What I have found in a few AAR is the lack of support by JFB for their fellow JFB, at least to the level of help I have seen looking at various AFB AAR.
Its a pity he stopped the AAR, we might be (and still might) be celebrating a brilliant strategic plan.
I find Japanese players to be generally less responsive to third party comments. Probably because they already start the game with pre-formed paln and objectives and set up their opening moves to achieve them. At best most of them only look to second phase objectives after the initial low hanging fruit has been picked. They really have no interest in preparing for 1944/45 and those who are so inclined, tend to be very competent and in need of very little third party assistance/commentary.
On the other hand many Allied players are inexperienced and lack a firm grip on the game's mechanics. Hit by the initial Japanese tsunami, they tend to be much more responsive to third party assistance/commentary, a bit like a drowning man clutching at anything.
I think 'players' in general, whether they tend to play the Allied or Japanese side, tend to read and comment more in Allied AARs. There are a plethora of fairly new Japan side AARs that get hits but virtually no helpful comments from anyone. It's too bad that more experienced Allied players even can't go in and give advice to the Japanese side, as I see a lot of players who primarily play Japan here and in other Allied AARs.
From my own experience, I feel that readers don't post comments even when direct questions or outright cries for help have been placed in the AAR. I know when I see comments on some of the Japanese AARs from newish players they are grateful and respond immediately to try to engender a dialogue. It seems that with the growth of the game, there are a lot of AARs out there, but most of the new player AARs get less attention, and particularly those by IJ payers, which is too bad.
Every time I go into a AAR I try to think, what difficult question could I ask this player, or what comment could I give from a perspective not already shown, so that even if i don't know as much, or can't help directly with the tactics or larger strategy, that I am somehow taking part in the process. Any comment can help. I for one would like the tough comments to come more often. 'You should do ... differently because ... .'
Or just an occasional, 'Hey, keep it up,' or 'Tough one.'
As for Chez, I think he stopped writing for several reasons, possibly because of the same time constraints that led him to several mistakes in game, but also because he has a specific view on how the game 'should' be played, and people were offering opinions that went against these self-imposed 'rules.' It's hard to keep it going when you know things are spiraling out of control, I'm sure.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
