Army List Software: Wish List.

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:40 pm

What sort of features would folk look for in an application to create and handle army lists?
Start from the spreadsheet that's available and think of other features that would be useful.
What do people want? Is an Excel spreadsheet sufficient?

Cheers

Mike

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:27 pm

Getting something legal would be the first problem

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 5:48 pm

philqw78 wrote:Getting something legal would be the first problem

Not really. The Excel spreadsheet is legal. It contains no IP from the the information contained in the army list books. It doesn't contain or store/reproduce/transmit such information. Any software adhering to this principle would also be legal.

IanB3406 · Post by **IanB3406** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 8:31 am

Slitherine outta make something available and charge a few bucks for it. Blitzkrieg Commander does it and it was worth the small amount of money...of course BKC was not trying to sell a bunch of army books as everything was included in the rules......

spikemesq · Post by **spikemesq** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 3:15 pm

IanB3406 wrote:Slitherine outta make something available and charge a few bucks for it. Blitzkrieg Commander does it and it was worth the small amount of money...of course BKC was not trying to sell a bunch of army books as everything was included in the rules......

I, too, have wondered how to solve the Army List Puzzle.

The FoG Army Books are very nice products, and I like them individually far more than the stripped down DBM army books.

OTOH, lugging around that many books for a tournament is pretty cumbersome. It makes me long for a leaner collection.

Of course Slitherine/Osprey do not want to compete with themselves, and a set of combined army list books (with purely the stats, like the old DBM books) would hurt sales of the current line-up. To avoid cross contamination, they'd have to price the combined books pretty high.

After selling through print-runs of the army books, perhaps Slitherine could introduce Competition Books as follows.

First offer a limited edition to minimize market problems but permit players that already have Army Books to purchase Competition Book.

Thereafter, offer Competition Books as a package with the appropriate individual books -- E.g., buy Immortal Fire and Swifter Than Eagles and get Biblical Comp Book for x price.

Another approach would be to create a single volume with all the lists and rule data without the background and color plates, a "Referee's Guide." This could be a hardbound volume with a pretty serious price-point. This would be less likely to cannibalize sales of the regular Army Lists because it could be closer in price (but not identical) to the cost of buying all the underlying books. Dialing down the production costs might also build in a margin that Osprey/Slitherine could live with even though it competes with the individual books.

Spike

babyshark · Post by **babyshark** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 8:16 pm

Interesting idea, Spike. On the other hand, I find that I do not need to consult the army list books to look up my opponent's army as much in FoG as I did in DBM. I think this is because the FoG armies are more vanilla, with less strangenesses and surprises than in DBM.

That is both good and bad, of course.

Marc

Ghaznavid · Post by **Ghaznavid** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:52 am

spikemesq wrote: After selling through print-runs of the army books, perhaps Slitherine could introduce Competition Books as follows.

First offer a limited edition to minimize market problems but permit players that already have Army Books to purchase Competition Book.

Thereafter, offer Competition Books as a package with the appropriate individual books -- E.g., buy Immortal Fire and Swifter Than Eagles and get Biblical Comp Book for x price.

Another approach would be to create a single volume with all the lists and rule data without the background and color plates, a "Referee's Guide." This could be a hardbound volume with a pretty serious price-point. This would be less likely to cannibalize sales of the regular Army Lists because it could be closer in price (but not identical) to the cost of buying all the underlying books. Dialing down the production costs might also build in a margin that Osprey/Slitherine could live with even though it competes with the individual books.

The problem with the 1st option is probably ho do you prove you already purchased the relevant army books? It certainly would severly limit the sale venues to the point where it's unlikely that a profit could be made from it.

I kinda like your last option though.

spikemesq · Post by **spikemesq** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:50 pm

The Limited Edition option would not require prior purchases of the Army Books as a condition to buying the the Competition Books. It would be a limited release without conditions to that people that already have the Army Books would have a chance to buy the collection without having to buy redundant Army Books to obtain the package deal. Of course the window would allow cheap-ass wargamers to grab the Comp Books in lieu of the full set, but there isn't really a way to link the Comp Books to Army Lists books retroactively.

Spike

hazelbark · Post by **hazelbark** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 7:32 pm

spikemesq wrote: OTOH, lugging around that many books for a tournament is pretty cumbersome. It makes me long for a leaner collection.
even though it competes with the individual books.

I really don't see the need to lug them around. The surprise in year 2009 the left handed general can have Teleporting Elephants doesn't really exist. I think at a an even you should be able to ask your opponent for the book there army is from and that will be easy.

