aar details to be determined
 

i am looking to learn how to play something besides ulm or ermor. I will be doing an aar on this. Hopefully it will shed some light on this game for myself and other new players. What race would you be interested in seeing how a newbie handles them? Please include pretender scales suggestions and why. I will be starting this in about 3 hours(hopefully). Also advice on aar writing would be very helpfull.

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Since you have ruled out Ulm, may I suggest Man, Pythium, or Pangaea? Or if you are adventurous, R'lyeh.

With regards to AAR-writing, I know you've been reading mine, so ... keep reading. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

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i didn't want to go ulm(because i play game after game with them) or ermor(i have mopped up everytime i played with them). I also expect to lose this game but hopefully will get insight on where i went wrong.

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Rlyeh would generate too many opinion/arguments I think. Arcos has a high learning curve and covers just about everything in the game. Marignon is alot of run and Im not sure if its been covered yet. Caelum would be interesting but its buggy until the next release. Abyssia hasnt been done.

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Don't so casually overlook Machaka, just because the white devil has imprisoned your MIND!

~Malcom Z

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With no offense intended to Arryn, I find AStott's writeup:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=74;t=001153
much more informative and captivating. I find Arryn's writing style too "poetic" or something. Most of the time I find myself saying something like, "Huh? Was that a turn or not?"

For example:
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Could have been phrased as:
"This turn, I queue 1 Norna and 1 Jotun Spearman for recruitment, which leaves my treasury at 250 gold. I defer investing this in province defense, as I want to see how Pythium reacts to his successive defeats."

Obviously there are others who are thoroughly enjoying Arryn's AAR, so this is just a matter of personal preference. I myself prefer something a bit less archaic/cryptic/melodramatic and more straightforward. I gave up on following that AAR after the first couple of Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Another example:
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Huh? How can you know that 10% of the people are faithful? What does leaving a scout in the province have to do with your dominion level? Completely lost me on that one. How does "10% faithful" translate into "dominion"? Is your dominion 1 in that province, and 10 in your home province? And no, I'm not asking for a translation of "Arryn's terminology". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Would I be correct in saying that this could be paraphrased as, "My dominion in Saeborea is declining, so I'm leaving my scout there"? It doesn't seem to be very "newbie-friendly". Maybe more experienced players have no problem following along, but it just gives me a headache.

My advice on writing an AAR is this: Make it clear and concise. Write not only what you do, but why you do it (ie: what's going on in your head). Add a little flavor in the form of drama if you wish, but keep it at a reasonable level.

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Targa,

My AAR turn Posts are clearly labelled as turns, to set them off from other Posts in the thread.

AStott's AAR is fine, and very informative. I was aiming for something a tad less dry, closer to what Tacticus has been doing. Something that has most of Stott's level of detail, but presented more literarily. I'm sorry that you find it confusing or boring.

Dominion is a scale of 1 to 10. It requires no great leap of imagination to equate a ten-point scale with percentages. But you are correct that changing the phrasing from 1-10 to percentages may well confuse some newbies.

I just wish you'd made these comments in my AAR thread, days ago when I'd started, before you gave up. It's hard to know that someone dislikes something if they don't speak up.

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heh there is alot of choices but i am leaning toward pangaea(as i want to learn more about nature magic anyway). Any pretender and scales suggestions?

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i am looking at that father of nature guy seems to fit in with the theme

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You have 3 choices (I think just 3)
You can play Pangaea like an Ulm (new era) or like an Ermor (carrion woods) or the very difficult sneak army mode.

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I know that. Poor choice of words on my part. What I meant was that in reading the AAR, it is, as you put it, "literarily written", which made it difficult for me to follow what exactly you did, and what happened on that turn. I'm sure that many (if not most or all) others have no difficulties in this regard.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You're still confusing the newb in me. How is dominion a scale of 1-10? You stated at the start of your AAR: "With the remaining points we have, I increase Dominion as much as I can (to 5)." How is a 5 a 10? Unless you're equating 1-10 with 10%-100% (like "how would you rate this on a scale of 1-10"). Or, if you're talking about 10 being MAX dominion, then I just missed the part where you built enough temples to raise your dominion from 5 to 10.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nah. It was clear to me that many people enjoy your writing style, and that they had no difficulties in comprehending each turn. I would not be so presumptuous as to ask that you change your style of writing to accomodate my personal tastes (or ignorance). Your AAR is fine just the way it is, which is why I clearly stated in my post below that I intended no offense, and that it was a matter of my personal preference. Keep up the great work!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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argh i am overwhelmed to say the least

i tried to goof around a little and realised i have no idea what units are capable of what my pretender didn't have the ability to cast the ritual spells needed

i tried to goof around with the carrion woods theme and proceded to get my pretender killed(didn't seem close to the cyclops for early expansion ability) then spent way too long recalling only to get him killed again several turns later, the ulm forces are sieging my castle before i have any clue as to what i should be doing and i still am not sure what the units are capable of.

going to do a search and see what i can come up with to put a plan of action together. any pretender/scale setting thoughts are more than welcome

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<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Now I understand your confusion. In the first few Posts I am doing pretender design. The default starting Dominion level for this pretender was 3. I spent points to raise it to 5. I am sure you are aware that base Dominion can go up to 10, either during god creation by spending design points, or later via temples. The minimum is, of course, 1. Any less and you'd be extinct before you started, so the game won't let you go down to zero (or less). During the creation process, you cannot even drop below the starting level for the type of pretender you chose. That is, drop from say 3 down to 2 to get more points. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Later on, once the game actually started (Turns 1+), I refer to province dominion in terms of %, so that a level of 1 is equal to 10%. It's poetic license on my part to thematically justify dominion in terms of how much of the populace has been converted over to worshipping my god. It presumes that a level of 10, the max, would be 100% of the population. I hope that clears things up for you (and anyone else). <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks!

And my apologies to Condors for hijacking *his* AAR thread with explanations about mine.

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Gandalf,

just one question from a complete noob here (just look at the number of my Posts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ):

Why would a AAR about R'lyeh create a lot of arguments ?

As a great fan of H.P. Lovecraft and as a means to improve my playing due to player feedback I have thought about writing an AAR for R'lyeh.

But if this might turn into a more or less polite flamewar I think I should better choose another nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

CharonJr

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We have some people here who feel they have Rlyeh down pat either with killer strategys for playing it or with killer strategys for taking it out. An AAR done for the enjoyment of reading the decisions made, why they were made, the mistakes, the wins, might dissapear in arguments between people not involved in the AAR. Just my humble opinion.

But then there is also just my own personal natural tendency. I like to explore the underdog. So in a question about which nation could use an AAR I tended to look at the list for those nations I felt have been least explored or pinned down already. Some of my first choices already have AARs running.

[ February 11, 2004, 13:51: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

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Since my name got mentioned, I guess I'll add to the thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

It's probably too late to make any suggestions on what to play. So... my advice is, good luck and stick with it. The more that people write AAR's, the more that others will be encouraged to try. I'll be reading as it shows up.

With regards to style... Write in whatever way works for you. It helps if you have in mind how you want to handle things and stick with it, but really, just write the way you like. The more people write AAR's, the more variety we'll get.

And that's good.

Oh, and yes, I will be resuming my game soon. I just have this slight problem of having purchased a brand new video card, and I need to carefully allocate my time between all the games I'm suddenly wanting to go back and play... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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i am actually waiting for the patch to get this started and will use the carrion worm.

i also want to figure out what units/generals can and can't do

i am determined to learn this race although it may take me a little while