All of these comments are great...and lead me to imagine an online "map-based" game with some sort of umpire and teams representing not just two sides but many sides--all with different objectives. Indeed, perhaps there would be two sets of victory conditions for each player...one for his/her team and one "personal" victory condition that may make life interesting for the team in executing their plans.

I particularly like games where each player/team has a unique set of victory conditions instead of the "zero-sum" kinds of conditions we usually see. Sure, there has to be built in conflict potential to replicate life in a Small Wars environment, but a great many different agendas in play adds a richness and complexity that only good (and large) RPG campaigns can achieve.

The advantage of an umpire in an online game is that the whole problem of intelligence/counterintelligence is brought into play...creating possibilities for deception, deceit, and a whole host of other effects.

The closest I've ever come to such an experience was in a college TRAVELLER campaign. GDW's TRAVELLER was a sci-fi role playing system--something like Dungeon and Dragons goes to space, but much richer in some ways, particularly when starting a character (they already had a certain amount of skills/history that the player rolled up prior to play). Given that the movie STAR WARS was relatively recent, a whole genre of "Rebels versus the Empire" gaming ran rampant--evidenced in such games as BATTLEFLEET MARS (SPI), FREEDOM IN THE GALAXY (SPI/AH), IMPERIUM (GDW) and others. In our TRAVELLER campaign, we faced the same kinds of problems as sci-fi characters in a Star Wars-like universe...we were all rebels or characters sympathetic to the rebellion...but who could we trust and who could we not trust? When was it appropriate to take on the minions of the Empire and when was it best to run away to fight another day? I can only wonder what it would have been like to have characters playing the various minions of the Empire trying to run down the Rebellion...we never played that way, however.

Our problems and solutions in that campaign were inspired by sci-fi books and movies, but imagine what could have been possible had a fair amount of insurgency and counterinsurgency theory--coupled with dynamic social, political, and economic drivers--been incorporated (even if only crudely) into the game?