Lesson 0 - Initial assignment

**Robin de Bodemloze** · August 18, 2012, 06:24 AM

Judging by you people it would seem our AAR course broke the internet or something

**Paragon** · August 18, 2012, 12:26 PM

Robin, haven't you heard of Murphy's law?

Since you seem to doubt my words, have the completely useless (because of the language it is written on) error menssage:

I had to wander a bit in my village until I found a neighbour with free wi-fi to steal from. So yeah. It'd be funny if other users post their homework problems too.

inb4 "A dog ate my printer."

**♔The Black Knight♔** · August 19, 2012, 04:11 PM

So now that the assignments over, are you going to grade or comment on our reviews?

Or are you going to keep them for further purposes?

**Radzeer** · August 20, 2012, 07:54 AM

Here is how it works. We are "grading" the assignments now. Everybody will get individual feedback via PM. In addition, we will post a general feedback without names about the reviews as a whole. You know, like typical issues, general comments etc. We should be done with the grading in 2-3 days.

Tonight (US time) we will post the first lesson to keep the ball rolling.

**Radzeer** · September 09, 2012, 10:09 PM

Below are the reviews you guys have made. We removed the IDs, because it makes no difference. The reason for posting this here is for you to see how others judged the same AAR. We are done with the individual feedback which you should receive in a PM.

Introduction to the text

The AAR Winds of Silver is the first attempt by Faramir D’andunie on writing a story. The AAR uses the game Rome: Total War with the Europa Barbarorum modification, the difficulty is very hard for campaign and medium for battles, and the faction being played is Arche Seleukia (more familiarly known as the Seleucid Empire). The AAR has a balanced approach to picture to text ratio: The AAR is neither text only, nor is it a collection of images with just a short text for each. The AAR only contains 7 chapters, as the author hasn’t continued his work so far.

Story, plot and characters

Of the written chapters, we can see that the author has played the campaign mostly according to the usual starting strategy for the faction, beginning an offensive against the Ptolemaic empire while remaining on the defensive in the east. He then forms the plot around it. This approach is also very historical, for the Seleucids concentrated their military operations to Syria and Anatolia most of the time. The author has also decided not to drive an aggressive expansion policy in an attempt to conquer the world, but instead a rather passive approach, which is good as it is realistic.

The narrating is done through a third person omniscient narrator, which is a good choice, although first person narrator would have been equally effective. Dialogues are also used to a great effect, and do not only contain plans of campaign, but humor and conflicts as well. The author makes a good use of the EBs trait and ancillary system to influence the personality of the characters. However, the characters outside of the faction (such as the Pahlavan prince) don’t seem to get any spotlight, which is a minus. As a redeeming thing, the author makes use of characters that do not appear directly in the game itself.

Campaign and images

The information given about the campaign is in the start illustrated mostly by images (text is used as well), but later on the events of the campaign map have to be picked from the text with the absence of campaign map images. Speaking of images, at first the author makes use of image cropping to remove the HUD from the image, but later on he seems to have stopped doing this. But even in the images that are cropped, one can often see the mouse cursor, which appears in many of the battle images, and is sometimes accompanied by the small unit description box. On a plus side, the author has made use of text in the image itself, which helps in perceiving the things happening in the image. The author has not made use of any special effects with the images.

Conclusion

The AAR has a healthy amount of text, as well as pictures that help to show the reader what is happening, but the image department could make use of some improvement.

Reading this AAR has been interesting, and easily has some pros and cons. I may sound a little harsh, since I have been spoiled by other great AAR’s.

Starting with the introduction is always a good thing for me. It gets me pumped to read it and helps hold my interest in the story. After looking at the first post, he gives some basic information which is helpful to understand what he is up against. He talked about a passive campaign which worried me that he was going to write about how the author defended his empire. Now this may have been what it was like back in the day, but this a story. We want to see how an united kingdom can become an enormous empire through clever strategies, but in this aar, the person is going to be talking on how he is going to try to maintain and defend his territories. However I was later intrigued by the intro so my worry went away.

I read the first introduction to the story and saw that the author was doing some things I like to see. He started with introducing some head characters in a unique kinda way. Giving personalities to the characters is a must for me to stay hooked. The author did a good job at portraying the starting the characters and I became interested in the characters. It had a story feel. Good start, hopefully he will expand on this plot.

