[CONTEST] Write a V2 AAR - 110.000 Blue Coins to win!

[gigau]

To begin with, i join SAS in congratulating Alexspeed for this wonderful contest, for his dedication, his openness and literally everything. Alex, you did an awesome job.



To the competitors, i'll repeat what i said earlier : thank you so much for the excellent quality of what you offered. You made my life a hell for a few days, trying to decide of the rankings. Congratz to all, and especially the winners.



Now to my rankings :

• Rank 16-19
mijj55409, Moonstruck, Fire and Ash, and Pallen, i had to put competitiors at the bottom of the list. It was you... not for the quality of what you wrote, but because you didn't get to the 5 updates.

• Rank 13-15
Surume, Twichy-boy and Ricox, nice AARs. You are at this position because i personally didn't "hook" on the story.

• Rank 12
Teckor, as i said earlier in this thread, your AAR is great, but i felt a bit hurt seeing to which point it was anti-french... although you nicely beat them. Please stop calling us "frogs" in each setence

• Rank 10-11
Forgiven and Communitarian!, your AARs are really good also, even if a bit tough to read for me.

[Alex, did i mention i hate you for your rules about ranking and such ]

• Rank 7-9
scholar, PolarMangoose, and Poh, you wrote really nice AARs too, that i really enjoyed.

• Rank 6
Planck, congratulations for your a-historic and successful AAR

• Rank 5
jafloresl, your AAR was really entertaining and eventful.

• Rank 4
BrandenburgIII, your AAR with an uncivilised nation in an uneasy situation is inspiring.

• Rank 3
naggy, your AAR is awesome and inspiring, with lots of tips and reminders.

• Rank 2
Alerias, you are a close second with a truely amazing AAR.

• Rank 1
Tanzhang, you made an awesome AAR, smooth and really pleasant to read, with the perfect balance text/pictures for me. Your politics and elections added posts are a must.


Once again, congratulations to all the writters.

[Slan]

First of all, I would like to congratulate everyone who participated in the contest! You took a lot of my time, but it was worth it

I would also like to thank Alexspeed for his time and effort in organising this contest! Great work!


Now, with that said, I will also present you with my rankings and some thoughts. First and foremost, when I started to read the AARs, I gave scores to each one of them on a 0-10 scale, to get my bearings. Then, I compared them to eachother to get the actual scores. I will give you both my final verdict and the score, along with some thoughts. (Note that on my scale, 5 is average, not bad.) The order is the same as Alexspeed listed them (so I guess the order of entry into the contest).

Communitarian! - Letters from an unquiet August - A Middle Kingdom AAR

Nice story, but the game-info in the first chapter is not too well integrated into it... It feels out of place.
Interestingly enough, the reverse is not true: the story integrated into the game-info works much better!
The well-thought-out story is somewhat spoiled for me by the gameplay commentaries. I understand that it is your first Vic2 AAR,
but still. If I may, my suggestion would be to put the comments into a separate post.

The plot-twist was nice (if somewhat clichéd), but the change in character for Mei Ling ruined it completely. She told that she was dressed like a man because
she already acted like a man, but when she is revealed, she behaves pretty girlish. (Which is good in general, but bad in the context.)

Final verdict: 7.5/10
Score: 65

mjj55409 - Wishing for the Sun -- A Story of Piemonte

Actually, this was the third gameplay AAR I've read for this contest (I skipped the 'unfinished' ones at first), you can read my problem with these later. I still had to compare them to the rest, so in the end I went for my basic instincts: how much I liked reading them. And this one... I didn't like that much. It wasn't the worst, but it wasn't good either.

Final verdict: 4/10
Score: 24

Tanzhang (譚張) - Onze Plaats in de Zon: The Rise of Frederik de Grote (van Holland)

Nicely integrated 'characterisation', but kept separately from the "History Book" pretty well! The abundance of screenshots came as a surprise. It kinda disturbed the history book feeling for me, but the historical pictures are neat!
The game events themselves are very interesting!
Nice going with the "Ismail al-Marhum's twin brother, also named Ismail al-Marhum..." joke

Overall, a highly enjoyable read!

