Welcome Comrades to the 86th edition of the Dispatch
For those of you who don't know,
thehippo8 is actually a
Kiwi . Along with the usual trappings of an idyllic life in a
Pacific Island it is currently summer. We have a saying - "
Island time " - which pretty much means "
don't fret, we'll get there " ... but can also be translated as "
you can push me as much as you like but you're not going to get me to go any quicker and you're going to end up with a sore hand "!! So laziness, sunshine, imbibing and general frolicking have all had their own way in delaying this issue by a whole two days! Sure, the fact that the rest of the team have been hit by a severe case of
New-Year-itis has nothing to do with it! But, here we are - minus an interview and with a shortened
Foundry section - and we ready to entertain you!
Freestyle has a
Mafia update and a new column -
Dear Aunt Squishy ... now you can really get that problem off your chest!
Leehar sneaks in from
Swasiland to give us an update in clans (which seems strangely appropriate). Interestingly enough, numerology has it that 2013 is the year of love - not personal - but for family, society and clans ... time to get your clan on! My hat goes off to
Dukasaur who has pulled out a veritable smorgasbord of reading pleasure for you in all things related to
Tournaments . I don't want to jump the gun but we have some
Breaking News - check it out!
koontz1973 does a retrospective and it's time for the
2013 Map Awards ... have your say (one way or the other) and help dole out both GA medals and
premium . Finally, I bring you a lesson from
Hardattack on how to pay
Baltic Crusades (yes, it actually works), team up with
Macbone to bring a quick update on SoC (often promised until now not delivered) and
Dukasaur talks about ... well read it, it's a proud moment! So, all-in-all this is as action-a-packed issue as we ever had. And yes, we will bring you that CC interview with
Cairnswk next issue!
And thus we enter 2013 proper. Now, assuming that the birthdate of CC is 3 January 2006 (yes - that's exactly 7 years ago ... spooky), we get this (according to
this website :
To learn forecast for 2013 is for you, you need to calculate your destiny number. For CC (given the date of birth 03.01.2006, the calculation is 0+3+0+1+2+0+0+6= 12 = 1+2 = 3) your magic number is 3, which leads us to:Feel that the rapid flow of life does not make it. But if you show perseverance, patience and ingenuity, you can slowly but surely fulfill all obligations. For number 3 – the year of change, but only those that have been planned in advance.
Well, that's telling us isn't it! Best wishes to you all and enjoy the fruits of our labouring fingers.
thehippo8 Chief Executive If you would like to apply to join the news team, please visit the thread below for more details!
Click here for Recruitment Details... While
safariguy5 takes a well-earned break I've snuck in here to do another
Scum insider . Love that mafia! As you can see in this issue, we could do with a little bit of help here. I'm beginning to feel like a circus performer again
Freestyle is a great place to have your one off creative talents given a whirl (assuming they are CC related of course). Speaking of which, welcome one and all to Aunt Squishy. PM
SguishyQ or me with any questions you need to get off your chest (discretion
almost assured).
You Stay Classy, CC.
thehippo8 Floating Freestyle Executive The Scum Insider by thehippo8 show
The Scum Insider Newbie Help Mafia Information , Mafia and You , and Rules and Terms of Mafia .What is "Mafia"? Mafia News pancakemix to the mod team to support the Mafia forum, the possibility of mafia awards has once again be brought up here . Hopefully, we'll be able to have some sort of fun recognition thread or contest to celebrate another year of mafia fun.Mafia Callouts Best (Randomness) Of 2012 by jonty125 - totally random and no limit on sign-ups!No Handlebars Mafia by rishaed - is this 1984 meets The Fourth Estate ? Four players of eleven signed up as at the time of writing this.Golden Pantheon - Angels and Demons by edocsil - this is Edocsil's magnum opus and final in the five part series. Be quick as 18 of 25 have joined as at writing this.Community by aage - paintball time - only two spaces left as at writing this.Replacement Thread to see what games are in need of reserves/replacements.viewforum.php?f=213 Advanced Roles and Strategy by thehippo8 Traitor What is It? Example How to Play this Role
Dear Aunt Squishy by SquishyG show
Dear Aunt squishy,My girlfriend doesn't like how much time I spend playing Conquer Club. What should I do? Dear Future Conqueror, xoxo, Aunt squishy
It's still Holiday Season (Indeed I'm currently bringing you this section from vacation in the mountainous surrounds of M_ab_ne - GA Medal for whoever can guess correctly where that is
Nah, just kidding, I got no authority for that :p ), so bare bones this issue in clans, but look to feature articles galore in the coming weeks!
