After about a month of work I’ve finally finished my module of Mage Wars.
Feel free to leave any comments, questions, suggestions, criticism and what not here.
Module Page: http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Mage_Wars
If anyone wants to try a game with me sometime I’ll be up for it later.
Well done, I’ve been looking over it and it looks solid. Any chance you are already in the process of adding the Warlord, Forcemaster, Druid and Necromancer?
tb
I am looking into adding all those expansions and would very much like to. My biggest concern is getting good card image qualities, but after that obstacle is passed the rest is just a matter of time.
There is bug with the guard tokens. In the rules it say that creatures are supposed to be on guard until the start of their next action phase . However, the guard tokens come off during the ‘reset’ phase.
However, a buddy of mine and I played for the first time tonight and it was great! Very well done!
tb
I played last night with teberger using Google Hangout to facilitate communication and it worked quite well.
Some suggestions:
When you save / load the spell books, could they be saved in the spell book area? It is a little painful to load a spell book and then have to drag every card over to the spell book.
Would it be possible to make the spell book scroll up and down rather than left and right? Perhaps there is a way to make it so either is possible.
A sorting feature on the spell book would also be nice. I honestly don’t know what sort of limitations VASSAL presents when building a module so I don’t even know if it is possible.
For damage, it would be nice if there was just a number you could type in on the creature card that would just follow it around automatically. For large creatures, it was annoying dragging around many small tokens with the creature.
On a similar note, it would be nice if there was an attach to card option for enchantment / equipment cards. Dragging around a stack of them can be difficult when there are lots of other things around. We did discover the drag / select box half way into the game and that helped but was not always successful in a crowded space.
It seemed that the spell book counter was not quite right. The Beast Master’s starter deck seemed to total to something greater than 170. I think it was similar with the Priestess.
Overall, the module was very functional and we were able to play a game no problem.
Thanks for putting this together!
When I am building a Beast Master spell book, Rouse the Beast and Call of the Wild (Nature Incantations) should each add 1 to the spell book cost. However, they add 0 to the spell book cost.
Thanks for mentioning that, it was actually an oversight of the rules on my part. I’ll be sure to fix it in the next release now.
You don’t have to drag them. When a book is loaded into the small “Save & Load Book” window, you need to press the “Load Book” button in that same window, and all the cards will automatically move to your book in their proper places.
Making either possible would be a monstrous task, so for now it would either have to be left and right, or up and down, which ever the module players prefer. If there is a strong desire to change it up and down then I’ll do that.
This wouldn’t be easy if even at all possible sorry.
I had definitely planned on doing this sooner or later, and it will be done in the next version I release guaranteed.
I could make enchantments stack with creatures, but keep in mind they can only stack in one direction. As such, it will be difficult if not impossible to tell your enchantments from your opponents if you both enchant the same creature. This is why enchantments only currently stack with other enchantments.
I tried it with the current books and the current module, and I got 116 for the Beastmaster and 119 for the Priestess. Could you try it again on your end and see if its still the same?
Thank you for mentioning this, I just tested it and it is in fact a real problem that I will get right on fixing now.
All that out of the way, thanks for all the kind words, suggestions, and especially the mentioned problems. One could only do so much play testing with two people, so this helps out tremendously, keep it up!
On a side note: The current books have a few minor problems in them, and are outdated compared to the updated versions by Arcane Wonders. The problems won’t effect any custom made books though, and can even be fixed in the starter books if someone replaced the bad cards. But I will be updating them all anyway to their more up to date versions by the time of the next version.
The current problems with them are:
Creatures who have activated cannot toggle their guard marker.
Some cards with channeling, such as the Spawnpoints or certain creatures, have their Add/Use Mana command in the wrong place, but otherwise it doesn’t effect the game.
Remember these problems only effect the current starter books. Custom books are unaffected.
Scrolling up/down would seem to be more intuitive if you want my two cents. It would be easier to make use of the scroll wheel on the mouse since the sort feature is a no-go
tb
[size=150]A warning to anyone who has made a spell book in the module so far.[/size]
I will be changing the spell book window in the module into a vertical scroll design in the next update, to see if it is in fact better than the first design.
