I am trying to update decks mid-game (not wise, I suppose). I knew changing pieces will necessitate re-creating them (or trying the update utility).
So I recreated all the cards (from a palette). But they do not “work”. They are not masked when using the command “send to deck” and anyway, the deck does not shuffle them.
Everything works fine when I re-create a game from scratch, but not when I start from a pre-set scenario (which makes sense as these are only saved games).
I believe what is happening is:
When you create a saved game (including a setup vsav) vassal takes a snapshot of the module. This locks in some of the values. pieces can be updated, using the Tools/Refresh counters button. Other things (especially if not on the main map) are not going to change. anything that gets initialized when the game starts isn’t going to change. What I have done after updating a module you can recreate the game situation and save it. Believe this can be a pain in the butt.
Two things especially don’t work with Tools/Refresh Counters - At-Start stacks don’t appear and nothing in Deck Properties will change. I am guessing that you can’t add new decks to an existing game either. I ignore the update utility, refresh counters effectively replaced it and it does no better.
Workarounds that I have used are…
do everything on the cards or via toolbar Global Key Commands… eg. Reshuffle using the Return to Deck trait and suppress the deck reports if you want to report something different.
use an existing at-start marker to create new required counters using the Place Marker and Replace Marker traits and the Delete trait to remove at-start counters that are no longer required.
when refreshing a scenario for the first time, if required, piggy back off an existing counter to provide an update routine to convert the scenario.
How far you want to go with this will depend on how many scenarios your module has, how complex they are and whether you really need the changes. I don’t think you can do anything about the fundamental deck characteristics such as position and drawing. However, I have been able to add a new deck in a new window; maybe that offers a way forward.