Thanks to all who replied so far, there's a lot of good comments! It'll probably take me a while to reply to every detail, but I did want to comments on a few things.
A couple folks mentioned the inclusion of tabletop and board games, some also mentioning what I think are ways to convert data. I forget at the moment how Vassal works, but I think it is what Cameron McOmish at the ACWGC has proposed as well. A similar idea, one of which Ernie's input on it, being who manages the ACWGC's DoR, was that not all the data is loaded up front into the DoR and is done as games are played. Not sure if that'd work for Dominik, but that's at least an idea for what is being looked at in the ACWGC.
Bill mentioned a concept of using the boardgame data and creating the battles via the scenario editor and then noting the result and continuing. Reminds me of Frank Hunter's Campaigns on the Danube, where he literally mentioned the option for doing battle via the HPS games and then you would load in the losses into his game and continue playing, which was a strategic game overall. Sadly it never converted right from XP and never got the support it needed. But Bill's idea is a good one.
Mike Friedman mentioned an idea that was really neat too:
Mike Friedman wrote:
One thing that could be done to make the armies have some sort of meaning is to utilize the games to have some sort of persistent war going on. This would take some thought and work to initially organize, but probably would not be all that hard to maintain afterward.
So you pick some theatre of war.... say it starts with Prussia and Austria. Players from each army can play one another in any of the titles from Eckmuhl, Wagram, and Jena-Auerstedt. Play as many games as you want, whatever scenarios you want. Or there could be a set batch of scenarios you have to choose from. Give a time frame such as 6 months.
If the Allies win more games than the French, we use the Leipzig and Bautzen games next followed by the Campaign 1814 title. If the French win, we move into Russia. If the Allies win in France or the French win in Russia, that side wins the war.
This is just a really simple outline. Someone could think of a more complex setup and flow than this.
You could have a persistent war in this way that lasts 18-24 months. At the end of that, start over and do it again.
It makes what side you are on matter and might generate some interest to bring in new members.
This is a pretty cool idea and one that was somewhat similar to a concept I had many years ago. One of the main things is we just need some folks to organize these things. It doesn't need to be an elaborate effort, it can be really simple. Jim Pfluecke's Marengo Challenge is a good example of this, put together something simple and get folks interested. Mike's concept is a pretty easy one and wouldn't be too difficult to manage. I also think we should try for more than 1 tournament going at a time. Especially if they are similar in concept. Folks might recall the old days when the ACWGC used to be on fire every year with Tournaments! But yes, Fight the War was awesome among many other goods ones.
Mark alluded to some stuff being shuffled around a bit that might play in well to several of these suggestions or a combination of them.
On some of Mark's other comments, I do think we need to do more from the historical end. Kind of combine some of his and the other folks comments. We do need to be careful what we put up, there is a certain threshold to be careful about when dealing with a copyrighted work and we should be mindful of that. Out of print is tricky too in a way, but stuff that is old and more open can be looked at for sure. Pinterest is actually a source that could be looked at to find these things to share. It is also a possibility for off server hosting of images and heavy load content. I've started using it last year some time and have come to like it. Was mad at Photobucket and should be careful to make sure our content that could be posted to Pinterest is backed up with people on their PC's as to avoid a Photobucket like issue or even worse. There certainly is no reason why we can't look to leverage these ideas.
Bill mentioned another thing:
Bill Peters wrote:
The CCC has bounties. Each leader captured is a bounty and there is a bounty form that the members turn in. Each month there are Bounty points handed out. I never got into that but there are those who love it. It's still going on in the CCC too.
I think guys like Ernie and Scott (and others) that are leaders in all three of the clubs may have some good ideas too. They have perspective of what works and what doesn't.
The Bounty is a great little thing and it is still ongoing, since 2003, with a gap between 2011 and 2013. It was underutilized last year, but it has picked up a little since. But overall it has had a lot of success and the concept is so simple:
http://www.wargame.ch/1776/Bounty/index.htmlI tried the idea here in 2011 or so and made it too complicated. I've since took over the CCC one and would simply employ that as the concept, except for make the points given a bit higher. This is a pretty easy "win" for us to start with.
I hope to have more comments soon, but everyone has some great ideas so far!