Hammer of the Scots Functionality Overview
**Important..Port 5222 needs to be open for gameplay.
Hammer of the Scots has three parts, the board on the left and the information/action panes on the right and the judge which lives on a server somewhere out on the internet. You will use all three parts while playing the game
The Board
The board looks like the physical board game and shows block positions, block movements and regions. Clicking the right mouse button while over the board will display a popup menu that allows you to zoom the map, chat with the other player, display the rules, show region info and other useful stuff.
Action Pane
The action pane is where all of your commands take place. You can view information on the other tabs, but if it’s your move you always need to go back to the action tab to make your move. Almost every action that you need to make such as selecting a card, moving blocks, selecting a noble, wintering and various others will ask you to make a choice and then click the done button. The only action that is final without a done button is removing steps while in a battle, all others will wait until you click the done button before sending your action back to the game judge.
Selecting Card
Your 5 cards are displayed around 1 big card that’s in the middle. This is the card that you are going to play. To change it you would select any other card you see – by clicking on it. When the correct card is displayed you then hit the ‘Done’ button. While the “Select Card” action is displayed you will be unable to view your cards via the “Cards” pane. This is done to prevent confusion.
Moving Blocks
** Note ** The game enforces boundary limits.
The Movement Action displays a pane with all of your units within a region (the initial region is simply the last one you were viewing), along with a group moves tab. Each tab holds the blocks that belong to a single group move, thus you may have blocks within one tab that is actually moving to different regions.
To move a unit you will first select the region that you want to move blocks from. You can do this by changing the dropdown list or by clicking the desired region on the board. Then you simple left click on the block to move. It will then display “Moving” above it and be displayed below inside one of the group move tabs. At this point you would trace out the movement path on the map and then left click on the region that you want the movement to end.
An alternative is to double click on the block(s) that you want to move and then simply trace out the move and then single left click on a region to place them.
You must hit the ‘Done’ button when your movement turn is finished. Be careful of your pathing – if the path is illegal you will not be able to drop your units.
Battle
When a battle begins the battle pane will be displayed. The battle pane states which region the battle is taking place in and displays the blocks that are currently in that region. Your blocks are on the left and the opponents on the right. You will see the word “Reserve” above any units that will not come into the battle until the 2nd round. The area immediately below the buttons (roll, retreat, pass) displays the blocks that can currently be acted upon. If there are more than one of the same attack order (all A’s, B’s or C’s) then you will be able to select the one that you want to perform the action on.
You then choose to either roll, retreat or pass. If you roll and get a hit then your opponent will display the appropriate blocks that he can remove a step. Left clicking on the block will remove a step and continue the battle. When removing steps – the computer will only allow you to choose steps from units that are eligible to be removed.
When the battle is completed, any blocks that remain will be allowed to regroup.
Retreating
When retreating, the map will display all valid regions. You can either double click the map or select the region and click done on the “Action” pane.
Regrouping
Regrouping is handled in the same fashion as moves, only limited to the regrouping rules.
Wintering:
The game walks you through the wintering process step-by-step for each side. At some point you will be asked if you want to do elective disbands or continue with wintering. By elective disbands we are saying that all of the mandatory ones are done – but if you want to cycle through all available regions to decide whether to disband a unit that doesn’t need to – then you need to continue with the elective disbands. Otherwise the program will jump ahead to whatever the next step is in the winter phase.
Information Panes
Information panes display information about the game but there is no user interaction other scrolling and selecting areas to view.
History
The “History” pane keeps a running history of everything that occurred in the game. The history on the top of panes only shows the last 5 events, while the pane shows all history since the start of the game.
Cards
The “Cards” pane displays the five cards in your hand. You will be able to distinguish which have been played by the “played” text above each.
Region
The “Region” pane displays region info about any region you click on or have selected from the drop down list. This is particularly helpful when a region has stacked blocks. The region info pane will display them all separated along with other pertinent info.
Pool
The “Pool” pane displays all the blocks that you currently have in your replacement pool. The order they are displayed is no indication of which will be picked when you select them during the winter phase.
Game Judge
The game judge lives on one of the F2F servers. It is where the game is truly being played. The judge requests moves from each client and lets each client know about the information they should know about, and leaves out the info that they shouldn’t know about.
Getting Out/ Getting In/PlayChoices:
Every action that is taken during the game is saved to the server, therefore you are able to simply exit the game at any time without worrying about losing your last moves.
When you come back into a game you presented with the game just as you left it, or if your opponent has played his turn then you will be in an action phase.
Due to the persistence of the game you are not only able to play real-time but you could play a turn, shut it down and then come back later to play your next turn. It also allows you to play real-time for a length of time, shut it down and then both you come back and continue playing at another time.