Phil Sauer
United States
Willow Street
Pennsylvania
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The module looks excellent, and would make a great alternative to PBEM, in my opinion (shorter games overall with options to save between sessions, of course).
In the event there's another utility people use to play TI3, please let me know as well -- but Vassal is the only one I have any experience with.
If you're interested, kindly pop me a private (or public) message and perhaps there will be enough interest for a game.
Thanks!
aax.
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Scott Lewis
United States
Castle Rock
Colorado
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Alas, unless I'm mistaken, the Vassal module doesn't have the expansion in it (at least, it didn't seem to when I looked).
I think the Vassal mod in theory would be good, but when I've run PBeM's in the past using Vassal as the map tracker, I found that it could be very clunky and unintuitive at times; but then again, I was trying to keep track of 6 players' stuff at the same time.
The main reasons that the Vassal module aren't always conducive to TI3 games:
- Time; it already takes a long time to play TI3. With Vassal, it would probably take a bit longer, if nothing else due to program running and potentially hard-to-discuss-with-each-other type of things.
- No expansion (though I could be wrong)
- Save files are not secure. From what I've heard, someone tested to see if the save files are secure, and unfortunately they are not. Basically, it's possible for someone who WANTED to cheat to do so by peeking at other player's cards. Granted, some level of trust should be there, but it would be possible, and nobody would be the wiser, either.
That all being said, if I had the time to commit to a Vassal game, I'd probably be interested if enough players were. Probably would have to be a weekend where my wife and kids are out of town though 
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Phil Sauer
United States
Willow Street
Pennsylvania
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Ah, the security issue... good points on all of that.
Regarding the SE expansion, I see it's there with the mod I've got (1.01 SE).
Your point about the insecure saves would ruin it though, as you pointed out, along with the excruciating slowness of the game over Vassal due to the lack of F2F communication (even with Skype, other games are very slow as well).
So, I would suppose that PBEM is the only way to go -- that would probably be difficult to do without a GM, isn't that correct?
Thanks for the reply... I'll certainly give you a head's up if I find discover anything to the contrary that would make this a go.
-- aax.
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Steve Wessels
United States
Omaha
Nebraska
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Actually, I think both versions are available. And I think the "main" TI-3 VASSAL module has the Shattered Empire expansion included. I notice the first screen shot available on the download page shows a race from the expansion.
http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php?option=com_v...
Also, the irony is that because TI-3 can take a while to play, using VASSAL in some instances many be the only solution. This is because you can, and in fact have to, save after every turn. So it's a simple matter to suspend game play and then resume at a later time.
I do remember however that the last time I tried a 3-person game "live" of TI-3 using VASSAL, which was several years ago, we ran into problems exhausting memory on the computers we were using and the program kept crashing. However, I can speak for the overall stability and usability of the TI-3 module because that's the primary graphics tool I used when creating that TI-3 tutorial a few years ago. So I know well that it really works.
- Steve
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Brian Newman
United States
Portland
Oregon
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I'm interested!
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Kendall Griffiths
United States
San Diego
California
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I would be interested. I'm a new player of TI3, but a long-time player of games on VASSAL (I even designed the module for World in Flames). Here are some things that I've learned about VASSAL.
The memory error issues have been mostly been resolved in recent years with the latest version of VASSAL.
Playing almomst certainly requires the use of some form of VoIP. I use Skype because it is really easy to set up and use.
I've played around with the TI3 module and as far as I can tell it has the expansion in it. There is also a mechanism in place to prevent the cheating thing. When each player chooses a color, he put his cards in a player area that only he can manipulate. If you keep your cards facedown in that area, then only you can flip them over. VASSAL prompts you for a password when you first launch the module to keep track of this stuff.
The module also has all of the card text blank. This is a copyright issue that FFG requires from people making VASSAL modules of their games. A minor annoyance if you have the game, a bit of a bigger problem if you don't.
I haven't actually played a game with the module but it looks pretty good. I've noticed from the server lists of VASSAL that there seems to be a couple of different versions of the mosule out there. Everyone would have to make sure they have the same version, otherwise you all connect to different servers (each module has their own server channel).
