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Personally:

FTF: Made it from 1805 to 1807

PBEM: Made it to 1806


At various times when I've been seized by EIA mania since then (a decade ago) I've prowled websites. I can't recall EVER seeing an AAR for a game that even made it halfway to 1815.

If you've actually FINISHED a 1805-1815 campaign, please chime in...does this beast exist?

Especially if a PBEM campaign has been finished...I posit that the total number of those can be counted on one hand......

While it's mainly just a fun thing I'm curious about, I think it does impinge on the debate of how to make Matrix's EIA version playable on the Internet...I fall on the side of radical revisions to make many phases si-move instead of slavishly following the board EIA sequential......

Yes and no in many games we have made it to the however several games have ended a year early with a projected winner due to enforced peace requirements against the key countries. These have all been a group of us getting together over the years however I do believe the unfinished games still outway the complete ones about 2 to 1. It is difficult to keep people together long enough to finish a game. I would presume PBEM games would have a better ratio if people are dedicated players due to ease of playing when a few people are available rather than trying to get 7 people together to complete turns. I myself have not played a PBEM game to see if this is true and have made several attemps to become part of one but for one reason or another it did not pan out. I'm still interested in trying though.

Usually they all quit if France gets a rotation going.

PBEM is UNBELIEVABLY slow, if you haven't tried it......I literally think there may note be more than dozen PBEM EIA games finished by ANYONE...like I said, I've never heard of one.

You also don't have the peer pressure of people you know in real life to keep playing.

But the main problem is PBEM pretty much requires a non-playing GM doing an insane amount of work, and once they quit the game is kaput.

The way to do FTF is 14 people, 2 per country, to cover people having to miss a week. Makes policies of countries a little erratic but they were pretty erratic and shifting as various govt. factions rose and fell in power in all the countries of Europe in 1805-1815, anyway

I started in four EiA tabletop games, and finished one of them. Two of the games didn't reach 1806 and one is still in progress. We have good hopes to end this one too...

And John, you are right about the PBEM GM's amount of work, it is insane... On the other hand, I'm in the process of creating all kind of 'tools' to aid me in my bookkeeping.
For the moment, I'm building a combat resolution program, which actually will be a small database containing all tables. In the inputscreen you can enter the corps with their strengths, leader and tactical chit. The program will do the dicing and will tell me the result of each round. It will need to be able to accept, after each round of combat, reinforcements or guard commitment. This little program will reduce my GM work conciderably, I think.

Jeroen.

Originally posted by Wynter
And John, you are right about the PBEM GM's amount of work, it is insane... On the other hand, I'm in the process of creating all kind of 'tools' to aid me in my bookkeeping.
For the moment, I'm building a combat resolution program, which actually will be a small database containing all tables. In the inputscreen you can enter the corps with their strengths, leader and tactical chit. The program will do the dicing and will tell me the result of each round. It will need to be able to accept, after each round of combat, reinforcements or guard commitment. This little program will reduce my GM work conciderably, I think.

Will this wonder be made available to the masses?

If I ever get to finish it...

Jeroen.

There are two guys in the EiA PBeM Community who have alot of work concerning GM help.

One is Ragnar Kremple (Ragnarkremple@Yahoo.com). He has an excel spreadsheet (macros and all) that does almost all the calculations for him. All he does is input the OOB numbers, select the chit choices, and input the die rolls. Takes him about 10 seconds to figure a battle out that way. I have a "beta" version of the spreadhseet and it works pretty weel, but I am sure he's added more to it.

The other is Finn Kennedy (finnk@texas.net) whose put together a webpage with several spreadhseets built in. I don't have the web address handy, but I am postive if you emailed him he'd be more than willing to give it out. His website is geared more towards GM's than players, and has several "aids" finished and in development to help.

I've played two FtF games to 1814, when Russia and ENgland won due to peace Restrictions. I've seen France go aslong as 1813 before succumbing. There was an Online game I followed (I want to say it was Sharpe, but I am not sure) that ended in 1814 with Russia winning. IIRC, it took them about 4 years and 10 players total to finish.

Todd

Actually, Ragnars address is ragnarkrempel@yahoo.com.

Sorry for the confusion.

Todd

> Actually,
>
> Ragnars address is ragnarkrempel@yahoo.com.
>
>Sorry for the confusion.
>
>Todd

Why, indeed it is.... :p)

I haven't done much more work on the xl sheet for a while. I had to transfer it from work to home and I have a _translated_ edition of XL on my PC. Suddenly I can't really read my own formulas any more. I'll sort that out some day, but I can assure you that it works very well. I've already debugged it by using about 50 battles from a game to check it through.

In some situations, it isn't accurate, but they're documented on the sheet. I wasn't really ready to share it's existence with the world yet (thank you bery much, Todd! , but anyone that wants it can have it. (does this forum have a public upload section?)

regards,
Ragnar Krempel

PS: given enough time and some insight into the xl sourcecode, I could probably put _all_ of EiA in XL ... I already have a working model for movement.

I have played in various groups over the years, and in some version of my current group for over 10 years, and out of a dozen games+, I've seen 3 go to the end (a declared victor), or at least to the point where the victor was obvious, and due to peace restrictions, could not be dislodged from his position on the chart.

A few games have fallen apart because of player attrition, but many come to an early conclusion when France either plays so disasterously that the Germans become absurdly powerful or so well that her dominance seems unshakeable, and everyone else more or less concedes.

Our last game went all the way to December 1815, with France able to declare in the final month (and a few other countries as co-victors). It was as close as I have ever come to seeing the "Britain wins if nobody else does" rule actually come to pass.

regards,
Chris Kowalchuk

For my two cents, I have played in about 20 first person games and have only had one go to the end and Britain did win. They got naval superority early, was able to get and retain most of north Africa due to that naval superority and used their ability to take VPs away from anyone out front to make sure the leader was always beaten down. It was a great game (I was Turkey and was the closest to winning on my own but still fell about 15 VPs short of my goal).

Other than that one game, most of our other 'long' games ended in around 1811-1813 when is was pretty apperant that there was going to be one outright winner or one winning alliance. Still good games, though.

I love EiA.

Thad

Acutally we did finsh a game. We played every monday night for 9 months and the winner was the British with second place going to the Turks (of all people), France was 4th. We will be starting up another game in a month or so.

So to the question is a YES

Danny:eek:

I have played in a lot of games that concluded (i.e., someone was a clear favorite and everyone else conceded victory) and only a few go as far as 1815.

We came close in a few Avaloncons, but even playing 18+ hours per day for 4 days wasn't enough!

Jeroen is an awesome GM and very expedient. I for one don't copy him on enough diplomacy (which, after all, is one of the few joys of being a GM).

Cheers!

JohnY