If you have any highlights on 2012 for your clan, or thoughts for upcoming goals in 2012, please do share them with us and the rest of the CC community!
Leehar Clan Executive Updates show
[CC3] - 3rd Annual Conqueror's Cup Semi-finals! vs. & vs. 2nd Annual 1 vs 1 Clan Challenge [Semi Finals] 15 vs. 5 16 vs. 16 [CL4] Phase 4 - Div 1[Semi Finals] 19 vs. 17 Newcomers Cup 3 vs. Mini Clan War
Hello again my friends, and welcome to your favorite part of the Newsletter, "War Games", where you can find information about CC Tournaments!
One thing you will find in this issue is
generalhead 's
Showcase of Tournament Directors .
(Simultaneously, there is a new omnibus list of List of Moderators and Their Responsibilities A small, simple, and yet very effective questionnaire was sent out to all the TDs, and the answers tell you a fair bit about what who the TDs are and what they do. At least a couple of them mentioned things that were news to me, so I definitely suggest you check it out.
CC's most prolific and second-most prolific TOs, Merch313 and HA respectively, both created some late-breaking news, and I've added a prediction about CC's third-most prolific TO as well. Have a look at my Late-breaking News article!
A major chapter in CC tournament history has closed, as the FIRST season of the TPA has finally ended. I will let
DaveH tell you all about it in his
TPA Wrap , but for now let me say that
a certain former War Games reporter is the ultimate winner ! Congratulations to that certain former War Games reporter! Although he's inactive on CC at the moment, I'm sure he'll be back one day.
WorldCup4James brings you
Join This? Or Not! which as you know is the longest-running series in the whole CC Dispatch! It will give you some interesting ideas of new tournaments to join. And while we're on the subject of tournaments to join, let me abuse my personal privilege here and remind you about my
Favourite Way for the World to End! tournament. If you haven't looked at it yet, please do, and if you've already signed up, then thank you, and now grab a friend and tell them about it!
Dukasaur Tournament Executive Showcase of Tournament Directors by generalhead show
Those charged with making the Tournaments happen.
They are here to help you run your tournament, not do it for you
Tournament Directors Night Strike Serbia chapcrap merch313 mcshanester29 As Tournament Directors, we each have a limited amount of time that we can provide to Directing based on personal lives, running tournaments, and other responsibilities that we have. Each Director has taken on tasks that they know they can commit to without over-burdening themselves. In order to help you know who to contact with a specific question or concern, I've compiled this list of duties that each Director is responsible for.
Click image to enlarge. Night Strike , Tournament Team Leader Duties I wanted to help out in a section that I was heavily involved in at the time. March 2008 I never really expected to become Team Leader or spend time helping out other departments, but the actual TD role was mostly expected. By being a member of Generation One: The Clan Click image to enlarge. Serbia , Tournament Deputy LeaderDuties I was running many tournaments at the time, and it was just something I was interested in doing, to help out. I was spending quite a lot of time on the site at that time, so it made sense to me. Night Strike is in my clan, so I volunteered to him. Took quite a long time before I was accepted, and given a role. About 16 months now, I believe. Yes, I'd say it was what I expected. I started out working with new tournaments, inputting them into the database, and awarding privileges when they filled. I have since become the mod responsible for handing out medals once tournaments have been completed. Steelhorse had been handling that, so I didn't expect to move into that role, but I enjoy it. As far as how long I'd be doing this, I really didn't have any expectations, so I'm just happy I'm still able to help out. It's not really a quote, but after I became a mod, I found out that Lindax had serious concerns about making me a TD. I'm happy to say that I've exceeded all his expectations. I rotate between Detroit and Michigan