Ken
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Phil Sauer
United States
Willow Street
Pennsylvania
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Skype is almost a requirement for playing any game over Vassal... but that's with TWO players.
With SIX players though, that's going to be mighty tricky. It MIGHT be one reason that PBEM is as popular as it is... but I'm one to think that Vassal would be well-suited for me and others, hence I put the feelers out there and nearly have six people interested right off the bat.
Will contact everyone shortly... stay tuned, and many thanks for your comments.
-- aax
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Brian Newman
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Does Vassal need to be played live? There's no way I can manage that. I can contribute a turn or two on most evenings, but that's about it.
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Phil Sauer
United States
Willow Street
Pennsylvania
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Yes, it would be live... the game turns can be saved though. I now see why PBEM works well for this. ;-) Completely understandable in hindsight.
Perhaps a better way would be to just pop into the PBEM forums on ti3 or on FFG and find out how to best go about this. From what I've seen though, games take months to complete. That's not what I had in mind, but it might be the only way around doing this.
Thanks again for your reply as well as for provoking the aforementioned thoughts about PBEM and it's popularity for TI3.
-- aax
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Scott Lewis
United States
Castle Rock
Colorado
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ti3wiki.org is vastly superior than the "new" FFG site for PBeM's. The new FFG forums don't have PM capabilities, or editing capabilities (except for the first five minutes or so).
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Michael Buccheri
United States
Glen Arm
Maryland
Sweet Holy Moses, Fruit F*cker Prime!
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Ti3 wiki and a google group are the way to go to playing this online. you will need one guy to GM the thing but that can be as much fun as playing.
If you need a GM let me know I will do it if i have time.
-M
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Phil Sauer
United States
Willow Street
Pennsylvania
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Hello Michael, thanks for the reply. The assumption here is that this is asynchronous, with games taking weeks to resolve, correct? I'm thinking that's probably the only way this can work with a six-player game. Vassal might be fine for a three-player, and stretching things with a four-player. Yes, a GM would be required and many thanks for the offer to do so... and I CAN see how that would be almost as much fun as playing.
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Bruce Sears
United States
Altadena
California
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Hi Guys,
I'm hoping to start a TI3 game using vassal soon, and though I won't be able to join another game too soon, I am interested in hearing about how your game goes if you do get one together. I'm new to TI3, but a very experienced wargamer and vassal mod creator (I made the Totaler Kreig / Dai Senso) module (aka Axis Empires).
In regards to what vassal does well, it is excellent for games like totaler kreig (big WW II sim) where player turns are long and there is limited interaction between players during a particular player's turn. we play this in "PBEM mode" where we just send logs of our turns back and forth and the other players step through the last player's turn (interaction usually is done outside of the vassal realm, via email queries, etc.)
vassal is also excellent for two player live games, it was originally made by frustrated Advanced Squad Leader players to find other players across the net to play live games with, and it is superb at this as well.
how well it works for a live 6 player game (using skype and email for communication), i don't know. theoretically it should work well, but realistically, perhaps not, I don't know, but am curious. I think you (may) need to accept that the game will take a while, and the logistics of many multiple sessions where 6 players have to be on hand might be challenging.
I'm a new TI3 player, but it seems too interactive and/or turn segments for each player are too short to make for a good PBEM experience. i would expect it would be better to run it live on the vassal server. (we do this occasionally in our TK games when there are occasional bursts of high interactivity, and another great thing about vassal is that it lends itself extremely well to switching back and forth from live to PBEM sessions (and vice-versa).
at any rate, those are my thoughts as a TI3 novice and an experienced vassal user.
btw, the vassal module of TI3 that I have is called TI3liveactionversion_v1_06. is this the latest? it does seem to have the SE expansion bits in it (though i know nothing about its workings at this point...)
anyway, please put me on any mailing list you guys come up with for TI3 vassal games and comments.
thanks, and good luck getting a game together,
bruce
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Joe Kundlak
Slovakia
Bratislava
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Hi guys, does anyone know if the 1.7 version of the TI3 mod is still downloadable somewhere? I dug out only the 1.6 version...
Joe
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