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The MEGA Campaign 2- Registering Now

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M

Mowers

Guest
For those of you that participated in the mega campaign to date you will know that it has been a great success for most of you and it seems that the EU world really is alive at the moment. However, it really was just a random campaign that started and kept going by accident there was never any real intention to keep it going but it developed a life of its own and less than a week on and we are in 1611.

Many of you have requested that you would like to have more continuity and country ownership but most of you agreed that previous large scale attempts at this have been generally unsuccessful, despite some notable exceptions.

So I, well that’s a lie, actually someone else came up with this idea for a campaign which I rather liked.

Hopefully this system will allow co-ownership to allow continued play and development. Rather than just have one country you have a primary and secondary country, which will be geographical disparate. Not only that but you share these two countries with someone else so that the game can continue in the absence of one or more parties.

The file will be held by the EU community, if you can get 4 listed players then you can play on, I will hold the file and send it out when requested and when you have finished with it, it will be returned to me.

Other countries can be played by non-campaign players who just fancy a game and can step into shoes that are empty.

The initial country pairing are spit east v West the idea being that you either play in the east or the west to keep the competition close and stop anyone going on AI killing missions. Of course if you have both the Ottoman / France team playing then the primary player will say play France and the primary Ottoman player can take a spare Western country. The spirit of the game is to do as best you can in whatever situation you are placed in. I might even try to add up points. Everyone who has initially been approached to play in this game has already demonstrated these qualities so I’m not overly worried. Anyway BB wars will get you in the long term :)

Ottoman Empire & France
England & Russia
Spain & Poland
Austria (Reaches into both East and West)
Sweden & Portugal
Venice/ Holland & Lithuania/(& / or any decent country that emerges in the course of the game. Such as a German state/ Denmark/ Persia/ Mameluks)

So, for anyone reading this, if having read this you want a piece of the action just let me know which pairing you are interested in. Alternatively if you can think of a way of improving the system then let me know. At the moment its just an idea so any suggestions would be very welcome. I may even draw up a reserve list if there is enough interest.

BenM (Mowers)
 
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Sounds good Ben:) Keep up the good work, for your ideas on helping and improving MP are bringing much honor to the Clan;) Also keep me updated if this attracts a big following, and we may be able to incorporate it into the clan website to help organize it.
 
Originally posted by Aggressor
But Poland and Lithuania are almost one country. Can Lithuania be replaced with Denmark, or Mameluks, for example? or maybe some country in Germany?
Click to expand...

Poland and Lithunia are not one country for a long time. It has been discovered that unless there is a decent brake on Russia then Russia will expand very rapidly into Lithunia. It would be expected that the Lithunian team would accept the Polish inheritance and then move over to the Netherlands which is far more interesting at that stage.

However this would leave the Lithunian team without an Eastern power. However, I think it would be reasonable then for the team to play Holland regardless of what theatre was being played in as Holland needs alot of work to allow it to build up the strength to resist its neighbours.

Alternatively once we have the end of Lithunia then the HOL/ LITH team would be free to pick any other country in Europe, such as Denmark, Mameluks or a German state.

However, I have now noticed that the HOL/ LITH combination would leave them without a Western power before 1560's so I suggest that they control Venice up to this point. I have altered the orginial post to reflect this.

This system of swopping countries was in the orginial board game and worked very well for us and allows you to play countries in their most exciting era's.

Ben
 
Campaign Split

Due to the large number of people that have asked to play I may have to split the campaign into a USA campaign and a European campaign. We are a bit short of US players right now but I know you are out there.
 
I'd like to pitch in once in a while, but i dont want the responsibility of controlling a country for the whole duration, because of lack of experience and time. So if youre ever in need of an extra player, you can contact me on icq (see my profile).
Cheers.
 
MGC2 Countries

Ok, these are the countries for the European MGC2. Once I have enough NA players I will start a NA campaign as well. At the moment I have put down the NA players as reserves attached to certain grouping. Sorry, not to make your primaries but distance and time differences obviously make it hard. I have put down provisional groupings but if you find a niche role with a certain country then we can change you over. At the moment I'm wary of making things too rigid for fear of stagnating play.

