Thank ou all very much for the kind felicitations guys, especially Lord Durham and phargle for their kind and unmerited words of praise. You're making me
o
Anyway, coz1 has pointed out that the award is for the individual, not for an AAR. Now I could argue that my contribution to AARland equals my single AAR
Furor Normannicus and that it is the sole grounds for my nomination, but if he likes me to tell you a bit about myself, well, why not indeed?
My name’s Michael, and I’m a thirty-something native Ausrian living in Vienna. I’ve studied Roman history and am currently working as a research fellow for the Austrian Academy of Sciences and am also holding a periodical course at university. About a year of my live was spent on archeologial digs in Austria (Lauriacum and
Carnuntum, Syria (
Palmyra) and Turkey (
Ephesos). Apart from history, especially ancient Roman history, my interests are literature, photography and roleplaying, mainly of the indie type, though I find that I have less and less time for that in recent years. I’m not much of a video gamer and stumbled on Paradox games by chance. The computer I use at home was too old and crappy to play EU:Rome, so I settled for my second-most favourite period, the middle ages, and got myself Crusager Kings. As my old computer has recently sunk I just got myself a new one, I also got myself EU: Rome, and while I have yet to actually play it this might mean that
maybe I might start another AAR in the none-too-distant future.
In writing
Furor Normannicus my premise was, I realize only now, to try and see just how good CK is actually in simulating historical processes, meaning that I am keeping very close to the actual gameplay and neither add events that did not really take place nor do I play the game so as to create certain situations. I simply play the game, roelplaying my ruler to the best of my knowledge, including the deliberate taking of bad decisions if they are in character, and see wether a passably interesting story emerges. So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I quite content with the story and pleased about the actual gameplay events being visible behind it very clearly at all times, at least to those who know CK.
Another corner stone of
Furor Normannicus, one that probably won’t surprise you now that I’ve told you a bit about my personal background, is an attempt at a passably accurate portrayal of the high middle ages. I try to throw a wealth of historical snippets into the story, but I have made it my principle to do so unobtrusively, with a few words and not with long disquisitions. I have learned ages ago to restrain myself when blarbing about historical details.
So that’s it from me for now, I only wish to once again thank the lot of you for your wellwishing, and timetogetaway fo nominating me.