Final verdict: 8/10
Score: 75

Fire and Ash - “Better to send 5 lions than 500 sheep.” An Afghanistan AAR

Nice start. The character-driven dialogs are very good! Unfortunately, the narrative parts are not. It comes out as average in the end. But as we had quite a few very good AARs, I had to rate yours relatively low.
My advice would be to focus more on the characters! They work a lot better!

Final verdict: 5/10
Score: 26

Moonstruck - Land der Dichter und Denker - Tales from PrussiAAR

I like the style! Not much else to say, it is good, simple as that

Final verdict: 8/10
Score: 80

Alerias - The Legend of the Marble Emperor - Hellenic AAR

Here, I seem to be against the crowd I guess, because in my opinion, this AAR was pretty uninteresting. Not the events themselves, but the writing style. Not bad, but not exceptionally good either. Average AAR, but again, due to how the rating system works, relatively low score.

Final verdict: 5/10
Score: 28

TekcoR - Beer, Chocolate, Waffles and a Road - A History of the Benelux

Is this a comedic AAR? At first, I wasn't sure. I sisn't actually find it funny, but it definitely was not serious. Sorry, but I didn't like it. (Although I kinda liked the reference to Johan and Star Wars.) To be honest, if I weren't a judge for the contest, I probably wouldn't have read past the first chapter.

Final verdict: 3/10
Score: 7

Forgiven - Legacy of Metternich - Austrian AAR

A bit hard to read due to missing words here and there. ('a', 'of', etc. Maybe your English isn't that good after all ) The picture/text ratio is waaaay off to my tastes. I rarely feel compelled to read walls of text, but this isn't any better. Screenshost are nice to show interesting moments, but it won't tell the story for you.
Another note: IMHO you should decide the style you want to use in order to benefit most from it. If you do a gameplay AAR, you can freely comment what you are doing, which gives you immense freedom! But if you are doing a History Book kind of story, then you should avoid such comments, because they ruin the immersion. It is much harder to pull off!
(The 'Chapter Two the Third' joke made me luagh! Way to go in takeing advantage of your own mistake! )

Final verdict 3.5/10
Score: 13

Planck - Making Of: The Empire of Brazil

Interesting read! Some nice jokes there too! (Although at the cost of losing from the immersion, but in this case, I would say they are worth it ) Good characterisation too. If it weren't for the low sum points, you would have gotten much more!

Final verdict: 6.5/10
Score: 40

Brandenburg III - Bukkhara: Central Asian Might

A gameplay AAR is a bit hard to judge on equal terms with any other, because the goal is very different. There are no characters, no humour (usually), no immersion. It is much more informal. This AAR does this pretty well. Then again, I didn't really dive into the game enough to really appreciate the advice coming from this writing, so I'll stay with a neutral score.

Final verdict: 5/10
Score: 30

naggy - Sick Man of Europe - an Ottoman Empire AAR

I have the same problem as above, but I enjoyed this one more. Much more, in fact. It was pretty good!

Final verdict: 7/10
Score: 60

Twichy_boy - Queen of the Adriatic - Venice AAR

If you aim to write a Narrative AAR, you should "hide" your actions a bit more. Otherwise you are only forcing constraints on yourself without the added benefit of telling a good story. (I myself choose the easy way out and instead of improving my history book-writing capabilities, I changed to a pure Gameplay style after the second or third chapter of my latest AAR ) Your 'Venetian Council' for example could consist of some actual characters, and you could be telling the story through their actual discussion.
Then again, I read AARs that were like this and were labeled Gameplay. If that was your intention, then I don't really understand why bother with this whole council facade. For me at least, it is distracting, because it shows the potential of a story that would be great on its own right, without "telling your exploits".

Final verdict: 4/10
Score: 20

Poh - A Pope's Tale - A Papal States AAR

Ah, another disguised Gameplay AAR. This one is more to my liking. There's a character you can identify with (to some extent...), there are some jokes here and there, and it is more of a roleplay style actually. In this case, I found the actual gameplay references to be funny. As I read onward, I started to suspect that this is actually a Comedic AAR, in a Gameplay disguise Good read!

