Advance to Loenen Question

[*budd*]

Well the picture sucked[:@] it was a decisive victory, i killed 460 men, 20 afv, 9 guns. i lost 185 men.

[akileez]

Hi budd, ....
I used my art editor-MS Digital Image Pro- to quickly make my movement diagram. I did it on a screenshot made during gameplay.

You can use Printscreen key, but I prefer to use a free tool "Gadwin" Screenshot capturer for ease of use in play.

When you post a screenshot here use whatever art program you have [you can use XP Paint, but again I use another free and very fast/handy art/picture editor tool "Irfanview"], and crop/enlarge the size to at least 600 pixels in height [my preference].

Quality of the picture will depend on art tool you copied with and the pixels per inch option you use.... use medium to best quality option.
Also you might want to use the Embed in thread option rather than the add as attachment choice in order to get the picture posted fullsized.

For my longer campaigns I make a chronological log of general formation movements and detailed key minor events using Notepad.

[MarkShot]

I play my games on max order delays - like anything else you get used to it.

Another big area in order delay adjustment is the scope of the battles. In larger battles (meaning more units), you are often commanding at higher levels - this significantly ups the delays. Delays can go from the a couple our hours to the major part of a day. You'll see what I mean.

---

AARs - call me unsophisticated. Here are my tools:

(1) RDOA/HTTR/COTA
(2) Shift-PRTSCRN
(3) Microsoft Photo Editor (very old office tool - for crop & zoom and save)
(4) Rarely Microsoft Paint for applying highlights

Going back to #1, you will find that COTA's UI provides most of what you need to clearly highlight and cull whatever information you want to portray in an AAR.

I think an important technique for doing AARs is:

Keep a log of orders and observations with time stamps as you play and make save games with time stamps. Instead of taking screenshots as you play, use the save games afterwards as a photo studio to extract exactly what you want to emphasize. Works for me.

I hope that helps.

[*budd*]

Thx Markshot and Akileez

it's a work in progress, but it seems i enjoy doing the AAR's so will keep at it as time allows. I did try to imbed the picture, but after cutting, compressing, well you can see how it turned out. How do you guys get the nice big clear images and get under the 200kb limit? I downloaded a couple freeware screenshot utilities and will certainly look into those you guys suggested. i guess photoshop will work for the editing. I took a few screenshots to clipboard but there was only the last one on it when i went to paste.

I hope to get better at it so as i move up to the larger battles and get waxed as i so often do with real big battles. I can post my failure as a AAR and get some where i went wrong pointers[;)]. Thier are some games i've wanted to try [ssg's battles in normandy,italy] but feel to unwieldy for me at this time. Thanks again for the info.

[MarkShot]

Any decent graphics tool should let you specify the degree of JPEG compression to be used when saving an image. I usually go with about 50% on my 1024x768 images. Of course, file sizes are even further reduced if you crop the images. Most of the time compression doesn't introduce problems except when you want people to be able to read fine text. Also, the more compression you use the faster the image will be rendered for the reader.

(By the way, I run my desktop at 16bit color depth and games too. Generally, for what I play, there is no need for 32bit color depth. I think that might also reduce screen capture storage requirements.)

[MarkShot]

If you decide to go the snap screenshot while playing route (as opposed to my save game and take screen shots later approach), then there are sharware utilities with a hot key will capture the screen and write to the disk. So, taking the screenshots don't need to intrude on your gaming experience.

[RedDevil]

Hi,

I save my games in a dedicated directory (one for each scenario I play) and name the files Dxhhmm (for example Day 1 at 12 30 is D11230).
I write down some notes on a word processor while I play and in some cases I also copy and paste a screenshot, however most of the times I create the screenshots later on going back to my save games. I try to save just after having issues orders that I think are significant.

For manipulating the screenshots I use the GIMP which is a kind of overkill and I add lines and text with the drawing toolbar of my word processor (which by the way is OpenOffice.org).
Both these programs are open source (i.e. free) but not for the faint-hearted it takes a while to learn how to use them and they need a fairly powerful machine to run smoothly.