The next update kinda gives the general details of the empires problems which isn’t bad. However the author added unnecessary pictures which broke up the story and he didn’t give any personalities. It would have been nice if an advisor was telling the king about the problems and to hear some feedback from the king. I didn’t like this style of updates and it broke up the story with a boring generalized description of the empire.

The next two updates are better, as they describe the characters and show some personality. You get some dialogue and you start to see the defenses getting ready. I got some more interest so this helped a lot. The pictures of the generals were good as well but I wish the battle had some more personality added.

Anyways reading the next two updates after that were pretty good. They showed some story and dialogue and gave you some immersion during the battles and the pics were good. The details given in the describing of things were good too.

The lasts update saw the return of the general out view of the empire again. The pictures kinda broke up the flow of the story and the generalization of the descriptions made it boring. This is sadly the end so this really hurt the stories further plot but it was a pretty good start. I do believe it was a first so I do think it was good for a first try.

The Winds of Silver is an AAR about the Selucid royal family by the user Faramir D'Andunie. It is rather short in that it has not been finished as of now. However, this does not stop the reader from getting to know a little bit about the characters and what's going on. In fact, in the last chapter, the author delivers the information in a letter, this letter probably shows what is happening after the author clicked the end of turn button. It was an excellent way to show what else is going on. This is because the author mostly shows what is going on through the members of the royal family, mainly Antiochus (the ruler) and Theodoros (his son). So if something happens related to the Selucids, but not involving the royal family, it is unlikely that the reader will find out until they read this letter.

Being an AAR, the author is expected to implement pictures of his progress in the story. This he does, but the pictures are merely extras. The reader can understand what is happening without the pictures. This does not negate the importance of the pictures at all; the pictures are useful in that they can further clarify what is going on. To help the pictures, the author has added text into the pictures. Since battles become a jumbled mess, and the colors of the soldiers can be easily mistaken for another side, the text is really needed to clarify what is going on.

The author not only uses pictures from the battles that occur, but also pictures from the campaign map. Such a decision seems to mean that the author is no stranger to AARs, either from reading them or writing them. Battle pictures are easy to take, it is the campaign map pictures that appear to be the hardest, considering that the author needs to plan what pictures would be useful to the story, which pictures of the campaign map and its user interface would better the narrative? These are questions the author had to answer, which he did. The author captured seemingly every moment that the reader might want to know, both in the pictures and the narrative.

Since the story has not been finished, and it is still in its early stages, it is hard to tell what the plot is. Perhaps the author did not have a plot in mind, maybe he decided just to play out the campaign, while having a story for it. It is hard to comment on whether he should have stated his intention in the story, considering it is not that long, most likely it has only been a couple turns. Since it is not that long, we barely get to know the characters. We do not learn what their ambitions are aside from bringing glory to Arche Selukeia.

Winds of Silver, an EB AAR by Faramir D'Andunie, recounts the perils and events encountered by the Seleucids in a time of rebellion and war. In his AAR Faramir chooses to focus on story and character rather than chronicle every minute action that occurs within the campaign. This gives the story a distinct feel compared to the multitude of campaigns that do not emphasize plot. Even his record of loses, which many AAR writers avoid, adds a sort of credibility to his writing.

Faramir's focus on a select few in-game characters, namely Basileus Antiochos, Attalos of Pergamon, and Theodoros Syriakos, and two recurring original characters Andronomos and Chionis, allows for the important characters to be fully fleshed out. Each character has his own way of getting things done, and both their words and actions allow readers to hold of them as people.

Visual aids are woven into the writing, boosting the latter's effectiveness. Occasionally the mouse makes it's way onto the screen and covering the picture with unit text, but this is a minor nitpick on my part. However, later pictures include text that merely reiterates descriptive passages, which diminishes both of their effectiveness. The overlayed text tends to also be placed to fill up blank areas of the photos, and seem out of place. These pictures are not common, however, so they are not a major transgression.

Chapter 7 is the largest and most extensive of Faramir's updates, and gives the best view of the campaign as a whole. Earlier updates focused entirely on story, either with campaign updates coming through conversations on rebellious provinces or dramatic retellings of battles. Chapter 7 uses a letter informing Basileus Antiochos of the progress of current campaigns to move onwards to the faction as a whole and the dangers that encroach upon the Seleucids.