Final verdict: 7/10
Score: 70

Ricox - "Unification of Italy" - Two Sicilies AAR

Not that bad for a first attempt, but still pretty uninteresting. My advice would be to read a lot more AARs. Your English could also use some improvement, but that was only a minor distraction (even though this is literature after all). The lack of style was the deciding factor. (It kinda reminded me of Rorschach's journal...)
The '1' score doesn't seem justified, because I could imagine writing that is worse, but there was none in the contest.

Final verdict: 2/10
Score: 1

Surume - WhAAR? A Nowhaar of Iceland

Playing Iceland? Brave or the bold, I guess. You have balls, I grant you that.

Now, this was an interesting read, even if for the wrong reason. Not because of the action or drama or something, but because you are practically exploiting the heck out of the system... I'll be honest: I don't like that. Still, I won't give a very bad score, because you don't deserve it. But I won't give a good score either. Anyway, my only advice if you continue the game as Iceland is to keep an eye on your vulcanoes!

Final verdict: 5/10
Score: 35

Pallen - Der var et yndigt land - A Danish AAR

I've already commented in your AAR to tell you what I think. Genius. For me, the lack of updates was no problem in determining the quality of your writing, and that was what I had to rate. Quantity and the rules was Alexspeed's responsibility, and he did apply his penalties when they were due. Still, the judges were selected for a reason, and they had full authority to take whatever they fancy into account when giving out the scores, so I have no complaints. I have no regrets either. It's still a shame that your 99 went to waste like that

Final verdict: 10/10
Score: 99

jafloresl - History, as should have been written: A Victoria II Mexico AAR.

This AAR shows potential, but it is not finished. It feels rushed, maybe because of the deadline to meet, I don't know. Still, it isn't really bad, only not good either. Improving your English would help a lot! (I'm sure your Spanish is better than my English (), but I have to judge your AAR for the competition, which is in English. Unfortunately somewhat poor English.) Also, in this case the gameplay references were more distracting than funny. Probably because the main tone of this AAR was more serious then the Popaphant The pictures are nice though.

Final verdict: 5/10
Score: 22

scholar - Portugal's Second Coming

It is hard to write a History Book in a way that is informative but also interesting to read. Or at least I tend to find lengthy history books boring But not this one. For this is good. For the most part. (Although it would have made wonders to the navigability of the AAR if you included some sort of index...) It was also a bit confusing that you rarely used any dates. It could have helped to know when the given events take place.

Final verdict: 6/10
Score: 50

Polar Mongoose - !Viva ArgentinAAR!

The goals sound interesting, the style is alright, nicely explained moves. Again, not much else to say. I liked this one too.

Final verdict: 6.5/10
Score: 55



Again, congratulations for all the contestants, cheers for all the judges (no hard feelings for rating down my favourite, really... ) and three hurrays for Alexspeed for organising this whole thing!

[Communitarian!]

Wow, what a night - here I am, holding a cup of black tea with milk swirling around in it like a tiny cloud, thinking of the fond memories of this contest and amazed to be here - and even more amazed to have grabbed second! Thank you so much everyone who read Letters and enjoyed it! Thank you to mjj55409, Moonstruck, Fire and Ash, Pallen, Ricox, Brandenburg III, Twichy_boy, Surume, jafloresl, Poh, TekcoR, Forgiven, Polar Mongoose, scholar, Planck, naggy, Alerias, and Tanzhang! Thank you to all of the judges who read through these excellent AARs and gave your ratings! Thank you a million times over to Alex for making this contest happen! This has been a wild ride, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I never actually expected to place too high, but I guess that's because my self-doubt is a million times higher than must be apparent.

Gigau - Thank you for the ratings and feedback; it's very nice of you to release them! Je voudrais traduire 'Letters' en français - but I know I'm not good enough to do that at the moment. Thank you!

Slan - Thanks for some comments as well as the numbers! I'm always glad to hear what people think of my writing, especially if it means that later efforts shall be even better. You make a very good point about gameplay and story seperation, although I'll defend Mei Ling's cliche-e-ness and my fluid concept of gender identity to my last! I think I explained her logic pretty well recently, but as always - my stuff tends to be very subjective. Also - I like that you enjoyed Pallen's aar as well, and do hope we'll see more of it soon. Thank you!

