Kriegspiel

Good Morning (Afternoon, Evening, General Existence, whatevs; it’s morning here), folks.

Zorro and I are collaborating to build a mod of Avalon Hill’s Kriegspiel. So far we’ve communicated via PM but I figured I’d go ahead and make a public thread in case there’s anybody out there interested in a mod of this particular game and that wanted to throw in their two cents into its design. I don’t have anything specific to talk about as far as the mod goes right now; mainly just wanted to have the link to the BGG materials handy for reference.

So, my understanding is that AH discontinued the game in 1979; does anybody know if it was ever reintroduced/reprinted? Just asking for information’s sake (read: if I can get both older and newer artwork into the mod, I’d be willing to add both).

Zorro, just letting you know I’ve received the materials you e-mailed me.

Looks like my first order of business is going to be to assemble the boards. Not a problem - just a little bit of GIMP work.

good deal, again if theres anything else let me know.

Boards have been reassembled. I might need to do some more work with red’s; there was a bit of a change in the lighting with the two scans. Black’s are fine. I’ve also started “punching out” the tokens; I got most of black’s done before I had to come back from my lunch break. The base CRT has also been extracted successfully.

Still reviewing the rules. I was wondering in your e-mail what you meant by “adding unlimited maps geomorphically”; individual naming of counters is not a problem. Also, was there a specific set of variants/optional rules you had in mind (i.e. someplace I could find a list of them)?

Attack cards for the CRT certainly make sense given how the game’s CRT works…if none exist I can probably work up a few. I’ll admit that I haven’t searched BGG as thoroughly for game materials as I could’ve.

Been through BGG at this point. Picked up a couple more images I might be able to use with the mod.

It looks as if Attack cards didn’t exist in the original game - the defender picked a defense card, the attacker chose an attack strategy out loud and the defense card was flipped. Then it was off to the CRT for the result.

No dice at all…that’s interesting.

that is exactly how the combat was resolved. there were two sets of “defense” cards one for each player. The boards are geomorphic and connect lengthwise and side by side and in different combinations. I think it would be novel if you could combine more than just two boards for the map. By having a 4, 6, 8, board map would increase the size of the play area and ability to increase the size of each army. The armies are slightly different composition also. Notice the black army had armored units and the red has mechanized symbols. When we used the game to moderate miniature campaigns the units were assigned a OOB and if the battle was too big or to small or not worth setting up in miniature we used the CRT to resolve the battle. The variants were simple like designating POW camps or missle base in a particular city. We also used the military designations to represent different time periods such as ancients, naps, etc.

Ah - a set for each player, that makes sense…I had been wondering why there were two. Kinda dumb for me not to pick up on that.

I had been considering how I wanted to do the boards…they strike me as the most complex part of the game, especially since you’re supposed to set up your pieces without your opponent knowing where you’ve set up. My gut’s telling me to set them up as pieces and use piece layers to make sure they stay firmly in the back; I’d have to have a pretty large playing area for up to eight maps, I figure.

Eight maps - that’s four sets, right? So I should plan for four times as many pieces?
Not a problem to set that up, just need some details.

Got the tokens into the game yesterday. I’ve set them up with prototypes to add functionality; I’m trying to get them to where they will return to the correct deadpile when they are killed and to keep track of the number of combat factors their controlling player has in play. I also plan on adding some functions that keep track of when a piece has been moved. I’d also like to set it up so that they are deployed invisibly; that seems to be the easiest way of emulating the game’s setup phase - a player can see their tokens but their opponent cannot see them, then at a command both sets of tokens are revealed. Still setting all this up.

I dont think the hidden setup will be a big issue. one way to play is purchase a pre-determined amount of combat factors at start then alternate placing units on the map after a die roll to see who goes first. Or, roll to see who sets up first. There is just so many possibilites out of this little game. humm… total hidden units might be interesting such as untried units like in panzergroup gudarian.

Quick update - I’m continuing to have problems finding time to work on the mod; hence the slow development so far. I have gotten to the point where the tokens are correctly adding their combat factor sum to a player’s side when they are placed on the board and substracting it from their sum when they are moved to the dead pile, and I’ve got invisibility implemented. I did note where pieces were adding their combat factors when they were being moved on the board today; this is a problem I’ve come across before and I know how to fix, I just haven’t had time to do it yet. I’m also trying to figure out how to get pieces to move to different locations in the deadpile when they are sent there. I do have a movement mark in, but no “next turn” implementation has occurred yet to remove those marks.

All in all, things are coming together slowly but surely.

Capi… you are awsome!! ( did I already mention that?)

Not sure you did; thanks for the compliment.

Issues with the combat factor counting have been resolved. I’m now working through outstanding issues with invisibility. Right now there’s a Global Key Command button to reveal all units, which works for the revealing locations of units after their initial placement, but if a piece gets moved to the deadpile while it’s still “cloaked” there is no current option for making it “uncloaked”. Should just be a matter of adding the command to the token menu. I’ve also added movement trails; this is a feature that I’m still tinkering with.

I think the tokens are just about ready to go. Still need to figure out how I’m going to handle boards, and there’s still the advanced rules to consider.

Got frustrated with some of the ongoing issues I’m having with invisibility yesterday, so I decided to start work on counters for the advanced rules. Artwork stuff so far - I’ve got a preliminary image for black and red forts and for replacement factor counters. I have imagery for rockets, ICBMs, air power factors and flags. Still need something for missile silos and p.o.w. camps.

Still having problems finding enough time to work in earnest on the mod, but I’ve got another project that I should finish up in the next day or two. Hopefully I’ll have a little more time to work on the mod in the coming days.

Been a while, so here’s an update. I’ve made a change as to how I wanted to handle how players kept track of things such as replacement factors, nukes, and so forth. That necessitated the generation of additional artwork, an effort that was completed earlier today and that I hope to incorporate into the game as early as tomorrow. I’ve still got lingering issues with invisibility to work out as well. I’m getting there; it’s just taking longer than I anticipated.

Been busy with other projects lately - can’t report much recent progress. Hopefully I can get back to work soon.