The Onion Wars FAQ

1. What is it? 2. Why is there the fictional Onion Wars storyline? 3. What is the storyline? 4. At what scale is the game played? 5. This sounds complicated. Is it a lot of work? 6. How do the players and GMs communicate? 7. How do I get started as a new player? 8. How big are the CM battles?

1. What is it?

The Onion Wars is a Combat Mission Meta Campaign using Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin (CMBB), where two teams of players fight out CM battles within the context of a continuing moderated campaign. The game features several levels of participation, ranging from overall commanding generals at the strategic level down to the field commanders that fight the PBEM or TCP/IP battles. Players can fulfill roles at more than one level if they're interested (e.g. you can help plan the strategy as well as fight battles).
2. Why is there the fictional Onion Wars storyline?
Slapdragon came up with the original concept as a means of stringing along a series of PBEM challenge games among a group of regulars on the BFC General Forum. Why Onions? He's insane, that's why. The original game was played using CMBO, and was ended with the release of CMBB to allow for the redesign to incorporate the new game, new i eas, etc. The biggest benefit of the fictional storyline is that the d participants are in no way tied to the historical timeline of WWII and are free to pursue their own strategies and tactics independent of historical confines. Of course, this is also a detraction to true grogs, but there are already other Meta Campaigns for players that wish to recreate history to the "t".
3. What is the storyline?
Two nations inhabit the fictional island of Fea Cebola, where the primary means of income is the export of onions. The nation of the Union of Smoked Salmon Republics (Soviet kit) is at war with the Emerald Empire (German kit). There are also a single minor nation (Swedissland) and multiple neutral territories controlled by the GMs. The minor is a complete wildcard and their actions will largely be determined by the diplomacy efforts of the Teams. The battles that the Minor nation find itself involved in are fought by a GM.
4. At what scale is the game played?
Gameplay essentially exists at three levels: strategic, operational, and tactical. Strategic Level: Players use reports from the Game Moderators (GMs) along island wide maps to determine the Grand Strategy that their team will follow. includes the general force structure, main efforts for attack and defense, procurement strategy (go for lots of tanks or lots of infantry), with This unit etc.
Operational Level: Players use intelligence reports from the GMs and maps representing each province to determine specifically how to implement their Grand Strategy. (e.g.: Do they set up their defense at a specific set of ridgelines, or right in the town?) Or they can simply state that they will defend the province and leave the details up to the GMs. Tactical Level: When orders are submitted to the GMs, the GMs will look at both teams' orders (along with the actions of the minor nations), the unit placements on the operational maps, and from there create a series of CMBB battles for the teams to fight out. The results of those battles will then be incorporated into the strategic and operational level maps and the GM will generate AARs for use in the next round of battles.
5. This sounds complicated. Is it a lot of work?
If one person were doing it all, it would be a lot of work. Since players can choose how involved they want to get, it is only as time consuming as you make it to be. In addition, the GMs are working to provide an application to make the book keeping easier. Unit purchases, movements, etc. will be entered into a database thereby greatly reducing the administration workload on the part of the players, thus allowing them to concentrate more on the fun parts of the game: strategy and fighting battles.
6. How do the players and GMs communicate?
Panzer Boxb has been kind enough to set up a single game forum to allow the participants to communicate with each other, and for outsiders to lurk and watch the game unfold if they're interested. Part of the forum is public, and registered players have access to their respective team's internal forum for private communications among team members. The principle GMs (Mannheim Tanker and Cpl Carrot) and forum moderator (Panzer Boxb) have access to all sections of the forum and communicate with everyone this way. The minor GM (tadpub) cannot view the team-specific forums. This is much simplified over the original version of the Onion CMMC, where each team had a completely separate forum on Delphi. [Note to visitors: The forum you see is only the Public portion, open to all eyes. Behind the scenes you'll find the teams themselves, scheming and plotting their enemy's demise. If you'd like to get a peek and get involved, join a team and have at it!]

7. How do I get started as a new player?
Register on the game forum at http://www.onionwars.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl and post a message expressing your interest to join. If you already know which team you'd like to join, simply ask the team captain if he is interested in having you (he will be, but it's still nice to ask!) and you'll be added as a privileged member to their section of the forum. From there it's up to you to let the team captain know your intended level of participation, and he'll assign you to the appropriate part of the team. For example, if you're only interested in fighting CM battles, then he'll likely assign you to a particular portion of the front and assign you a command of a battalion, regiment, division, etc.
8. How big are the CM battles?
In the interest of finding a good compromise to the preferences of battle sizes (map size, unit size, and time length), we've determined that games will last 30 minutes (turns), be 1000-2000m in size, and units will usually be one battalion or less in size. Large battles at the operational level will usually be divided into smaller, yet related engagements.