Overall Winds of Silver is a great short read AAR that seems to have been forgotten as real life suctions time away from projects on TWC.

Winds of Silver AAR review

This Winds of Silver AAR starts really promising but sadly the author didn't continue it for an unknown reason.

Setting
This AAR portrays various characters in Arche Seleukeia faction, played on RTW based mod, the always fantastic Europa Barbarorum.

Writing
The author made a balance between simple reporting and in-depth storytelling. There's enough text to create atmosphere but it's also short enough so it can attract many readers with shorter attention span. This works well and AAR is not difficult to read. Still, some readers may be confused as the author is changing between fonts (in the last chapter there is text in italics and then again in normal font although the text still describes the same thing) so some pedant readers may be bothered by that. There are some minor grammar mistakes, for example:

Quote:
all thanks to Andronomos no doupt.

Quote:
Apparently their tire em out using various small parties to chase em and lead em into a trap

Otherwise the text is not bad and it describes the things quite well. It's nice that the author decided to play the campaign differently in order to provide us with better story. For example, he does not expand quickly (as usual in campaigns) but allows his enemies to grow larger. He also tries to think a bit like the people he is presenting to us. This is clearly seen, when he sends Attalos Pergameu with his troops to Tarsus, where they are outnumbered 1:3, in order to show us his desire to become more famous and admired than Sarpedon Syriakos.

Visual aids
Interesting thing here is that some pictures are chosen perfectly and they really fit the text but in some cases he could provide us with (more) pictures from the battles he fought (chapter seven, second and eighth picture). In the third and fourth chapter the author should use spoiler tags because it's a bit annoying to scroll left and right while reading. Other chapters are better as the seventh contains spoilers and the rest of them don't need them.
Pictures show us battle scenes, event reports and character details. The AAR could contain more pictures which would show us the map details and more diplomacy reports. But this would change the balance between the pictures and text so it's understandable why the author chose not to include them in the AAR.

Conclusion
This AAR is quite enjoyable and interesting to read. Yes, it has it's flaws but it's nonetheless very good, especially as it is the author's first one. Sadly, he didn't continue this project which promised so much and which could evolve in to long, extraordinary AAR.

Winds of Silver Review

The Winds of Silver is an AAR of the Seleucid Empire with the Europa Barbarorum modification. Overall, the author, Faramir D’Andunie, does well in aspects such as character and plot development, despite not completing the AAR.

Summary
We start with an out-of-game chapter with the King, asking priests to foretell the future of his empire. According to the priests, the empire will flourish.. Afterwards, the author tries to defeat the invading Ptolemaic and Parthian armies, while trying to develop his cities. Unfortunately, several cities are lost to invaders, or civil revolt. Furthermore, rebel armies hinder the author’s progress. However, by the end of the AAR, the author has stabilized his empire.

Writing Style
Faramir’s writing style is of high quality. The writing appears to be well structured and it flows well. Despite editing out some grammar errors, a few still exist. Further proofreading could fix this minor issue.

The author’s narrative style is mainly in third person, though there is first person dialogue. The dialogue includes points of views from the King, and generals such as Sarpedon Syriakos. The dialogue is useful, as it makes characters more dimensional and realistic since we find the motives for their actions.
We see that the current King is superstitious explaining why he is sneaking into a temple at night to ask priests about the future of his empire.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

The author’s descriptive text is satisfactory. Since a game cannot, portray life 2000 years ago accurately, descriptive text makes the story more realistic.
We see expository text explaining Attalos’ background and personality, combined with historical background information. Furthermore, the author uses historical terms such as Katoikiai and Strategos to create a sense of historical authenticity. This level of detail makes the AAR more immersive.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Character Development
This narrative has created several interesting characters. For example, we have the King, who has several good characteristics. Unfortunately, his relative Sarpedon is more power hungry, and disliked by other characters such as Attalos. The variety of characters and the actions and their personality makes the AAR unique and interesting. Not everyone is perfect, and there is potential for a deadly rivalry.