sports. Currently, I'm going with the helmet worn by the Michigan Wolverines. I've also used the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Lions, and Detroit Tigers. I'm from Detroit, and love Detroit sports. My right knee has been hurting me for over a week, at times somewhat seriously so, and I'm slightly concerned that I might have ligament damage. Click image to enlarge. merch313 Duties Since I was a TO and heard there was going to be openings for TD I decided to put in my application for the position. And low and behold I was picked Beginning of 2012 I believe. Yeah its been great. Nice to see and learn how all this works behind the scenes. Some jobs ive done is more work then I thought. Cuz im a sexy cow Own more then 400 pair of sneakers Click image to enlarge. chapcrap Duties Yes, of course. Well, before they had open callouts, I had told Night Strike (the Tournament Department Head) that I was willing to be a Tournament Director. Then, they had callouts for a Clan Director. It seemed to me that the TDs weren't needing anyone, so I went ahead and applied for that, because I wanted to be able to help out. At the same time, I was approached to see if I wanted to be a Suggestions mod, because I was active there. What ended up happening was a few PMs sent between myself, Night Strike, Bruceswar (head CD), clapper011 (head of suggs at the time), and Andydufresne. We came to the decision to have me help with tournaments because that's what I liked the most. It will be a year in a few weeks. It wasn't exactly what I expected. For the tournament directors, there is a lot of behind the scenes work; putting things into the database, checking tournaments, fielding questions and complaints, issuing medals, etc. I thought that we would get a chance to be involved in more site changes. However, there weren't many changes to get involved in. Hopefully that's changing in the future. Hmmm. Nothing comes to mind right now. Well, at the time I chose it, I was really into trying to find a family crest for myself. I went searching on the internet and found this. I have a congenital heart defect. GH Thanks and you're welcome. Click image to enlarge. mcshanester29 Duties After running tournaments for almost 2 years, I saw the call out for TD volunteers and I thought it would be a great experience plus a way to give back to the community. About 10-11 months now I believe For the most part it was what I expected there is always a few surprises.lol I didn't really have a time set in mind for how long I would volunteer, I just figured till they kicked me out or till I was no longer playing CC. I have so many favorites via pm,but can't quote them to protect the innocent...or not so innocent. One of my clan mates made it for me!! At night I am batman....oh crap now you know my secret identity..where is that amnesia pill??
Late-Breaking News - Top Three TOs by Dukasaur show
Just in the last few days we have had some massive news in the Tournaments world.Big News #1: HA returns! HighlanderAttack has returned to tournament organising. On Friday, December 21st, HA posted HA is sorry is the first new HA tournament launch in many moons. It filled quickly. A second, HA's another tourney followed. This morning, January 2nd, HA posted four new entries in his Don't Blink series. All of them filled before the end of the day. Tournament Organisers Hall of Fame 200th was almost declared abandoned, and only saved because the TDs bent the rules in deference to HA's prestige.Issue 84 of the Dispatch, I reported to you on the historic moment when Merch313 passed HA on the TO's list.Big News #2: 313's DE Series Done! hundreds and hundreds of players who have participated in Merch313 's Double-Elimination series got a PM with the historic words, merch313 wrote: ... to players who play in my DE series. Just wanted first to thank all of you for playing in my tourneys and to let you all know that I just put up the last map. We have gone through all CC, minus Easter, St Patricks Day, and the 2 world cup maps.
I will still be putting up those closed maps, new betas and other special event DE tourneys.
I mainly wanted to just thank you all for participating and helping me get through all the CC maps.