In doing this however, you will not be able to properly load your current spell books, but can still manually drag the cards into the new spell book window.
However if you choose to do that I advise a backup copy of your book being made. I may revert it back to the original horizontal scroll design if the vertical one turns out to be much worse.
Feedback on the coming change is always welcome, and any more problems found should be immediately reported, and I will fix them up asap before the next release.
Don’t worry though, this is the only time I will change the spell book windows design as I don’t really want to screw up every ones spell books now and then. (Unless something miraculously better comes along in a later version of vassal, then I might consider doing it again.)
Update!
Mage Wars 2.0 Changes
Added the following expansions:
Druid Vs. Necromancer
Forcemaster Vs. Warlord
Conquest of Kumanjaro
Added new damage tracking accessed through the Special Actions menu on cards with health.
Number counter added to appropriate condition tokens. I.E. Tracking 5 Burns with one token.
Mage Wars logo button on toolbar now has multiple options, including toggling the turn tracker, and changing the current arena board.
New arena board added, Apprentice Mode version of the old arena for apprentice games.
Spell books changed to be vertical instead of horizontal.
Changed the way face down cards work, there is no longer a peek command, and every card can be easily viewed while still being easy to tell it is hidden from your opponent.
Updated various graphics.
Fixed issues with Rouse the Beast and Call of the Wild not adding up in the spell book.
Fixed issues with some cards which would add points to the wrong player.
Known Issues:
Sometimes changing mages out of your spell book gives an incorrect point calculation, just hit the Recalc button to be sure and it will give the proper points for the new mage.
No starting books for the new mages, and old books are vastly out of date still. Will rebuild them when I find the time.
File size is 5 times what it was before! Will take time to trim fat and reduce the size as much as possible then hopefully properly upload to vassals site.
Forgot to put in an obliterate command, woops! Will add that in the next version when I’m done reducing the file size.
2.0 Download: http://d01.megashares.com/index.php?d01=SwhWr3c This external link is temporary until I deal with the modules current file size, which is roughly 92MB.
Important Note On Spellbooks: Current books will not load well into the module, but can always be manually dragged into the new spell book design. As well, with this update many of the cards in the current spell books will be outdated and may lack certain functions, it is advised that these cards be replaced with newer versions from the module. Effected cards include all creatures, conjurations, and every level 1 Water spell. Id like to hear feedback on the new spell book design especially.
Special thanks to teberger for providing me the scans for the Druid Vs. Necromancer expansion and all expanded tokens!
IMPORTANT!
Many apologies, I quickly figured out why the size quintupled, and it was a pretty bad error I made in haste. I’ll probably have the new “much smaller” version on the site soon within this posting. The change log remains the same, except for the huge file size now, and I will put in the obliterate command this time. 
The link provided above will no longer work, damn sorry I kind of rushed releasing this a bit and fumbled up. Will try to avoid doing that again in the future. 
Okay, its done, file size is now a nice comfy 60 MB and up on the module page here: vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Mage_Wars
Mage Wars 2.1 Changes
Added the Obliterate command to the Card Management menu.
Trimmed file size from near 100 MB to 60 MB, more tirmming maybe in future updates, like say next expansion.
This would be a good time for the forum to have an edit button that didn’t vanish within 5 minutes of a post. cough cough nudge nudge
Now I’m tired, sleep time, feedback welcome on this latest version, ty gg hf
This is excellent. Thank you so much r your hard work! I will try to get a game started ASAP to test out the new features. I’ll let you know if we come across any bugs.
Coming next update.
The obliterate command wasn’t working correctly, forgot to change it after debugging it. Will be fixed in next update.
Made some minor rotation changes, and changed the wording of Use/Add Mana to Change Mana.
In order for cards to successfully obliterate, they’ll have to be replaced in old spell books made prior to this update. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I’m gonna hold off this update for a day or two so that more bugs can be caught and fixed before it goes live. As I really don’t like the idea of having a bunch of tiny updates every 10 hours when something else is found, and I doubt anyone else does.
