Saturday 11 April 2009

Blog review 2

/

Busy week on the blog, and very satisfied with the progress, and response, so far. I have had a lot of feedback and it has given me much food for thought.


So far I have been mostly concerned with getting background information on the blog. Particularly how the campaign was developed. I had not realised just how many blog entries there would be, or how difficult it would be to use it as an archive. I have had much good advice, particularly from Clive Smithers, and this has helpled me to think about presentation


During the past week I have been distracted by starting two new blogs. One deals with our life in Spain, and in particular our other love - hill walking. I have started this from when we moved to Spain in 2006, so again a lot of existing material to put on the blog. The other one is a record of our many battlefield holidays. This one is in the form of a diary, and great fun to research amongst diaries and old photographs.


Now I need to consider the best way to go forward in terms of presentation. Should I start a new blog for the 1813 campaign? This seems a good idea, as there will be a lot of entries dealing with different phases of the campaign, and battles within each phase. But then I will have to find a way to cross reference the two. No doubt this can be done, but I am increasingly aware of my lack of knowledge about the mechanics of blogging!


Then there is how best to present the campaign and the battle reports. Reading through the Campaign Diary I am not very pleased with the maps. I have no skill as a map maker, and do not wish to devote the time necessary to produce professional looking maps on the computer, even if I had the ability. They work quite well enough for me, are easy to make, and easy to maintain. But they were not designed to share with others. I am considering how to improve them to make them easier to understand and in particular easier to read. Not sure how this will go, but Jan and I are considering how we could improve the existing ones, or perhaps make new ones.


I am more pleased with the battle reports, but anxious for feed back. There are two ways to approach the battle reports. I could type up long descriptions of each battle, with details of the tactics and rule results. I am afraid that these might be rather boring, or worse difficult to understand. Or I could produce them along the lines of a comic strip, a series of photos with the minumum of text. I have chosen the latter for my first attempt. However some of the feedback has asked for more details of the tactics and how the rules work. I have asked on the forum I use for more feedback.


Finally we have friends visiting today, and staying for four days. So I will have to take a break from the blog - which is probably a good thing! Hopefully when I return there will be lots of feedback and suggestions.


If you have any ideas or suggestions to improve the blog, and in particular the battle reports, now would be a really good time to let me have them.


Thanks for visiting - and come back soon.


Paul

2 comments:

  1. Hi Paul

    I got the rules you sent - Thanks. They have been printed and I've given them a once over. I have a few questions but that will be later.

    I personally like the "comic" book approach to battle reports but would also like more info on how your rules work in the battles. So my suggestion would be to keep your present presentation but possibly add more detail on how the rules work in those battle winning turns/actions. If that makes any sense.

    I would also be interested in your campaign rules. Such as what is the effect of roads and crossing rivers where they don't exist.

    Thanks
    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Dave

    Thanks for your comments.

    I am not really happy with the battle reports, and I plan to work on them over the next few days.

    I had also thought about a blog on the campaign rules. But they are so simple it hardly seems worth while. However I will do something shortly.

    Let me have your queries on the rules by email, it will be quicker to answer that way.

    Paul

    ReplyDelete

I have set the settings for comments to come to me before posting so that I will not miss any