk yuo thru the main etiquette of turn taking and such. It really is quite easy once you get the hang of it. When Southernman and I were playing we even took to using our own dice

Let me know.

Oh, I need to re aquire all the files for 44 as I have a new laptop, but will get to that this weekend.

I missed the boat on the AH game, will look into getting that for the next one as well!

And last but not least...it is not VASSAL, but playing Duel of Ages by email currently and THAT is great fun as well if you like that game.

Hey there Tommy - yeah I forgot we were rolling our own dice.

I'm sure you will get another three people easy for an Arkham PBEM Vassal game, especially now that they know it works pretty damn well. One thing I found and passed on to the others is that the AH wiki site www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com is great to have open as the Common Item cards have no text so you can quickly check (and copy & paste into your game) the text for the items or any other fact on AH.

Steve, Frank - PM sent with download link for M'44 Vassal guides and tutorial.

OK - a lot of noise in this thread ... we may have to start a M'44 Vassal PBEM League now.

Notahandle wrote:

JonJacob wrote:
" I've always been intimidated by Vassel because it sounded techy to me, and I'm almost computer retarded... almost. Is it available for Mac too?"
I'm techy, but it seemed like too much trouble to work out how to get it working. It's been created by PC techies and it's not very user friendly to install, with minimal help files. And of course it isn't Mac-like, as mentioned by Not Sure above, you end up with a couple hundred log files. Frankly, I couldn't be bothered wasting time with something that's more difficult than it needs to be. Obviously other F:ATties have persevered and got it working, so I'm in the minority. Though it sounds like there's a new or improved help file available now.

You don't need to keep any of the logfiles except the one that's relevant to your move (ie the player before you). Once you've played it through and created a logfile of your move, send it, then you can delete it. I think Not Sure is a logfile Hoarder [sotto voce: he needs help).

@ JJ It works fine on the Mac and not very complicated to get going.

@sag Dogmatix and I played WofG using VASSAL and ACTS. All battles and messages were handled thru ACTS in order to keep the flow of the game going versus sending logfiles back and forth for every roll. It worked well in my opinion.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

You don't need to keep any of the logfiles except the one that's relevant to your move (ie the player before you). Once you've played it through and created a logfile of your move, send it, then you can delete it. I think Not Sure is a logfile Hoarder (sotto voce: he needs help).

Says the guy who's always begging for a screenshot of the current map...

Yeah, I keep them around, because they're small. Once in a while you need to go do some detective work to figure out why some counter flipped or didn't flip. With HIS, two impulses might be twelve logfiles (or more with combat rewinds and such). It's easier to keep them all. (Although I actually don't have them all in one place, because I play Vassal games from any of three different computers).

The main reason Vassal makes you load each one instead of picking up on the sequential numbering is because Vassal doesn't do the sequential numbering itself. It doesn't care what you call the files. Sequential numbering is usually adopted by the people playing to keep things sane.

Since Vassal doesn't enforce naming, it doesn't have any idea of how to predict the filenames.

I have a folder for logfiles from each game, and a logfile-generating monster like HIS I usually split up into turn folders, just to keep the organization easier. You could also be like the Dr. and toss them. (I keep all the ACTS emails, too... maybe I do have a problem.)

"Hundreds" of logfiles isn't really normal. HIS generates lots of them, because it's a six-player game with about five moves per player per turn (30-40 logfiles per turn appears average). A typical game of something like M44 would be far fewer.

Not Sure wrote:
" The main reason Vassal makes you load each one instead of picking up on the sequential numbering is because Vassal doesn't do the sequential numbering itself. It doesn't care what you call the files. Sequential numbering is usually adopted by the people playing to keep things sane.
Since Vassal doesn't enforce naming, it doesn't have any idea of how to predict the filenames."
Thanks, that was what I was wondering. (It also answers Southernmans question.)

Notahandle wrote:

Not Sure wrote:
" The main reason Vassal makes you load each one instead of picking up on the sequential numbering is because Vassal doesn't do the sequential numbering itself. It doesn't care what you call the files. Sequential numbering is usually adopted by the people playing to keep things sane.
Since Vassal doesn't enforce naming, it doesn't have any idea of how to predict the filenames."
Thanks, that was what I was wondering. (It also answers Southernmans question.)

Well I knew that - I just wondered what the hell you were going on about, some undocumented feature.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

You don't need to keep any of the logfiles except the one that's relevant to your move (ie the player before you).

I do this too. In a 6 player game I just assume there's enough eyeballs to spot errors, so I don't load all 5 log files that precede my turn, just Paul's (since I'm usually doing Anthony's moves for him). Lazy lardass Henry VIII, typical!

JoelCFC25 wrote:

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

You don't need to keep any of the logfiles except the one that's relevant to your move (ie the player before you).

I do this too. In a 6 player game I just assume there's enough eyeballs to spot errors, so I don't load all 5 log files that precede my turn, just Paul's (since I'm usually doing Anthony's moves for him). Lazy lardass Henry VIII, typical!

Simon and I are both pretty meticulous about game state (Simon even more than me, I think), so you and Anthony have it easy there. Well, for what little there is left of this one. We're careening towards the final stop, I think.

Not true, I don't check them meticulously. I only download Joel's files, but I tend to notice if something is strange, like last time when Liege was under French control all of a sudden. And the game will only stop this turn if someone manages a good combination of plays, which I doubt is going to happen. But maybe you know something that I don't.

OK - car issues now sorted (and bank balance considerably lower) so I'm alright to run a game or two of M'44 if Steve and Frank are still looking for games.

Anyone else interested in doing a league - M'44 plays quickly with Vassal so it's something that can easily be kept track of ?

The misspelling of VASSAL has become so commonplace that I didn't even notice it here at first.

The VASSAL Arkham Horror Game with me, Southernman, Mr. Skeletor and MattDP should finish up this week unless something goes majorly wrong. I'd like to set up a light fun game after this game is finished.

I'm looking to start a game of either Merchant & Marauders or a 2nd game of Arkham Horror or other some time next week. Post if your interested in playing either game.

KingPut wrote:

The VASSAL Arkham Horror Game with me, Southernman, Mr. Skeletor and MattDP should finish up this week unless something goes majorly wrong. I'd like to set up a light fun game after this game is finished.

I'm looking to start a game of either Merchant & Marauders or a 2nd game of Arkham Horror or other some time next week. Post if your interested in playing either game.

I'm in for M&M, Put.