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wow that looks really good Justin. I would also like to comment that the Vassal system is on appearances really well suited to Optio because of the visual markers required

Just an update for those who wondered what happened to the Vassal module. I've completed the artwork for 10 armies: Achaemenid Persian, Hoplite Greek, Macedonian, Seleucid, Gallic, Spanish, Numidian, Carthaginian, Early Republican Roman and Polybian Roman. Most of the terrain is also done. I'm now creating the combat tables. There is a mammoth master table for all armies (every troop type vs every troop type) from which I create army-specific tables (e.g. Polybian Roman vs Greek). This is not quite as much work as it sounds but still has been a bit of work. The idea behind army specific combat tables is that they absorb most combat modifiers found in other rulesets, leaving you with a short list that is easy to memorize. I am pulling out all the stops to design a gaming system for mentally lazy players. 

The ruleset along with the army lists and combat tables will be published as a pdf and/or ebook that will be usable on any device. The Vassal module will of course be offered free and will undergo indefinite development as I add further armies.

Some pics this evening.

PS: Since most Ancients rulesets have about 200 armies you might be wondering how I plan to create 40 000-odd army specific combat tables. Answer is I won't. I'll create generic troop types for the army lists, rather like DBx, and then make up a single big table for those (split into three sub-tables: mounted vs mounted, mounted vs foot and foot vs foot). In other words it will be a coarse-grained combat table. The army specific tables - more fine-grained - will only be for select army lists, i.e. armies that were contemporary and actually fought each other.

Here are a couple of images of the WIP.

A sampling of terrain. A river courses past some forest then scattered woodland and then past marshland and broken ground. It bends at a vineyard and continues past more scattered woodland.




The master combat table for the 10 Vassal armies.




And an army specific table - Greek Hoplite vs Achaemenid Persian in this case.

All I can say is WOW!

Yes, looks great!

Fancy playtesting, chaps?

am still reading the ruleset Justin too.....just conscious that I have been quiet on this front recently!

Quote from: Justin Swanton on May 15, 2020, 02:09:55 PM
Fancy playtesting, chaps?

Sorry Justin, no time or energy at the moment!

Quote from: Prufrock on May 15, 2020, 03:22:23 PM

Quote from: Justin Swanton on May 15, 2020, 02:09:55 PM
Fancy playtesting, chaps?

Sorry Justin, no time or energy at the moment!

Your first day of retirement is booked. 

A quick update: I've mostly done the 100 army-specific combat tables and am uploading them to the module. I just need to create large river and coastal terrain, do up a combat modifier chart (for things like uphill, defending riverbank, etc.) and the module is good to go. File size is about 150MB which is nothing compared to a typical PC game. Give me a couple more days...

Well done and congrats! Impressive!

Looking forward to reading and perhaps seeing more about this in specific threads, in Slingshot, or perhaps, just perhaps, in a Youtube tutorial or tutorials.

Cheers,
Chris

I've finally finished the module! File size 160MB. I've uploaded it to dropbox. Richard and Dave, I'll send you the link. A screenshot of a couple of Polybian legions facing off against some Spanish on a hill. A river with a ford on the right flanked by forest, marshland and some vineyards, with a stream near the bottom. Anyone else interested?

holy moly Justin.....thats a lot of work

Quote from: Holly on May 24, 2020, 04:57:57 PM
holy moly Justin.....thats a lot of work

It was a fair bit.  Here are a few more screenshots.

This shows troop attributes. Right click on any base and a popup menu appears showing what you can do with the unit. There are keyboard shortcuts to facilitate things.



Combat tables are popup charts that appear when you click the Combat Tables button at the top.



Then the Combat Modifiers chart.



Terrain Effects chart.



You create armies by opening the armies and terrain window, clicking the appropriate army tab and dragging the units onto the battlefield. Terrain works the same way but you need to place terrain pieces before army units. They are not selectable after being placed unless you use shift + click. Terrain pieces snap to the square grid but unit pieces are free moving. There's even a die you can throw!

I am in awe....I am not worthy.....