Greenoaks is about 80% of the way, with his KISS series, and I very much believe that he too will eventually reach his goal. Even so, Merch will have the special distinction of having done it first.Item #3: Greenoaks Closes In! greenoaks will pass HA in the Tournament Organisers Hall of Fame merch313 283
Tournament Tips by DaveH show: Secrets of Game Finder
If you want to insert a link to a selection of games, you use the code that I detailed in Issue 81.Find All Round 2 Games Code: Select all [url=http://www.conquerclub.com/player.php?submit=Search&gn=&gs=&np=&mp=&ty=&it=&po=&bc=&ft=&wf=&tw=&rl=&sg=&pt=1&to=&lb=&p1=&p2=&p3=&p4=&so=&page=1][b]Find All Round 2 Games[/b][/url]Click image to enlarge. G ame N umberG ame S tatus (W=Waiting; A=Active; F=Finished}N umber of P layers (2, 3 etc)M ap (Map Number; not Name!)Ty pe (S (or blank) =Standard; C=Terminator; A=Assassin; D=Doubles; T=Triples; Q=Quads)I nitial T roops (M=Manual)P lay O rder (F=Freestyle)f orcement T ype (O for Adjacent; M=Unlimited; C=Chained))W ith F og (Y = yes)T rench W arfare (Y = yes)R ound L imit (20 etc)S pecial G amesplay (5 etc)P rivat e (Y = Yes (private); T = Tournament)To urnament Title i.e.ContinentConquer%3A+World+Tour+%5BTPA2%5DL ab el i.e. Round+2P layer 1 P layer 2 P layer 3 P layer 4 Page Number
TPA Wrap by DaveH show
TPA 1: State of Play TPA 1 Standings TPA Season 2: State of Play If You Don't Like the Weather tournament has finished, with dowian2, Denise and mkcummins coming first. The scoreboard has been updated and the leaders are: dowian2 3463, barterer2002 3358, tripitaka 2666, uckuki 2567 and arno30 2362.TPA 2 Standings TPA Season 3 Premier peanutman - Peanut's 3X Double Elimination - Doubles Seven Up II which has 7 players in a league type tournament - as started by flexmaster. Quads, triples, doubles and a single all in one tournament!Premier - DaveH - The 13 Days of Christmas Triples teams playing triples, doubles and singles.http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=175675 http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=177868
Join This? Or Not! by WorldCup4James show
With MMXIII underway and the Conquer Club New Year in sight, the Tournaments page is at full strength. As has been the case for many weeks now, there's no shortage of exciting and innovative competitions, so here's a glance at some of the best in search of players like you. The Thirteen Days of Christmas DaveH , teams of three take part in 45 games across thirteen maps, each representing one of the days of Christmas. But not all games are Triples--singles and doubles as well as triples games are all featured. Popular maps such as Treasures of Galapagos, Poker Club, and Arms Race! are all included in this festive competition. MC's 200th Tournament mcshanester29 welcomes 128 players to his all-inclusive tournament, complete with two years' worth of premium prizes. From Assassin to Teams to Standard games, players pick up points for wins across six rounds. Games will be played on Random as well as BETA maps. Two unique General Achievement Medals are up for grabs, and just playing gives you the chance to be randomly drawn to win three months of premium membership! Not only will cross-map and cross-setting skills be instrumental, but effective teamwork with random opponents will also be needed to dominate. Don't miss out--the tournament is already over half-full.Ballenus Double 2013 ballenus ' elite Doubles tournament for teams of combined score greater than 4000, 32 teams take to war across three phases of group play. Across numerous months, this Doubles marathon competition will grant 65 games for teams that reach the finals. Featured maps include Classic, Berlin 1961, 8 Thoughts, and many more. There's still room for around ten pairs who want the chance to turn the early months of 2013 into success.Colonization of the New World benga 's Doubles tournament. Pairs sign up representing their choice European power--from Portugal to Holland to France--and sail off, battling across three distinct stages! Only one team can hold the wealth and glory and truly succeed in the colonization! There's still some room left so join the bold and historic journey today!Create/Join a Tournament or Tournaments Tab and take a look at the many others waiting to be filled.Requests for Immediate Players section of the tournament forum. You can be playing very quickly after signing up as a reserve.
Normal service will resume next issue.