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:27 am

Sorry guys I don't really understand the answers. Any implementation of Army List software would be on the assumption that the user has the relevant army list books from Osprey. The software itself would not reproduce any of the information in the list books. That would be illegal.
What I'm thinking of is the Excel spreadsheet style with 'chrome'. Things like

A graphical section that shows a top down view of created BGs and they can be set up in different formations.

Maybe extend to allow BGs to be set up to show friends and enemies in a particular tactical posture and then post it to the forum as a means of posing a rules query - much easier than drawing text diagrams like

AAAA
BBBBB

BG AAAA is... What happens if... etc.

A notes section where the user can put details of the army and comment on its tactical nuances.

A 'post it' section where a list can be automatically uploaded/downloaded to/from a central repository for sharing - a bit like the one on MadAxmans site but fully automated.

An email capability to send the list directly to friends.

etc. etc.

DaiSho · Post by **DaiSho** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:57 pm

spikemesq wrote:
IanB3406 wrote:Slitherine outta make something available and charge a few bucks for it. Blitzkrieg Commander does it and it was worth the small amount of money...of course BKC was not trying to sell a bunch of army books as everything was included in the rules......
OTOH, lugging around that many books for a tournament is pretty cumbersome. It makes me long for a leaner collection.

Hi Spike,

Back at the early days I lugged all the books around with me. Since I could only afford Immortal Fire it wasn't a big issue

.

Now that I have about 5 of the books (I think - maybe 6 *shrug*) I think to myself "Self, why worry about lugging the books around?"

I went to BMW with only the rule book and my own lists... and wouldn't even need that.

The Organizers had their books and I'm sure you could have borrowed them if you needed to reference anything.

Most people have a vague idea on what is in the army, and I don't think you gain much intelligence from having a complete knowledge of the enemy riders and runners.

I've found most people are fairly open with what they can and can't have. You just say "Can you have any surprises?" and they say "Oh, I can have scythed chariots, but if I do I have to have blah blah" or they say "You'll have to wait and see". If they say the latter you know that they have a surprise so you dig out the organizer's list and find out what that surprise is

.

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:18 pm

Ok one last try...

If you contribute an idea and it gets implemented you will get a free copy. And, to be honest, it will be the best 'army list building' software ever seen.

I'll step back now to avoid the rush...

Mike

irondog068 · Post by **irondog068** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 7:18 pm

If you got the time and the computer savy (I have neither) Army Builder from Lone Wolf has the ablity to write your own army lists. I give it a thought once and a while but I cannot make it work for writing my own lists.

Irondog

spikemesq · Post by **spikemesq** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:21 pm

Back to the OP.

So far I have liked the Excel sheet that French group circulated. The final list result/printout is good looking.

To fine-tune that, it would be useful to split the BG columns so you can order them by group (e.g., 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th or A, B, C, D) rather than individually. I understand that the current sheet requires individual numbering to account for mixed BGs. Color coding would be cool for this also (e.g. 1st group = Red; 2d group = Yellow, etc.)

Similarly, severing out commanders, camps and other non-BG items would make it more user-friendly IMO.

As to software that would include imaging for deployment and BG organization, that would take some pretty heavy lifting on the coding side. You would have to use some sort of CAD based utility, albeit a fairly simple one would do.

Adding a feature that would save typical troop types would also be nice. For instance, if I plug in Latinikon as Kn/HvyArm/Sup/Dr/Ln/Sw for one BG, being able to auto fill another BG with those characteristics would be pretty cool. With FoG's blessing, you could even pre-set this. That would take some kind of security measures though to avoid cannibalizing book sales.

Spike

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 7:44 am

spikemesq wrote:Back to the OP.

So far I have liked the Excel sheet that French group circulated. The final list result/printout is good looking.

To fine-tune that, it would be useful to split the BG columns so you can order them by group (e.g., 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th or A, B, C, D) rather than individually. I understand that the current sheet requires individual numbering to account for mixed BGs. Color coding would be cool for this also (e.g. 1st group = Red; 2d group = Yellow, etc.)

Similarly, severing out commanders, camps and other non-BG items would make it more user-friendly IMO.

As to software that would include imaging for deployment and BG organization, that would take some pretty heavy lifting on the coding side. You would have to use some sort of CAD based utility, albeit a fairly simple one would do.

Adding a feature that would save typical troop types would also be nice. For instance, if I plug in Latinikon as Kn/HvyArm/Sup/Dr/Ln/Sw for one BG, being able to auto fill another BG with those characteristics would be pretty cool. With FoG's blessing, you could even pre-set this. That would take some kind of security measures though to avoid cannibalizing book sales.

