I’m still plugging along on the War of Resistance VASSAL module. I’ve nearly completed adding all the counters required for the smallest scenario, but am still a long, long ways off from the full 8 sheet set.
What has started to become a problem is efficient organization.
To this point, I have grouped counters along historical organizational lines - like divisions, like armies, and of course like nationalities. This works well… to a point.
War of Resistance, and I’m sure many other games out there, has the infuriating habit of putting 2 one-step units on either side of the same counter.
In some cases this is as simple as an artillery & mtn artillery on either side, but in other cases the counters might be almost entirely unrelated.
Given that one cannot “dig” through VASSAL’s virtual counter-tray, locating these b-side counters is a real pain in the ass.
Thus far, I’ve come up with two solutions:
(A) - Include BOTH unit names in the dropdown >> 0-8* Mtn Art (0-6 Art)
(B) - Include each counter twice, once with one side up and listed under that name, and the other up with its name
I’m not really satisfied with either approach, and would like to know how others have addressed - or would address - this problem…
You don’t have to follow exactly what is on the counters sheet. Common sense should prevail.
If a ‘real’ counter has different units/markers on each side that are unrelated, then I always create them as separate counters in Vassal (Option B). Otherwise it is next to impossible to find them, or you have silly names as in your Option A example.
Often, marker counters that exist in the real game, are added as layers to counters and so are not really required. I usually create a stand-alone version of these and tuck them away, some die-hard will always go looking for them.
One game I did, had 2 seperate counters for each unit. One has the 1 and 2 step sides, the other has the 3 and 4 step sides. I combined them all into a single Vassal counter, there was no point at all at making them as seperate Vassal counters.
I’ve never seen a game before which is that way. That’s awful.
It sounds like the publisher did it the way they did in order to save
countersheet space. You don’t have that constraint. How about creating
two single-sided counters, since the two units have noting to do with
each other?
Re: saving space, agreed. 8 sheets is enough! I’ve gone ahead and begun adding single-sided counters. It’s a big game, might as well go with best practices…
I would have drawn the opposite conclusion from having 8 sheets: If you’re
going to go through the trouble of publishing a game with 8 countersheets,
what’s one more? Might as well make it nice, since it’s not going to be
a cheap game in any case.