koontz1973 -- Foundry ExecutiveRetrospective of the year by koontz1973 show
It has been a bumper year in the foundry this year. Lots of things went on, from new maps (21 new ones this year), the loss of map makers, new map makers, saying goodbye to foundry staff and hello to others. New xml has been allowed so new ways to play the game. We even went through the very first conquer club strike by Team CC.21 new maps Cuban Missile Crisis, Classic Cities: London, Patch Wars, Island of Doom, Knights, Africa II - SOS Africa Reward Map, Salem's Switch, Rail Asia, King's Court II, Eurasia, Eurasia Mini, 1982, Trench Warfare, Dark Continent, New Jersey, Copenhagen, Classic Cities: Jakarta, Classic Cities: Sydney, Classic Cities: Pot Mosbi, Magyarország, Baltic States. 2 new map makers Ace Rimmer gave us Cuban Missile Crisis on the 24th of January. A 2 player game won by D00MandD3A7H .chaos32679 brought us New Jersey on 21st of September. This map is still in beta but the first game was won by Iron Maid . A professional cross mapper trying to beat all new maps as they come out. Looks like he did it for this one.ISN2 and Flapcake also made their first maps, but they entered service just before the new year.3 leave & 2 new. Blue boys that is. MarshalNey During October 2011, MarshalNey decided to take a break from his blue duties due real life reasons. Unfortunately, after talking with him few days ago, I have to say that he has decided to resign definitively from his position as Cartography Assistant. This is certainly a great loss for the foundry considering that MarshalNey has been one of the best gameplay commentators and helpers we have ever had the pleasure to work with. OliverFA On the same route, we have to say goodbye to OliverFA, after having contribute for the last 7 months to check the XML code of our maps, he has also decided to step down and take a definitive break from his current duties. OliverFA has been always really kind and helpful and even if his presence on the public side has always been a bit "silent", he has made a great contribution behind the scenes doing all the hard groundwork to create a new and updated xml guide/tutorial that we will release very soon. Industrial Helix thenobodies80 wrote: If I go back with the memory to 2009, I clearly remember when I became a CA and one of the first maps I followed at that time was the 13 Colonies. I remember a kind guy who was going to push his first map through the foundry process. I remember the funny pms exchange to write a working xml....but I'm digressing with the flow of my memories and probably most of you, right now, are wondering about what the hell I'm talking about.
The new kids on the block nolefan5311 th June.koontz1973 nd November.natty dread come onto the team just after OliverFA left to help with the checking of the xml. Bye to two bin . DiM on the other hand, not only left behind a lot of projects unfinished, he flamed out in spectacular style. Threatening to sue the site and trying to remove his maps from play. But no matter, these two are missed with their views. What ever you guys are doing, good luck.New North America. Click image to enlarge. Supersized problems. came back , albeit with slightly smaller sizes.2 XML updates Bonus Collections Conditional Borders 1 foundry stike Click image to enlarge. this :Today, I've decided to go in the opposite way and think as mapmaker and not be the foreman....help the mapmakers and then the site.
Medals. cairnswk became the very first player to hit the big 30 limit and has even passed it now by 2 or 3. lostatlimbo with his Portland map became the 100th recipient of a map medal. Lastly, the team. Group Leader thenobodies80 Group Members The Foundry Graphics Team members are the final arbiters of map quality, and will ultimately judge whether or not a map meets the Conquer Club standard. isaiah40 RedBaron0 iancanton nolefan5311 koontz1973 ender516
Map Awards 2013 show
2012 awards. - Winners. productive year in the foundry. 20 maps have been produced and played on. With the two held over from lasts years comptition, we have 22 maps to judge this year. Click on any of the wood bannersFor every map that wins in each of the categories, a shiny new General Achievement medal will be awarded to the map maker. But that is not all, six months premium will be given to the map maker that wins the Best of 2012 category . 2nd and 3rd places will also get additional 3 months of premium Below is a list of all the maps that you can vote on this year.Kingdom of Denmark , Istanbul , Cuban Missile Crisis , Classic Cities: London , Patch Wars , Island of Doom , Knights , Africa II - SOS Africa Reward Map , Salem's Switch , Rail Asia , King's Court II , Eurasia , Eurasia Mini , 1982 , Trench Warfare , Dark Continent , New Jersey , Copenhagen , Classic Cities: Jakarta , Classic Cities: Sydney , Classic Cities: Pot Mosbi , Magyarország . Any map that comes out later will be moved over to next years awards. Kingdom of Denmark and Istanbul are in from last year. The map makers are also entered into the best new map maker section. Voting lasts until the 14th January.Prizes are given by the entertainment team.
Welcome one and all to another helping of
Strategy .
This is the stuff that's important, so listen up!!
This issue
Hardattack shares his wisdom on
Baltic Crusades - do what he says, it works and it turns this map into fun with a capital F! For those of you looking for an easy GA medal, please get acquanted with the maps in this
Collected Wisdom series and go ahead and send your entries into the
Official Guides - they need to be done and you get something out of it too.
