Reflections on the online campaign that never quite made it...

 

Back at the start, more or less, of the Covid 19 pandemic we tried to get a play by email game of Mighty Empires going, it did not work out well. It is a pity as it could well have filled in some of the gaming gap that we were feeling. Certainly not a replacement for miniature gaming, but still it had the promise of  a multi player, multi fantasy race strategic game. The hope was to provide a casual pastime with weekly turns. The hope was that being weekly it would not adversely impact on anyone's free time.

So what went right, what went wrong?

 

I think that the initial idea of doing a blind/hidden move game was both a great and terrible idea. I always wanted to do a hidden movement game but with some, limited intelligence, total blind movement can be tough. The plan was to show the map after each year so players could have a snap shot of each others progress. In addition I had plans to allow banners a chance to react to movement near the hex they were in, thereby allowing opposing units to exert some influence around them, be it scouts or local residents. 

However, in practice hidden movement while emulating to some extent real world challenges is not always that much fun for participants. After running this short lived game I joined in another short lived game which also had hidden movement, I did not like being blind. But I did like the fact that I got to experience the game from the players perspective. It really was daunting to not know where the enemy was or if you found them how strong their army was. If I were to do it again I would dispense with hidden movement but perhaps have players do one of these option:

• Plot out moves 2 moves at a time
• Rate generals strategic command level 1-6 the better the general, the less moves have to be plotted in advance 
• Similarly rate aggression more aggression will naturally seek out attack opportunities
• Just plot one hex at a a time
• Order phase, chance that units will not move or move in random direction
• More scouting
  

I am still a fan of fog of war, everything should not always go smoothly for our national leaders. That is important to remember, the players are not playing the generals they are the rulers, unless they are present with the troops their ability to direct action is impaired. [Lincoln and his eastern generals] 

I always wanted to have supply lines factor in, not just in the winter phase. When enemy units threaten your rear, communication and resupply will be impacted. I would never want the game to get too bogged down in that aspect, maybe it becomes a die modifier to orders sent/received and some impact on resupply after a battle, or even anytime.

Another thing that did not work out so well were army lists. I sent out Warhammer 3rd edition army lists so that players could create 'realistic' banners of troops based on army lists. It too did not work out that well. Not all the players were into that and the payoff for that extra level of detail was not worth the extra time it took from the players. Eventually shifting to banners just being points was much better.

Once again, as too often has happened to me over my 61 years of existence (40+ gaming), my ideas and plans were too lofty. It would have been better to remember, start small then expand, adopt, change for later incarnations. Had the game been more like its origin, a simple table top board game we may well have finished it, hell we may have had a chance to try a more complex version or at very least played a second game of mighty empires.

Now we are emerging from shutdown, the need to find online diversions may be behind us. There may be a use for an online game should we ever try a campaign again.maybe the Oathmark campaign system, maybe just something to do in between tabletop game to give our games context. Hell such an idea could be used for any game system, Pulp Alley, Oathmark, WWII etc

Finally, if I were to try this again Roll20 would be a tool to leverage either by simply playing it entirely on that system, or at very least resolving turns after movement has been plotted/carried out.