Campaign battle times

Just FYI my game times are generally 22:00 GMT until 02:00 GMT every day.

I see most hits games start around 19:30 GMT is this going to be the norm for Saturday nights if so i should resign my commission now.

Same goes for me. School doesnt end until 19:45 GMT for me and I usually dont get home until 22:00 GMT.

SWeathers wrote:Same goes for me. School doesnt end until 19:45 GMT for me and I usually dont get home until 22:00 GMT.

Campaign battle times will be arranged based on player availability. Everyone has a schedule that is restricted in some way and on certain days. When you are going to be involved in a battle, I will post notice in the forums and players and work out by means of discussion and vote what times work best for them. If following that a time or two, you do not find the times suit your schedule, then by all means, it is fair to resign.

-Neal

I propose the following way for arranging battles:
The 2 corps commanders agree on a number of possible dates and times (covering different time slots suitable for US and EU players) in the next couple of days. Then they each create a doodle page with these dates in which all players on their side have to register if they can play or not. Players with a unit present in the battle have priority, but if such a player is unavailable to play, then another player from this side must play for him.
The corps commanders then agree on which date suites both sides.

I do not always time for play, but we have so many players per side to compensate for that.
Since we will have UK, German, Switzer and American players there will always be difficult to have it all to play.

It should be like we've done before; set up the doodle first and craft the scenario to fit how many players are coming. Basically scenarios with carryover which would create a storyline based on outcome. The whole predetermined OOB as it stands means it will never fit just right. So for example we should find out if there is 5-6 coming from each side, then create a 5v5 or 6v6 battle and whoever wins takes control of that node - rather than bringing 9 vs 9 OOB with three brigades being AI on each side.

Normally our battles have never been more than 12 players so we shouldn't have more brigades than that fighting it out so that we can limit AI units (plus we usually lose someone to connection drops/crashes). Right now it looks like we'll barely have 3 human player on the confederate side due to time constraints.

Stefan's idea is good but rather than 2 doodle pages, one Union and one Confederate, how about Neal sets one up for all players and he selects a range of days and times.

The earliest in the week should be the 19:30 UK slot, but a later 22:00 or 22:30 slot is good too. There might even be a 23:59 or 00:30 slot for those US players coming home from work.

At weekends similar times can be suggested but more people both sides of the pond can make more of the slots I'd imagine.

I like the idea of those players who have their commands present being given precedence as to when the game is played. I'm working on the assumption that any other player on that side can take over that players brigade if they cannot make it and the original commander can give his stand-in some basic orders like, "be cautious", "be bold", "these are MY men, be very very cautious indeed!". And so on.

yes, one big doodle link does also work.

@Baldwin: I agree, it might be necessary to reflect the number of players in the OOB for a given battle. Like creating "mini-divisions" of 2 or 3 brigades controlled by 1 Human player, so the real Division Commander doesn't have to control too many troops himself.

Yes a division commander getting and sending messages from up to 8 player plus controlling the arty would make for a challenging time. Thankfully, I'll be at army HQ entertaining my 6 new consorts. I think 4 brigades plus the artillery is about the maximum we would want to saddle them with. That would be especially so if they are also fighting their own brigade.

@Kevin, yeah that's what I was thinking 4 brigades plus 4 batteries which I tried commanding a few days ago and was more than enough with my own personal brigade to command. As long as all the but the div commander's brigade are controlled by humans and that max div size I mentioned above is kept, I would have no problem taking the div this week.

So far what I've heard is 7-8 brigades with half the players not showing up plus the arty on top of that, which is way too large a division IMO. Perhaps we need real military chain of command and the corps commander divides the inf (small corps) in half and assigns (promotes) two division commanders instead of this democracy stuff which didn't happen from the ground level. Once we start, the corps commander can promote/demote (rotate div commanders) based on what's best for the corps. Or maybe it needs to be constantly rotational as far as getting games going every weekend. We wouldn't want to have to postpone games because a div commander can't make that day.

That's a good idea. Make a provisional division if there are more than 4 brigades in the fight. Then draft someone to take command.