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We are currently playing a PBEM battle with ten players (5 on each team), located in half a dozen different countries.

You should probably create two teams, and have a team leader for each team.
The team leaders do the setup, assign passwords and play the first turn.

The game has to be set up in Basic Security, so it can be played by anyone on any PC, as long as they have the password.

Team leaders can - of course – consult team members about force choices.

With large teams I’d recommend the leaders take a unilateral ‘top down’ approach to planning and strategy, with the rest of the team attempting to implement the plan; but with a only 2 or 3 on a team a more democratic approach may work.

In our battle the team members do not take it in turns. In fact the idea is that anyone (but only one person) on the team can download the turn and play it. So it’s on a ‘first come first served basis’, making the game more fast moving. And if a team member goes AWOL the battle will continue and finish without him.

To make this work, we post completed turns to a dedicated forum thread, so you get notified of a new post, and the first opposing team member available can download and play the next turn. But we have a rule that you can’t play two turns in a row.

If you only have 2 on a team, you may choose to take it in turns, or not…

We also have a rule that only the team member playing the turn can download it. Other team members are not allowed to download the turn, even if only to watch the replay. This is to keep team members – after watching the replay - from the temptation of then playing through the turn and uncovering enemy locations etc.

After playing a turn you write a brief (or lengthy) situation report. This sitrep is them emailed to your entire team; which is how they are kept in the loop. This communication is a vital part of the battle.

Hope this helps.
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