Alex - It's always so hard for me to think of words at a time like these - that may seem silly, given how talkative I normally am! But... Really, this has been absolutely wonderful. I'm amazed, shocked, and thrilled to take home 2nd, and to have had such a wonderful time. Truly, my friend - this is how weeks should be spent. Thank you for all your hard work, your comments and patience putting this together, and general good will - I know I am not speaking for just myself when I say that this has been at the top of my mind for days, something to make bad days better, and great days fantastic. Thanks, my friend! It's been a blast!

To everyone - I'd love to comment on and on; some part of me wants to clip my favorite parts from contest AARs in sort of a 'best memory' book. But that's probably a little silly, eh? So for now - may you all feel warm and successful, judge, writer, and observer alike. I hope you had as much fun as I did! To everyone who enjoyed 'Letters' - well, stay tuned, and thank you for reading. It means the world to me. For everyone who wrote - well, you already know how awesome you are, and if you don't I'll be glad to tell you in no uncertain terms. And to everyone, everywhere? You're awesome. As I drink my tea, which is pleasantly sweet and tastes faintly of licorice, I say - let's party!

[scholar]

Some things to add to Alex's Chart.

Scholar's little analysis of the chart, and minor wordplay on the titles. Anyone can use a part of it or reference it if you like. It saves someone from doing the calculations themselves!

The Rise of Frederik de Grote van Holland by Tanzhang.

First Place
Total Score: 1253
Distance From Second Place: 249 points
Average judge score: 78.3125 points
Difference From Second Place: 14.5625
# 99 scores attained: 3
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99 (Three Times)
Lowest score received: 50
Range: 49

Letters by Communitarian.

Second Place
Total Score: 1004
Distance From First Place: 249 points
Distance From Third Place: 7 points
Average Judge score: 63.75
Distance From First Place: 14.5625
Distance From Third Place: 1.4375
# 99 scores attained: 5
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99 (Five Times)
Lowest score received: 6
Range: 93

Hellenic by Alerias

Third Place
Total Score: 997
Distance From Second Place: 7 points
Distance From Fourth Place: 98 points
Average Judge score: 62. 3125
Distance From Second Place: 1.4375 points
Distance From Fourth place: 6.75 points
# 99 scores attained: 2
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99 (Two Times)
Lowest score received: 10
Range: 89

Sick Man, Ottoman by Naggy

Fourth Place
Total Score: 899
Distance From Third Place: 98 points
Distance From Fifth Place: 30 points
Average Judge score: 55.5625
Distance From Third Place: 6.75 points
Distance From Fifth Place: 1.25 points
# 99 scores attained: 1
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99
Lowest score received: 28
Range: 71

Making Brazil an Empire by Planck

Fifth Place
Total Score: 869
Distance From Fourth Place: 30 points
Distance From Sixth Place: 101 points
Average Judge score: 54.3125
Distance From Fourth Place: 1.25 points
Distance From Sixth Place: 6.3125 points
# 99 scores attained: 1
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99
Lowest score received: 19
Range: 80

Jesus Portugal by scholar

Sixth place
Total Score: 768
Distance From Fifth Place: 101 points
Distance From Seventh Place: 29 points
Average Judge score: 48
Distance From Fifth Place: 6.3125 points
Distance From Seventh Place: 1.8125 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 75 (Two Times)
Lowest score received: 8
Range: 67

Argentina Lives, by a Frozen Mongoose

Seventh Place
Total Score:739
Distance From Sixth Place: 29 points
Distance From Eighth Place: 4 points
Average Judge score: 46.1875
Distance From Sixth Place: 1.8125 points
Distance From Eighth Place: .25 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 80
Lowest score received: 20
Range: 60

Forgive Metternich

Eighth Place
Total Score: 735
Distance From Seventh Place: 4 points
Distance From Ninth Place: 26 points
Average Judge score: 45.9375
Distance From Seventh Place: .25 points
Distance From Ninth Place: 1.625 points
# 99 scores attained: 1
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99
Lowest score received: 13
Range: 88

