Strategy I Gamebox Documentation Written by Gary Christiansen Initial Document May 4, 2002 Section of Strategy I Game Map (Countries A & B) at Half Scale ©2002 Gary Christiansen (permission is granted to distribute or copy provided no compensation is required) i Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................................ iv Creating the Strategy I Gamebox................................................................................................................ 1 A Bit About Strategy I ............................................................................................................................ 2 Background......................................................................................................................................... 2 The Map.............................................................................................................................................. 3 The Counters....................................................................................................................................... 5 A Counter Mix Inventory: .................................................................................................................. 6 The Rules ............................................................................................................................................ 6 A Bit About Me ...................................................................................................................................... 8 An Introduction to Creating a Gamebox with Cyberboard....................................................................... 10 Beginning basics ................................................................................................................................... 11 Getting into Cyberboard Designer........................................................................................................ 13 Elements of a Gamebox.................................................................................................................... 16 Playing Boards.................................................................................................................................. 17 Where to draw on a board................................................................................................................. 18 Creating a Board ................................................................................................................................... 19 Area Based Game Boards ................................................................................................................. 21 Board Cell Sizes................................................................................................................................ 22 Game Board Properties..................................................................................................................... 23 Editing the Board .............................................................................................................................. 25 Drawing on the Board, Part I ............................................................................................................ 26 Drawing on the Board Part II:........................................................................................................... 29 Drawing Free Hand Curved Lines .................................................................................................... 35 The Cell Layer .................................................................................................................................. 36 Geomorphic Board Cell Layer Melding Technique ......................................................................... 39 Terrain Tiles on the Board ................................................................................................................ 40 The Top Board Layer........................................................................................................................ 43 Scanning Maps.................................................................................................................................. 44 Boards Created in Other Tools ......................................................................................................... 46 Text on the Board.............................................................................................................................. 48 Copying Boards ................................................................................................................................ 50 Tile Image Groups ................................................................................................................................ 52 Making Terrain with Tiles ................................................................................................................ 52 Rotation of Tile Images .................................................................................................................... 57 Resizing Tile Images......................................................................................................................... 58 Copying & Pasting on Tile Images................................................................................................... 58 Cell Masks on Tile Images ............................................................................................................... 59 Repeated Terrain Features as Tile Images........................................................................................ 60 Counter Tiles..................................................................................................................................... 62 Creating Counter Tiles...................................................................................................................... 64 Scanning Counters ............................................................................................................................ 66 Copying Tile Images......................................................................................................................... 67 Marker Tiles...................................................................................................................................... 68 Card Tiles.......................................................................................................................................... 69 ii Player Pieces Groups ............................................................................................................................ 71 Creating Player Piece Groups ........................................................................................................... 71 Cards as Pieces.................................................................................................................................. 72 Adding Text to Playing Pieces.......................................................................................................... 73 Application to CB Player.................................................................................................................. 75 Board Marker Groups ........................................................................................................................... 75 The Cyberboard Design Menus ............................................................................................................ 76 Creating Scenarios with Cyberboard Player............................................................................................. 78 Starting A Game with Cyberboard Player ................................................................................................ 79 Playing Scenarios from Strategy I ............................................................................................................ 79 Partial Glossary of Cyberboard................................................................................................................. 80 iii Introduction rovide a tool to allow the Play by Email players who use the Strategy I gamebox so they can extend their scenarios or add their own, to increase the usefulness of the gamebox to the players. P My original scope and purpose of this document was that simple. I didn’t expect as I was writing it, this thing would turn into a how-to guide for the use of Cyberboard Designer. I fully intended to simply give basics so the players could turn out some counters of their own, or some extra map sections, charts, or tables, to permit them to turn out games of their own if they so desired. While I was writing, it turned into something a little grander in scale. At the point I realized this was so, I almost stopped and scrapped the entire section on using CB Designer, but decided instead to just let the thing grow and turn it out to allow others to use it for the other contents in it. Some of this material is undoubtedly biased by my own use of the Cyberboard tool, so use what is useful, and disregard the parts that provide you no assistance. You can simply skip over the section on Strategy I’s background and the other related information at the beginning and simply go on the section titled “An Introduction to Creating a Gamebox with Cyberboard”. Or you can choose not to and struggle through my blithe prose as if it makes sense prior to that as well. I