Hi there,

I finished my first AAR (A.E.I.O.U) a day ago and feel like writing about it so I started (well I am currently starting it, I'd say) this blog and I will write here every time I finish an AAR (or during AARs in general, perharps?). So if you didn't read my AAR (and/or future AARs) or were not interested you probably won't care for what is and will be written here. So, let's get started:

A.E.I.O.U was not my first idea for an AAR, I wanted to write one way earlier so I created this profile but never actually wrote an After Action Report until A.E.I.O.U. I downloaded the 1600AD colonialism mod (a very well done mod, though it needs more polishing in some parts) and after I played ten or eleven turns I just decided to open Open Office Writer (wrong decision, as I later found out... choosing open office, I mean) and wrote a story about my game.

Well, and this is one of the problems I have with my AAR. I never planned anything so my characters/plot(s) are mostly inconsistent and I never decided what I wanted to do with A.E.I.O.U. I threw in characters as I liked and said: "this time I have something like a planned out plot" but yeah... that didn't work. But hey, trial and error is a way for learning. And my next AAR will be (well, it already is) planned out (in case of my next AAR: it is in the state of being planned out)... as far as an TW AAR can be planned out. I have more or less realistic characters with planned out backstories which I will always mind to make them act in regard of their personality and story... or I'll try at least.
Another thing that bugged me about A.E.I.O.U is, well, ...my english. My english writing is not "the yellow of the egg" (<- guess my native language XD) and especially the syntax frustrates me.... but I see writing AARs as a way to improve this.
But what annoyes me the most is the repetitivity (is that even a real word?). I read some of my battle descriptions and it is always like "It was brutal" "A brutal fight erupted..." and always the same descriptions for similiar events, but hey, I will put more planning into the battles (and chapters in general) in the next AAR(s).

One reason why I decided to write an AAR to 1600AD is, probably, because I feel the most confident with this time period. I've read countless books, watched many documentaries and the thirty years war was a subject in school which we did in detail. Though I didn't include the religious struggles (looking back I must say this is a shame, since this is a very interesting subject ) and the actual war(s) itself I still think I was able to convey this time period as good as I could (questionable how good this is supposed to be). I only regret that I didn't gave historicals characters more "screentime" which is, again, a shame because I will never be able to write about historical people which I know more about, except maybe the late romans.

Anyway, I begin to loose the thread, so here a few things I like about my AAR:
playing the game itself
taking screenshots and deciding which to included
and writing the bloody AAR, even if it frustrated me I still had tons of fun, only the ending... I didn't know what to do, so I choose to kill everyone because I am a sick .

If anyone wants to give me advise for future AARs and/or how to improve my writing, feel free to pm me, otherwise....

Bye and until the next time!

Yours faithfully,

theSilentKiller