[M2TW AAR]: Vignette III - HRE

[Dooz]

Very nice Beef, another one for the books. You should probably add the link to your sig now . And was that title of the third screenshot an intended Beatles reference? You just keep getting better and better.

[Lord Magus]

It's over :(
But why do you do only short campaigns?

[Whacker]

It's over :(
But why do you do only short campaigns?

Because he's human and can only do so much... Even writers can be burned out after so long. Personally, I kinda prefer the shorter ones in a few installments, that way you get more gorey detail than if he did a long campaign and had to summarize it more.

MORE MORE MORE MORE!

[Naefen]

Great reading.
Now looking forward to your Spanish Vignette

[The Teacher]

brilliant ! another excellent edition ! well done

[Von Nanega]

Your method of ordering differant parts of your empire to differant characters has helped me order my game to be not so random. Thanks Beefy!

[thalyrikalone]

I was just wondering, Beefeater, how do you plan out your campaigns? Because you seem to know exactly what moves you plan on making next.

[AussieGiant]

Hi Beefeater!!

Great work.

Cheers for the great reads while I'm at work.

[R'as al Ghul]

Thanks and applause, Beefy!!

I've also almost finished my HRE short campaign. I've the 20 regions + Antiochia but have yet to kill the Danes and Milan.
I'll follow you to Spain, I think. It's quite entertaining to have someone playing the same campaign and you can compare notes.

R'as

[zverzver]

Great work. Can't wait to read about concuest of mighty Spain. I love AAR and I find you storytelling style is just the way I like it. I don't want to nag but I think you should do long compaign AAR, I find the "empire mid life crisis" (after 15-20 cities) to be the most chalanging period. It would be a pity if you will not go to America as Spain, I think concuering Aztecs should be a long term goal of your AAR.

Thank you. It was a great read.

[Beefeater]

Sinan, all my editing is done with Photoshop. I am not really all that good at photo editing, which is why the pictures are all of slightly different sizes: were I a bit more disciplined, they would all be precisely the same dimensions as one another. My system specs are at post #53 in this thread.

Thalyrikalone, I wish I were that good! Actually my planning is very simple: wipe out any large AI stacks in my territory, then take a settlement or two as punishment. If the AI faction looks weak, I'll keep on taking their settlements until I'm either getting close to overstretch, the Pope threatens excommunication or they mount a good enough defence to make the cost/benefit of attacking less favourable. I tend to ignore small AI stacks wandering in my territory, or to mop them up with equally small armies.

As I suspect is the case with most players, I almost always win unless massively outnumbered, and sometimes even then. This means that I never attack with more than 1 stack - I've never had the need to - which makes conquest easy to the point of being a little dull as there's not much need to reinforce. That said, it will be interesting to see if the patched AI gives a bit more of a challenge in this regard.

Zverzver, I'm planning on playing Spain as a short campaign, but won't expand much (if at all) outside the Iberian Peninsular, except to raid, crusade, and raise cash for teching up. So yes, in all probability you'll be seeing Aztecs. I just haven't worked out how to make a long campaign a credible story yet - medieval states just couldn't grow that big, for a host of reasons. A long campaign might work for Byzantium or the Turks, but then it wouldn't really be a vignette, would it?

Spain will be the next Vignette, but I need a brief break from M2TW. So my next actual story on these boards will be in the Arena, and will probably be based on Dominions 3 (or possibly Hearts of Iron Doomsday). I'll start that, and try to wrap it up, before Christmas.

[zverzver]

HOI Doomsday. Great game. Have you writen any HOI AAR, I would like to read them.

[Beefeater]

Wonderland, yes, it was the Beatles song that inspired the name. Hardly an original reference I admit though. Come to think of it I probably should claim that it was based on Murakami...more literary

Ras, glad that you are enjoying these! I absolutely agree about sharing notes - that is one of the nice things about this community.

[Lord Magus]

Beefeater, how do you keep track of what you do? you write stuff after every turn?

[Ituralde]

I've been an avid reader of all your three Vignettes and just wanted to thank you here for the effort. I like to take notes with my laptop when I'm playing on my desktop PC and have done some AARs in the past, but you're spicing them up with those pictures quite well and also have a firm grasp on condensing the events of the game, so that it's fun reading about them.

Great work!

[Beefeater]

Lord Magus, I alt+tab to a word document every so often and jot down anything noteworthy. Then when I come to write it up I look for a pattern linking the events. If the AI is working correctly there should be a clear pattern visible - take and hold, aggressive expansion, fighting withdrawal etc.

[Daveybaby]

Great stuff as usual. Can't wait for the next one.

[shawpower]

This forum is a fountain of great knowledge, but I've just come across my favourite part of it. Fantastic read. I dipped into your English vignette and I have to say that you have improved with each story. Big thumbs up. (8-D