AAR - For the Crown! CEaW Allied AAR

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:10 am

Hello

I'd like to post a CEaW AAR (brownie points please!

).
I assume most people will play Germany in a WWII game I wanted to try something different this time though. (Might give EVEN MORE brownie points in the forum of a British company

).
Right now the AAR consists mainly of (often edited) pictures and a short text describing the strategic overview. That might change over time...
[most pictures are reduced to 75% size and have a limited colour palette for size and space reasons].

It is offsite in html format:

For the Crown! => http://home.arcor.de/moon87/ftc/

so far:
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Poland
Chapter 2 - Schliefenplan
Chapter 3 - Breakthrough
Interlude
Chapter 4 - Barbarossa

Please report any technical (browser, images text alignment etc.) or language issues.
I use Firefox on a 1280x960 resolution and while I tested IE and smaller resolutions I cant be sure about it.
Short remark: I had to downgrade some of the stuff (transparent pngs converted to transparent gifs to make it compatible with IE) so please excuse the edges on some of the UI elements

Have fun,
Therlun

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:33 am

Cool - our first AAR

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:36 pm

Updated chapter 2.

firepowerjohan · Post by **firepowerjohan** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:43 am

That is a very nice AAR man, with graphical arrows showing attacks and all

syagrius · Post by **syagrius** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:25 pm

Very nice AAR. Can't wait to see what happens next ! Just to mention that sometimes the picture is getting over script and hide it.

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 1:27 am

syagrius wrote:Very nice AAR. Can't wait to see what happens next ! Just to mention that sometimes the picture is getting over script and hide it.

Ah, no such problems here...

Firefox 2.0.0.4 is my browser

rjh1971 · Post by **rjh1971** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 1:45 pm

This definetely makes me want to buy the game.
I've have posted a link in Matrix Games Forum for CEaW to your AAR hope you don't mind.

Keep up the good work

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:05 pm

syagrius wrote:Very nice AAR. Can't wait to see what happens next ! Just to mention that sometimes the picture is getting over script and hide it.

What browser are you using? (version would be nice)
In smaller resolutions the flowing text sometimes is in odd positions under and next to the pictures, but I haven't experienced any text that gets covered so far.
I only tried it with Firefox and IE though.

@rjh1971
I don't mind.

firepowerjohan · Post by **firepowerjohan** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:13 pm

rjh1971 wrote:This definetely makes me want to buy the game.
I've have posted a link in Matrix Games Forum for CEaW to your AAR hope you don't mind.

Keep up the good work

We would never mind if ppl are linking to us, why would we?

syagrius · Post by **syagrius** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:17 pm

therlun wrote:
syagrius wrote:Very nice AAR. Can't wait to see what happens next ! Just to mention that sometimes the picture is getting over script and hide it.
What browser are you using? (version would be nice)
In smaller resolutions the flowing text sometimes is in odd positions under and next to the pictures, but I haven't experienced any text that gets covered so far.
I only tried it with Firefox and IE though.

@rjh1971
I don't mind.

On my laptop its explorer 6.00, on my desktop I know its explorer but I am not sure about the version.

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:04 pm

chapter 3 added.

@syagrius
Hmm I dont know what causes it then. If i try it with IE 6 I dont have that problem...

ijontichy · Post by **ijontichy** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:02 am

How do you draw those nice looking arrows?

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:54 am

ijontichy wrote:How do you draw those nice looking arrows?

I make a screenshot and add 40% visible bezier arrows in paint shop pro 9 by hand.
If that answers your question...

I will try to improve the text display.
Even a 1024 resolution does not seem enough right now... :/

funker42 · Post by **funker42** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:38 pm

Wow. Seems like the AI is something to contend with even though you held them off for longer than they did historical.

scorpio0511 · Post by **scorpio0511** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 8:03 am

Great !!!

Not you got me hooked, more please.

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 3:52 pm

therlun wrote:
ijontichy wrote:How do you draw those nice looking arrows?
I make a screenshot and add 40% visible bezier arrows in paint shop pro 9 by hand.
If that answers your question...

I will try to improve the text display.
Even a 1024 resolution does not seem enough right now... :/

Hi TheLun! Nice AAR. Please a little more information on the technical side of making your AAR. I have PSP but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get those nice arrows like yours nor the little explosion markers. Could you perhaps write a short guide as how to do it? I would love to be able to do that in my own AAR's.

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:17 am

Added Interlude and chapter 4.

Slightly improved visuals for 1024 resolution.
Improved (or so I hope) navigation UI and Union Jack symbol.

@Canuck
for PSP 9:
http://home.arcor.de/moon87/slitherine/fasttut01.png

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 3:24 am

Ok I can get the arrows, I can move them and I can even rotate them but I can't figure out how to give them the curves that you do. Any help on that part please?

And where do you get the explosion graphic from? I can't find that anywhere.

therlun · Post by **therlun** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:27 am

Be sure to select 'bezier curves' (the actual tooltip says 'draw point to point - bezier curves') in the pen tool.

Click once to set a start point of your arrow.
Click and hold to select the end point. Now while holding the mouse button move the cursor around to change the arrow curve.

If you dont like the arrow press ctrl+z once to only delete the end point (press it twice to undo the start point too).

I would suggest you deactivate the "draw as vector" option if you only want to draw arrows.
You cannot resize or move the arrows anymore after you drew them, but you save the hassle of managing lots of different vectors.

As for the explosions:
http://home.arcor.de/moon87/slitherine/fasttut02.png

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:35 am

Ok thanks this is great! One last thing though. I'm having trouble with my curved arrows. Straight is no problem but when I do a curved arrow I end up getting this: