Art de la Guerre V4 (ADLG) Tools

This page is home for some tools I've written that I hope will be of use to both ADLG players and tournament organisers.  They are a simple list writing tool and a list search tool.

The tools, written with Google Sheets, utilise a database I prepared from the latest ADLG V4 lists published in April 2021.^{1, 2}

These tools need to be held online in a personal Google Drive.³  They don't work with Excel or similar.^{4, 5}

What do they do?

• List Writer: with this you can create and edit a list whilst viewing all the basic list information before printing out a fully formatted list on paper or as a pdf.⁶
• Search Tool: with this players can create lists of armies with certain terrain in a given period and find out which army features most often as an ally.  Tournament organisers can generate lists by date, period and sub-period as well as fine tune lists for themes.

Links
You must have a Google account and access to Sheets to use the following:

Tool	Version	Date
List Writer	v4.02.09	Wed 07 February 2024
Search Tool	v4.02.03	Mon 21 August, 2023

The links allow you to create your own copy. When you have written a list you want to use later save it using the "File | Make a copy" command in Sheets.

Updates
Having created your own copy you will need to repeat the process every so often to get the latest version.  I will correct errors & omissions quickly and post announcements on both Twitter, Mastodon and in the comments below.

Limitations:

• Split lists: ADLG lists are compound lists and many needed to be split into sub-lists simple enough for inclusion in the database.⁷
• Human error: the tools & the database involved a lot of work, manual data entry and some fiendish spreadsheet formulae.  Despite extensive testing⁸ there may still be the odd error.  If you find any please leave the details in a comment.

Notes:

1. List writer for ADLG version 3 - design principles & how to guide. ↩

2. List search for ADLG version 3 - how lists are split & analysis. ↩

3. As the file is shared, and is not multi-user, it's best to create a copy otherwise you could find someone else changing your list or search at the same time as you are. ↩

4. The tools use powerful spreadsheet functions that are unique to Google Sheets and are not in Excel or similar applications. ↩

5. Alternative tool using Excel (ADLG website). ↩

6. Example pdf output. ↩

7. A worked example of the splitting process. ↩

8. Details of beta testing. ↩