Multiplayer team games and "side" support

General Discussion
1

Does anybody have any recent experience with multiplayer TEAM games on Vassal, with regard to side choices? I should remember what went on in a recent Kingmaker game I was in, but sadly, it appears to be another “hard drive full” moment that I can’t recall details of, at all.

I understand that, when a game is played on the Vassal Server, one has to log in “as” one side or as an observer or referee if that’s provided for in the module. Once a person sits on a playing side, he has to “Leave” that post to make room for anyone else to take that side. I’m extremely foggy on whether multiple players for any one side are even supported in Vassal.

So, my questions for a multiplayer team game to be played via PBeM:

  1. When logfiles are exchanged, how can multiple players be “signed in” to one of only two PLAYING sides (in the KM game, we each had our own faction or side, so no two players were ever on the same side! Secrecy and hidden card hands were supported by the module; It’s coming back to me now…)?

  2. If it turns out it’s not possible for more than one player to be on the same side at the same time (ugh), will we have to require teammate players passing around series of log files to “sign out” and let their team mates “sign in” as the side representative every single time?? And how likely is it that some minor corruption might lock a player in or out of the side’s single spot? This is going to be a very long game, requiring hundreds, if not thousands of “hand-offs”, and I wouldn’t want to get a year into it, and find that suddenly, players are locked out of the game due to some software glitch!!! :astonished:

The reason I’m so concerned about the team aspect is that one side of the game we’re contemplating has off-map movement, which is hidden from the other side. If multiple player teams aren’t supported during PBeM, that would mean we’d have to rely on an honor system prohibiting one side from looking at the Off-Map Movement track. I think we can trust everyone, but it doesn’t hurt to lock things down if you CAN.

Any thoughts on this?