Is there a way to offset a piece placed within a rectangular grid?

Hi Vassal Jedi Masters,

I’m a VASSAL beginner who is already in love with this tool. Why didn’t I discover it years ago? Gah!

Technical question: In my game, my main board is a Rectangular Grid. Its a conquest game, so players battle to control key rectangles. I’ve noticed that when I put game pieces on the board, the pieces are automatically placed in the center of their respective rectangle. That’s great for most of my pieces.

But I also have a small Control Marker piece to indicate which player controls which rectangle. When I drop the Control Marker onto a grid rectangle, its so much smaller than the other units, and looks funny.

Is there a way to specify that this Control Marker piece should always be placed to the upper left or lower right of a rectangle (not placed in the center by default) ?

Or - going for broke here - can someone advise on a better way to indicate which player controls a rectangle? Like, each player could have a signature color (Red/Blue/Green/Orange/etc.) When a player captures a rectangle, could they click on that rectangle and toggle it to a hue that matches their color? I’m open to any advice.

Thank you!

You could design your Control Marker piece image so that the actual piece occupies the upper left corner of an otherwise transparent image matching the dimensions of your grid rectangles.

@JoelCFC25

Ahhhhhhhhh… You are wise, sensei. I will try immediately…

Note that you will also need the Non-rectangular trait if you don’t want the transparent portion of the Control Marker piece to be clickable (which would interfere with manipulating any pieces that fall below it). Also/instead, you can use Game Piece Layers to ensure the Marker is always below other pieces.