Weekly AAR Showcase: The Christian Kingdom of Sarir - the Forgotten Persian Principality

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Hi! Thanks a lot for the showcase award :)

I know a modem connection can be quite a problem, since the main part of the AAR is contained in .jpg graphics. Still, that's what the AAR is about... but yet, that's the reason I also decided to divide the chapters in different themed parts, so the others could be read more easily by slow connections.

For those of you who have not given a look, I will make a little resume. Each chapter is divided in 3 parts. The first one is "Vita Comes" (Life of the Count... yeah, now they are kings, but they always have a heart for their original county). This is where I narrate with a style that tries to pass for a middle ages chronicle (and always started with a latin bible quote) and centering in the life of the main character of my dinasty. This, of course, produces horribly long chapters... or very short ones, depending on how quiet has been his reign. There is one exception to this, since I found the Second Crusade (AI driven but loosely conducted by me, occasionally logging as France and directing the armies, without moving forward a single day).

In theory this was the way all the AAR was going to be, but I found many interesting stories going around and unrelated to my own part of the map. That and combined with the fact it makes up for a not so graphic intensive AAR, made me write up two more parts for every chapter.

Thus, the second part is "Chronica Belli" (which not so surprinsingly means Chronicle of the Wars). Here I depict the most interesting military action during the life of the character depicted in the first part. When it is possible, that would be a military action depicted in the first part. If not, the one I find most interesting. All four crusades are depicted in this way, even when I have only intervened directly into one (the third) .

The third part is "Charta Europae" (Maps of Europe), in which I select a part of the map and I explain how has it reached its pressent state. Sometimes I highlight a zone that is interesting for the main plot, other times, just zones that have taken my fancy.

As you will notice, the maps of the third and specially the second part go a lot better as chapters progress, since I slowly master the graphic tools I have at my reach.


If anything, I would say that this has given me a extensive practice with editting the CK save file. Each certain time (usually each 20 years or so), I edit the savegame quite extensively, making sure the maps go back to some real sense from the usual patchwork feel. I review the map and then I readjust provinces, shifting rulers or vassaldoms to a more logical and sensible structure, using in part the rules Mad King James proposed not so long ago.

In 1200, specially, I have done an extensive modification, not only reviewing nearly all the map (but the mess in the East... that is, past Poland or Outremer... there I just don't care, anyway the mongols will come through there), and in 1200 I decided to wipe out also all county claims (when I noticed there were just too damn many claims flying around, so much some of the characters, specially the monarchs, having a line of claims so thick you could barely distinguish it. Still, the duchy and kingdom claims were left there. In all this took me around 6 hours of editting :)p).

So, the third part of the next chapter will be quite extensive, since I will try to show up the way christian europe and outremer is at the turn of the century.

Right now I have not played further from 1200, so I will let the story catch up (only one king in between right now) before continuing with it.
 
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Hey - now there is a great AAR to showcase! Congrats, Storey. Always deserved!
 
Ahh, yes... I have heard much of this fabled Storey, but I am embarrassed to admit I have not yet read his storeys! That must change.

Oops!... [EDIT] Actually, I have read parts of Who Killed Cologne! Enough to know that I want to go back to it. A very classic spoof on the Middle Ages through the lens of a 1930s mystery novel. Or vice versa? Or both... Amazing, indeed! So I must wonder what this talent has produced with regard to the desert mongols!

Let's see if Storey (Joe) can come around to getting a six-figure salary, and a yacht, based only on income from writing... My bets are on Joe! :D

Lucius Sulla, all I can say on your stuff is... Wow! :) Amazing determination!

Rensslaer
 
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Super congrats, Joe! Great to see you still cranking 'em out.

LD
 
I must say, never read it until now, but it just shows what I have been missing out on.
 
I started watching 'Desert Tides' very early. It's part gameplay (Jerusalem, 1150-) and part story a la Indiana Jones or any number of noir or pulp adventures. Time constraints have been forcing me away from it for a bit, but I was just trying to catch up earlier today. It's an entertaining read!

