Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
The LFT15 VASL boards are live on the VASL server!
The TLDR:
Therefore, the plan was:
* Push out the boards now, with VASL LOS enabled and Scenario Special Overlays (SSOs) to implement the terrain changes called for in the LFT15 scenarios. This will get people playing the LFT15 scenarios ASAP.
* Coordinate with Doug on the deeper VASL changes necessary to enable the nice-to-have-but-not-strictly-necessary-for-LFT15 things that will support things that people will hopefully want to do with these boards, like changing them to ETO colors, implementing "a la carte" LFT AD terrain changes, and generally making them more robust to the kinds of things that VASL likes to support (like changing Walls to Cactus Hedges, providing a dropdown menu for handling Brush-Roads similar to Woods-Roads, etc.) This will happen when the next version of VASL comes out, but isn't necessary for immediate support of LFT15.
OK, so what are the "immediate support" changes that are in there now?
- AD3.14 - Woods are Light Woods
- AD3.5 - Arid Plazas - on boards LFT9 and LFT7, the Plaza hexes called out in AD3.5 receive a black Wide City Boulevard center dot
- AD4.4 - For board LFT9, all buildings are Stone.
They say "Never apologize", but I'd like to apologize for drawing the buildings on LFT9 with a mix of brown ("wood") and grey ("stone") colors, with both types in the same hex. I should have realized this would cause confusion and Just Said No, or at least have followed up with Xavier's crew to coordinate how those colors were working with their scenarios. As it is, they had to write a special rule (AD4.4) just to make all of those buildings Stone, and that's on me. Mea culpa.
* And finally, each LFT board has a "board LFT# Special Transformations" menu that lets you check a box to implement all of the terrain changes called for by specific LFT15 scenarios, as well as the "Mandatory" LFT AD terrain changes that may apply to that board. Hopefully these Scenario-Specific Overlay checkboxes will let people get up and running with the LFT15 scenarios ASAP; they also gave me a chance to have fun with these SSOs, some of which change the terrain pretty significantly!
Attached to this message is a file with a list of what Special Transformation checkboxes to use for each LFT15 scenario - some of them require SSOs and some just require the "Mandatory LFT AD Arid/Desert Terrain Changes". I've also provided the scenario setup files to Xavier for hosting on LFT's website; people should be able to download those directly and simply open them up in VASL, with the boards (not counters) set to go.
OK, so that leaves a bunch of "non-Mandatory" LFT AD terrain changes that will make it into the next version of VASL but either weren't called for in any of the LFT15 scenarios, weren't deemed visually necessary, or were incorporated into the SSOs above:
* AD3.121 - Orchards become Dense Palm if called for by SSR. The overlays are actually done and included in the VASL bdLFT# files, but this is an "a la carte" change that will be selectable in VASL 6.6.6 when it comes out.
* AD3.31 - Minarets/Towers are called for by SSR and are depicted using a crescent-moon symbol on the scenario's SSO. When VASL 6.6.6 comes out, this symbol will be included as a draggable overlay so that people can use it for their own scenarios. Note that this symbol does appear on the hardcopy version of board LFT9, in hex R5. Again, my apologies for not coordinating with LFT on their Desert/Arid rule set; as per AD3.3 and 3.31, Mosques/Temples and Minarets/Towers are called for only by SSR, and the crescent-moon symbol is not an indicator of either. I simply use it as a helpful indicator in a Scenario-Specific Overlay if that scenario calls for a Minaret/Tower.
* AD4.5 - Broken Terrain is called out by SSRs and has its own overlay that implements the LFT AD4.5 changes - Scrub becomes Inherent (which it pretty much is anyway), and Hammada becomes Boulder-Crags. I did not implement an overlay or new look for Boulder-Crags; I think that Hammada is visually close enough to that, and separate enough from Crags to be worth keeping as-is. Another Broken Terrain change is AD4.51 - AD Broken Ground, which changes Open Ground and Brush hexes adjacent to Hammada-turned-Boulder-Crag hexes into Broken Ground when not separated by a Cliff. For this, I implemented a new terrain pattern fill that I like better than the old one that we've been using for the standard Broken Ground overlays called for by F13.1. I also went ahead and used that pattern for the F13.1 Broken Ground overlay that accompanies these LFT15 boards.
Old broken terrain:
New Broken Terrain:
Note that I chose to not have Road hexes adjacent to Boulder-Crags become "Roads through Broken Ground"; they just stay "Roads through Open Ground". Not sure what the intent was; I can fix that if necessary.
* AD3.11 Orchards to Olive Groves - meh. The existing "DTO Orchards" are shaggy enough that they look enough like Olive Groves; not worth the effort to change their look.
* AD3.12 - Orchards to Palm Trees - ditto.
* AD3.162 - Grain to Thick Grain in Sept-Oct. meh; not worth trying to depict in a special way.
* AD4.6 - High walls - ditto.
Finally, for each LFT15 board currently supports some basic changes that can be implemented via overlay through the VASL 6.6.5 interface, like "Orchards to Shellholes", "No Cliffs", etc. We're not guaranteeing this "full VASL integration" just yet, but where these features were easy to implement, we went for it. Note that some of these things may change with VASL 6.6.6, since they might be more-easily done via color changes than overlays, but we'll see.
So have at it, enjoy, and report back here with any questions or problems!
Tom
The TLDR:
- All you have to do is open up VASL, go to the Board Picker, and enter LFT3 through LFT10 and VASL will reach out and download them automatically
- LOS is implemented (thanks to Doug Rimmer for a lot of hard work there!)
- The board setups for the LFT15 scenarios are in the zip file attached to this message; download, unzip, and double-click on a scenario's file
- Alternatively, one can go into the Special Transformations menu for each board and click on the checkbox for that scenario. If it is not specifically listed there but the scenario calls for Desert/Arid terrain, then click on the "Mandatory LFT AD Arid/Desert Terrain Changes" checkbox. The other file attached to this message gives instructions for each scenario.
- Not every single Arid/Desert terrain change is depicted in VASL; see below for the rationale behind each
- For FT282, one needs to download the RTTR overlays available here; unzip them and put them in your Overlays folder
- edit from 28 March 2023: in a few places here, I refer to "VASL 6.6.6" as the version that will fully support all of the general LFT15 Arid/Desert rules, beyond just supporting the LFT15 scenarios like we have now in VASL 6.6.5. However, those changes did not make it in to the actual VASL 6.6.6 that Doug pushed out today - what can I say, he's faster than me
So as you read this, please substitute "a future version of VASL" whenever you see "6.6.6". Thanks.
Therefore, the plan was:
* Push out the boards now, with VASL LOS enabled and Scenario Special Overlays (SSOs) to implement the terrain changes called for in the LFT15 scenarios. This will get people playing the LFT15 scenarios ASAP.
* Coordinate with Doug on the deeper VASL changes necessary to enable the nice-to-have-but-not-strictly-necessary-for-LFT15 things that will support things that people will hopefully want to do with these boards, like changing them to ETO colors, implementing "a la carte" LFT AD terrain changes, and generally making them more robust to the kinds of things that VASL likes to support (like changing Walls to Cactus Hedges, providing a dropdown menu for handling Brush-Roads similar to Woods-Roads, etc.) This will happen when the next version of VASL comes out, but isn't necessary for immediate support of LFT15.
OK, so what are the "immediate support" changes that are in there now?
- LOS enabled (thanks to Doug Rimmer!)
- "Mandatory" LFT AD Terrain changes implemented via overlays:
- AD3.14 - Woods are Light Woods
- AD3.5 - Arid Plazas - on boards LFT9 and LFT7, the Plaza hexes called out in AD3.5 receive a black Wide City Boulevard center dot
- AD4.4 - For board LFT9, all buildings are Stone.