Benelux Belgium firing RockeTs down roads

Ninth Place
Total score: 709
Distance From Eighth Place: 26 points
Distance From Tenth Place: 2 points
Average Judge score: 44.3125
Distance From Eighth Place: 1.625 points
Distance From Tenth Place: .125 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 70 (Two Times)
Lowest score received: 7
Range: 63

You Got Poped! by Poh

Tenth Place
Total Score: 707
Distance From Ninth Place: 2 points
Distance From Eleventh Place: 12 points
Average Judge score: 44.1875
Distance From Ninth Place: .125 points
Distance From Eleventh Place: .75 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 96
Lowest score received: 15
Range: 81

Mexico's rewriting history again

Eleventh Place
Total Score: 695
Distance From Tenth Place: 12 points
Distance From Twelfth Place: 29 points
Average Judge score: 43.4375
Distance From Tenth Place: .75 points
Distance From Twelfth Place: 1.8125 points
# 99 scores attained: 1
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99
Lowest score received: 18
Range: 81

Where is this land of Ice that you speak of?

Twelfth Place
Total Score: 666
Distance From Eleventh Place: 29 points
Distance From Thirteenth Place: 65 points
Average Judge score: 41.625
Distance From Eleventh Place: 1.8125 points
Distance From Thirteenth Place: 4.0625 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 2
Highest score received: 79
Lowest score received: 1 (Two Times)
Range: 78

The Merchant Queen in Venice

Thirteenth Place
Total Score: 601
Distance From Twelfth Place: 65 points
Distance From Fourteenth Place: 47 points
Average Judge score: 37.5625
Distance From Twelfth Place: 4.0625 points
Distance From Fourteenth Place: 2.9375 points
# 99 scores attained: 1
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 99
Lowest score received: 10 (Two Times)
Range: 89

When Mongols Attack

Fourteenth Place
Total Score: 554
Distance From Thirteenth Place: 47 points
Distance From Fifteenth Place: 184 points
Average Judge score: 34.625
Distance From Thirteenth Place: 2.9375 points
Distance From Fifteenth Place: 11.5 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 0
Highest score received: 75
Lowest score received: 7
Range: 68

When Spanish people unite Italy

Fifteenth Place
Total Score: 370
Distance From Fourteenth Place: 184 points
Distance From Sixteenth Place: 28 points
Average Judge score: 23.125
Distance From Fourteenth Place: 11.5 points
Distance From Sixteenth Place: 1.75 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 1
Highest score received: 56
Lowest score received: 1
Range: 55

Denmark... nope. Perhaps if I could read that...

Sixteenth Place
Total Score: 342 (-60)
Distance From Fifteenth Place: 28 points
Distance From Seventeenth Place:
Average Judge score: 21.375 (Without point deduction: 25.125)
Distance From Fifteenth Place: 1.75 points
Distance From Seventeenth Place: 5.4375 points
# 99 scores attained: 1
# 1 scores attained: 3
Highest score received: 99
Lowest score received: 1 (Three Times)
Range: 98

Lions eat sheep in Afganistan

Seventeenth Place
Total Score: 255 (-40)
Distance From Sixteenth Place: 87 points
Distance From Eighteenth Place: 19 points
Average Judge score: 15.9375 (Without point deduction: 28.4375)
Distance From Seventeenth Place: 5.4375 points
Distance From Eighteenth Place: 1.1875 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 1
Highest score received: 35
Lowest score received: 1
Range: 34

Moonstruck Prussia

Eighteenth Place
Total Score: 236 (-80)
Distance From Seventeenth Place: 19 points
Distance From Nineteenth Place: 45 points
Average Judge score: 14.75 (Without point deduction: 19.75)
Distance From Seventeenth Place: 1.1875 points
Distance From Nineteenth Place: 2.8125 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 4
Highest score received: 82
Lowest score received: 1 (Four Times)
Range: 81

There's no sun in Italy.

