Module:Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game

Files

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Module Information
Most recent release is 2.4.2, file is B5CCG4.zip. Please used Vassal 3.1 to avoid serious performance issues. Please register as a user (get a Vassal account amd register on the players page.) There's not any "junk" mail originating from this site, and registering will let other players contact you (if you use an email address you check with some regularity.)

The biggest change with version 2.4 over 2.3 is that the player/player board/and private hands are all linked. When you choose a player side, you must choose a player board to match that side.

Disclaimer: The author has no rights to the images used in this game. Only those individuals who own the B5 CCG cards produced by Precedence should download this game. This module only provides another medium by which those individuals can exercise their "right to use". Note: These images have been published and publicly available on the web for several years. The author has no relationship with the prior web publisher.

Installation: This module requires that a Java environment and the Vassal 3.1 program be installed on your machine. You may have to increase the java stack size (in the preferences menu.) If you use Vassal 3.0 or before, you MUST increase your stack size. But, in short, use Vassal 3.1.

Making the B5 module. Download B5CCG4.zip. This file contains no card images. In the same location as B5CCG4.zip, create a folder called B5CCG4_ext. Download the image files to this folder. Module updates only require the B5CCG4.zip file. Do not waste time and resources by downloading the image files again.

How to Start Playing: 1. See Vassal instructions for starting Vassal, loading a module to play, setting user preferences, and connecting to the Vassal game engine. 2. You should first build decks offline. You can do this by starting a "New Game" from the File menu button and select a side to play (at this point it does not matter which one). You will then be asked to configure the playing area. Choose a single "Player Board". (Player boards have empty decks, which you will use to fill with cards and then save the deck.) 3. The Private Hand window will open. (In deck building you can ignore this window, but to hide the window, use the Private Hands button on the dialog window. If you just close the window, your game sessions ends, and you have to start over.) You now need to open the playing table, by clicking the Table button. 4. Select the "Race Cards" button. Use the panel tabs to find cards you wish to place in your hand. Drag the card from the "Race Cards" display onto the playing table. You can also select cards from the "Cards" panel. 5. Mark Farbus's and Paul Heald's "Deck Builder" can reduce the time it takes to build a deck using this module. The report from this program has cards sorted by type. Using a report from this program, most players can easily pull cards onto their decks in under 10 minutes. This program can be found at Vorlonspace. 6. Cards will stack. As you are pulling cards from the panels you can place cards on top of each other. You can expand a stack (not deck) of cards by double clicking the stack. The cards are offset when expanded so that the title of the card and influence cost is visible for each card in the stack. You can drop cards onto both expanded and unexpanded stacks. 7. When you have the cards you wish for either the starting hand, main deck, or crusade deck, drag those cards to one of the middle decks (black squares.) The cards will flip over. If you right click the deck area, you will have the option of saving the deck to a file. 8. Once you have saved your starting hand, your main deck, and an optional Crusade deck, quit the game. (There is no need for an ISA deck, as cards from outside the game can be created from the piece palette.) 9. Then go online, move to a game room, and start a game, with conflict boards and 1 player board for each player. Other players should join you in the game room and synchronize to the game. Click the table button, and then load your decks from file. Right click on an empty deck, and load your your starting hand. Draw these (4, 5, or 6 cards) into your hand. Then load your main deck and your crusade deck. All other players should do likewise. 10. You should now have your draw deck placed, and your starting hand cards in your private hand, click the Marks button. Drag influence (pennies) to the top left corner of your play area. Influence and power can be labeled, like "3", to indicated that this one token is worth 3 influence, or "-1" to indicated that your power is one less after you have conscripted. Temporary Influence can be labeled with "NW"(Nightwatch) or "LoP"(Legacy of Power), to indicated reoccuring influence bonuses. A tension chart should also be placed in the conflict area. Use four tension charts if you have 6-9 players. 11. Don't forget to cut and shuffle your decks. The shuffle function only shuffles moderately well. The best option is to shuffle your deck after loading. Then cut about a 1/3 of the deck. (Draw multiple and drag to play area, the cards will remain hidden.) Shuffle, and cut the next 1/3 of your deck. Shuffle, replace one of the cuts, shuffle, replace another cut, and then shuffle a few more times, decks tend to get mixed well. Plus vary the size of the cuts and the number of shuffles each time you play. That way no one can get a predictable order in their cards.

Playing the Game: 1. Right clicking cards will reveal the menu of things the card can do. Characters have an extensive list of options. All "Action" options are reported to the chat window and will rotate the card. 2. Characters also allow you to modify their traits. There are two different values for each trait. The first value is to store the character's current maximum trait value. Londo the Diplomat would have a diplomacy of 6 rather than four at the start of the game. The 6 Diplomacy will appear adjacent to the printed diplomacy for the card. There is also a temporary diplomacy. If a another player played Diplomatic Blunder on Londo, his temporary diplomacy would be set to 1, his Diplomacy remains at 6, and his printed value is 4. Temporary diplomacy should be reset at the end of each round, unless you are also using temporary diplomacy to mark the effects of damage. Then it should be set to character's trait minus the damage. There is also a text field, for labels such as "Nightwatch" 3. Mark and Damage counters are currently provided, but should be replaced by using the text labels found on each card. When set, text label for marks appear in the lower left hand corner of the cards. Damage appears under the cards title. Right clicking the card will allow you to set both traits and marks. Players should establish a convention as to whether printed marks are included or excluded from the character's text label value. This also applies to other cards placed on the character. My inclination is to exclude the printed marks as soon as any change occurs. Londo, enhanced by The Eye, should be labelled with 2 destiny marks, ignoring the mark on Londo and The Eye and using only the text label. 4. Cards can be cloned. This is useful in declaring or resolving conflicts. To accommodate conflicts in which any player may be supported, the players duplicate the conflict card. The first two players use the support and opposition text fields on the first card, the next two players on a cloned card, etc. Agenda that allow players to declare a conflict can be cloned, with the clone placed onto the conflict board. 5. Decks can be shuffled and reversed. To place a card on the bottom of the deck, reverse the deck, place the card on top, and then reverse the deck again. Specific cards can be drawn from a deck (and then reshuffled.) Right click on a deck to see these options. 6.There is a turn tracker on the dialog window, and a Ready All button on the playtable. For influence to be "readied" automatically, you must right click it to "Spend" it, rather than dragging it from space above your deck, to the space below it. Likewise to restore influence, right click the token. (Otherwise when you Ready All, your influence will fly up.)



