I feel your pain, on the firewall thing. I have not actually tried using it offline. The scripts are similar but not exactly like VBA you would find in Excel macros, so converting it for excel would just be a matter of rewriting the Google script into VBA. As far as I know the Google script is stored within the Google sheet. There are no external calls beyond the sheet calling the script.
Edit:. A brief test suggests that the script is not available when in offline mode, so that appears to be a no go.
This is, of course, just an idle suggestion. The spreadsheet is fantastic enough as is. But since all the cards are already listed, I wonder if it’s possible to design a fourth tab that only shows the cards in the specs you’ve chosen, a la codexcarddb.com? This makes referencing your deck’s content much easier and really makes the spreadsheet into the ultimate do-all tool for Codex.
+1 for this suggestion. I end up deleting all but the relevant columns from the third tab once I start a game already, so this seems like a natural fit to me.
Personally I never use the 3rd tab. I always just have the 2 single pages with each player’s whole Codex open when I’m playing - and this is dead easy because they are even linked to on the main tab, if you fill in that information at the start of the game. I don’t see how it would be easier to have to click on every card individually.
I posted this to a particular game thread, but realized it might be more helpful here. This is in regards to what card should be discarded, but covers more detail about how the sheet populates the “next hand” and “starting hand” portions of the post.
The next hand and the current hand shown in the spreadsheet should be the same unless you had a technician draw, which would reshuffle the cards in hand. The thing that is different is the starting hand marked in the next post. My opinion is the convention should be what is shown in the hand column of the spreadsheet. Of course it’s all honor system.
The sheet is programmed to draw x cards, then shuffle what is shown in your hand, then when generating the post next hand shows the shuffled set of cards. Meanwhile, the starting hand shown in the next post shows the order in which the cards were drawn. A spectator would be able to identify the 2 cards drawn from the deck before the reshuffle, and then the 3 cards drawn after, and then a technician card, and then Flagstone Garrison draws when looking at a starting hand listing just on the order of the cards.
I used to not shuffle the next hand listing, but decided to shuffle it because otherwise someone could try to pick a number in order to hit the cards drawn after a reshuffle, or before, depending on the situation. It’s like shuffling your hand before letting someone pick from it.
Well, the current standard is for the opponent to pick a random number. Putting the button in your sheet means its hidden information what card you discarded, unless you take the time to mark it down.
But hey, if the masses want it, who am I to argue.
If hitting the button auto-generated an action line, e.g., “Randomly discard card #1 of 4” or “Randomly discard card #3 of 5,” that would add the clarity back in.
For bonus clarity (though added clutter to the template), it could add a line break and
Discard
card name.
The ideal (and I don’t know how hard it would be for you to do this) would be for it to add a line of text saying “(discarded)” right after the name of the card in the Starting Hand summary (which includes all cards drawn).
@zhavier
Noob here messing around with the speadsheet for the first time. I seem to understand everything except generating the post. I have attached a screenshot (I was on my iPad) of the generate screen. I used the mobile pulldown and selected “yes” but it just showed me the same screen again, including all my hand info and the programming jargon around the entries. Where do I go to view the generated sheet so I can copy and paste it into the forums?
That box to the right of the generate button is the output, just copy and paste that cell into the forums. Of note though, you shouldn’t need to actually press the Generate button itself, as it will auto generate when you push Discard/Draw, that button is only for outlying cases.
Ok. So one more question…once I have pasted it in the forums, can I edit it before posting? I obviously don’t want my opponent to see my hand and what I turned into workers and such. Also, getting rid of the techy looking stuff would make it look cleaner. Thanks!
This might be a bit redundant, but here are my detailed instructions for starting a game, taking your first turn, and posting the thread.
Apologies if the following comes across as patronizing; I’m just going to give instructions (PC version) as I wish I’d gotten them the first time I played online. I’m sure you know most of it, but it seems useful to get this all in one place, and I’ll copy it over to one of the other threads when I get a chance. Different people use the sheet in different ways, but here’s how I do it.