Plot Development
I find this After Action Report to be very interesting in terms of the plot. The author creates a feel of desperation through writing about the various invasions and rebellions he faces. While a few players would reload saves after defeats, the author does not win all engagements. For example, several cities are lost, and even a useful general dies while fighting feble rebel armies.
This creates an interesting scenario. A situation where the player has no defeats or losses quickly becomes stale. Therefore, the fact the author has created an interesting story through having a few losses in his AAR.

Visual Aids
The visual aids on this After Action Report are well done. They appear to be of high quality graphics, and the UI is not visible. This makes the battle images more realistic.

HTML Code:

http://imageshack.us/f/339/270partia3.jpg/

However, at times, there could be more battlefield pictures, and it would be nice to see more campaign map images, or a family tree. This would help keep track of the empire and family members respectively.

Introduction
The author gives the reader the direction in which he hopes to take the story. By allowing the constrictive mechanics of the game to try and work themselves out, to force himself to struggle down the road in the story, as it unfolds. Already a difficult task in relation to the faction he chose for the Mod. By no means is this an easy faction to work with, but that does not concern the author, as he makes his true intentions known early that he hopes to tell a story, no matter where it will end up, bad or good.
That is an admirable beginning to the AAR. The author does not try and make himself appear to be a hero, and that winning is not important, but to roleplay the difficulties he is sure to face as he allows other factions to build up their strength, before he engages them.

Writing
The author is quite the story teller, which is apparent from his setting of the prologue, which the author did very well, and helped me to imagine myself observing the scene as it unfolded.
Favorite Example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

The author describes his characters with their own individuality. He creates tension, and conflict between his own characters as would happen in reality.
The tense conflict of opinion difference created early on between a Seleucid Strategos, Attalos Pergamou Mysiakes, and the regional Satrap, Sarpedon Syriakos, was a great example of this. The Strategos was forced to fight a battle against three times his number, due to the conflict of opinion, in which he was denied reinforcements by the glory hog Satrap.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Visual Presentation
The author did a good job in working the game's limited visuals into his roleplay. It was a clever action to use the campaign map as a map of the region in character, which shows the Strategos' first target, Tarsus, and where the next closest settlement is, Salamis, Cyprus. He turned a lack of Ptolemaic naval forces at Salamis, into a mutiny, within his story. I thought this was a clever move to explain that no naval assistance or reinforcements will come, when the Battle of Tarsos begins.
http://a.imageshack.us/img256/6818/271mapofanatolia.jpg

Critique
The author seems a bit to self critical. He seems somewhat insecure about his AAR writing ability, but he might not understand that alot of people enjoy the read, may give rep, but not necessarily comment on the story. He needs to understand that whether others disapprove of it or not, every AAR is unique in it's own way, as no one or two people have the same writing styles.

Conclusion
For a first AAR, I was blown away at how well the author presented it. I believe he has taken the time to review other AAR's, and in doing so learned some good general tricks that he could apply to his own AAR's. I was impressed by the descriptions in battle shots, which explained what was going on, that was a very good idea, and helped me understand what may have been missed in the between shots dialogue.

Winds of Silver.
A EB Arche Seleukeia AAR by Faramir D'Andunie.

"Winds of Silver" is Faramir D'Andunies only AAR. It is aloso one of the few that I have read.
It follow the main Selucid carracters, namely the King of Kings, Basileus Antiochos and a cuple of other royals; Attalos of Pergamon and Theodoros Syriakos. And their struggles to keep the Selucid empire together.

The Story
Chapter one consists of the Basileus and some trusted companions of his, traveling to the ancient city of Babylon in the cover of night. He have a dream he wants to know the meaning of.
The answer the priest gives, seem to make a impression on the king. Changing the way he see and do things.
As the story continues in the next chapter, we can see that though he put more time and effort into managing his realm, it break apart rapidly. The eastern provinces, royal satrapies and petty kings rebell agains him, and barbarians ravage the remaining lands.
The focus change to Anatolia, and we meet Attalos of Pergamon and Theodoros Syriakos. We follow Attalos as he is thrusted into conquering the rebellious city of Tarsos with a small army.
Against the ods he can claimb a clear victory and a the first step towards stability and greatness.
Theodoros Syriakos, is against his will, sendt eastwards to the city of Hekatompylos. It is a smal city in the middle of nowere, continusly attacked by raiders. During the next months he manages to transform the local levy into a proper force, he hire mercenaries and get reinforcements from the west. He feel that he is ready before luring the Pathians into attacking him in the city. Their horsemen are no good in there, and he can claimb a difficult, but clear victory.
The story then change back to the mediteranean coast and Syria, where a few cities have had to defend on their own. And we can see the report Theodoros have sendt home to the Baseilus.

