When?
The USN player is expected to report the sides, bid, adjustments used (if any), and score at the end of each turn. All other reporting is optional.
The GM will publish any information he receives for all Top 10 Invitational games as well as all semi-final and final games for the BPA Single-Elimination and King-of-the-Hill Ladder games. Players in these games are strongly encouraged to submit maps, write-ups, and any commentary desired. No other game reports will be published -- unless one or both players submit an entire game report in a single document.
What?
As you contemplate reporting in greater detail, consider that the added detail is not valuable (other than commentary) unless the entire game is similarly reported. If you want to make reports that depend on your opponent to do likewise, please discuss it with him/her in advance. The lowest level of reporting selected by both players is recommended.
I recommend one of the following levels of reporting:
A) Score only (Reported by USN player at completion of battle) -- Required. Players who wish may download this handy program to generate an HTML scorecard that can be sent to the GM as an email attachment.B) Area Controls & Score (Reported by selected player) -- please put the areas in lists or tables (use tabs to separate columns).
C) Major Events (with or without Option B, reported by selected player) -- write up the glorious (or infamous) details of your game in as much detail and fanfare as you like. I recommend including details about major battles, conversions of ports, invasions of bases, sinkings of USN CVs, stunning streaks of luck (good or bad), and thematic material. Make your game a fun story to read! (This is what I've done for some of my War at Sea games.)
D) Highlight and Strategy Summary (with option B preferably, reported by both players) -- Both players submit strategy analysis and commentary at turn end. The GM will hold it until the results of the following turn (Area Contols and Score) are received so that neither player need fear giving an secrets away to their opponent. Please make sure that the GM explicitly knows that this is what you're doing!
E) Ship placements, battle results, and Option B (submitted by selected player) -- it doesn't do much good to get specific ship information unless the rest of the detail is presented. It takes some work, but can be well worth the effort -- you can go back and figure out what you should have done, solicit other comments from previous opponents and friends, etc. (Basically, this is what I did for my own games in round three.)
F) E and C together. (My own games will now appear with at least this much detail.)
G) E and D together.
H) Any of the above with JPEG or GIF maps or saved game files from the Wargame Processor or Aide de Camp II. Screen shots (saved as JPEG/GIF) from other VITP utilities are also welcome (hit Alt-PrntScrn to take the snapshot and then paste, Crtl-V, into a facility that can save in JPEG or GIF format).
For first-time players who've never done a Series Replay, I recommend nothing more intense than Option D.
How?
Those who've seen my game reports may wonder how to get their text to format nicely in color. Here are a few HTML command you can put in your game report to make it fancier. As GM, I cannot take the time to edit game reports, so please send them exactly as you want them!
Color
<Font Color="Red">To make text in the
middle red!</Font>
<Font Color="Blue">To make text in the
middle blue!</Font>
<Font Color="Green">To make text in the
middle green!</Font>
Size
<Font Size="+1">To make text slightly
larger!</Font>
<Font Size="+2">To make text much
larger!</Font>
Style
<b>To bold the text in the middle!</b>
<u>To underline the text in the middle!</u>
<i>To italicize the text in the middle!</i>
Line Control
To terminate a line with no justification -- end line with
<br>
These all work for postings on many web services, by the way! Have fun! You're now qualified for a $70K/year job (at least until it's outsourced)!
Who?
Send all reports, questions, or other comments to John Pack, john@gameaholics.com.
Why?
You sure are full of questions, aren't you? If you still have to ask, perhaps you should try Uno?