Nineteenth Place
Total Score: 191 (-40)
Distance From Eighteenth Place: 45 points
Average Judge score: 11.9375 (Without point deduction: 14.4375)
Distance From Eighteenth Place: 2.8125 points
# 99 scores attained: 0
# 1 scores attained: 4
Highest score received: 80
Lowest score: 1 (Four Times)
Range: 79

[Communitarian!]

Scholar - that was beautiful. I think the titles might actually be even more awesome than the original ones! Now I wish I'd named letters something more easily re-engineerable.

[Surume]

scholar - Could you include the Standard Deviation also? I'l do it myself if it's too much to ask, but I think that it would be invaluable for helping us process what you wrote

[Tommy4ever]

I guess its time for me to give my feedback. Being a negative person by nature I wrote some rather blunt comments on my lower ranking AARs which I feel might be out of the over all mood of the contest so I won't post them. These top 4 are the ones a really liked. There are others that I liked of course, but these were the memorable ones that have stuck in my mind and that I avidly await for every update.

Number 4

Making Of: The Empire of Brazil - Planck

Score 7/10

There was a time when I saw this as a major contender for getting top spot in my rankings. It was funny, interesting, had great graphics and an interesting story. Then he annexed a part of Northern Portugal. The shark had been jumped and there was no way of it ever recovering in my eyes. The conquest of Northern Portugal probably cost you about 20 contest points from me.

Number 3

WhAAR? A Nowhaar of Iceland - Surume

Score 7.5/10

A class act. He kept us all very entertained despite the fact naff all was happening in game for most of the time. His metaphor involving bricks and Prussia had me giggling like a school girl whilst his top notch playing of the game had me very impressed. I'm rather dissapointed that my fellow judges didn't score him higher, I wasn't expecting them to give him a top 3 like me as this AAR was a sort of acquired taste, but I did expect he'd get a top 10.

Number 2

Onze Plaats in de Zon: The Rise of Frederik de Grote (van Holland) - Tanzhang (譚張)

Score 8/10

Until I read Letter from an unquiet August this was my number one AAR, without doubt. I was the first commenter on it, it was written in a style similar to my own and it had my interests from the very start. Interesting game, great graphics, well written – top notch. Write no Tanzhang! You undoubtedly have a bright future in AARland.

Number 1

Letters from an unquiet August - A Middle Kingdom AAR - Communitarian!

Score 9/10

What can I say? This AAR was brilliant. It was very well written, had a good story, interesting characters, game play from a country that is very different from any other, variety in its narrative and it kept me very entertained. In my opinion this is not only the best AAR in the contest but is in the best handful of AARs in the Victoria II forum.

[gigau]

Scholar - that was beautiful. I think the titles might actually be even more awesome than the original ones! [...]

+1

[Forgiven]

Slan; Oh my, I do agree I had 'a problem' with my style choises and was all over with them, still am, I should have figured what I was doing when I started but somehow I ended up in 'a different personality' for every other chapter, a lot of the time I felt an odd urge to rush over the events as I felt they were dull and had little to say about them, and had also made the mistake of playing first ~70 years before I had written more than one chapter leaving me with the screenshots and save games as my only notes of what I had been doing, which at times wasn't that much. And I know I go picture intensive a lot, I'm not sure where it comes from, utter hatred of 'school books' which don't have enough pictures and graphs to explain things? Yet I enjoy stories with no pictures at all in form of traditional book, maybe it's just that I don't have a lot to say. There are a lot of those 'a and of' missing? Damn, I should have at least proofread what I wrote then, I did check few chapters now and I did notice some missing 'of and the', less 'a''s but I'd love to claim I never said my english was all that great (even though I did imply it...), I just said it was better than my native finnish, which implies I'm not all that good at writing with my mother tongue. Indeed, I wouldn't have ranked myself very high either, as I do agree with the flaws you listed, which has left me wonder where I got all those points from

[Rensslaer]

Wow! Alex, that was really an exciting judging period. I felt like I was watching the Academy Awards! Drawing it out kept the anticipation going, and revealing the final 3 at once I think worked best of all.