Cheers,

RedDevil

[*budd*]

Hi,

Thanks for all the info guys, i downloaded Gadwin printscreen[thx akileez] it works quite well for taking in game screens. Just finished breakout from joe's bridge and took a few screens [when i remembered anyway]. here's the final screen hopefully you can see it.

[akileez]

ORIGINAL: *budd*

Hi,

Thanks for all the info guys, i downloaded Gadwin printscreen[thx akileez] it works quite well for taking in game screens. Just finished breakout from joe's bridge and took a few screens [when i remembered anyway]. here's the final screen hopefully you can see it......

Nice post and nice score ratio! Perhaps my most fave scenario to play in HTTR. With Irfanview, the other free tool I mentioned I can use it to do 'batch' jobs. Like converting all the pics in a folder you made with Gadwin from bmps into jpgs, and renaming those pics- sequentially too, all at the same time. I'm still trying to figure out the advanced options where you can even resize all the pictures too in that single batch conversion, but the first time I tried I lost alot of picture quality. To rename pictures it might be tricky at first... Remember to follow its example ie, picturefile name_### ...# will be the numbers Irfanview puts in for you.
Can we see a heat of battle screen pic posted ?

[*budd*]

Hi,
i looked and i only took one in game shot, it's zoomed out. the rest were either right at start or after it was over, just not in the habit of remembering yet[;)] The one in game shot is with just over 3 hours left. At this time two bn of the 506th are closing in on eindhoven for the assault, one has secured the philips factory and is going defensive. the most northern group of the irish guards is reorging for the assault on southern eindhoven and eindhoven itself. in hindsite i should of just gave them a insitu move order with max aggro, i wasnt sure they would form up and get there in time, as it was i secured the last 2 objectives with 32 minutes on the clock, all the air strikes helped alot to dislodge the defenders. i'll show one shot in another post of where they held me up the most.

[*budd*]

Hi,

the screenshot will show the trouble spot for me in this battle, it's taken after the battle
[memo to self:will remember to take more shots or start saving the game] but you can see the parting of the sea of defenders. the plan was to jam all the guards units up the highway including the reinforcement guard units, in fact i didnt break thru until they got up the HW. i used units from the 231 to put blocking positions on appraoches on the east and west side of the HW, i'd drop a coy into a blocking position and continue the 231 bn north till the next blocking postion. did this on both the east and west sides of the HW. So i was always pushing everyone north. i kept one bn of the 231 in reserve for mopup and in case any of the blocking positions got overwhelmed. I wasn't too worried about leaving small blocking forces behind because i had enough arty to assist any postion. in the screen shot the small wooded patch at the bottom of the shot[where the first cross is] is where they started their delay-withdraw action, they had me slowed to a crawl. I had to push the 231 including the reserve[except for the coys already in place in blocking positions] up the east and west sides of the HW to encircle any blocking units. then they started to bail or died in place and the sea parted, of course this took awhile. they kept it up till just about the end of the big wooded area [where the last cross is]. didn't break thru until well into the morning. i think i could of made better time but my use of the proper formation was terrible, meaning i should of used insitu more. Too much reorging, that made it closer than it had to be. Man this game is fun. One question i have is, is there a gamma setting or something, because at nite it damn hard to see the mouse cursor. i will try to to do a better AAR next time with more shots.....ohhhh and i'll put it in the right forum[:-]. thx akileez for pointing me to the tools, gadwin is easy and works great. i just have to work on that arrow thing in photoshop.

[akileez]

Well budd, compared to me you [ and maybe most players [:D] ] move your troops very organised..... I got a very similar AAR ratio to yours and decisive victory, but my strategy was more 'chaotic' [8|]

You actually followed the campaign strategy of Irish Guards leading the assault all the way to Eindhoven... I leapfrogged the brigade with the Grenadier Guards halfway to Eindhoven. I was a bit worried the Paras in eindhoven would be eaten up on the morning of Day 2 since the Brits were getting bogged down well to the south......