Spike

Thanks for the ideas Spike. Most things are achievable - I design and implement graphical user interfaces for the ground stations of satellite communication systems - what I don't want to do is write something based on a very small survey of requirements. I code in my day job - so doing it out of hours is sometimes a major effort. I want it 90% correct on the first iteration.

Any more ideas?

recharge · Post by **recharge** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:02 am

Well, in a different vein:

How about the ability to list the number of bases that you have for a specific troop type and have the software sort out the "armies" that you could field with that batch?

I do appreciate that this would require a very large data entry, so probably not too practical

John

peterrjohnston · Post by **peterrjohnston** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:09 am

mikekh wrote:
Thanks for the ideas Spike. Most things are achievable - I design and implement graphical user interfaces for the ground stations of satellite communication systems - what I don't want to do is write something based on a very small survey of requirements. I code in my day job - so doing it out of hours is sometimes a major effort. I want it 90% correct on the first iteration.

Any more ideas?

As Spike says, Olivier's Excel spreadsheet is excellent, but it pushes up against the restrictions
of Excel's use and formatting, so:

1. You can't drag and drop BGs around easily, or copy and drop them in the middle of the list, or
indeed simply insert a new item in the middle with one action.
2. It doesn't handle mixed BG's cleanly, ie as a copyable single BG.
3. Selecting capabilities involves a click to select from a dropdown, unless it's been previously
chosen. Ideally one would tab to the "cell" and type in the first letter of the dropdown item.
Do this in Excel and you get an error message.
4. Player name, club, and such like are redundant in that they should be a global configuration,
added to a print out automatically.
5. You can't sort by clicking on a column header - in Excel it's a menu item sort data, and even
then it's way to easy to mess up the entire spreadsheet.
6. Printing should automatically group BGs by quarters.
7. Click a button to email it to the organisers using your mail software (might be hard that one, if
multi-OS).
8. Excel is Windows only, so if you have a Mac, you're sunk unless you have dual-boot or
something like Fusion installed, or have bought MS Office for the Mac, and many don't (I'm
not even certain it will work then, as they messed around with scripting support in the Mac
version). There's also a smaller minority using Linux. So I'd suggest using a cross-platform
GUI framework if you know one*.

I suppose in summary it would be making chopping and changing an army design easier, so one
can experiment. I wish you luck if you try it, because the major advantage of Excel is it gives you
the calculation and formatting (albeit limited) for free.

Regards,
Peter

* Qt is by far the best cross-platform GUI framework - even if one were to use it only on Windows
it's a better GUI tool than anything Microsoft have ever produced! It also includes a 2D graphics
library easy enough to make a simple diagram layout tool.

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 1:54 pm

Thanks Peter, some good points there. I will certainly do something that is cross-platform.

Anything else?

Ghaznavid · Post by **Ghaznavid** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:05 am

peterrjohnston wrote: * Qt is by far the best cross-platform GUI framework - even if one were to use it only on Windows
it's a better GUI tool than anything Microsoft have ever produced! It also includes a 2D graphics
library easy enough to make a simple diagram layout tool.

While Qt4 is an excellent base, the most accessible version would be an online application. Shouldn't even be to hard to build using PHP and AJAX (that's not to say it won't be a shedload of work, especially to get it as userfriendly as possible). The only drawback is probably that you will need to register to use it (and of course that you need to be online to use it, unless the full code is made available so one can install it on a local server, which requires a being a bit more computer savy, even in the time of easy LAMPP, WAMPP, etc. installation).
Whatever way you choose it's probably worthwhile to attempt this as an open source project.

mikekh · Post by **mikekh** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:32 pm

Ghaznavid wrote:
peterrjohnston wrote: * Qt is by far the best cross-platform GUI framework - even if one were to use it only on Windows
it's a better GUI tool than anything Microsoft have ever produced! It also includes a 2D graphics
library easy enough to make a simple diagram layout tool.
While Qt4 is an excellent base, the most accessible version would be an online application. Shouldn't even be to hard to build using PHP and AJAX (that's not to say it won't be a shedload of work, especially to get it as userfriendly as possible). The only drawback is probably that you will need to register to use it (and of course that you need to be online to use it, unless the full code is made available so one can install it on a local server, which requires a being a bit more computer savy, even in the time of easy LAMPP, WAMPP, etc. installation).
Whatever way you choose it's probably worthwhile to attempt this as an open source project.

It will be a desktop application that can be installed via a web download. It'll run on linux, win and OSX. Internet connectivity would be useful when running but not absolutely necessary.
The core requirements are fairly straightforward and, whilst open source is a good idea, there is probably not enough work for more than one person. However I don't intend to charge for it. I just need to find time!!