Writing
The story is buildt up so that it follows the local leader. In Syria we follow the King. In Anatolia we follow Attalos and in the east we follow Theodoros. In the sieges at the end we even follow the local captains defending the city.
The story depicts the feelings and ralations between the carracters in a good way. Conversations and their thoughts make up much of the story. The entire first chapter is made to show the psychological situation the king is in.

visual aids
This AAR include a good number of pictures. There is nothing special about any of them, but I feel the amount is suitable to tell the story the way he do, although there might be a bit to many in the battle parts of the story.

Critique and Conclusion
I do not usually read AARs, so I do not have much to compare this with. Hovever I enjoyed reding it. And that speaks for itself. I did not notice any spelling mistakes, but that is normal for me, neither did I see any particular logical fallicy or similar. In short: It was a enjoyable story. The only problem is that he have ended it.

Although I may be unfamiliar with the Europa Barbarorum modification, Winds of Silver was an AAR which caught my attention. We all know who Alexander The Great was, though not all of us may know what remained after his death. Following Alexander`s death enemies dared to question the might and power of Arche Seleukeia. Now the empire faces enemies from several of its neighbouring lands and must fight to maintain the glory and might of Alexander`s empire. The writer brings us along on a journey as he continues the struggle to keep the empire intact.

The AAR has a flow in it, making it easy for everyone to understand. His narrative style is interesting as he allows us to see what goes through the minds of the different characters. Unlike several other AARs, Winds of Silver contains detailed descriptions and backstories of the genuine characters. Here is an example:

Chionis, member of a family of Makedonians who have been settled in Babylonia at the time of Alexander the Great and royal servants of the court of Seleukos, was a man in his early 20s whose physical stature, loyalty and firm personal morality had earned him a position among the Basileus’s Companions.

By doing this, the scenes in the story seem more realistic and genuine. He even describes the characters to the smallest detailes later on in the story. It makes it easier for the readers to imagine the different scenes.

Like other writers, Faramir D`Andunie includes screenshots of his campaign in the story. This is, along with the detailed scene-depictions, one of the most important features an AAR can offer. We feel more present in his campaign and the happenings which the empire will experience. Now, the only things I can criticize is the fact that he forgot to remove the in-game UI in his picture, a mistake which is done by several other writers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

By removing the UI the AAR seem more like a story rather than a report. One must also remember that too many pictures is not always better, that is unless you manage to maintain a balanced picture/text ratio. If you can not do so, the AAR might seem more like a campaign gallery rather than a story. The writer handled it well and one will without doubt enjoy this AAR. Frequent map updates would also let everyone see the progress of the campaign, though that is a matter of opinion. The AAR had a promising start, though the writer has unfortunately not updated his story for a while.

Although I know the AAR ended a bit early, I still wish that he had developed his characters a bit more. When reading it, I don’t really see the characters as having personalities, they don’t seem real. They seem like characters. There also doesn’t seem to be much of a court. There isn’t much mention of any retainers, or friends of any of the characters (except perhaps Chionis). Because of what I feel is a lack of character immersion, the AAR still feels like a story, rather than something actually happening (which is what I personally feel an AAR should be like).

I would like to know more about the affairs of Seleukia. All we really know is that the East is in Peril, and some generals are making some head way against the Egyptians. I would like to see photos of the vastness of the empire, of the empire’s armies marching off to war (although I suppose the battle pics do that), of the financial state of the empire. Things a leader of an empire should be concerned about. He was a bit lax on providing those details, so I do think that dragged the story down slightly, but that is only my personal opinion

I really like the way he did the battles. Every tactical decision he made he elaborated on a tiny bit, or ordered it in character, rather than telling you what happened. The photos themselves were very simple, but they were numerous, and helped set the stage. These visual aids greatly enhanced the feeling of it being a battle, rather than a history lesson (or perhaps a re-telling of the battle).

In regards to the plot, I feel that he did an excellent job in Chapter 5, where he has the king and heir talking. When the king sends his son East, to deliver justice and reassurance, it moved the plot along nicely, and had me anticipating later chapters, where the son would presumably do great things.

