Avoiding quitting in Campaign Games

In reply to James Butler:

> Has anyone else experienced this? It seems to be the way a lot

Yes. In the campaign I ran (Hordes of the Things), I included a population
surplus as a trait so that losses could be easily replaced as low grade troops
in the early stages ie. you had the same points, but overall your army was not
of the same quality. I also allowed people to do an emergency levy of an extra
50% of troops if their core territory was invaded (this did affect economic
production for the year though). This made a big difference to the drop out
rate, as it meant you could afford to lose one or two battles decisively
before you started running out of troops. It is possible to do something
similar with perhaps a reserve of outmoded ships that could be pressed into
military service if necessary. This allows the inexperienced players the
luxury of a mild learning curve for the first couple of battles.

One thing I did include was different types of government eg.
democracies were profitable, but you had to roll 7+ on 2d6 to declare
war (it took one nation three turns to backstab an ally, by which time the guy
was well and truly aware it was coming because the repeated failures to
declare war were mentioned in the campaign newsletter); dictatorships were not
very profitable, but you could declare war at the drop of a hat. This made an
interesting difference to strategies and gave the game a flavour it would not
have had otherwise...

Regards,