i've been involved in IWG's (International War Games) for over 30 years and put on about two dozen. A few of them work, most didn't. Tried them in all sorts of formats, many of which you have used. I will give you my experience with each of them.
However let me first delineate the three greatest problems with all of them, the good and the bad.
1.THE WIMPY'S OR "I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today." You will have a huge influx of people who are professedly eager to play and eager to participate, and will tell you that this is exactly, positively what they have been looking for. You will send them a copy of the rules and stuff and you will never hear from them again. They are in it only for the freebies. This is the same if it's the old postal systems, or modern e-mail.
2. "I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS GOING TO BE SOOOOOOO MUCH WORK!!! and I'm really sorry but my cat has a complex and I have to take her to the feline whisperer." A lot of guys will start with keen interest and really wish to play, but when they get into it the work becomes titanic (to them) and they lose interest. It's a sliding scale, and some of them just find it too much no matter how easy you make it and how much you do for them, but the simple fact is that campaigns take a huge ammount of work and dedication and that does not seem to reside in the wargamer's breast. On the other end of the scale you have people who I refer to in D&D "alignment terms" as "Neutral Incognito." These guys won't do the work, won't put in the time, won't correspond with other players, won't make the moves and expect you to do all that for them and take care of it, asking for repeated updates on their countries, and complaining like hell when things don't go right.
3.REBOOTERS! These are people who sign up and might even play, but as soon as one itsy-bitsy difficulty comes along, as soon as one tiny reverse comes along they willd rop out simply because they don't want to beother working and trying to recoup their fortunes or use their minds. They're there, like any good boss in idustry or the king of any country, to be flattered, entertained, and have their egos massaged, but as far as facing up to the consequences of their stupid moves -- uh-uh. They simply drop out.
So the big enemy of any campaign is sloth. It doesn't matter how easy you make it for them, they simply won't do the work.
Ok with that cheery thought in mind, let me work over your points.
My latest project is a fictional 1814 Campaign in France. There are six independent campaign areas. Each has one French and one Allied commander. Each commander has four corps.
Not bad, but the only thing you're going to get here is that people are going to say "Everyone KNOWS that in 1814 the 443rd SS Messkit repair battalion of the old guard would ALWAYS
NEVER
. etc. You will get this when they seek dispensation from their own errors. Subordinate clauses were "I didn't understand-- the rules weren't clear--- I thought it was like in Farts of W*o*es and you did this.. Why can't it be like that? You must have to make it very clear it's fictional and that is that. It won't help you and the gamer will probably quit if you don't give in, but they'll do that any way. In any case there's not much you can do.
At present I supply maps, orders of battle and a general campaign background. They write orders for the campaign. When there is a battle I fight the wargame and feed the result back into the campaign.
Whooo boy! Where to begin. The first is OK, but how often and what is the frequency of the orders and how detailed are you making it to write them? That can be a huge amount of time. I'm gearing up to give it a bash and I'm using Narrative Campaigns (you tell me what you want to do and I tell you what happens. Are you saying you are going to refight on the table top the battles the contacts engender? I am edxtremely doubtful that will work, unless you have a LOT of tables and a LOT of persons with nothing to do, and also you have a lot of local opponents, having to refitght contacts engendered will mean a LONG delay time between players giving their orders and receiving the reports of the consequences of them. I reccommend you develop a means of adjudicating contacts abstractly. If not, you're going to be fighting a lot of lopsided battles which aren't going to be very interesting as the vicissitudes of a campaign rarely call together troops which will make balanced OB's.
On my campaign forum the problem has been raised of how to fight up to six battles as wargames at the same time and not have too much delay in the campaign. We have not sound a solution, but it has started me thinking about options.
I did this in several campaigns. What I did was fight the most interesting one and simply roll a modified die for the others and adjudicated casualties accordingly.
One option would be to have teams of players rather than individual players. Each team would supply both the Allied and the French commander in one of the campaign areas. They would then have three options
.