In the West, I would’ve liked to the rivalry between Attalos and Sarpedon talked about a bit more. Two rival generals competing with each other for glory could’ve been another excellent plot. In summary, I feel that he did both an excellent job with one plot, but missed an opportunity to start another plot.

His narrative was always changing during the story. At the end of the battle for Tarsos, the author states Quote:
“With no more time to waste, Attalos leads the hetairoi in a charge at the rear of the main Ptolemaic battle line.”

, which is told in 3rd person. A few lines later, he writes Quote:
“But even more satisfying than winning was the thought of Sarpedon fuming at his success”

, which to me sounds more like it is a thought from Attalos himself (which would be 1st person). This really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but I prefer things to be more orderly so for me this dragged the whole thing down a bit

“Winds of Silver” by Faramir D’Andunie is an RTW AAR using the Europa Barbarorum mod and the faction Arche Seleukeia.

Plot
This AAR tells the story of the Seleucid kingdom led by the king Antiochos Syriakos. It starts out with him going to use priests in the city of Babylon to find out what a dream he had meant for him and his kingdom. The interpretation of this dream sets the stage for the rest of the story as Antiochos now rules the kingdom with this in mind. This was a well thought out opening scene which grabs the reader’s attention as the king sends his son east to protect the provinces with the reader knowing that each choice can lead to the fulfillment of the prophecy which may spell doom for the Seleucids.

Narrative Style
The author chose to write in third person and does a good job of conveying the characters feelings. Also the choice of switching from the king in one chapter to focus on the son’s efforts in another gives the reader a multiple points of view on the whole situation. However, when it comes to battles, they are written alright but they lack the full emotional impact on the battle. However, this does not take away too much away from the AAR’s quality.

Technical
The pictures were well chosen to convey to the reader what was going on in the story. However, there were some where the cursor was showing on an event tag was showing in the story that took away from the total immersion of the reader and you once again realize that this is a game report.
The font and spacing was consistent and the use of spoiler was the update that contained a lot of pictures was a good as well which is a help for people with slow internet connections. There could have been more campaign info such as more picture of the campaign map as settlements were captured or showing the movement of armies. Once again doesn’t take too much away from the AAR but helps the reader be able to picture the story better. Overall, the AAR wasn’t too bad technical wise but could have been better.

Winds of Silver Review

The first chapter of Winds of Silver commences very archaically—with a classic introduction. I enjoyed the narrative style, as well as the expositional background information provided. The establishment of two major characters, the King and his son, certainly contributes to the general expository setting as well as underscoring a theme of succession which was prevalent throughout the Seleucid dynastic period.
The rest of the chapters, with the exception of five and seven, diverged from the introductory chapter in style and content. They took on the normal mode of most AARs which consist of displaying a series of in-game screenshots followed by captions written underneath, which creatively explain the occurrences of the pictures above. I found the use of the visuals to great effect, as they weren’t haphazardly laid out, and were properly supported.
A positive aspect of this work involved the use of point of view for the basis of each new chapter. Each chapter took on the point of view of a different character and region, (again with the exception of chapters five and seven). Another interesting device employed by the author involved the use of an anachronistic, yet effective way of writing text right into the very image to give the idea of the old moving pictures with subtitles. An example of this is found in chapter six, “Andromachos orders the Babylonian reserve to hold the phalanx lines that barely hold”(D’Andunie, 6).
Aside from all the opulence of the campaign’s story unfolding into a riveting saga, the work as a whole lacked consistency as it switched between sections written in dense narrative, to sections splayed with a myriad of images and captions. Chapter five being the most notable divergence from the previous chapters, and most resembling the first chapter (a change which I enjoyed). Most of the work is quite well trimmed, and only lacking polish in a few areas such as dialogue grammatical commas, transitional phrases, and other things that only a ‘grammar-Nazi’ would notice and not really all that relevant to an AAR at TWC.
Personally, my preference for an AAR is one that relies more on a creative, well-written narrative, (much like the famous The No-Where Legion AAR written by Senior_Batavian_Horse) rather than one relying on in game screens. This is simply because most people only ever read AAR’s for games or mods they own, and with that being so, have seen the in-game event messages, character scrolls, maps, etc, a million and one times already. In my opinion what makes a good AAR is the same thing that makes a good story—compelling dialogue, and clean, well-written prose. But that might just be me because I am the kind of person who would rather read a good book about a historical event, than watch a movie adapted from the event.
All in all, this is a solid AAR read, however the author’s choice to not finish nor update for over a year greatly deters me from subscribing to his thread.

