Also I should say from my point of view, tabletop simulator is unquestionably better, with actually intuitive mechanics.
Sadly Sirlin didn’t partner with them, so we get tabletopia instead.
(I played codex on TTS when someone made a full module for it, but it was understandably taken down)
I would treat Tabletopia as what it is: a Virtual Tabletop. You should play it just like you’d play in real life. Get both players in voice chat and use the magic of the internets to play.
For asynchronous play, you absolutely need an action log. If Tabletopia could play your opponents turn back to you as they did it, that would work. That’s how asynchronous mobile games work, you watch your opponent take their turn then do yours (but those are also generally rules-enforced systems, so your opponent is unable to make illegal plays).
If you’re playing a tournament game in Tabletopia, I’d say you’d just want to play synchronously, as though you were sitting together at a table in real life.
About the log, the PBF has the advantage to have the spreadsheet to automatically write the log. But if it was not there, you would just have to write it down yourself. So if you really want a log, just write it down old style in the chat. But like prunetracy said, Tabletopia is a virtual tabletop. Play live.
I do write mine myself. It would not format the same into Tabletopia.
This means that we could have one-day-tournaments, with commentators for specific matches! SIIIIIIIICK!
So if I have this right, a free version of the game where you use a
spreadsheet made by fans is comparable to the official version where you
have to pay to play it.
They do different things better and worse than each other.
Comparable is wrong, I would only use the spreadsheet for forum matches.
Tabletopia is a place where you get a multitude of games you can play, where codex starter is free to play, and codex deluxe is available for 5 bucks, together with all the other games that are premium locked.
Tabletopia is not perfect, but it is something that I will use for codex with friends unless I can play in person.
Tabletopia is 60 bucks a year, yeah it’s incredibly expensive.
What is more it doesn’t work with azerty keyboards (the ones used in france) and to click and drag to move the camera every time is really boring.
Not having any log in a non-easy non-rule-enforced game makes Tabletopia unusable for tournaments.
What is more, the social thing of playing Codex on the forum (where all games are open to reading and comments) just disappears in Tabletopia.
Tabletopia isn’t only bad in itself (I wouldn’t flame it if it was the case) but it’s bad for the community : it divides the community, makes games confidential and allows misunderstandings of the rules.
60 bucks a year is nothing for the amount of games it allow you yo play. I am used to spend 200-300$ per MONTH on boardgames. So paying 60$ to be able to try that many boardgames, it is nothing.
Also, Tabletopia works fine for what it is and it is in its infancy, it will get better and better. For the azerty keyboard, whats the problem?
How comes Tabletopia is unusable for tournaments? In real life you do not have a log, yet you can play tournament.
Guess what, the games I play in real life can’t be reviewed by the community either.
I am use to spending $15 once for 10 characters in Sirlin’s games. I think the pricing is just a difference on point of view.
$200 per month on boardgames is insanity. Even I wont do it. (I did worse than that on a board game shopping spree. But that was a shopping spree)
$60 per year is fine IF you can get your money worth of game time.
Now I have a month and I only managed to get 1 codex game. It is not easy finding people just hanging around ready to throw 1 to 2 hours of their life on board games. Definitely not on a game they dont know and have to learn. The time investment in live board gaming is no joke.
As for Tabletopia not being as good as forum games in tournament play, I dont think this claim can hold. Best way to compete is live. Face to face with your opponent. Tabletopia is much better in this regard. And I believe it supports spectators.
If you can trust your opponent not looking at your hand or cheating his techs and draws, you can trust him on tabletopia.
Finally, about the annoying constant camera adjusting on tabletopia, you can basically use Shift+number to store your favourite angles and quickly jump between them as needed.
Overall I think Tabletopia is more appealing. I would watch recoded tabletopia match video anyday over reading forum logs (provided it was well edited and had commentary )
That being said, I dont find premium justifiable without enough dedicated tabletopia players ready to spend 1+ hours whenever I find time to want to play.
I hope my opinion piece was worthwhile.
I don’t have much Codex experience but I know the theory well 
I don’t have premium (yet) so I’d like to play starter set with someone, my steamid is black-fm
Add me MVashM
If I see you online I will text you to see if you have time
The Tabletopia version does currently leave a lot to be desired unfortunately. The business model of Tabletop Simulator just wasn’t going to work for us, even though I preferred the interface and features.
Tabletopia is still very new (TTS has been released for over a year) so it has a lot of refinement that it needs to go through before it gets to a more polished state. It took me a bit of time to figure out the controls and HOW to play Codex, too (which is why I made the tutorial video, definitely check that out before giving it a go!)
Hopefully though, it turns out to be a decent platform for playing the game online in the meantime.
I wanted to bump this topic and see if the Tabletopia player base has grown. I don’t have a physical set, but I want to try Codex before investing in it (especially given that my IRL friends have no interest in the game, whatsoever, so I’d really only be PBP). My steam ID is ApolloAndy if anyone sees me and wants to invite me into a game. That said, I haven’t played Codex or used Tabletopia or watched the tutorial at all yet, so be prepared for n00b-age.
Definitely check out the tutorial. I found using virtual tabletop-style programs incredibly frustrating when I was introduced to them, and the tutorial helps a HUGE amount. Definitely worth the 5 or 10 min investment.
Is is possible/reasonable to do PBP using Tabletopia instead of a physical set?
well, would be really expensive for PBP since to get all decks u must go premium (5$ month) otherwise u get no accessto them.