Macbone and his team will hopefully be bringing me regular updates from the trials, tribulations, hilarity and dispair that makes up the training ground in the
Society of Cooks . This is just a teaser, but if any of you want to get involved then feel free to PM me your thoughts too! Speaking of getting involved,
Dukasaur also takes this opportunity to update on the first graduates from SoC Team Training - well done all
And no doubt you will be shortly joined by many more!
Stay clever!
thehippo8 Temporary Strategy Executive Collected Wisdom: Hardattack by thehippo8 show
Well, seems there is no shortage of talented and selfless folk who are willing to share their experience and knowledge with others on this fair site. Be upstanding CC for the erudite words of Hardattack who was good enough to answer my questions (26 December 2012) and smash me in a very quick 1 minute game on this map!Click image to enlarge. Well, I was looking for a 2vs2 team game 6 days ago or so, a tough opposition and a good team to fight against. Found 5-6 games, sent game IDs to my friend, asking him to pick one of them. Luckily (for me) one of those games was Baltic Crusades ... a doubles game. My friend picked that one, we sat in the game as team 2. Together with my partner, we made a study of the map. It didn’t take us a lot of time to get the idea how map worked. I liked it. I started a speed game, 1v1, then the fun/enjoyment I got from that game grew like avalanche. Well, simply put, no. I don’t have anything personal/cultural to link me with the back side of the map. But maybe I can clarify it that I am kind of liking the history to a degree. It has been reason why I liked Age of Empires PC game more and more than Need for Speed . I think my point is clear. Simply put, I smell history in Baltic Crusades. Actually, I have been playing 1v1 games for 2 days now. Through the last 18 months, maybe 2 years, it has been very rare for me to play 1v1 games (check my game history). Well, I thought to myself, many people are busy with Xmas, holidaying, and generally enjoying their free time. So, I figured I have to play some fast games to have fun. Other than that, from this point on, I’d be happy to play 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 on this map – particularly whenever I find my team comes back around after their Christmas holidays. Remember, I only started playing this map just 4-5 days before now Well, castles are key IMO. I am happy with automatic deploys, not only for this nice new map, but mostly I like auto-deployment for any map/game. If it is manual deployment we are playing, then I’d say a distribution of units next to castles to grab as many castles as possible in the first turn, or in first 2 turns, would give a tremendous income in no time to the player - so good advantage I believe. Well, hanseatic cities and towns can be reached via a single point, that is owner territories, and most times the first time players miss this point. Newbs drop/deploy their units in towns/cities assuming they can make further attacks over surrounding territories from towns/cities. However, towns/cities can ONLY attack owner territories. Since I am using BOB/clickable maps, it is not tough for me to see the connections and grasp this point. But for those who don’t use those tools, it’s a bit tough to see this point - particularly in their first time play. But it shouldn’t take very long them to get this. So in their second play they pretty well are aware of how it works. Finally, I wouldn’t call this a trap, as such, but rather a little sweet trick, this is, even adding more fun and aspect to the map. In short, it adds more fun in game play. Finally, to me, there are no traps at all. Not much, if it is a trick to be counted then yes, let’s say it is castles to be targeted in first couple of rounds to benefit from auto-deploys. This replicates historical fact in the feudal and new world as well. Well, I believe this map offers fun in both settings. My game pattern in last two days, playing it sunny is mostly because of being busy and looking for fast gaming. Otherwise, and once again, fog in this map will be great as well. I am playing 2vs2 game in this map, a casual one, it is foggy and I’m still enjoying it a lot. As I have said, I have an active 2vs2 game, fog, no spoils, chained. But 1vs1 is always simpler, not for this map only but valid through all maps we have got. It will be interesting to play team games when my team get back from holidays. This map is very much a conquest type of map in my opinion. Looking back, despite having just a short but intensive experience with this map, one possible reason why I started such a huge affinity on that map, I guess, is due to it’s being/sitting at the middle of feudal(epic) war map, new world map, and dawn of ages map. All of those 3 maps have been amongst the maps I loved the most in my whole 4 years of appearance on this site. Baltic crusades map, I can perfectly well say, is that it is something just like a very best composition of all these above 3 mentioned maps all at once. At least, that is what I see so far. I believe pretty soon, it will be among one of most frequently played maps on this site. Hardattack , you have done the hard yards for the rest of us. Now we can all enjoy this map. I hope you are right that it will become a favourite. At least now that I understand it I will be playing it myself!