Hopefully, this will make people happy, no one has got a country they didnt want and even if you are not the primary lead you can always play the other country in your team should the other person not be there.

Ok, you need 4 people to play and you all need to play in the same region. Austria is in both regions, Sweden is not. There are two reserve players and I will play anyone to fill in as and when to keep things moving. Other non-MGC players can play but can not make up the basic four. Denmark has been added as well and can play in either East or West. Denmark will be grouped with Spain.

I suspect that as the game goes on, if it suceeds in this format, then countries may well change according to who can devote more time etc. We shall see. New people may come in and others may drop out.

After an awful lot of consideration I decided that a 1492 start would be best. I was very concerned that Europe may not form succesfully which would throw the rest of the game. Maybe next time I will start in 1419. I'm sorry for those who wanted a 1419 campaign but right now its seems a risky addition to an already untried project.

Games are to be arranged via ICQ, simply announce to the group when you would like to play and hopefully you will be able to bring others in. Some people have yet to get ICQ-ummmm- and will need to get it fairly soon if they are going to be able to play in the game. I have put down the ICQ numbers- I hope this is alright.

Phadishar (Ottoman) -
L’effeceur (France)
Aggressor (Russia)
Laxen (England)
Smurf (Poland)
Ambiguous (Spain)
Drexler (Austria)
Boehm (Austria)
Djurensmorsa (Sweden)
Sniper (Portugal)
BenM (Lithuania and others)
Lord Prime (Venice)

Reserve players
Zorpio- (Denmark- Spanish reserve)
Silent Eagle- (Sweden & Portugal)

NA Reserves
John Doe (Russia & England)
Seductive Queen (Spain & Poland)
Das Heer (Austria)
Ludivico (France and Ottomans)

Obviously this is really an experiment so dont hold too high hopes but maybe a better or alternative way of running campaigns will emerge through it.

As always if you can see an obvious mistake or a way of improving things please let me know as this isnt my game its everyone's.

Ben
 
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oh goodie, lots of Americans piling in.

Sorry to have been a bit slow on this but we had a nightmare start on Sunday with a CTD that would not go away.

However, we re-started this evening with 6 and got to 1515? maybe later with no real problems bar my flatmate demanding to play medal of honour....

Anyway it shows that Eu does work with 6 and can be very stable indeed.

A write up will follow- need to sleep right now

I will put a write up and sort out an North American tournament as soon as I can.

Ben
 
The end is nigh

After God knows how long and how many crashes and reloads we are finally reaching the end of the second Mega Campaign. Its 1744 and I think we have done all but about 30 years with at least 6 players. We have seen the rise and spectacular fall of a number of Empires and Europe isnt too far off history.

Ben, when are you going to write an AAR? I’ve been asked a thousand times.

Well, there is almost absolutely no way at the moment. It would take me about 20 hours work to write the entire history of the world from 1492-1820 up and strangely enough it would miss out pretty much everything that happened. Needless to say its been rather good. We have seen a lot of people come and go but a hard core of 5 of us have played most of the years. Waldzwerg and I have seen every bloody year in and out. That man is just always on line! However if anyone wants to look at the final position or help me write one up then I’d love to hear from you.

Some interesting observations.

Having players come and go is actually rather nice and adds a very interesting flavour to the game. Apart from one player I have not encountered any total idiots. Its also useful to allow for the development of newer countries and to play out the more interesting times of countries histories. Sticking to rigid player lists and times doesn’t seem to produce results. I don’t see anyone else getting close to finishing long large scale ( 6 players or more) games by trying to meet at certain times and sticking to rigid player groups. I would be interested to hear of those that did and how they did it. Certain players have joined us for 20-80 years to fix a country or play a key role and it worked well. We had a few complaints but if you want to play you have to be on-line and get organised- time wasters and moaners were invariably left behind.

One of my big fears throughout the campaign was that of AI bashing. Players, I felt, would tend to move towards attacking the AI, basically playing an SP game until such time as ‘they met up in the middle’- To see EU reduced to the level of a childish game of Age of Empires was a horrific prospect. As a result I planned to move people about, switching back and forth from East to West to maintain a balance and ensure player interaction. However, this caused some discord and a nice compromise of you may not attack launch unreasonable attacks on European AI majors and take more than 3 European provinces or 6 trading posts or small colonies was brought in. It has seemed to work and the AI bashing to an extent stopped and players began to think a little more intelligently. Sadly, the AI did not appreciate this rule and had a tendency of launching suicidal wars against players that only helped the player.

