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Sunday 4 October 2009

When Empires Clash! – Colonial Wars: Latest update

Despite – or in spite – of my cold and sinusitis, I managed to finish tidying-up my wargames room this morning, which meant I had some time – and a slightly clearer head – when I sat down this afternoon to do some work on WHEN EMPIRES CLASH! – COLONIAL WARS.

I now have a layout that looks the way I want it to look, although my original choice of Lucida Sans for the font is – in retrospect – one that I will have to re-examine. It is clear and easy to read, but I want to use a compatible font for notes, worked examples, and image captions … and none of the other Lucida fonts seems to work.

As a foretaste of what the new draft of the rules will look like, here are some images of sample pages:

As you will see, I am using a mixture of photographs and diagrams to explain the mechanisms used in the rules, and I hope that by doing so I will make them as crystal clear as possible.

I have a heavy workload ahead of me this week and next, but I hope to be able to get this draft of the rules ready for proof reading within the next fortnight.

2 comments:

  1. I like it.

    Please, do not make too many footnotes. If something is important enough for a note or footnote it must either be part of a rule or an example that can be place after the rule it illustrates.

    Footnotes and other notes are kind of distracting. It like the author is saying, "oh, wait, here's something else that may be of interest or not."

    You've got our attention, hang on to it. Don't distract your loyal readers.

    All that stuff aside, I'm sure I speak for your blog audience when I say, "Get Well."(1)

    Keep smiling, take your vitamins, drink plenty of non-alcoholic liquids, and get all the sleep you can.

    Jim

    (1) And do that first, before worrying about WEC. First things first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jim,

    Thanks for the very helpful comments.

    I am trying to integrate the notes into the main text - which is not always easy - so that I can avoid using footnotes.

    I am feeling better today. I managed to drive to work (45 minutes through rush-hour London traffic), teach for six hours (with a 45 minute break in the middle), and drive home again (another 45 minutes of heavy traffic.

    The effort involved in doing all that seemed to give me a much needed 'boost' (along with the Aspirin!), and although teaching can be very tiring, working with young people can be very invigorating as well!

    I hope that a hot shower, plenty of vitamin C, a good night's rest, and some more Aspirin should mean that I feel even better tomorrow. In the meantime, I am about to go and get a hot drink, and sit in my armchair. The latest Boris Akunin novel arrived in the post today, and 30 minutes or so of light reading will set me up for the rest of the evening.

    All the best,

    Bob

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