Up to ten players are allowed to play in this module. Rules must currently be enforced by the players.

Errata:

Early versions of some cards (especially Minbari) were incorrectly configured. These cards would not unmask (become unhidden) properly. You should replace the card with a new one from the cards selection. Another option is to use an unused discard deck. Place the card on/off the deck several times may cause the card to unmask. Note unmasking a card is different from neutralizing the card. Only cards from the demostration game should be affected by this problem. Fixed 5/26/06

Cards will not mask or neutralize. Depending on how you answered a "Replace File" question when unpacking the original B5base.zip file, the wrong named CardBack.JPG.gif file would be left in the image directory. CardBack.jpg.gif is the correct file name and should be 18 KB instead of the CardBack.JPG.gif file which is 12 KB. Users of case sensitive systems will have to insure that the correct file is in place after unpacking the zip file. Images0.zip and B5base.zip should now contain the correct and correectly named file. CardBack.JPG.gif should not reappear. Fixed 6/6/05

Alliance Fleet (WoF) is missing from the cards. Fixed. 6/6/05

Victory (fleet, Crusade) is misconfigured. The Victory image is on the back of the card, Alliance Superfleet is on the front of the card. Fixed. 6/6/05

Agendas and conflicts may work better if not placed on a deck. Especially if one wants to right click to change the Support or Opposition to a conflict. Agenda decks still in place. Conflict decks have been delete. 6/6/05

Temporary Influence token to be added. All mark and damage counters to be removed. Mark and Damage counters have been replaced by text labels on the cards. Fixed. 6/6/05

Alternate Factions players private hand could not be viewed by the owning player. Fixed. 6/6/05

Reporting of card creation and transfer between windows, was revealling information about a player's deck during deck creation. This problem appeared when the new version of Vassal was released on 6/6/2005. All reporting has been disabled 6/6/05

6/15/06 Version 2.1 released 1. Fixed mouseover option to disable offboard label. 2. Changed global option to allow user preferences for Center on opponent's moves, and auto report moves. These used to be set to always. 3. Security Fleet(Minbari) image added.

8/7/05 Version 2.2 released 1. Five Aftermaths from Wheel of Fire had not been included. "The First One", "The Trap Is Sprung", "There is Danger, Remember", "Touched By Vorlons" and "United We Stand" images were added to the B5Base file, and the cards included in the aftermath section. 2. An additional text field has been added to Character cards. The purpose of the text field is to hold text such as "Nightwatch". The field appears in image on the card, just above the card type. The hot key is.

Version 2.3.1 Release July 5, 2006 1. Requires Vassal version 2.7 2. Decks can be loaded and saved to a file. 3. Crusade Deck added 4. Trademark added to cards. 5. Ready All button added 6. Private Hands moved to a menu button. Anla'shok card set added

Versions 2.3.4 and 2.3.5 requires Vassal 2.8+ 8/15/2006 1. Fixed deck load problem. 2. Both virtual sets included and images fixed for G'Dok and Death Walker. 3. Missing Event, Changing Opinion, and Enhancement, Hacker, added. 4. A Shared Hand is included to facilitate the sharing of cards. Requires a gentleman's agreement that only those that should look open the shared hand.

Personally signed copy of "Susan Ivanova" card by Claudia Christian to be scanned and added.

Demo.vas was made with an older version of this module, and therefore the cards in this game do not contain the same set of menus and labels that are found in the cards in current module, (cards from the card panels).

Example of Play: Game in progress. Images at full size are clearly readable. Cards now use labels instead of tokens to record changes in traits, damage, and marks.



Inside the Centauri Hand (CH button as Centauri Player.)



The signed copy of Susan Ivanova card is authentic.



Players

 * [mailto:don.holt@alumni.duke.edu dcholtx]
 * [mailto:croxis@yahoo.com croxis]
 * [mailto:bigr12@hotmail.com Jakson]
 * [mailto:knallpucko@hotmail.com knallpucko]
 * [mailto:brianrozema@hotmail.com B33]
 * [mailto:pfaenor@free.fr pfaenor]
 * [mailto:johnevanperigoe@yahoo.com.au johnevanperigoe]
 * [mailto:xxxthrawn@hotmail.com AdmiralHalsey]
 * [mailto:jason_lewis_@hotmail.com Draorn]
 * [mailto:jrispoli@columbus.rr.com Takaholic]
 * [mailto:jsh.erickson@gmail.com ABCoLD]
 * [mailto:jsh.erickson@gmail.com ABCoLD]