Real Multiplayer Campaigns

[Marcus Caelius]

Greetings to you all. Although I have only just registered, i have known of you guys for years and have occasionally written at the official site.

Anyway, I write to say that I have an idea for a multiplayer campaign, which is not played realtime, but instead combines ideas from ordinary MP battles with PBEM diplomacy and Republic of Rome.

It would, in the final version be huge, and would last months, but would not necessarily demand a lot of time from individual players on a day to day basis, other than a commitment to email each other and meet at agreed times to fight out the battles.

So before I launch into the full details of what I have worked out so far, I would like it very much if people could tell me about existing campaigns so that i could bow out with good grace when i discover that it has already been done by others with much more skill than i have.

[Proletariat]

Welcome aboard, Marcus! I think the subforum where you'll find more information on this over here. To post there, you might have to be a regular member (everyone's a junior member at first), but that should happen quickly.

That's our PBM forum and I vaguely remember when R:TW first came out a few people trying this sort of thing, but I don't remember how well it worked out.

Good luck.

[Myrddraal]

I'm currently working on a multiplayer campaign Marcus, and its close to release:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54704

If you want to help out, feel free, whatever you can do

[Marcus Caelius]

Myrddraal, I read about your achievement at the other site already, and it looks very impressive, but my idea is based on getting away from the whole Totalwar campaign map altogether.

In fact, generally what i have seen, the MP campaigns are heavily based on making moves, and sending the thing on. As I see it, the campaign map is good for SP, but trying to use it for MP is making things difficult for yourself. Apart from anything, i think in an MP context, the TW map isn't necessarily optimal in terms of game experience.

I certainly wish you luck and would be glad to help, although i have no idea what i could do for you. if you just need a pair of hands, i'm willing to help.

The idea I have been working on is that the campaign map to be used would be entirely new, and much simpler. In fact it might even be possible for the map to not be needed at all, although some kind of pictorial representation as to who owns what is always nice.

The time frame would be very different. Instead of having a turn every 6 months, a turn wouldn't represent any fixed quantity of real time. Instead it would be just a period of time in which a certain amount of stuff has happened. In a single turn armies could by use of boats move to anywhere in the Ancient world, so specific movement orders will probably not be required. Instead the game would focus on diplomacy with other factions, the internal politics of your own faction, the decision to raise armies and fleets and to allocate them to defence of provinces, or to group them together to launch wars.

The idea would be that the game would incorporate up to 50 or more players and should be resolved in about 24 turns, played at say one turn a week, which would make about half a year.

If anyone is interested in working this out in theory and practice, i would be very grateful for the discussion and contributions

[Dagobert II]

Hello Everyone;

My name is Mario, and I am happy to have come across
this thread. Along with playing MTW and RTW, I play by email
versions from agegames, but seeing your idea come to fruition
is pure art. Please let me know if you need any testers.