I am playing my first Cyberboard game and the most frustrating thing (other than ACTS' die rolling system which is CLEARLY biased towards my opponent!) is that I keep making mistakes with the Cyberboard. I've played PoG F2F many times and so know the game and what I am supposed to move where when. But I can't seem to get the Cyberboard right. Does anyone have any tips on this because it is spoiling what should be a fun experience and turning it a frustrating morass as I blithely send orders to units that aren't in position or don't even exist.

I also found cyberboard frustrating in this regard. My solution was to write a new mapping program that takes as input a log file of all the unit movement that's happened during the whole game, and spits out a postscript file showing the final state.

This helps with this problem in a couple ways. First, the input format is pretty similar to how people already declare their moves on ACTS, so it's usually possible to just copy the message stating movements from ACTS into the log with some minor editing. This way it's much harder to accidentally forget to move some unit, or move it to the wrong place. Second, it's much easier to figure out exactly why the boards are out of sync, since the input file is accountable.

It might not be your cup of tea, but it's available at http://jsnell.iki.fi/software/pogmap/ if you want to try it out.

Golden

I would suggest either mailing each other the screenshots, or abandoning ACTS, so play using VASSAL or Cyberboard only.

Are you and your opponent trading .gmv move files back and forth and loading each others moves? If you are both using the program to track board state independently of each other, then I can see how things would get out of whack.

If you mean you are just forgetting to move counters and markers around to where they are supposed to go, or thinking a unit exists somewhere that it isn't, that doesn't really sound like a Cyberboard issue. I always just look over my game map before making my card play in ACTS and describing my moves.

Without being exactly sure how it's not working for you, the one tip I'd suggest is using the Message feature (CTRL + M) to basically "talk through" each move or related group of moves as you make them. That way you basically document the procedure of your play and will be less likely to forget to place a marker and things like that.

I don't really see a role for using ACTS unless you're concerned your opponent will cheat. Otherwise, the VASSAL module is probably easier than Cyberboard, but either could be used by mailing files back and forth. I find this much preferred....and if one of you makes an error the opponent will usually catch it. But most importantly, your boards are always in sync.

I've played as you described, using ACTS and a board on the side, but it was too easy for us to have difference creep in on our games.

I've used Cyberboard and ACTS for a myriad of CDGs, and very rarely had any problems. Play the cards on ACTS, make the die rolls on ACTS, and use Cyberboard to to update the map. Send game move (.gmv file) to opponent. Cyberboard actually checks your file is in sync with you opponents (which VASSAL doesn't) and give you the choice of accepting to sync or not.

So I'm not sure how you are using Cyberboard, but it is specifically designed to keep all players in Sync.

What is this ".gmv" of which you all speak? We're just each updating manually. I didn't know that there was any other way.

If I could get this sorted I would be glad: I've reached the point where it's annoying me so much that I don't want to carry on with the game, which is a very sad place to be.

I haven't found it difficult to update seperate Cyberboard files manually while describing moves in ACTS. You have to be careful to do everything, and sometimes you make a mistake, but its manageable in a 2 player game like Paths of Glory or Pursuit of Glory.

For multiplayer games exchanging move files seems to work better- in 6-player Here I Stand you really don't want to be forever manually updating your board with moves by the other 5 players, many of which will be quite irrelevant to your own position.

Chris, you may want to take a look at a previous post of mine where I gave a very cursory overview of how it works.

EDIT: I significantly fleshed out my post above and turned it into a new thread.

Cyberboard: An illustrated walkthrough

Basically, Cyberboard records all your moves. When you are done, you record the file with your moves to a .gmv file. You email this file to your opponent, who downloads it and then opens it in Cyberboard. When he opens it in Cyberboard, the board looks like it did when he sent it to you. He can then click on an "advance" button which moves your pieces in exactly the way you did, piece by piece, space by space. When he is done, he can save the moves and then make his moves, save it, and e-mail it back to you.... ad nauseum.

What I never understood about Cyberboard, though, was how, for instance in PoG, you handle retreats--After you make your moves and then make your first attack, if the enemy has to retreat, he technically should make his retreat before your next attack. This can result in several e-mails going back and forth for 1 game "turn".

If I understand it correctly, that's how it works.

Cheers.

Chris Montgomery

As long as a retreating piece can't possibly impact a subsequent combat in the same turn, I'd just slap a "Retreat 1" or "Retreat 2" marker on it as appropriate, move the piece slightly out of the way, and put a message in reminding the opponent to move the piece and complete the retreat on his turn.

But yeah, if the retreat could put your own pieces out of supply or end up somewhere that alters another combat...that'll take some back and forth to resolve. For me, I'd just use ACTS messages to take care of that, then record the move file when it's all done (instead of multiple move files for one turn).

I fail to see the advantage of using ACTS at all, except that its not possible to cheat with it on dice rolls and cards. But if you trust that your opponent won't do that anyway, I find it much simpler to do all the dialogue and dice/cards within the Cyberboard (or more often VASSAL) module.

With Cyberboard there is that annoying issue of having to 'release ownership' that can sometimes be forgotten, but if you make that mistake a couple times you'll become anal about remembering.

As far as I can tell, ACTS is a bit of a relic to a time before the PBEM modules either existed or were as refined as the ones available now.

I think it's sufficiently clear that you think ACTS is pointless, since I've seen your comments to that effect in multiple threads.

Personally I don't think there's any harm in it. I doubt the primary reason people are using it is to reduce the risk of cheating. More likely, it's that two parties get together to play and they can't (or won't) use the same piece of software to manage the game state. One guy's on a Mac and isn't up for the hassle of getting Cyberboard to run, maybe one guy isn't tech savvy and has some Java issue that prevents VASSAL from running, who knows?

I'd do just fine without it, but I like the deck management much more than dragging cards around in Cyberboard, like the game state tracking, and it's a breeze to filter emails from it.

Whatever method somebody prefers, it's great to have options.

I agree that its great to have options.

I'm not emotional about the issue, I just thought maybe there were some benefit that escapes me, trying to invite someone to explain why they prefer it. I hadn't thought about computer/software incompatibility being a limiting factor....but that makes a lot of sense.

If someone is starting out brand new to PBEM, they may be under the misconception that ACTS is the only way to handle cards or dice. Older game modules did this poorly or not at all. The last few years, the modules tend to have all the functionality you need to play the game independent of ACTS or some other online dice roller.

A very good point worth emphasizing. I did not mean to imply that PBEM can't be done without it...so for anyone lurking, take note!

Well.. it handles the Card and Deck management.. which both VASSAL and Cyberboard can do, but ACTS automates it to a better extent, and provides independant verification of die rolls and card draws.

ACTS and CB are very compatible products, and it would be great to see the two combined into one product.