Review of 1813 Campaign

Campaign map of Europe

When I started the campaign in April 2009 I also started a blog to keep a record of the campaign.

In October 2009 I converted the solo campaign to a PBEM campaign, and the blog became a daily diary of the campaign.   It became increasingly more detailed in order to keep the ten players updated on the progress.  It also included detailed wargame reports as so that they could understand how their campaign battles were fought.

In all there have been five revisions of the campaign.   The most recent one was February 2016, when I reverted back to a solo campaign again.  In retrospect I should have revised the administration of the campaign, and in particular the blog.

The blog takes a lot of time to update.   There is a detailed summary of each campaign area, which has to be updated at the end of each campaign phase.   There is a record of each day, and a detailed wargames report on each battle.   Photographs are taken of each wargame move, and they are then improved on the computer with direction arrows to better explain the game.

There may have been some justification for all of this work when there were ten people taking part in the campaign.   But recently I have come to suspect that very few people actually look at the campaign diary blog.   I never do, except to update it.   So there is a lot of work for very little apparent reward.

So the first object of the review will be to redesign the blog and simplify the administration of the campaign.

I also want to review the command and control of the main 1813 campaign.   The wargame part of the campaign works well, and will remain.   I like the stand alone phases, or mini campaigns.   But I want to develop the campaign above that level.

It is going to be a major overhaul and I am really looking forward to it.   But I am also aware that often these reviews do not work out in the long term.   So I will protect the current campaign until I have proved the new concept works.