Until then the current changes aren’t really big enough to effect game play significantly, but be warned that once it does go live old books will have to be updated for the Obliterate command, again, sorry. :<
I maybe doing something very wrong here as I am just venturing into Vassal but I cant seem to see how I can get the arena on screen.
All I see is the blank page with menu icons across the top. I have tried the “MW” button but to no avail.
I have managed to load spell books.
What am I doing wrong?
Many thanks
Mark
My first guess? You might have to drag the arena window down from the chat window, using the bottom most edge.
It is a bit strange, but sometimes vassal is known to just… have the whole play area collapsed up there. See if that helps any.
Second guess, since you are new to vassal, you may have not actually started a new game when in the module. Go to File in the top left corner and click New Game.
P.S. Congrats on loading a spell book! That seems to be the trickiest thing for people so far. Also there is a help file under Help, How to use this module. Though it is a tad outdated, it should still none the less be helpful. I’ll try and update it in the next version. Feel free to ask if you have any more questions.
You were quite right, I had the window for the menu covering the board. Schoolboy error! Thanks for your help.
Bad news everyone, found a really major flaw in the spell book points calculator, that’s directly related to a vassal bug here: https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-3-2-8-global-property-numeric-overwrite-bug/6456/1
Basically, the calculator isn’t reliable if you have cards of one type of school in your book adding beyond 100 points worth. Example: Say you took 20 Earth Elementals, for what ever reason, you crazy Earth Wizard you… This would bring you to 100 Earth School points, which would add up in your book. Now if you took another Earth Elemental, or any spell which has Earth School, it will NOT count the Earth points further in your total. But if you added any other school type it would still count, until you reached 100 points worth of that other school at least…
For most mages, this isn’t really an issue at all, hence why it was never discovered until now. Except for maybe, say, the Forcemaster, who will likely take a majority of mind spells and eventually hit this 100 point cap. Or even a Druid who almost soley relies on Nature spells, or a Necromancer with Dark.
Okay, so maybe most experienced players wouldn’t likely reach 100 points worth of one type of school, but the problem is still there, and I want to hear an opinion from the player base on my course of action.
I can wait and see if this bug will be fixed sometime hopefully soon before releasing the upcoming update, or I can release the update anyway and then later on a second update when its fixed.
Right now the update will have:
A fixed and working Obliterate command, it is still broken in the current release. (Done)
Made some minor rotation changes regarding damage numbers being upside down on rotated cards. (Done)
Changed the wording of Use/Add Mana to Change Mana. (Done)
Added dice pieces for the attack dice and effect die, for better feel with real dice rolling sound. (Done and thanks to GonzoGonzolas for the idea!)
Starter books and apprentice books will be built in to the module for new player ease. (Working on it)
A tutorial log that follows the example play through found in the rule book. (Working on it)
Added the Deflect token for the Forcemasters defense ability, accidentally forgot about it last time. (Done 3 minutes after posting)
So its not a big or major update, and I’m still on the look out for any more minor or major problems that could be fixed before this is pushed out. This problem would probably count as a major one lol. The only reason I’m bringing this up is because this bug was confirmed two vassal versions ago, and I am uncertain of how long it will actually be before it is fixed.
All the same, I’m glad to see so many people are enjoying the module so far, and I highly encourage any suggestions anyone has to further improve it while the iron is hot! Along with posting any other problems that people have encountered. And a quick thanks for taking the time to read this, I know it was a bit long. 
Given the serious implications it has on constructing spellbooks, I’d say it requires immediate attention. But that’s coming from a consumer’s standpoint. I don’t know how involved it would be to fix it, but I’d say address that issue immediately before it festers.
My 2cents,
tb
How do you create spell books to be used for new games. I could only use a spell book I created with my current saved game. I read the help stuff that said to save the spell books as a .txt file but when I started a new game and tried to import the spell book it wasn’t recognized. Don’t want to rebuild the spell books for every game. Is there a step-by-step tutorial on how to save and load spell books so you can build multiple books to have ready to play? Thanks - look forward to giving the module a whirl.