Optio available for playtesting

[Justin Swanton]

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

No wriggling out of it. 

Let me do up that pdf showing how the game works and I'll send it to you asap. To go with for now: start the module. Select 'New Game.' Then choose the 'Solitaire' option. Then time to create the battlefield. It consists of sections measuring 8 squares by 8 squares. Choose 'Battlefield' then add a column. For the second column choose 'Side Panel' then click on Next. If you like you can add additional columns (and rows) and put in more battlefield sections for a bigger battlefield.

That takes you to a small battlefield and you can see the various buttons above. Choose 'Armies/Terrain' and then 'Terrain.' Terrain is subdivided into hills, woods, river, etc. Hills subdivide into difficult and easy, woods into forest and scattered woodland, and so on. Put the mouse pointer in the area to the left of the terrain name and drag onto the battlefield. The terrain piece will appear on one of the squares. Terrain pieces snap to squares. You can rotate most of them (except forest, scattered woodland and broken ground). Once you deselect a terrain piece you can only reselect it by holding Shift + click.

Then drag army units on the battlefield the same way. They do not snap to the grid squares but move freely. They can always be selected by a click once deselected. Right click on an army piece to see what you can do with it. The piece can be given a coloured border to indicate which command it belongs to. Generals are given a coloured background to indicate their command. Disorder shows the troops higgledy-piggledy and then back to orderly again. Shot indicates the unit, if missile capable, has already fired that player's move (one can shoot at any moment in either player's turn so it's useful to know if a unit has already shot or not). Morale is used to set the base's morale calibre (it runs from low to high) and then the loss of morale during a game). Missile hits shows how many missile hits the unit has received thus far. when it reaches black the unit drops one interval on the morale scale.

The side panel is used to indicate the course of a turn - go to 'Player Aids' and drag the Turn Marker onto the First Player Normal Movement square - and record the loss of units during the game (necessary to determine panic hits).

The die, also in 'Player Aids' can be dragged onto the battlefield and thrown to give a random number.

But I'll cover all this in detail later.

[Imperial Dave]

right...well in that case....I wont wriggle out of it 

[Justin Swanton]

right...well in that case....I wont wriggle out of it 

Dave and I are currently playing Optio's official first online game. I feel a bit like Elon Musk - cross all fingers and toes...and it works! We are trying out a game in real time, bit of a learning tutorial really. The serious bloodshed will come later.

[Imperial Dave]

right...well in that case....I wont wriggle out of it 

Dave and I are currently playing Optio's official first online game. I feel a bit like Elon Musk - cross all fingers and toes...and it works! We are trying out a game in real time, bit of a learning tutorial really. The serious bloodshed will come later.

serious bloodshed not far off.....!

[Imperial Dave]

Serious bloodshed was had by all....my Greeks suffered at the hands of Justin's Spanish. When the end came, it came swiftly!

[Justin Swanton]

It was touch and go, though.

We're doing Issus next - putting a couple of big, complex armies through their paces to see how Optio handles them. Dave, let me know if you're able to get the updated module to work.

[Imperial Dave]

will do Justin. I'll have a play with it tomorrow

[Aetius]

Hi, I would be interested in the Vassal Module and Rules if they are still available? Please send a link to both. I would gladly pay for your rules and would love to try them out. I'm have played DBA Online, DBA 3.0, Field of Glory and Field of Glory II online for many years. Your Vassal Module looks so smart I would be proud to have it...

Best Regards,
John

[Justin Swanton]

Hi, I would be interested in the Vassal Module and Rules if they are still available? Please send a link to both. I would gladly pay for your rules and would love to try them out. I'm have played DBA Online, DBA 3.0, Field of Glory and Field of Glory II online for many years. Your Vassal Module looks so smart I would be proud to have it...

Best Regards,
John

Hi John,

Sorry for taking such a long time to get to this. Optio is not yet published and I had rather neglected it over the past few months. I've returned to it and am revamping the VASSAL module to make it less fiddly. If you'd like to play through a few games I'd be happy to send you the module and ruleset. The module is rather large now, 624MB. Is that a problem?

[Aetius]

My computer will have no problem handling 624 MB as long as Vassal can. Thanks...

John

[Justin Swanton]

OK you have the module. I'll be posting a few games on the forum. Probably an idea to have a look at them to see how the game works. I also intend to create a pdf walkthrough of the module which I'll post here shortly.

[Aetius]

You really worked hard on the module, it is even more beautiful and smart than I thought it would be. Thanks Justin...

John

[Justin Swanton]

Thanks John.   It's still WIP. I've just about finished a solo game of Leuctra which has convinced me I need alter the shooting rules for psiloi a bit: no -1 shooting modifier for being in a thin line (only one base in the battlefield square as opposed to the usual 2 bases). Skirmisher combat seems to have been generally inconclusive even when one side had more skirmishers than the other. I put this down to the fact that only front rank skirmishers could actually fire on the enemy. Having additional skirmishers in depth didn't help much - that's something that applied to massed archer formations shooting overhead. I'll send you an amended ruleset. There'll probably be quite a few more changes like this and your input here is welcome.

Let me do a couple more Leuctras and post those as well. I'll also send that walkthrough.

[Justin Swanton]

I've just finished revamping the module (again - sorry John!) to make it visually clearer. Here's a pic of my Leuctra deployment. Spartans to the north, Thebans to the south. Full game to follow soon.

[Prufrock]

That's looking really good, Justin. The board looks very clean with the square grid. Most impressive.