value of AARs

[henri51]

I don't mean this as a criticism - I have spent more time reading the forums than playing the game.The AARs are very interesting and informative, and really help to learn the game.

However I would like to point out something that really enhances the value of an AAR, and that is additional notations added by the writer. For a large game like this, I often find myself looking at the comment and the map, and having a hard time to see the relation between the two except to see approximately where the front line is. The larget the game, the more they require on-map explanations, and this is a true monster game.

AARs like the ones by Notenome and Redmarcus are very good examples of the plus-value of adding markings to the maps. Notenome's AARs pointing out specific areas of the map, adding text, circles and arrows to the map make it much easier to follow what is going on. It is not for nothing that real-life military maps have all kinds of symbols on them. In some AARS describing where a breakthrough is going to be, I can't for the life of me figure out exactly where the author is talking about, but in Notenome's AAR, I can see it at a glance - good job notenome.

So my comment is that if you are going to spend a lot of time to create an AAR, you can make it a lot better by adding your own graphics to the map, and they don't have to be professional: hand-drawn graphics with a paint program can do the job if you don't have anything better.

Henri

[ComradeP]

I intend to later on when it might become less clear what's going on. There isn't a lot of interesting stuff to report as the Axis aside from "the front was pushed east a bit". The Soviets have to think about serious defensive planning on turn 1, the Axis can more or less just push east for about 10 turns before trying more complex movements.

[CharonJr]

Good point there about making the map more clear by notations/graphics.

Snce I only have Paint it will be interesting to see what can be done

CharonJr

[notenome]

Defensive planning? As the Soviets? I just rail em west and wish em luck.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: notenome

Defensive planning? As the Soviets? I just rail em west and wish em luck.

They will need it [:D]

[ComradeP]

More like "goodbye and good luck";)

[MrLongleg]

ORIGINAL: CharonJr

Good point there about making the map more clear by notations/graphics.

Snce I only have Paint it will be interesting to see what can be done

CharonJr

I am using paint to create a single large map and it works fine for annotations and simple graphics...

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

More like "goodbye and good luck";)

No worries, theres another 6 million to replace each one when he goes down!

[Tophat1815]

 I see your point on commentary,but I tried to get across from turn 1 the flow of the game without too much mucking up the map. But I do see your point.

[Redmarkus5]

Paint.net is a free downloadable paint program with a lot more functionality than Paint.

For example, if you "add a layer" to your image then you can paint the front lines etc in the 'layer' without affecting the original image. You can paint your start line and objective in Layer 1, and your phase lines in Layer 2, your annotations in Level 3 etc.

So, when you come to update the map, you don't have to paint the start and objective lines again, you just delete the Phase Line layer and create a new one and your map status is updated.

It's the same with arrows and anything else.

Remember to save as .JPEG before trying to upload to the forum. The default save file format is .PNG.

[CharonJr]

Yes, just found Paint.net here, too, looks fairly good so far.

CharonJr

[Redmarkus5]

If you try the line and arrow settings, you can start putting cleaner lines on the map than freehand allows...

[CharonJr]

And even better, you can draw curved arrows by dragging spots along the line into positions where you want the curve.

CharonJr