Hi, I’m playing a PBEM game of Virgin Queen.
I start the game, choose side (Ottoman), draw cards and pass the log to the second player. When it gets back to me after everybody has drawn cards, I open the last log and I get a dialog asking me which side would I like to join.
First problem, vassal doesn’t remember I already picked a side. Second one, it lets me choose four of the six available sides, so I can open my opponent’s hands and see their cards (not all of them, but most). Probably they can open my hand and see my cards also.
Any idea what could be causing this or how to fix it?
In case it matters, I’m running vassal 3.2.16, VQ 2.2 and Java™ SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_91-b14), on a W10 machine.
One or more people in your game is either not loading logfiles in the correct order, not playing them back to completion before starting their own logfile, or some combination of those.
Assuming the very first thing you did after creating a new game and joining the Ottoman side was Begin logfile, it sounds like your steps were all correct. By the way, I would strongly recommend the person who starts the game be the one who deals cards to all players–it’s not necessary for each player to draw their own and only increases the likelihood of these kind of errors.
In the first go-round of a 6P game, the first log you make is what embeds your personal module password in the logfile and “locks” a player side to you. When the Spanish player loads your file, he should see only 5 sides available (Ottoman should now be locked by you). If all is done correctly, when the English player takes his first turn, only 4 sides should be available for selection. When the French player goes, only 3 sides, and so on. If any player loads up a file and sees any sides listed that should have gone before them in the order, something has gone wrong.
After the creation of the initial logfile, each player in order should do the following:
- Load only the logfile of the player immediately preceding you in order.
- Play it back all the way to completion.
- Use Begin logfile, make your moves, then end the logfile and pass it on.
Assuming steps 1 and 2 are followed religiously, players should only ever need to load a single logfile prior to making a play. It’s fine to view and step through all the intervening logs between your impulses, but close out each one after doing so to avoid errors.
As indicated in the Quick Start guide within the module’s Help menu, it is possible to replay several logs in sequence using the Load Continuation feature, but I advise against it, as in my experience the likelihood of accidentally skipping a file or forgetting playback skyrockets.