When one reads the AAR “Winds of Silver” the first thing that comes into mind is “wasted potential”. The author chooses Europa Barbarorum, one of the greastest Rome mods. In this campaign he emulates the Seleucids, not amongst the hardest to use in this mod.

The plot centers around the nation as a whole, jumping from character to character as significant battles of events for the whole campaign happen. One of his problems is the amount of detail: the second update, presenting the whole state of crisis the Seleucids are suffering, is just a bunch of short phrases as an excuse to give us a screencap. Then, seemingly more innocuous events get more focus. Still, he presents a diverse set of characters that could have developed an entertaining plot.

The writing style is okay all around, and the historical accuracy, if it is not legit at least manages to be believable. One mistake that repeats itself though, is the inconsistency on the tenses uses, better illustrated in this quote where it switched from past to present in the same sentence:

The blood freezes in his veins. If they are thieves he will be dead before he can even cry for help, and the guards below have possibly met their end already.

The writer is a good player, as the fact that almost every battle ends up in a clear victory for him. The information given is just the one he deems important to the plot, giving plenty of details on the battles, characters and construction reports.

One detail, more of an annoyance than anything, is the inconsistency of the screencaps used in the AAR. A few examples:

The writer seems indecisive over if he includes UC details, like the map, or if he cuts the inferior part of the images so only the in-game action is shown. And sometimes, maybe by accident and maybe not, the in-game details of the unit as he scrolls over them also appear. The author seems unable to decide wether or not he spoils them, either. He also adds an innovation to the normal way an AAR uses pics to complement the narration, that being adding text in the very middle of them.

While he generally manages to avoid getting the letters in the middle of the action, in my opinions this, more than anything, ruins the immersion on the battle scenes. Using a different, smaller font for these notes below the screencap, or making it join the normal text in between them, would have been a much better option.

The real problem comes when some of the pics are down and the writer has done nothing to restore them, understandable as the AAR seems dead for a while by now. That way, the good start he had managed anyway, with most of the mistakes being easy to correct or being a matter of him settling with one style or the other are there forever, with the decision kept unconcluded. As I said in the opening statement, wasted potential.

Review of Winds of Silver by Faramir D’Andunie

Winds of Silver is an AAR based around the faction Arche Seleukia in the Rome: Total War mod Europa Barbarorum. The current seven chapters tell us about the political and personal view of an great empire that struggles to maintain its subjects. Though it remains unfinished, the AAR does a very good job at setting a picture.

As I said, the plot (as far as it has come) focuses around the subjects – or satrapies – of the great Seleucid Empire. It uses different characters to tell the different sides, with one in the west fighting the Ptolemies in Asia Minor and another in the far east establishing trade and loyalty among the less loyal satraps. I, personally, think this is a very nice way to start a story like this one. It gives a good view of the situation and is a good build for the later story.

Faramir D’Andunie uses a first person narrative and the story is set in real time. It is an interesting choice, I myself prefer to write in a second person narrative, and certainly a hard one. It shows at times that the author errs when writing, for example mixing up tenses and views. Perhaps it would have been better for the writer to at least change the time?

Faramir uses two main characters – Attalos and Theodotos – who at the start of the story find themselves at two very different places in the world. Attalos is fighting battles against the Ptolemaic Empire in Asia Minor and Theodotos is a somatophylakes in Media. Both characters work very well and present the story nicely.

The author uses quite many screenshots compared to the amount of text. Faramir has screenshots of most parts of the game; we can see campaign screens, construction reports, battle statistics and in-game battle shots. Most of it, if not all, works well with the story and adds the information we do not get through the narrative.

Most of the information we get of the campaign, we get through the screenshots from the campaign map. There are some tidbits explaining the situation, but it would certainly help if there was something more to get a grasp on. This is one of the parts Faramir D’Andunie could have done better.

We are at the summarizing already then. So, in sum, this is a good AAR, but it definitely has parts that can be improved and polished.

