Player board(s) with different at start setup?

Sorry, I posted this in wrong forum. Should be here.

Hello fellow module makers,

How does one make player boards (that have different initial units and economies, and powers) for each side that would be excluded from the game if not selected at start-up?

For example, player1 chooses empire X. That Empire has two different setup boards. The selected board is used during play to hold At-Start units and economy (and any special rules). It should be visible to all players. The other board(s) would not be used (or better hidden) to reduce any confusion on selecting/viewing available builds and current economy.

Since there may be (in later add-ons) more empires to choose from with their own multi-start setups, it seems cumbersome to delineate all the possible combinations as selectable scenarios.

Please suggest some clever solutions.

Thanks!

A couple ways to do this. One would be to use the Charts/Map option with a series of tabbed maps so you only open the tab of the map you need although this would not be a true hidden option.

To do hidden is more complex.

In brief you would set up all the maps as individual Player Maps (hidden from taskbar) each with a unique key command. You use the Main Map with At start stack buttons which:

a) configures player map access (via GP) then deletes self and
b) have buttons that access the specified maps allowed per a

Hello Tim,

Thanks for the Idea. Do you know of any mod that employs this method so I might look at an example?

I am currently using Charts/Map with a series of tabbed maps. I hope I can convert these to the hidden method.

I don’t recall seeing it employed in any module to date so far - well one, but I never released it and dont think I have it anymore. The only other place I know it does exist is in my head right now Im afraid :bulb: :wink:

I guess I will need to think it through then.

Can you define an AtStart Stack Button?

Oh, and what’s the rest of b)? it was shopped off.

Thanks

An At start Stack with an action button trait - you make the counter function like a toolbar button

b) wasn’t chopped off, it was referring to bulletpoint “a” above it

if I have time I will make a simple demo of this for you this weekend

Great! Any help will be appreciated.

I’ve been putting off adding all the units for each side until I got a good method of excluding the side variants.

Out of curiosity, how do folks keep track of all the hotkeys employed in a module? I am starting to worry about accidentally re-using a key I set up in an earlier design block.

Here is the demo module inside the zip file. It is for 3 maps. It works the same (in essence) as having to delineate all the possible combinations except you dont save them - you just provide the options on the main map and let the player(s) select - think of your main map like the index page of a book. This way you dont have to create 100’s of save files and it will always stay up to date.

It is still somewhat cumbersome to set up all the buttons but you only have to do it one time (As opposed to thousands of times because each time you update your module you’ll have to recreate all those saved files again)

Btw, keeping track of keys - pen and paper :slight_smile:

I just downloaded the demo. I will study it. Thanks for taking the time to help!