1813 PBEM Magdeburg Campaign Completed

-->

PBEM Madgeburg Campaign Report

Unlike the ill fated 1806 PBEM campaign, my own first attempt at running a PBEM campaign was a great success, very enjoyable and seemed to work well for all concerned. It was run on a daily basis, with movement orders received and the situation updated on the blog each day.

The campaign started on 30 September 2009 and lasted for five weeks.

The declared purpose of the campaign was to see whether my solo campaign could be adapted to a multiplayer PBEM campaign. It has proved that this is possible, but with major adjustments to the original campaign.

The aim of the original campaign, and the PBEM one, is to produce good wargames. It has failed to achieve this aim and if we continue to run a PBEM campaign Jan and I will have to arrange some alternative method of providing our regular wargames.

There were 10 players taking part in the campaign. Each was required to submit orders daily by email, and most managed to do so. Where it was not possible the two CinC did so. However this only happened once or twice.

I had not put a great deal of thought into the different requirements of a PBEM campaign as opposed to a solo one, and I made this clear to all players before we started. As a result there was one major change during the campaign to allow for reinforcements during a battle.

I am very grateful to all of the players who took part and accepted the changes imposed on them during the course of the campaign. I am also happy to report that 9 of the 10 will be taking part in the next campaign which starts next week.

From my point of view it worked very well, and I really enjoyed it. I hope, and expect, that the next campaign will be even more fun – both for myself and the players. It is a much more ambitious campaign, with hidden movement and greater reliance on the corps commanders keeping the commanders in chief informed of developments.

My role in the new campaign will be two fold. First as Games Master or Umpire. Second as chief of staff to both commanders in chief and corps commanders. In this way I hope to be able to remove a lot of the paperwork and administration from them. I will also be able to feed in reports from patrols and spies.

I have suggested to the players that they might like to post their comments on the forum, and I hope that they might do so.

If you would like to read about the campaign, including the battle reports, they can be found at label 11 on the right.