Looking for style tips/general tips

[Heskey]

Hey guys,

I've written a few AAR's in the past that have fallen by the wayside; mostly due to updated versions of the games I play (and I like to play the most up-to-date versions of things!), but with the release of Stainless Steel 6.3 and the fix of some of the initial bugs, I'm wanting to write another AAR based on my first campaign in the new version...

But I don't think my previous style has done my campaign's justice at all, and I'm looking for some tips on how to make a good AAR! I've read a few of them on here, and they're pretty good, some less so than others but all are credits to their authors.

[SS AAR] Crusader States - The Surface of the Sun
[AAR] Rise of the Serpents [Book II]
[AAR] The Dwarves
[SS AAR] "Betrayed", Order of the Knights Templar

I was toying with the idea of writing an AAR from the perspective of a general, with no mention of the faction's goals/aims etc except what the general I'm writing for would know personally (blur map parts he wouldn't see etc), but with a maximum of 50-60 turns for generals in 6.3, I think that'd be very short-lived, especially when playing BGR a general can remain in a settlement sorting stuff out for 10+ turns at times. That sure would be boring to read about

The campaign I'm wanting to write, is a turtle campaign on England; taking over England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and maintaining Normandy. The idea being to simply 'tech-up' and focus on the life on Britain, sending armies to aid the crusades and maybe invade Norway, or France through the keyhole that is Caen.

It would be:

Early Era
BGR On
RR On
Assimilation On
Limited Activity On

I'm also forward planning guild ideas for where to place them; I'll shamelessly copy this bit from a similar thread of mine in the SS forums:

Hmm, any ideas for guilds guys?

I'm reading this thread here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=77577

But it's largely for vanilla I assume; how much of that is applicable in SS 6.3? =P

I've never really got a horsebreeder guild, swordsmans guild, woodsmans guild, or anything like that...

I'm thinking:

London - Merchant's Guild (Faction trade hub)
Caen - Swordsmaster's Guild
Winchester - Explorer's Guild (Naval base; closest to 'Portsmouth' I guess, Britain's historical naval port?)
Exeter - Thieves' Guild
Nottingham - Woodsman's Guild for Sherwood Archers from Sherwood Forest! ;P
York - Alchemist's Guild (on the borders of rebelious scotland, and the shortest distance to the border for Norman artillary)
Edinburgh - Theologian's Guild (For the great cathedrals?)
Aberdeen - Assassin's Guild
Inverness - ???
Dublin - ???
Galway - ???

One of the ???'s could be a horse breeders guild, but not sure how I get them in cities, other than recruiting merchant cavalry... But then I'd have the merchant guild lol.

What do you guys know/think? Best way to get these guilds also? (esp. the swords, woodsman, horse guilds)

Off to work now but I thought I'd make this post so it can accure some replies for when I come home.

Thanks in advance!

[Beer Money]

Ill take a stab.

Why do you think your writing or the AARs taper off?

Personally I can tell you that with my AARs if you dont have an end point you will meander through you story and if its a long one you cna get lost. You have to know what your end point is and where you are headed.

But if its not that, I think they look fine. I think you have a unique style and I like it. It smore of from an observers point of view. there were a couple times where you went into character that kind of went against your observer voice so I would say you want to focus on a certain narration but it wasnt distracting.

As for the general, you can still talk about what is going on in the rest of your empire as if he was getting messengers to tell him or even what has been rumored with the town folk.

Anyway, hope that helps a bit and let me know if you need to discuss anything else!

- BM

[Ybbon]

This seems very quiet so I hope I can still post here.

I am writing an AAR for RS2, it's very important for the AAR to be displayed in a hand-written font. I don't see any such font, so simply put how can I do this? I am using Word 2010 to write and format it with Lucida Handwriting. I can write the whole thing, included images in word and insert that as an image? Is that possible?