Variable strength units

Okay, so each side has a few units of variable quality that get revealed once they’re used. Fairly simple, make a deck for each pool, put all the possible units of a pool into a deck.

However, these are generally out in play at the point the game begins. If they’re pre-selected in the setup, they’re not really random. If they’re not preselected, then you need to convince the player to do it at start of play.

I was thinking about splitting the ‘unknown’ side from the ‘known’ side as separate units. Include a command to draw the ‘real’ unit from the deck.

But… I’m not sure how to make that work. I want to emulate ‘Replace with Other’, and doing it as two commands (one being Delete) is fine, but how do you do ‘draw from Deck x to the current location’?

The Devil’s Cauldron does something like this for the distribution of Event counters. The position where the event counters will be placed on the map are all marked with a special marker that can be identified (Property Type=Event). The actual event counters are stored in a Deck. The ‘Deal Event Markers’ button sends a Global Key Command to the specified number of units in the Deck. The GKC activates a Send to Location command in the Event markers to go to the location of a counter matching properties (Type=Event). On arrival, (Key applied to counters arriving on map) the real Event marker cleans up by deleting the Event place holder at it’s location (Global key command, range=0, Type=Event, Command = delete).

Well, I’m poking through that module. I’m not seeing the Deal Event Markers button. I think I see the markers themselves. :stuck_out_tongue:

Looking through the prototypes, I see the Event-related ones, along with the Send To command. “Destination: Another counter” is something else I hadn’t known existed. :stuck_out_tongue:

So… My counters should have a ‘Replace’ property, and when activated, set that to “True”, then set off a GKC to deal a counter from the deck with the Send To with property ‘Replace==True’. And then the original counter deletes itself.

I might be able to figure out how to do that, but it would help if I could find the GKC and button in the TDC module, which I’m not seeing.

Also, I’d like to hide this trickery away from the user. Is there any way to hide a map window (with the decks) like you can hide a piece pallet? I’m thinking not, so I’m going with just making the button unassuming and advising players not to fiddle with it.

You do this with a toolbar menu button. Add your map window to the tool bar menu and then blank out the toolbar menu info so it wont show in toolbar - hides it all

Start up the Race to the Bridge Scenario, got to the scenario cards and go to the Hohenstaufen card. There are buttons to ‘deal’ out the Event markers and the German Flak markers (same mechanism)

Okay, I think I’ve got this mostly set up, but it’s still not working. Not really sure about some of this. So here’s my list of the traits I think I need.

As a reminder, I’m trying to substitute a counter randomly drawn from a deck for a regular one already active on the board.

Please advise on what I may be missing:

Variable Piece (Both properties go off on Control-F)
Set property : Replace = True
Trigger Action ‘Fed Adm’
Delete

GKC
Key Command = ‘Fed Adm’
Hotkey = ‘Fed Adm Draw’
Matching properties : Random == Draw [see below]
Within Deck, apply to 1 piece

Deck Piece
Send to Location : Another counter, selected by Replace == True ; Key command = Fed Admiral Draw
Random = Draw [for testing; I think I want to go with ‘CurrentZone = [deck]’ so the GKC only works on things in the draw pile]

I think the problem is with linking the GKC to the deck piece?

I would really appreciate someone looking this over. I just don’t know why this isn’t working.

I’ve uploaded a very simple test module:
rindis.com/F&E-TEST.vmod

Open the “Admiral Example” game, and you should see the main map with two counters on it.

The CA is just there as reference… The ADM counter has a text label showing the value of “Replace” (see previous post for some details there).

The Adm button up top will open a board with a two counter deck on it; both are +1 ADMs. When the ‘flip’ command is given to the ADM on the main map, it should cause one of those to be drawn from the deck to the location of the ADM counter. But all that happens is the value of Replace updates.

Is there any instance in which a user would use this Ctrl+F (Flip) command on a piece and not have this replacement occur? I am looking at this right now and it seems fraught with problems (trying to bind too many disparate actions to a keystroke) and a bit over-elaborate.

The process of grabbing a replacement piece from this deck, teleporting it to the original piece’s location, and then deleting the original piece will be straightforward. If you want to do it conditionally (like there are other circumstances that may or may not change the value of Replace between true and false), that is easy enough to handle. But if you are only ever changing this value for the purpose of this process, it’s not really needed at all that I can tell.

Try this: db.tt/lrdg7IWm

I got myself confused by the Dynamic Property for Replace, I see why that’s needed (so the piece pulled from the deck goes to the right counter).

Start a brand new blank game–I put an At-Start Stack containing the ADM piece I modified. I broke this down into a simple Trigger that does 3 steps in sequence:

  1. Change Replace from false to true
  2. Dispatch a GKC to 1 item in the deck on the Admirals window
  3. Have the ADM piece delete itself

You don’t want the GKC at the top module level and don’t need global hotkeys at all. Put the GKC directly into the piece from which it originates. Also the match condition on your Trigger was problematic–this “only happen when Replace is true” was only needed in the property match expression of the ADM +1 pieces (which you had correct).

Okay! Finally got that to work in the main module. Now to iterate through a bunch of variations, and then go back to my other outstanding problem (displaying values in a form; I’ll produce a better stripped down example at some point).

Took me a bit to get working, was looking at my original piece that you had played with instead of the at-start stack…

Didn’t realize that GKC was in the list of counter traits, and thought they had to exist at the module level, so that’s why I had that going on.

At any rate, many thanks! This will get me around a problem that’s caused too many ground up rebuilds of scenarios over the years. And it gets rid of the ‘not really variable’ problem in those setups. :smiley: