And will you be privately self publishing this, or will be it for sale through CGI?

Ralph Reinert

_________________
Ralph Reinert

Rule 1) The universe is more complicated than you can imagine
Rule 2) Rule 1 is an oversimplification.

I thought Sir Eldaen already said that it will all be available for downloading on http://www.harnmaster.net . All for free. That is if Matthias still wants more stuff on his site. The downside of getting these for free is that I'll be doing them on the time I can spare from finishing my studies and writing my masters thesis. That means that the publishing schedule will be Hârnic to say the least.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

Wouldn't it be cool to be able to play a strategy game with the Double Bluff method? There would have to be two sets of the game and a gamemaster who runs the reconnaissance. Whenever an army is detected by a player's scouts or spies, it is placed on his table and moved when it moves... There could also be counters, or perhaps a counter could just be flipped upside down, to indicate places where an army was last seen or rumoured to be. Of course there would be the chance to spread false rumours and release false information to spies. This would make (trustworthy) spying a very important part of a player's strategy!

"Ah, Kanday is mustering his forces in places X and Y. I wonder where they're heading?"

A multi-player game would of course require several sets and a very energetic GM or two! That would be Multi Bluff.

I think I have to look into that!

_________________
"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

This forum, or PBeM, seems a perfect venue for that.
.

I must admit that Vassal is cool but first we'll publish the game normally and then somewhere in the future we'll see if there is time and/energy to transfer the game to VVD! So don't hold your breath until the game is in Vassal shape. At least if I'll have to do it.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

That's great and all, but how do we get the counters that you mentioned? Or are they included in the game and we just print them out on cardstock?

_________________
No signature required

Countersheets are included in the game. All you have to do is to print the sheets on label paper, attach them to 0,5mm cardstock and cut them out. This takes very little but patience. (You'll need some 1500- 2000 counters if you want to be sure that you wont run out of them in the middle of a game. I made more than 3000 for my self and it took me a week to cut the counters out. It is easy to do while watching TV for instance.) The hardest part is attaching the backsides to the counters. I recommend doing this in rows of five counters at a time. (Unique counters, like City and leader counters, should be done individually.)

Making the counters isn't as big an effort as it sounds, and it will be worth your while.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

3000 counters!? Jeez, how long does a (game of) VD last?

"It's not a game, it's a lifestyle."

You have to sell your idea to Games Workshop, Tuomo. Those Scrooges would go nuts by just thinking how rich they get for selling 3000 over-prized miniatures per player.

_________________
"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

"It's not a game, it's a lifestyle." I like that. I just might add it to my signature. No, not really. The lenght of a game depends. It will definitely take more than one evening if you want to really finish the war you start. During playtesting once we got seasoned we managed 18 months during one session (10 hours). Once one gets experience the game gets a lot faster. Always remember to think what you are going to do before your turn! Every bit of playability in the game got there because I made concessions from simulationistic accuracy. I made the game by making as accurate simulation as I could and then making it playable. Hârniacs should love that.

Besides you rarely need all the counters at once. There are so many so that all contingencies are covered so that players won't have to make more counters during the game. (Garrisoning all of your fortifications can take a lot of counters.)

As to games workshop: You can't stack miniatures.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

You may not be able to stack miniatures, but that just means that there will be a need for leader miniatures to actually move on the strategic level board, with the actual troop miniatures off on a organization chart, only to appear when a battle occurs and the action is taken to the tactical board.
Think of all the colorful miniatures this would use!

_________________
Laboro diem, carpe noctem.

Is VD compatible with Battlelust and thus also with HarnMaster? Would there be any pointers there on how to take your battles to the "tactical map" (Battlelust)?

_________________
"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

Well. Most of the battles in VD! seem to have too many men involved to be properly played with Battlelust methods. Depending on the scenario and the size of the powers armies with more than 100 men are not so rare. If you want to play such battles on Battlelust, go ahead. The results of a Battlelust battle would be easily transformable to VD!. I'll have to write a paragraph or two to optional rules about that.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

Fascinating topic, I can't wait to see the game that Tuomo is producing.

However, let me riff on the notion of Double Bluff gaming. As I mentioned in the Crafter's Workshop, I'm interested in building useful web tools for Harn. Instead of having a human GM have to deal with filtering information about movements and reconnaisance (sp?) to the players, that seems like a job for a computer.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but left's take a f'rinstance of the Kaldoran Succession. The server could easily model every manor of Kaldor and thus determine what military forces are available for muster. NPC mililtary forces would muster or not according to their Loyalty ratings, while the PCs would muster and align based on diplomacy.

The server could then track the positions of the various military forces, and based on some assumptions about reconnaissance abilities could tell the commanders what they know.

The players would all have to be anonymous, by the way (a la gunboat Diplomacy) so that they could not pass information to other players - if you want to communicate with Baron X, you have to send a dispatch rider to where you think he is, and he won't get that message for a certain period of time.

When the forces manage to meet up, the server could resolve battles via the Harnifies Mass Combat rules mentioned before.

Let me ponder this idea more, but I'd be curious to hear if this is something people would be interested in.

Odder:

Good luck going down to the manorial level! The complexities you are considering to tackle are mind boggling. I mean how will you model whether Sir X will be able to muster via Manor Y since that manor is loyal to the enemy? Not to speak of the fact that you'd have to generate and handle each manors production and economics individually! I at least got to use averages and it still was one hell of a job. The chaotic elements are legion at the individual level. Nevertheless, my expertise is available if you want to take use of it. Just send a PM.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

BTW. Since the wife-to-be will be away for the weekend I'll be having a session of V,D! at my house on the February 7th from 15.00 onwards until late Sunday night. I still have room for one more player at the table. All those who are intrested and able to come and want to commit themselves to playing this session: send me a PM with you email address. First come first served. Don't bother sending the message unless you are sure you want to come.

This invitation is open to all Hârniacs but I guess travelling to Helsinki is a bit tricky for most of you on such short notice.
___________

Edited due to a temporal error!

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

Do you provide the time machine to get there? I'd say if you can do that I'd travel to Helsinki!

_________________
Balesir
___________________
- Eschew Obfuscation!

Will no one take my offer? We are still a player short and I'd really like to have the fourth player. Oh, well. [sigh]

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

I would like to but the airflight from US to Finland would be a bit prohibitive

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Perhaps, but who wouldn't want to see Helsinki in the Winter when one gets to play such a game as well?

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

Had I been in Helsinki, I would have taken your offer. Alas, I'm in Tampere, and I don't want to see Helsinki in the winter. The coastal wind combined with cold weather is not at all nice.

_________________
"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

[shudder] I used to live 200 metres from the sea. The winds blew straight up the street from the Harbor. [another shudder]

Anyway, Ezar's war got fought and won by Kanday. (Ezar's war instead of Arlun's war because two players backed out. )After terrible slaughters the decisive battle was finally fought infront of the walls of Golotha.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

What is the cost?
Do I buy it directly from you, from Harnmaster.net or Columbia Games?

As I've said before: When its ready it will be a freebie. It will cost you some printer ink, paper, label paper and cardboard, and some work ofcourse. Something happened to Matthias' hard drive so there is another delay.

_________________
Victory, Destiny!

I hope this "something" that happened to the Hard Drive hasn't got anything to do with the upcoming release of Profit, Fate!, a commercial Harn strategic game from an unknown German publisher.

_________________
"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports