Aide de Camp 2 Hints and Tips PLAYER'S GUIDE TO CARDSBy Richard Wein
Cards in ADC2 can be in any of three types of location:
Decks and hands are basically just pools for cards. Although it's possible to place cards in ADC2's regular force pools, this is not recommended. There may be any number of decks and hands in a game, and any card may be located in any deck or hand. It's possible for a hand to contain cards from several different decks, and it's even possible for cards from one type of deck to find their way into another type of deck. There are many similarities between hands and decks, but the actions that can be performed on a deck differ somewhat from those that can be performed on a hand. New cards, hands and decks can be created during a game, and existing ones can be deleted. Generally, however, these actions are only required when a gameset is being created. I assume here that the gameset maker has already created all the required cards, hands and decks. DecksTo open the Card Decks window, select Decks in the Cards menu. This window shows a list of all the decks in the game, with the visibility of the deck and the number of cards currently in the deck. To inspect or manipulate a particular deck, open it by double-clicking on its name. When you open a deck, the Card Decks window will be closed. So, if you wish to open several decks, it's best to click on Open All. Open All opens all the decks at the same time, each in its own window. You can then select individual decks from the Windows taskbar. Done closes the Card Decks window without opening any decks. Add New Deck is unlikely to be used during a game. Opening a deck will display the corresponding Deck window: A Deck window can be left open as long as you like. It doesn't prevent you from accessing the main program window, and you can return to it at any time by selecting it from the Windows taskbar. Options available from a Deck window are: Shuffle. Randomizes the order of cards in the deck. You should always shuffle each deck at the start of the game, unless you want the card order to be predetermined. Otherwise, you'll get the same card order in each game. Top Card. Transfers the top card of the deck to the game board. The card will be placed face-down, unless the Place cards on board FACE-UP box is checked. Deal. Deals cards from the deck to one or more hands. You can select how many cards to deal, and which hands should receive cards: Set Order. This option allows you to move cards from anywhere in the deck to the top or bottom of the deck. All other cards in the deck will be shuffled, which may not be what you want. If you want to move a card from the top of the deck to the bottom without changing the rest of the deck, then play the card to the board (Top Card), click on it and return it to the deck (Return This Card to Deck). If you need to place cards on the top of the deck without changing the deck order, the best thing is to create a "top of deck" pile somewhere on the board to hold such cards, and then draw subsequent cards from this pile instead of from the deck. Pick Up All. Picks up all cards from the board, regardless of which deck they originally came from, and puts them on the bottom of the currently open deck. Cards in hands are not affected. Rename Deck, Delete Cards and Add New Cards are unlikely to be used during a game. HandsTo open the Card Hands window, select Hands in the Cards menu. This window shows a list of all the hands in the game, with the visibility of the hand and the number of cards currently in the hand. (Bug: the number of cards in the hand is sometimes displayed incorrectly.) To inspect or manipulate a particular hand, open it by double-clicking on its name. When you open a hand, the Card Hands window will be closed. So, if you wish to open several hands, it's best to click on Open All. Open All opens all the hands at the same time, each in its own window. You can then select individual hands from the Windows taskbar. To view several hands simultaneously, select Tile from the taskbar context menu. Done closes the Card Hands window without opening any hands. Add New Hand is unlikely to be used during a game. Opening a hand will display the corresponding Hand window: This window displays a list of all the cards currently in the hand. Unfortunately, it only gives you the name of the card. There is no way to see the design on the card. To highlight a card (i.e. select it for an action), click once on the name of the card. Unfortunately, there is no way to highlight more than one card at a time. Double-clicking on a card plays that card to the board immediately. Play Card. Transfers the highlighted card to the game board. The card will be placed face-down, unless the Place cards on board FACE-UP box is checked. This option has the same effect as double-clicking on a card.
To Deck. Transfers the highlighted card to the top of a deck. A Select Deck window is opened, so you can select from among several decks. You can even choose to have the deck selected at Random. Note: if you transfer a card to a deck, and later transfer a second card to the same deck, the second card will be placed under the first one, not on top of it. This appears to be a bug. From Deck. Takes a card from a selected deck to the currently open hand. A Select Deck window allows you to select from among the available decks (as above). A Select Card From Deck window then opens, allowing you to select the card of your choice, or a Random one. The replay will tell your opponent whether you took the top card of the deck, the bottom card, or some card from the middle (i.e. not the top or bottom card). To Hand. Transfers the highlighted card to another hand, in just the same way that To Deck transfers a card to a deck. From Hand. Takes a card from another hand, in just the same way that From Deck takes a card from a deck. Unfortunately, the replay won't tell your opponent whether you chose a card or took one at Random, so the "honor system" is required here. Sort Card. Allows you to change the order of cards in your hand. Card order in hands does not usually have any significance to the game. So this is usually just for your convenience, allowing you to group related cards together, as you would do when playing a real card game. Pick Up All. Picks up all cards from the board, regardless of which deck they originally came from, and puts them in the currently open hand. Rename Hand and Delete Cards are unlikely to be used during a game. The Hand window has no Done button. To close it, click on the X button in the top-right corner Cards on the BoardIn a few respects, cards located on the board are treated in a similar manner to other game pieces. They can be moved, stacked, etc. Each card is considered to be located in one particular hex (or square), although it will probably be large enough to cover many hexes. To carry out any action on the card, you need to place the cursor on the correct hex. This is the hex in the top left-hand corner of the card. If you have difficulty finding this "hot" hex, move the cursor around the card until you see the card's details appear in the info window at the bottom of the screen. Once you've found a card's "hot" hex, you can left-click on it to bring up a special context menu for cards, which allows the following actions:
Flip This Card. Flips the card from face-up to face-down, or vice versa. Face-down cards are hidden to all players. (The Hidden Piece Options in the Player Information window have no effect on cards.) Return This Card to Deck. Transfers the card to the bottom of a selected deck. Put in Hand. Transfers the card to a selected hand. Move This Card on Board. Allows you to move the card to another hex (square), just like moving any other game piece. Remove This Card From Game. Removes the card from play for the remainder of this game. Standard Piece Form. Opens the standard Select Piece For Action window. This will allow you to do silly things like attack with a card (not recommended)! The real purpose of this option, however, is to allow you to select and manipulate non-card pieces which happen to be in the same hex as the card, or to select a card from the middle of a pile.
A hex may contain a pile of cards (two or more). In this case, left-clicking on the hex will bring up a slightly different context menu (see right), which allows you to carry out an action on the top card only. To carry out an action on any other single card in a pile, you first need to move that card to another hex. Open the Standard Piece Form, select the card, click on the Move Pieces button and then right-click on the destination hex. Unfortunately, it's not possible to select more than one card at a time. Confusingly, the cards in a pile are listed in reverse order, i.e. the bottom card is listed first, Right-clicking on the "hot" hex of a card will have the normal effect, depending on the Right Mouse Button function that you've selected. You can use this to move a whole pile of cards at once. Note: it's also possible to use the Add Pieces action to create new cards directly on the board, but this is not recommended. If a game requires you to discard cards, there are several possible ways of doing this.
VisibilityEach deck and hand has one of the following visibility settings:
Guide to Cards in ADC2 ~ Player's Guide to Cards ~ Gameset Maker's Guide to Cards |
|