Thinking about larger battles.........

[Marc Bellizzi]

Jeff,

I had built a system like what you are talking about, for my Stalingrad series back in 04.

I had Greg 'Red Mike' Colman vs Frank 'MIA' Harmon battle it out over the Grain Elevator in southern Stalingrad. I based the premise off ASL's historical modules.

Each side had a core OOB of an Infantry Battalion(-) and then was provided some 'points' to spend on reinforcements between each scenario. Each bought a couple of misc support (If I recall right, I think Frank bought a StuG platoon and 2x 81mm OBA strikes & Greg bought an HMG platoon but I'm not sure anymore). Greg set his forces up on the map and then I had Frank tell me exactly where and how he wanted his units arrayed along the map-edge.
Based on the # of days the Grain Elevator was fought over in real life, would be how many 'scenarios' the guys could expect to play; there was an over-all objective (the Grain Elevator) that if the Germans took it before the number of days passed, sudden death victory - or if they never took it, then the Reds won. Otherwise Frank & I would discuss a reasonable objective for a particular scenario, etc and come to a resolution of VPs for that upcoming battle.

They played a randomly determined length scenario w/ Variable end 'on'. That made a huge difference, because no-one knew for sure when the scenario would end.
At the end of the scenario, VPs were tallied and a victor for that day determined - the victor got a few extra 'points' to spend on units for the next battle.
I even had it to where units that did something notable during the fight might get 'battle hardened' - i.e. go up a level in morale, or produce a new leader. Units that were cut off would start the next scenario isolated and reduced in effectiveness, I mean all kinds of cool stuff. And then we'd go through the process again for the next day. A bit of book keeping, but not hugely painful.

The guys told me for each scenario where to deploy their units and we'd go through the process again.

It was fun, but the biggest problem is finding someone to be the umpire; I enjoyed doing it, but judging from the lack of response to the release (and it was for AotR, a title which didn't go over the greatest when it first came out), I don't think it was used much. I had started to fiddle with making it work 'solitaire' to where a player did all of the book-keeping and had to deploy the enemy per certain tactical restrictions, but I never formally compiled it into a document like I had the H2H version. And then I got hooked on EVE Online and I'm still trying to figure out where 3 years of my life disappeared to.

I think Joao had shown some interest in the stuff I had done and he refers to it from time to time as a concept that John & the gang should have used as a template for the campaign system.

Actually, here's the doc's, feel free to peruse - there's an AAR as well - https://www.box.com/s/69660191100508aecbe5

It's funny but both Steel Panthers and Close Combat had a fairly good campaign engine that encompassed many of the elements I wanted to replicate. Those are such old titles, too.

Marc