Then again, Storey rarely disappoints. Renns already mentioned Who Killed Cologne. I'd add 'Three Countries, One Goal' (pure game play, but a riot to read!) and 'Tales Told on a Cold Night' (or something like that - short lived, but a fun look at the fantasy genre.)

Congrats Storey!
 
I would say there's something in 'Desert Sands' for nearly everyone. If you don't like the story, there's a good chance that Joe's gameplay and accompanying color commentary will please you. And if that doesn't work, there are always so many asides, anecdotes and assorted banter that Joe inserts between his AAR posts, that I would be surprised if there isn't something in that mix that would make even the biggest cynic crack the occasional grin.

Congratulations, Storey, I hope the LA sunshine and the LA beauties still agree with you. :)
 
Storey is a great writer, and I am following this story with much happiness. If you haven't heard, they are making a movie about it. They are calling it Indiana Jones 4, but that is just so they only have to pay royalties on the plot, and not the title also. ;)
 
Just back from the sun of southern California and find this! :) I'm in the process of recovering from my vacation so I'll make this brief. It seems my master plan has succeeded. I knew if I wrote a story and dragged it out for months and months that someone would take pity and put it up for showcase of the week. :D Thanks Lucius Sulla for the nod of recognition, I appreciate it and feel suitably motivated to get off my vacation tired butt and start writing again. ;)

EDIT: As to what the story is about it is divided into two parts. One is just the game play separate from the story. The story which funny enough is separate from the game play is an adventure story in the 1930s made up of an unlikely group of characters. All have different motives for joining the quest for... well I can't tell you what, you'll just have to read the story to find that out. How it will end beats the crap out of me because I don't know but then that's part of the fun isn't it? ;

Joe
 
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Stuyvesant said:
And if that doesn't work, there are always so many asides, anecdotes and assorted banter that Joe inserts between his AAR posts,

What? I cast pearls of wisdom at your feet and they are reduced to asides? Phrases that you normally would have to find at the feet of a Hindu wise man caked in cow dung are reduced to anecdotes? The answer to life, the universe and why donuts have holes merely becomes assorted banter? I fear for your soul Stuyvesant but then again what can I expect of someone living in Minnesota, eating cheese for breakfast and thinking barbecue is haute cuisine. :D :D

Joe
 
Rensslaer said:
Ahh, yes... I have heard much of this fabled Storey, but I am embarrassed to admit I have not yet read his storeys! That must change.

I share your embarrassment. I have flashes of guilt because I haven't read many of the writers on the forum but time constraints force me limit my reading to 3-5 AARs at a time. :( But I look at trying to read as many AARs as possible as a never ending quest. :)

Joe
 
Finally able to access the forum again so I won't waste time in nominating a story called The Hussite Lament by Hajji Giray I. It's not his first story but it might become his best judging by the beginning. Congrats!

Joe
 
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Very many congratulations.
 
:eek:

Wow! Thank you very much Storey and everyone else for the honor of the Showcase.

I've been having a ton of fun writing the Lament and haven't really reached the good part (at least as I consider it). And the best thing is that the plot twists have ... well ...okay they've started but the real interesting ones haven't.

By the way, this is the first AAR for which I've outlined the plot in advance. Looks like it shows! Don't know where the idea came from; usually I just hate science fiction (except Douglas Adams) and only today did I start reading up on theories about time travel and the consequences etc. Research is for amateurs! :D The setting in Bohemia arose out of an EUII game and I was thinking about good names for AARs and The Hussite Lament popped in for a drink and that was actually the first thing about the whole story that got written down, which may explain the lack of Lamenting for those of you who are privately confused.

Thanks again....yall. Ah, to have one's name spelled correctly by another forum member, what inner peace it brings.

Don't count the runon sentences, please. My mom is an English major and she'll kill me if she finds out. ;)