They say "Never apologize", but I'd like to apologize for drawing the buildings on LFT9 with a mix of brown ("wood") and grey ("stone") colors, with both types in the same hex. I should have realized this would cause confusion and Just Said No, or at least have followed up with Xavier's crew to coordinate how those colors were working with their scenarios. As it is, they had to write a special rule (AD4.4) just to make all of those buildings Stone, and that's on me. Mea culpa.
* And finally, each LFT board has a "board LFT# Special Transformations" menu that lets you check a box to implement all of the terrain changes called for by specific LFT15 scenarios, as well as the "Mandatory" LFT AD terrain changes that may apply to that board. Hopefully these Scenario-Specific Overlay checkboxes will let people get up and running with the LFT15 scenarios ASAP; they also gave me a chance to have fun with these SSOs, some of which change the terrain pretty significantly!
Attached to this message is a file with a list of what Special Transformation checkboxes to use for each LFT15 scenario - some of them require SSOs and some just require the "Mandatory LFT AD Arid/Desert Terrain Changes". I've also provided the scenario setup files to Xavier for hosting on LFT's website; people should be able to download those directly and simply open them up in VASL, with the boards (not counters) set to go.
OK, so that leaves a bunch of "non-Mandatory" LFT AD terrain changes that will make it into the next version of VASL but either weren't called for in any of the LFT15 scenarios, weren't deemed visually necessary, or were incorporated into the SSOs above:
* AD3.121 - Orchards become Dense Palm if called for by SSR. The overlays are actually done and included in the VASL bdLFT# files, but this is an "a la carte" change that will be selectable in VASL 6.6.6 when it comes out.
* AD3.31 - Minarets/Towers are called for by SSR and are depicted using a crescent-moon symbol on the scenario's SSO. When VASL 6.6.6 comes out, this symbol will be included as a draggable overlay so that people can use it for their own scenarios. Note that this symbol does appear on the hardcopy version of board LFT9, in hex R5. Again, my apologies for not coordinating with LFT on their Desert/Arid rule set; as per AD3.3 and 3.31, Mosques/Temples and Minarets/Towers are called for only by SSR, and the crescent-moon symbol is not an indicator of either. I simply use it as a helpful indicator in a Scenario-Specific Overlay if that scenario calls for a Minaret/Tower.
* AD4.5 - Broken Terrain is called out by SSRs and has its own overlay that implements the LFT AD4.5 changes - Scrub becomes Inherent (which it pretty much is anyway), and Hammada becomes Boulder-Crags. I did not implement an overlay or new look for Boulder-Crags; I think that Hammada is visually close enough to that, and separate enough from Crags to be worth keeping as-is. Another Broken Terrain change is AD4.51 - AD Broken Ground, which changes Open Ground and Brush hexes adjacent to Hammada-turned-Boulder-Crag hexes into Broken Ground when not separated by a Cliff. For this, I implemented a new terrain pattern fill that I like better than the old one that we've been using for the standard Broken Ground overlays called for by F13.1. I also went ahead and used that pattern for the F13.1 Broken Ground overlay that accompanies these LFT15 boards.
Old broken terrain:
New Broken Terrain:
Note that I chose to not have Road hexes adjacent to Boulder-Crags become "Roads through Broken Ground"; they just stay "Roads through Open Ground". Not sure what the intent was; I can fix that if necessary.
* AD3.11 Orchards to Olive Groves - meh. The existing "DTO Orchards" are shaggy enough that they look enough like Olive Groves; not worth the effort to change their look.
* AD3.12 - Orchards to Palm Trees - ditto.
* AD3.162 - Grain to Thick Grain in Sept-Oct. meh; not worth trying to depict in a special way.
* AD4.6 - High walls - ditto.
Finally, for each LFT15 board currently supports some basic changes that can be implemented via overlay through the VASL 6.6.5 interface, like "Orchards to Shellholes", "No Cliffs", etc. We're not guaranteeing this "full VASL integration" just yet, but where these features were easy to implement, we went for it. Note that some of these things may change with VASL 6.6.6, since they might be more-easily done via color changes than overlays, but we'll see.
So have at it, enjoy, and report back here with any questions or problems!
Tom
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