I must begin by saying that *Faramir D'Andunie has done a pretty good job, seeing that this is his first attempt at an AAR. There are mistakes with some aspects of the story and the AAR itself, some bigger than the others. But I feel that this is a good effort on his part.

Plot: Going with the pretty standard and seemingly unimaginative idea of basically following the conquest of a certain faction may seem boring on the face of it, but it's just that there are so many AARs today that have exactly the same thing. Nevertheless, Faramir has taken a simple plot and done enough to keep the readers waiting for more.

Writing: Written in third person, the author has kept it simple, with no fancy fonts or different formats. This isn't too much of a problem, but I think it helps to make it look a bit nicer, even if it's just by adding a title to each chapter, or aligning the paragraphs in a different way. There are quite a few grammatical errors however, which I must say put me off reading the story just a little bit.

Visual Aids: Nothing special here, pretty standard pictures. Personally, I prefer to see a screenshot without the UI, but I guess that's just me. Later on in the story, a couple of the screenshots had descriptions inside them. Pretty nice idea, I guess, but again I think some readers prefer to see more realistic screenshots.

Characters: Faramir has done quite nicely here, and I believe his background stories and character development is commendable. For example:
*
Quote:
Descendant of Hellenic families that had called the cities of the western shore of Anatolia home for centuries, Attalos did not share his fellow countrymen’s passion for independence, considering the rule of Arche a pillar of stability and security for the region, which soon led to his appointment as Strategos of Lydia and Phrygia with their highly valued Katoikiai (military settlements) and rich minerals deposits. At his 46th years of age Attalos had hoped to be able to enjoy the benefits that come with such a prestigious assignment but in-between the ongoing and off going war with Ptolemaic forces and the Gaulish invasion would not give him any such pleasure. Especially after a royal messenger brought a letter signed by the Basileus himself requesting ever increased efforts and offensives against the Ptolemaic holdings in southern Anatolia.

Another example would be the dialogue written in Chapter 5. That was very well written.

I for one do not prefer character page screenshots, even if it helps in explaining a character's traits. There are many ways the author could have written them down beautifully, and I think that by putting these screenshots, he's just robbing himself of the juicy parts of the story. There's a lot of potential in these parts. Added to that is my earlier mentioned dislike for non-realistic screenshots, though again, that might be a problem only for a few.

Campaign Information: Not as adequate as I would like, but generally seems to be enough. It would be a good idea to add a screenshot of the mini-map in a separate post though, not as a part of the AAR, but just to help readers keep track of progress.
I personally liked how Faramir mentioned the dates in a more historical manner, such as "2nd year of the 128th Olympiad". Things like these add a nice touch to the story.

Miscellaneous: Overall, what I believe is a big, if not the biggest flaw in the AAR is not informing the readers when the AAR is dead! I would have understood if Faramir went inactive shortly after his last post, but a quick check showed that he is online right now! To me, nothing is worse than showing a promising AAR, gathering a following of readers, and just when you have them waiting for more, crush them by abandoning the AAR. A little post wouldn't hurt.

Overall, not bad for a first try. Not as good as the other high-end AARs pee sent today, but a commendable effort by Faramir.

**Radzeer** · September 09, 2012, 10:35 PM

So now that is up, let's say a few things as general feedback items.

This exercise was designed to get you think about what makes a good AAR without any previous direction from us. We picked an AAR which had good and less good aspects as well. As you can read in the reviews, you have focused on various features of the AAR, and praised/criticized a range of issues. Keep in mind that EVERY aspect of an AAR can be improved, so it is not like there was a silver bullet reviewing this story. Several of you mentioned the narration perspective, the campaign info, commented on pictures (though less so than what I expected) and grammar.

Hopefully, this review helped you think about various aspects of an AAR that could be evaluated. You can use the individual feedback to think more about this exercise. We have been quite pleased so far, so we are off to a good start in terms of you guys producing stuff.

Good job!

**Robin de Bodemloze** · September 12, 2012, 01:30 AM

We raised some extra questions for each of you to think about in your feedback. There is no need to specifically submit further answers to us unless you feel strongly about doing so, but do think about them in the context of your own writing. In general the assignment was done well. Keep up the good work!

If anyone had questions about the assignment or their feedback you can PM us or post in the assignment thread.