I did have one major problem and that was hosting more than 6 players- if anyone has had significant runs of success at this at more than 1:1 speed I would be very interested to hear from you and hear how you did it. I would really like to host 7 but the crash rate seemed to go through the roof.

A minor worry I had was inflation. If the AI takes over then the inflation rate goes down to the average of the rest of the human players. Whilst handy sometimes it was a real bane at other times. It allowed players to go a bit mad and then if they missed a session inflation would invariably be down again. But on the other hand it made disaster countries playable again after a couple of years. I’m still not decided on the merits and cons of this. I think it might be a good thing in balance and players always seem to want to continue. Indeed I have seen very little short termism from a large number of players which was nice to see.

I’m going to host another campaign after this one. I have a format that currently is divided into 3 different styles of grand campaign. A dash indicates a player country change. The switch format is my favoured one. First switch with either the union of POL-LIT or the emergence of Holland. The second in about 1680. However, I have major doubts on the OTT-HOL-OTT switch but its difficult to work out as HOL is just such a crucial power. I don’t really like to leave the OTTs out as they add a good challenge to any silly Russian play. Suggestions or ideas would be welcome. The ideal set up is 6 players. GER stands for a German minor preferably Brandenberg.

EAST= SWE, POL, RUS, OTT, AUS, PER, GER
MIX =OTT, RUS, ENG, SPA, FRA, AUS, POR- HOL
WEST= VEN-HOL, SPA, FRA, ENG, AUS, POR-SWE, GER
SWITCH= AUS, SPA, POR-RUS, VEN-ENG, OTT-HOL-OTT, FRA, POL-SWE

The only rule I would add is that Spain can not opt for annex of Portugal during the union of two kingdoms event. Vassal status ought to be fine. The reason is that Portugal loses all its overseas colonies which is just daft and very unhistorical.

A few pointers. Sticking to these can save you and everyone else literally hours in game play time in an evening.

1) ICQ is a must. Don’t expect to finish long campaigns without any one being able to contact you
2) Get organised. Anticipate what is going to happen in reloads. Make sure your ICQ status is open, get to the IP quickly, if you are going to reboot tell the host, don’t alt-tab repeatedly when games are going to start soon, don’t expect a host to come and get you- hosts don’t get a minute to think, they are way to busy.
3) Don’t flick in and out of the host load room when waiting. I have thrown more players out of games for this than any other reason. Its very annoying, it screws up the host load room- created numerous crashes. U are either playing or you are not. Make your mind up and wait for further instructions
4) Listen to the host. If you are a new player give your location, connection speed, ICQ number and experience straight away. Make sure he has heard, I am constantly alt-tabbing- alternatively make sure you tell another of the regulars.
5) Don’t moan. I never give a bad position to a newbie and when I suggest taking a certain country I’m doing it to help you, refusing to play anyone but Baden or China is going to piss me off. As is I want to play Portugal, when for the 4th time I have explained its an Eastern European game.
6) Help the host, some of my favourite players who I will do anything for are those that try to help me or at least offer to assist when all goes wrong. Don’t incessantly ICQ me unnecessarily during reloads- classics are ‘can I have the file’ and ‘ok’ – the host is busy and cant keep checking ICQ for messages that meanwell but only slow down the game. I love those that help me disseminate the file and get me new players and warn me of approaching idiots….

But its worth adding that people generally are very keen to do their best and act in the interest of the group rather than themselves. Whilst I have a great list of people who I owe a lot to for their help and commitment without which the campaign would not have got to where it is such as Laxen and Ambigious etc Waldzwerg for his unending, unfaltering Balance of Power playing style, Laxen for his tremendous help and Ambigious for his infectious enthusiasm. If I were to pick one 'guest' player it would have to be Mrlifford for playing a really rubbish position with long termism and great commitment one evening regardless of the short and long term odds stacked against him. I really can not recommend this player any more.
 
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