Sounds good-- but the problem here is you are going to find it hard enough to find players who will dutifully stand in for the main commander, let alone others who will want to add on to be essentialy "the disposable friend." But not to be negative, I've seen it work-- in the right format.
First they would run their part of the campaign as a team but I would still fight the wargames. This is good, you fight the war games or say you did and just as real umpires do, decide it on your own expertise.
Second they would run their part of the campaign, but fight the battles as wargames themselves and feed the results back into the campaign.
Heh Heh Heh--- yeah
See WIMPY above.
The first option would allow two friends to take part in the campaign on opposite sides. It would make the experience more interesting for them, and would make it likely that they would remain in the campaign longer.
No it will not. Onve they are on opposite sides they won't be friends for long and they won't wish to talk about the game to each other for fear of giving away vital campaign secrets. This will put a strain on their friendship in that they really can't participate in the game together. The requirements of the competative game mandate that their friendship is strained by this.
The second option is much more exciting. Any group of wargamers, from two friends to a large club, could take part in a campaign which provides wargames for them to fight, but does all of the campaign administration for them.
Yes it would be exciting. But it won't hapen. As they say, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and yhou're asking a whole club to fixate it's interest on the game. I don't think gamers have an attention span that long, especially a club.
I provide maps, orders of battle, objectives and a campaign administration. There is also a Yahoo forum and a campaign diary blog. It has run for four years, so you can be confident that it is not going to fall apart at the first battle.
I am confused? Are you saying there is such a group?
The order of battle is given in men and guns. For example a corps has four infantry divisions of 4000 men each, and one cavalry division of 1000 men. It also has 30 guns.
Commanders could fight the battle using their own wargame rules and their own scale and figure ratio. They could use any army or nationality or even period. They would have to fight the wargame based on the campaign order of battle and the table would have to resemble the campaign map. But because their part of the campaign is stand alone I am happy as long as they are.
This is a bit muddied, but and it sounds good but needs a lot more thought. I can guarantee one thing,-- they won't be happy.
The campaign would remain Napoleonic, and only my battle reports would be published on the campaign diary blog. But individual players could call it an ACW or ECW campaign if they wish.
I'm sorry but this makes NO sense whatsoever? You are going to allow them to fight an American Civil War Battle, or an ancient battle, or for that matter even a moern battle, and you're going to "translate" the results to a "Napoleonic Battle Report????" That means you are going to have to translate the OB's from Napoleonic to American Civil War or Whatever and then translate it back. This really sounds like you're going to translate Locke from Swahili to Finno-Ugarit? But what then the reason for the battle? The players won't see their battle memorialized but their battle all tarted up in Napoleonic costume.
I would gain by not having to replace players so often
I don't see this at all. I see nothing in this system which will reduce the rate of player drop-out and moreover, I see a lot of things (like the Nappy Battle Reports) that will only accellerate it.
They would gain by not having to run their own campaign to provide interesting and challenging wargames.
If they're too lazy to run their own campaigns then you'll wind up with a lot of "Neutral Incognito" players who will want you to run everything. Again, I don't see how you can say this. If players are too lazy to run their own campaigns, how can you expect them to play in yours.
I am not sure how much interest there might be in this idea.
If there is sufficient interest I would want to develop it probably for my next campaign, or even incorporate it into my current campaign to see how it works out.
If this something you would be interested in?
AS it stand now-- no. It has way too many things that have turned into campaign killers before. What you also have NOT told us is the most important parts-- "How is the game won?" When does the game start and when does it end? What is the format system? Are you going to use a form, a general letter, a data string? More what are the time periods of the campaign? You've told us Nappy, but what time span does a move represent and must ais the turn-round time (how many campaign turns in a real-time month, and most important, Does a player's move have to wait till all players have sent in their moves before it can be processed? Who goes first if you have five moves ome in? What do you do if a player misses a deadline? Does he lose his turn? What happens if in that turn his position is overrun?
Your effort is noble and laudable, and I myself am noodling around with another IWG game. This will be entirely play by e mail, and the problem is packing as much into the game as one can given the material one must work with. I even allow them to chose their own victory conditions and design their own countries with a few simple choices.