Choosing the strength of the counters for new module

[cholmcc]

@ManserDimor

I really appreciate your precise and concise answer, and thanks for the book.

You\re welcome. Also, if you feel like you got an answer to your question, please tag the relevant post - possibly your own - as the answer to the question. That helps other users find relevant answers to their questions. Only you, as the original poster, can do that.

@ManserDimor

As a side note, I’m in the case of non-historical game situation and precisely I’m designing a game for real armies in their current and near future projected forces, as you have described the problematic in your question at the end.

Consider to take a look at Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific (another self-plug ) and Littoral Commander: The Baltic. The system is a sand-box grand-tactical game set in the near future. Perhaps it is what you are looking for or you may be able to derive some inspirration from it.

@ManserDimor

In this situation, I want your opinions.

1. Is it a good practice to give all similar units of different armies the same strength values?

If you follow Dunnigan’s advice - which I think is probably not a bad idea as he designed a great number of renowned games - then the answer would be: it depends.

Yes, I know - annoying. To put a bit more flesh on it: If you believe (ideally through some sort of research or observation of real-life situations), that a near-future Iranian combined-arms division is approximately as strong as an Indian infantry division, then those two formations could have equal strengths. If, on the other hand, you believe an Australian armoured brigade is stronger than the equivalent New Zealand brigade, then those could have different strengths. Heck, they could even vary offensively or defensively.

@ManserDimor

2. Is there any way to make these properties modifiable by the users?

OK, so this is more Vassal specific. I wrote something about something similar some time ago:

• Options for changing game piece backgrounds during a game?
• Tool to make NATO App6 prototypes and building a module using Python

What you could do, is to essentially have pieces with the following structure

• BasicTrait - just the name of the piece
• PrototypeTrait - Faction - which refers to the faction of the piece
• ProrotypeTrait - Type - which refers to the type of unit - e.g., infantry, combined arms, artillery, …, and possibly echelon - e.g., brigade, division, corps, …
• PrototypeTrait - Factors - which renders the pieces factors
• DynamicTrait - AF - encodes the piece’s attack factor
• DynamicTrait - DF - encodes the piece’s defence factor
• DynamicTrait - MF - encodes the piece’s movement factor

The Faction Prototype contains a LayerTrait with the appropriate coloured background to distinguish faction A from faction B (e.g., NATO “friendly” and “hostile”).

The Type Prototype contains a LayerTrait that pleces the unit type NATO symbology on the piece.

The Factors prototype contains a LabelTrait that renders the properties AF, DF, and MF` appropriately.

You can then define key commands to change the values of CF, DF, and MF of the pieces. For example,

• DynamicPropertryTrait:
  • Name: AF
  • Numeric: true
  • Minimum: 0
  • Maximum: 10
  • Value: 1
  • Commands:
    • increase
      • Menu:
      • Key command: incrAF
      • Type: Increment
      • Value: {1}
    • decrease
      • Menu:
      • Key command: decrAF
      • Type: Increment
      • Value: {-1}

and the Factors prototype could expose user commands to toggle these

• TriggerTrait
  • Menu: Increase attack factor
  • Key:
  • Actions: [incrAf]
• TriggerTrait
  • Menu: Decrease attack factor
  • Key:
  • Actions [decrAF]
• SubMenuTrait
  • Name: Manipulate AF
  • Items: [Increase attack factor, Decrease attack factor]

and so on for all the unit factors.

See also this example module (it doesn’t use DynamicPropertyTrait for factors, but rather the constant MarkTrait - however, the change should be relatively straight forward).

Yours,
Christian