I'll agree with the other judges that it was an honour and a privilege to be able to judge. Thank you, Alex, for asking. It was a struggle to find time, but it was worth it. I did give each AAR fair consideration, even on the lower end, and as other judges have mentioned, it was hard to decide how to decide the points, as the AARs were quite good! My points were changing even in the last minutes before sending them in, even after I'd reached a distribution of 800 points, I would change a few scores as I considered whether the numbers I'd provided really did justice to each production.

For me also, the final 3 AARs were the final 3 I had picked, though in slightly different order. At one point I'd given each of the 3 more than 90 points, but those scores were drawn down in order to do justice to other quality AARs down the list. Really great work, everybody!

My judging style is different than many. I think there was a good distribution of judging tastes, as it's apparent a few favored humor far more than I did. I'm a difficult judge with humor, because (as AlexSpeed noted, though I think he also likes humor AARs) I think it is really, really hard to make humor come off in an AAR. I do give credit where credit is due, and you may see in my comments that I approved of Planck's use of understated humor, for instance.

The things that I considered were these, mostly: Is this a solid effort, or is it inconsistent and choppy? Does it read well? Does the necessary information come across through the medium used? Was the game well played? If not, is the AAR entertaining anyway? If so, does the author's cleverness come across? Do the graphical elements contribute substantially to the AAR, or are they just there because "they're supposed to be"? How much REAL effort did the author put into this? I appreciate additional research, as some of the authors obviously committed to, but others did well without it. Effort aside, I asked how much REAL challenge existed in the AAR scenario, either from the country chosen or the strategies/wars chosen. Lastly (I think), how well did the author translate the game into a readable format that is supposed to cause us to suspend disbelief and "get into" the story? Basically, what clever tricks were used to cover up that it's a game, and explain the strangeness caused either by the game, or by wildly a-historical outcomes?

The AARs which accomplished these things well got high scores from me. Those, especially, that were not finished, or seemed thrown together, did not, though in some circumstances I did give due credit to talent even in those that were not finished.

A side note: I say this not to hurt anyones' feelings, but to offer constructive criticism that hopefully will be useful an author in improving ones' craft. One of my biggest pet peeves in AARs showed up in a couple of those that I graded on the lower end of the scale. If you're going to show a "cabinet meeting" and have the characters (supposedly professional, knowledgable government officials) read off the stats from your game screens, it sounds somewhat absurd, and this would be better accomplished by the author just telling the story of the stats or gamescreens as a gameplay AAR instead of trying to force this information into a "cabinet meeting". If you're going to have a cabinet meeting, you really have to try to get it to sound realistic and natural. Have them discuss stuff that reveals what your stats are without saying or using the actual stats (unless it converts easily). Saying you're "researching x" is a dead giveaway that you're playing a game, and it isn't real life. Have your cabinet member say your researchers are looking into a particular item which relates closely to that technology, and have them explain (unless it's obvious) why it would change things for your country once you achieve it. Writers for TV shows even have trouble getting this right, so don't feel bad if you've done this. But my constructive criticism here is to be very critical of yourself -- make sure it sounds like real conversation, and not something scripted to convey a certain fact (which could have been related in 1/3 the space if you'd just told the reader what was going on, in gameplay style).

The "gameplay" style of AAR is underrated, and perhaps underused -- many "fiction" or "historybook" styles are better done as gameplay unless the author is willing to put enough work into it to make it seem realistic.

Overall, I agree -- these AARs were well done, as a group! Thank you again, to all the authors, to AlexSpeed, and also to the judges!

I will reveal specific commentary on SOME of the AARs in a later post.

Rensslaer

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

Well, I don't know what to say... I'm honoured that so many Judges thought my work worthy of a 50 or above score, I was sure that at least one or two would have hated it.

Now I'd like to thank...

* Gigau and the other two Judges who gave my AAR a 99 score, Thank You Very Much!

* Slan and Judges 2, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 for judging on quality rather than quantity by giving the unfinished AARs scores you felt they deserved.

* Judge 6 I'm pretty sure I know who you are, thanks for indirectly convincing me to start my first AAR!

* Judges 3 and 16 For giving me such an auspicious score (88) Surely without such good fortune I would be unable to beat Communitarian...

* All the Judges Who Commented on my AAR Outside the Contest Thread Because Comments are always welcome!

