I am new to vassal, i have recently bought a bunch of the old Simulations Canada games, i think they are great - however i am wondering is vassal something i can use to recreate the maps and game pieces for playing it? - i dont need to have any kind of complicated mechanics involved, i just want a recreate of the game maps which are often just plain grids with a number x and y axis, and then either game pieces or the player would just plot things themselves, but i was think if i just have a bunch of red and blue counters i can push around on the map that will be all i need - is this some i can do in vassal? - i suppose i could just have an image of hte map and draw on it in photoshop , but for games like Battle of the Atlantic, there are an array of different counters
Vassal doesn’t have the facility to generate maps, you will need to create these yourself.
However, it does have the facility to generate simple images for the game pieces. In the Module Editor, have a look at the ‘Game Piece Image Definitions’. Follow these steps:
Create some colour definitions and give them names
Create some font definitions and give them names
Create a Game Piece Layout. A Game Piece Layout is a template to use to generate pieces. It specifies the size of the pieces, the border style and allows you to place shapes, text and NATO unit symbols.
Under the Game piece Layout, create your Game Piece Images. For each element in the Layout, specify the options for each element in the layout like colour, text, NATO unit type etc. Give the image a name like Piece1.png, then Piece1.png can be used to create a standard unit in the Game Piece palette.
as for the game map - well that plain gridded board that Vassal offers would do nicely but i just need to change the numbering of the grids to suit the maps i have - is there a way to do this?
or alternatively is there a way where just the space i move the pieces over is just a jpg or bmp image of the game maps i have?
If you click on Docs on the menu at the top of this page, you will see a link to the Modules Designer’s Guide. Not trying to be a smart aleck and I’ve never designed a module myself, but that might be a good place to start or get answers to your questions.
It’s only 119 pages and you probably won’t have to read every single word.
thanks i will look, but the reason i ask first is in the hope that someone who does know the program can say right away yes or no as to whether its possible, so i dont spend ages trying to figure everything out only to find it not possible. i am not sure what to look up exactly in the manual - i mean i will look at main map stuff, but i am not sure what other sections i may have to chck
Part of this may be that it is not fully clear what you really need for the map.
If all you want is a blank map with a grid, you can create that pretty easily in Vassal.
I haven’t tried the unit editor, but again if you just want simple counters, that is also easy.
You mention having the users “plot things themselves”, which is something that may or may not be that easy. There aren’t really much in the way of drawing tools available in Vassal.
I would suggest you just try to set up what you want. Either that or give a much more detailed description of exactly what you want to accomplish.
hi Tar, actually what i need is i think fairly simple, at least i hope it is - basically just counters and the abilitiy to just move them freely about on the screen and the if the background can just be the graphic of the game map which i have a jpeg of , does this make sense?
if i can save the game state thats fine, but even thats not necessary, this is really just to serve as an aid to the simulations canada games i have (the computer games not the board games) - the simulations canada computer games were a hybrid in that that dont have any onscreen graphics themselves, but instead just had an accompanying map. The versions however that i bought direct from teh developer are all digital and so in keeping everything digital and much handier, i just wanted to make teh counters and have move them about on the gridded map
all this being said, you mentioned that it is easy to create a blank map witha grid - can i do this and set the X-Y values for it myself so they correspond with the games, and can i make it so i can free push the counters around on the it - so that i can do like approximate placings etc - ie, a piece might be sitting on teh lines of the grid, while another might be more in the middle of a grid box
If you have a map background image, you can also include that.
There are a couple of grid options. And you can choose to enable snap-to-grid or free placement.
So, all of what you want sounds doable.
Vassal is designed to provide a virtual gameboard and counters for you. So manually moving things is easy.
