Antiquity for Vassal & play by forum is ready: after hearing Ava's Soundcast, who is interested?

v0.5

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17c236vNIDACeXrD_7V8fMYa5csNTPbR3/view?usp=sharing

@EnterTheWyvern, @mr.ister, @lalunaverde, @pillbox, @Captbnut, and anyone else who is interested in the game: please help me test whether or not people can use this without a help file, and if a help file is needed, what should go in it, and whether or not everything works as intended.

Also, this should work as a fairly high moderator load forum game. If people want to try Antiquity without using Vassal, I am willing to run a forum game.

PS: there is no solo mode, but if you do try it solo, you can just ignore the phase changing - leave the phase as “setup”, and you can play easily.

2 Likes

v0.5.1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Ety7rIl6LPrgZFYguvRG2DveQJMVM0U/view?usp=sharing

Fixes the “ready for next phase” buttons to continue to work after the first time they cause a change in phase.

V.0.6

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KbviFedUMyBF9zxw20Sv_ehrEFziVu5U/view?usp=drivesdk

Improved house layout, costs grid
Added a “drag here to discard” for resources
Added right-click “discard one” for resource stacks
Spare carts, storage, fountains from non-players no longer moved to private windows during city building
Added indicator for where to find spare carts, storage, fountains
New city tiles no longer move to private window when not built
Merged pollution and check victory phases for the purposes of “player ready” status (check victory is another phase where no decisions are required)

v0.6.1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AYDpTQFmiqrGvOgFWN6tg70orezWFpCX/view?usp=sharing

Corrected one wood hex that was behaving as grass to be wood
Added “place inn” and “place fishery” to pollution tokens (as they now cover hex functions entirely)

v0.7.4
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gC6xzh4RRjAhQIN2xwMEmK0-eVXP4Cd5/view?usp=sharing

Added zone of control toggle buttons (pathing is slow though)
Added “hide all pieces” and “hide men” toggle buttons for map viewing
Added a delayed report for resource use during city building - all resources used in this phase will be reported after the phase ends
Inns are now hexagonal (like fisheries; I assume this change would have been made if the inns hadn’t been replaced by wooden pieces. Also, it makes which hexes are relevant for ZoC easier to read)
Fisheries shrunk to 90% to make ZoC visible around edges
Optional stone/gold mine indicators added as a memory aid
Added a way to gain fish for San Giorgio and Santa Maria (right-click Cathedral)
Stacks with no resources in them no longer display a “0”
Updated to Vassal 3.3.0
Store goods phase now reports properly
Added a right-click remove grave command

v0.8

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W4LNbcPsAgutKbC9m8HuHPXrLiQkSo2h/view?usp=sharing

Added a 2:1 goods trade as a right-click option for the market
Added building descriptions to flip side of buildings
Added a return command to men on the main map
Fixed the city build phase resource reporting
Removed rotate commands from square buildings

v0.8.1
Added a report about clicking through private build logs

v0.8.2
Reverted to Vassal 3.2.17 due to bug in Mac Retina devices
Added random rotation to grass tiles
Changed piece hide/show button to leave cubes on the board, clarified use for tooltip
Added naming players to setup, names on player boards

v0.8.3
Fixed return location for second blue man
Added reporting for return command

v0.8.4
Reduced the delay for ZoC calculation with manned stables by about half (still slow)
Blue ZoC colour is now brighter, to avoid confusion with water hexes
Faster switching off of ZoC highlighting

v0.8.5
Added a subtle assignation of start hexes. A letter, A, B, C, or D appears on the top left corner of your player board on setup. This letter corresponds to the start player tiles indicated in the rulebook. Easily ignored, but there for players who want it. The letters disappear after setup.

v0.8.7

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IwSPP500tPBQOxwmsWCyqeu7VJ9…

Added help file
Moved ZoC buttons to a sub-menu
Fixed Yellow harvest destinations, so goods aren’t all sent to the same coordinates
Fixed Purple harvest reporting

v0.8.9

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TcR9ehs2a9WTDPtL8m2T-3-BOKOE-CgB/view?usp=sharing

Added a turn counter
Explore now pops up a message, and on confirmation adds the relevant goods to the player’s harvest, discards the exploration token, and increases famine if it is appropriate to do so. So, 1 menu selection and a click instead of 3 menu selections and (usually) a drag and drop.

v0.9.1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IFuJ5n0oC-D8JsFplYAt985GAxAqiubu/view?usp=sharing

Added coordinate grids that are off by default, but can be toggled on/off for forum screenshots and the like.
Added post-city-build reporting for grave removal.
Fixed zone highlighting being stuck ‘on’ when grass is placed while highlighting is on and a harbour is manned.
Placing a city on the map automatically flips the city map to the built side.
City maps (only) are now kind of mirrored on public and private boards, instead of being sent between them.
The private city boards no longer show faded images of face-down city maps.

Ok, here’s a quick rundown on playing with Vassal:

  1. it’s PC only, no way to run it on mobile OSs that I know of

  2. You download and install Vassal from vassalengine.org. If you don’t have Java RE installed, you will be prompted to install it (as of v3.3.0, Java is bundled with Vassal for Windows and MacOS and not a separate installation - but still not bundled for Linux).

  3. Download the module and double-click to run it.

  4. You’ll be asked to choose a username and a password for the module. This is stored locally and simply encrypts your private/hidden info in the game.

  5. Choose a “Player Side” (colour) and you are in the module.

From this point on it’s all pretty module-specific, there’s only a little in the way of generic “how to Vassal”:

  1. Top left of the toolbar will always be “play”, used to click through log files of other players’ turns, “undo”, which undoes your last action, “retire” to leave a game so someone else can take your seat, and the server controls.

  2. There are two ways to play. Use the server controls to join/set up a server, and play in real-time, or click file > start log to start recording your actions. End log, then send the log to the other players by email, forum, whatever. The log includes everything a save file does - you don’t need to supplement it with a save file.

  3. By default, the main toolbar is part of the same window as the map. This works fine, but if it feels cramped on your screen you can change it in the preferences to use separate application windows, which splits the toolbar into a different window. Then you can arrange the windows to make best use of your screen.

  4. Nearly every module has zoom in, zoom out, and set zoom buttons. The set zoom button is far more granular than the zoom in, zoom out buttons, meaning you can choose to zoom to where the map fits your screen, for example, or any % you like.

  5. Some buttons are clickable, most things are draggable, and many pieces will have right-click menu options. This all varies greatly by module. One thing that isn’t intuitive is that some modules “stack” pieces to move them together, and the way to expand a stack to take out individual pieces is by double-clicking. I tend not to use this function in my modules, because it tends to trip up new Vassal users. A stack is different from a deck, though they might not be visually distinct.

I won’t add any specifics about the module yet, because I want to see if it is easy to figure out without help.

3 Likes

lalunaverde and I are going to play have started a game through log files, got room for one or two more. but I can play another game at the same time if you got this message late.

It will, however, run on MacOS and Linux, since it’s pure Java. (There may well be mobile OSes with enough Java support to make this work there too, though I haven’t looked into it.)

1 Like

You need the (a?) Java Runtime Environment installed, which I don’t think is an option for mobile. Perhaps I should have mentioned that. I guess you’d be prompted to install it during Vassal installation if you don’t have it already.

2 Likes

I think I will sit this game out. I need a chance to really dive into the rulebook after two catastrophic showings on BGC