Swamprat
Posts: 129
Joined: 8/30/2005
From: Shrewsbury UK
Status: offline
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I'm actually playing a PBEM right now, so I've got one of each on the go, both on the Russian Front right now.
Campaigns - It's a system I've devised to play something resembling a campaign online. The campaign we're doing at the moment is very much a test bed, to see what problems arise, but we're on the second battle now. It's possible to do on PBEM as well I think, though the games should not be password protected. You need to playing an opponent you trust.
Basically, first pick a map that will support more than one battle played on it; a dense city map or a large custom map for instance - we're using the map of Kharkov from the map files at the moment.
Set up a standard Meeting Engagement in Battle - Rig the points so that neither side has enough to easily win domination of the whole battlefield in one battle: we used 2000 pts aside, as if the advance forces of two armies had just clashed.
Fight the battle as normal. We set ours for 15 turns; again to avoid complete resolution of the campaign in one battle.
At the end of the battle, each side totals up their losses in points, as listed on final scoreboard (normal minor victory, draw etc is ignored). Players then add points for victory hex's taken (points for damage inflicted are ignored). Then pre-agreed reinforcement points are added.
Formula works as follows: Starting Points - Losses + Victory points + reinforcement pts = Starting Points for next battle.
Obviously Victory hex points and reinforcement points are agreed beforehand and can vary per campaign. So far we've found that having the Victory Hexes too high (we had 250 pts) unbalances the next game too heavily in favour of the previous victor. 100pts may work better. We used 1000pts for reinforcements. Basically the higher the points the quicker either army will grow and the quicker the campaign will be - which may be a good thing to avoid 'campaign fatigue'. I wouldn't mind experimenting actually with using no Victory Hexes at all, freeing up the strategy of both commanders.
Right; both players now have their purchase points for the next battle. Now you take the Save files and copy them, moving them into the Scenario Folder. Rename the Saves as Scenarios.
Go into the game Editor, bring up the Scenario and alter the deployment lines to reflect ground taken or lost. Redistribute the Victory hexes. Again, prior agreement and trust is vital. Scenario can be posted back and forth for both players to edit. When both are happy, save the map (not scenario), complete with damage from previous battle. Post map so both players have same map.
Now start a battle as normal, using new points and the altered map (custom: as designed).
Fight the battle. Do it all again until one side or the other reaches pre-arranged victory condition, like taking the whole map for instance.
The key to the whole thing is the taking of the old Save to create the map for the next game and redraw the front lines. Values of hexes and reinforcements can be tailored to what kind of campaign you want.
Obviously units cannot gain experience points, and other units may end up replaced by different units altogether. The only 'campaign' bit of it is the gradual advance or retreat across the map. It does give a whole new feel to battles though, and you end up fighting for strategic areas to use as jump off points for the next battle, regardless of whether it has Victory hexes on it or not. Victory hexes do still dictate most of the strategy though, which is why I'd like to try without them.
At the moment I've been forced back in the city and I'm struggling to hold my ground whilst angling to recapture some vital ground.
I'm working on a very large Arnhem, Nijmegan, Eindhoven map and would like to try a Market Garden Campaign, with Allied points outnumbering German points to start with, but with German reinforcement points being more than the allies, creating a race against time as the Allies try to capture the bridges before the Germans gain the strength to stop them, while the Germans fight to buy time. Still working out possible issues regarding the initial parachute drops and reinforcements.
It takes longer to explain than to do, believe me. Sorting out the points and map for the second battle took just fifteen minutes in practice. I'll post more once we finish this campaign, seeing if there are any issues that could be rectified in future.
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Printable Version
Online games save problem - 
The very first battle just needs to be set up in the Battle generator, like any other online or PBEM battle. After that it's just a matter of converting the save file into a scenario file in order to extract the map. In fact, you don't need to make a campaign for this. After a particularly good battle that both players enjoyed, you could do the same procedure to get a bit more mileage out of the battle if it seems particularly interesting. 
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