Problem using Clone and Send To Location Traits Together

The problem I’m having is described (somewhat vaguely I admit) in the topic in the link below.

As it is buried on Page 4 of that long thread, it doesn’t seem to be getting much attention, so this is an unashamed attempt to raise the profile of the problem.

http://www.vassalengine.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6288&start=45#p45150

Hopefully someone has an idea about whether what I am trying to do is feasible and how to make it work.

TIA

Tim

OK … I will post the details here in case that helps generate some interest.

What I’m trying to do and why …

Many Sword of Rome cards have events that bring leaders and / or reinforcements into play. For most of these reinforcements strength of Combat Units (CUs) is known, so I want to automatically bring these new counters into the play area to speed up play.

I am struggling with the the best way to do this, but have tried the following approach which is partially working.

For Leader counters, this is fairly easy, as there is a fixed number and type of counters. Here it is just a matter of using Global Key Commands from the cards and Triggers on counters (on another map) watching for the GKC, to then enable sending the Leaders from at start stacks to a reinforcement zone on the main map (by triggering a Send To Location trait).

The same technique doesn’t really work for CUs, as CUs of the same side and strength can be brought into play for many different events, i.e. they are not really unique like leaders. Also, some of these events can occur multiple times through repeated play of the same card during play (the ones that bring CU only into the game). As such use of at start stacks as per the above description for leaders does not work that well. I have tried to use the Clone trait to reproduce a piece before sending it to the reinforcement zone (to enable later clones and sending to occur), but this will not work reliably.

So I’ve been trying to use the clone approach from pieces in at start stack - note that the clone approach seems to work well except for this one problem.

Any immediately following activity (move, click) on the card - which initiated the clone and send to location behaviour on the piece in the at start stack - causes the cloned piece to be moved as well. It gets moved to a different location, to the nearest location (irregular grid used with snap to grid on) in the top left hand corner of the map.

Alternatively, if the card is not the subject of the next activity (e.g. click or move another piece) then the cloned piece stays in the at start stack it was created in.

Struggling with this one. Any help appreciated. If I need to post vmod files please let me know.

Please help if you can, or offer an alternate approach.