You probably already have a clean copy of the spreadsheet in your google sheets. If not, you can follow the link from the spreadsheet thread again. I prefer to have a clean copy as my default (I’ve modified my version’s output slightly, and I like to be able to reference that version when I like). Then I go to “File → Make a copy” within the spreadsheet and title the new copy based on when and who I’m playing. (If you’re only planning on playing one game at a time, then you can just do everything in the same sheet, but I like to have a separate sheet for every game in case I start a second one.) If your browser prevents opening a pop-up window, you may have to quickly access the option at the top of your browser to show the popped-up site.
Zoom in or out until you can comfortably see the whole sheet.
In the upper-right, make sure your player # is set to 1. (If you were going second, you’d set that to 2.)
In the lower-right, make sure your Deck Factions are set to your factions (the one whose starter your using on top), and make sure the Opponent Factions are set to theirs (likewise).
Press the Start Game button in the lower-right.
Give the Codex PbP Helper permission to access your sheets. You may have to go into “Advanced Settings,” to allow this, because google doesn’t know or trust @zhavier (their loss).
Instructions for taking your first turn:
Dragging cards is generally done by clicking on a cell, then moving the cursor over the bottom edge of that cell until it turns into a hand icon, then clicking and dragging.
On later turns, you’ll type your teched cards into the Tech Cards column after drawing any cards from Technician bonuses that happened on your opponent’s turn.
Drag any cards you want to play from your hand to the “Patrollers” or “Board” column.
When playing a hero from the command zone (or a token created by a spell), just type their name into the “Patrollers” or “Board” column.
It’s useful for readers if you edit any cells of any units/heroes/buildings/upgrades/ongoing spells so that their name is followed by “Lvl. #” (for heroes), “(ATK/HP-damage)” (for heroes/units), “# HP” (for buildings), or any other relevant information, such as who’s channeling a spell, what’s stored in a Graveyard or Prynn’s trashed time-pocket, etc. Some players leave that info in for the rest of the game; others clean it up again when cards go to discard.
Drag any card you want to worker from your hand to the “Workers” column.
Type every action you took into the “Actions (in order)” column. Type the costs (as negative numbers) into the corresponding cells of the “Action Gold” column. (In later turns, when you gain $ from scavenger bonuses or other effects, you should also enter them here as positive numbers. You might also have to manually modify the top line where you “Get paid” if your opponent destroyed one of your workers with a Marauder or something; you’ll have to manually delete a worker from the “Workers” column in that case, too.)
When you’re satisfied that everything looks right, click on the “Discard/Draw” button below the “Tech Cards” column.
Give it half a minute to process and run the scripts. When it says it’s done at the top of the browser, click on the “Post Template” tab at the bottom of the sheet.
Double-click into the big “Current Output” cell, then highlight everything in that cell (Ctrl+A), then copy it (Ctrl+C). You could just single-click the cell and Ctrl+C, but you might end up with a couple excess quotation marks. This is what you’ll paste into your forum post.
Click on the “State” tab at the bottom of the sheet to get back to the meat to prepare for your next turn and review your next hand.
Instructions for starting the thread:
From the main Codex forum, hit the button that says “All” at the top and select the yellow “Codex play-by-forum” option to get yourself into the correct sub-forum. (You can hit “none” when you want to filter out all the games and just look for articles.)
Hit the “+ New Topic” button in the upper-right.
Type or copy the title, “Casual: your name (your specs) vs. opponent’s name (opponent’s specs)” into the Title bar. (If you were in a tournament, you’d just copy the name of the thread from the tournament’s pairings post.)
Type or copy @opponent’s name (it’ll pull up a user-selection tab when you get a few letters in) at the beginnging of the post, then give yourself a few clear lines. This’ll let them know when you’ve started the thread.
Paste the turn info you copied from the “Post Template” tab of the spreadsheet after your first turn into your post.
Find the “Thoughts” section at the bottom of your post and add in anything you want.