[akileez]

hmm, On that cursor/arrow issue, I'm not sure about it. I play with low light around me at nights, maybe that helps the arrow stick out more...perhaps [&:]

In this next shot fortunately the road was wide open near Eindhoven and the 101st Paras had a joyous reunion with 30 Corps like in the movie "A Bridge Too Far".

Early on, my other priority was to send out strong overland flanking units to harass Germans along the sides of the highway... on Day 1 it was a good idea, but Day 2 saw me having a hard time making the road column busting up the middle cleanly as a result.

You can imagine how I pummelled that lone German company trying to rain on my parade by trying to get to Gennep objective [just south of Eindhoven]!!

[*budd*]

Hello,

my cursor in game is black and during nite time in the game it's just hard to see when plotting orders, not a real big deal.
It certainly didnt feel like my troop movements were very organized[:'(] the 231st was all over the place. looks like yours came down to the wire also. I think i'll try it from the other side when i get time. Want to try out that delay order with waypoint thing, cant think of a better battle to try it on, havent had a chance to use it yet. maybe this time i'll remember to take screen shots[:D] Wonder how much info the germans had of what was coming at them when this battle took place?

[Arjuna]

Hey guys, why don't you start a new thread for each different scenario you are going to post about. That way people looking for AARs or advice on a particular scenario can find it more easily. Thanks,

[akileez]

lol, right you are Arjuna... I'm often guilty of meandering from the original topic of the thread [:D]

[*budd*]

Roger that. sorry. Sleep or play hmmmmmm............ [;)]

[akileez]

ok budd pm me when you post another thread and we'll compare and analyze again.[:D]

[JeF]

Hi,

ORIGINAL: *budd*
Just like to know the process [in detail please] to make a better AAR, i've read quite a few real good AAR's in my lurking time here. If someone had the time and would be so kind. thank you.

I noticed that you managed to master the posting of pictures in the forum. This is good.

Now, about "better AAR", I don't know. One that impressed me a lot is one done by Yakstock where he told the story from the POV of the commander in chief (in that case Major General James Gavin), naming most units by the name of the commander : "[...]all of Linquist’s Battalions are in town attacking toward the bridges.". Stronger story telling.

FWIW, I used to host this AAR and many more at The Drop Zone, and I'm ready to continue, if some people are willing to send me things. Contrary to the old BF.C forum, the new Matrix forums is much better for posting pictures, with a special AAR sub-forum for each published game. So, I'm a bit obsolete for quick AARs. But if you need hosting for bigger or more special stuff regarding the games, drop me a line.

Cheers,

JeF.

[akileez]

ORIGINAL: JeF

Hi,

ORIGINAL: *budd*
Just like to know the process [in detail please] to make a better AAR, i've read quite a few real good AAR's in my lurking time here. If someone had the time and would be so kind. thank you.

I noticed that you managed to master the posting of pictures in the forum. This is good.

Now, about "better AAR", I don't know. One that impressed me a lot is one done by Yakstock where he told the story from the POV of the commander in chief (in that case Major General James Gavin), naming most units by the name of the commander : "[...]all of Linquist’s Battalions are in town attacking toward the bridges.". Stronger story telling.

FWIW, I used to host this AAR and many more at The Drop Zone, and I'm ready to continue, if some people are willing to send me things. Contrary to the old BF.C forum, the new Matrix forums is much better for posting pictures, with a special AAR sub-forum for each published game. So, I'm a bit obsolete for quick AARs. But if you need hosting for bigger or more special stuff regarding the games, drop me a line.

Cheers,

JeF.

ok Jef -----> I will do.... I have a very long Arnhem historical campaign AAR that was thrilling for most of the game, so I may send that to you in parts when I have time.