* Communitarian! For ignoring my advice on chapter length, and Increasing rather than Decreasing his AAR's chapter length, thus enabling me to win the contest

* Planck and naggy For writing such excellent AARs and for being such close competition, I was seriously worried that the two of you would kick my AAR out of the top 3!

* Alerias For actually managing to achieve greatness with Greece of all countries, and for convincing me to give it a try. Enjoy your winnings!

* Scholar For posting those statistics, and for not bastardising my AAR title in the process!

* Polar Mongoose and Scholar For debunking late start theory by achieving places of 7 and 6 respectively.

* Jafloresl, Moonstruck and Fire and Ash for writing such great AARs, Irrespective of your placing out of the top 10 I hope you could take some enjoyment out of writing them.

* I'd also like to take time out to thank everyone who has commented on my AAR, I appreciate every little comment, even if it's just a short "please update", it shows you care. In particular I'd like to thank Tommy4Ever, FlyingDutchie, aldriq, Communitarian! and Alexspeed for their insightful comments and for commenting often. I'd also like to mention Alyosha, Qorten, Eber and especially All my Dutch and Belgian Readers, who helped me gain some valuable insights into The Netherlands and Belgium circa the 19th Century. Thank You All!

* Finally, I'd like to thank none other than Alexspeed for everything. Anyone can announce a contest, Some people can follow and maintain a contest to the level Alex has but only Alex could make those fancy placing icons! Thanks should also go out to Kallocain for providing the spritepacks as prizes (even if I already have it...) and to Alexspeed and Communitarian! for following and commenting the contest AARs with a zeal comparable to Enewald. (of who has commented on more AARs than even the Almighty could fathom...)

Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Alexspeed!

[Emperor Ike]

Congrats to the winner and the runner ups. It is now good to point out that I was the judge number 13.

[Alexspeed]

What a day i had... i really should have taken this one off too

Thank you for all the compliments and gratulations!
Thanks to scholar for compiling those statistics!
Thanks to the judges who post feedback!
Thanks to everyone else who is commenting or just reading!

This was a great contest, for me, and i hope for everyone else involved too.

I will post an overview of the final standings soon,
and edit the first post also with links & results.

Any feedback is welcome still, be it from the judges,
the contestors, or anyone else who wants to say something

[scholar]

* Scholar For posting those statistics, and for not bastardising my AAR title in the process!

First place got it's full title, second and third got an abridged version, the rest were wordplays. Take it as "you're AAR was too good to change"!

Now as for standard deviations... Do you mean you want a graph? If so, then I'm not sure I'll do that, mostly for not having graphing software.

[aldriq]

Congratulations to all the winners! And thanks to Alexspeed and all the judges for their huge dedication!

[morningSIDEr]

A great many congratulations to everyone of the entrants, especially to the winners. The contest was a great idea and brilliantly run by Alex, my most fulsome praise to Alex once again, and it was a true honour to be chosen as a judge for it. Every entrant in the competiton produced truly excellent AARs and I struggled to rank each of them. Nonetheless I am primarily a fan of comedy and gameplay AARs and my marking reflected this, I am judge 14. Although in truth the primary motivation for my marking was actually the size of the bribes which came to me from each respective writer. Well done once again to every entrant, the high standard of every AAR made the ranking of each AAR very difficult.

[Alexspeed]

The first and second prize have ben sent to Tanzhang & Communitarian:





I still await a PM from Alerias to get his email to send him his prize.

Dont forget to send a PM to Kallocain, thanking her for her help & support with the contest,
and to claim your DLC prize if you are within the Top 10!

[SAS]

Again nicely done Alexspeed, do you know if Kallocain going to post the winning AAR on the forum "home" page, that would be cool.

[Alexspeed]

Again nicely done Alexspeed, do you know if Kallocain going to post the winning AAR on the forum "home" page, that would be cool.

Well the thing is, the winning AAR IS ALLREADY on the forum frontpage
So it cant be put up there a second time.

[SAS]

Well the thing is, the winning AAR IS ALLREADY on the forum frontpage
So it cant be put up there a second time.

I see, I was just hoping for a main page shout out for the winner.