Brief SoCs by thehippo8 and macbone show
Society of Cooks Training Grounds is the place to go to learn strategy. Hopefully from this point on we will keep you up to date with developments, innovations, state of the art and other happenings in SoC insofar as that relates to strategy.One thing I can report is that we recently had a Student Shootout internal tournament, and the winner was
musicdude33 :
viewtopic.php?f=341&t=179231 He received an entrance into another internal tournament, our Senior Class Shootout, which is going on right now (sadly, I've already been eliminated (= ).
We're always on the lookout for new teachers for either our Escalating Terminator/Standard classes or our team teaching classes. For Escalating teachers, interested players can contact
Dhallmeyer or
Iron Butterfly , and for team teaching, they can PM me and
Commander9 .
the Commandments . Do you follow them, do they work, do you have some more, some amendments, a brain seizure, what? Hmmmm?
First SoC Team Trainee Graduates by Dukasaur show
Late breaking news!Commander9 wrote: You are few and far and between and you've finally reached the end of the road for SoC Academy Training. You are the very first batch (I might say not a bad one too
) to graduate our team training! No doubt, it may have been a long and hard journey to this point, with some hurdles in between, but you have done it, so shake your hand, give yourself a high five and put on a cook hat - you've made it!
ElricTheGreat wrote: Congrats on being in our 1st groups of students to take the Team Training and come out the other end.
asbks Dukasaur wrote: 1. When did team training start? I can see a mention as far back as
April of 2011 . Wow, has it really been that long?
Commander9 wrote: 1. I personally wasn't there since the very beginning, but I think around May of 2011. The 1st posts that I can find for team games actually date back to 2009 March 1st (
Game 4336167 with wacicha and Industrial Helix)
macbone wrote: Team training has existed in several different forms back since at least 2009, as Commander9 pointed out. Wacicha instituted some changes in the teaching curriculum in 2010, and mpjh tasked ptlowe with further adjustments in 2011.
Dukasaur wrote: 2. What were some of the staffing changes?
macbone wrote: We've had three different heads in the 4 years of teacher training, first Bruceswar, then ptlowe, then BW again briefly, and finally Commander9. Pt didn't have enough time to continue, and Bruce transitioned to lead the Clan Directors team, although he still participates in team teaching. We still use pt's training regimin with the three-student teams and the movement through the three different settings.
Dukasaur wrote: 3. What were some of the challenges setting this up and have the goals/methods changed? (and similar question) 4. Will future groups be handled differently that the first group? Have any lessons been learned?
Commander9 wrote: 3. Communication has always been the main emphasis and it was always going to be challenging to handle and work with so many people while organizing everything. Fortunately, we've had such studs like Macbone or Dhallmeyer, who have spent countless amount of hours organizing and putting everything together. Through out the time, we have changed some of the procedures, such as allowing the communication to be a bit more lax (that as long as teacher and student are communicating, they don't have to follow a very specific pattern of communication). Through out all this time there's been countless of changes, but again, if there's going to be need, I'd rather let two people who were mostly responsible for them to stand up and take the credit.
4. Yes, things do change over-time. We have a much stricter teacher policy these days and we are now quite selective on who we take - there's still room for improvement, but getting the very best player interested in training low end people is not as easy as it may sound
Still, we have changed a lot of administrative procedures and we've formed a fairly reliable system on how to determine when to move a person to the next level and as of now, we are quite satisfied with the current system. Still, there's plenty of work to be done and we'll continue on looking how to improve the system for the better.
macbone wrote: 4. As far as lessons learned goes, I think I took my first group through too slowly. Most students seem to pick up the basics fairly easily, but I still think that doubles play is very important in teaching the essentials. Similarly, trips is very useful in that students learn to work with each other, and aren't as dependent on the teacher. Quads is where teams really come into their own, and students have a greater chance to take on leadership roles and develop their own strategy apart from their teachers.
Dukasaur wrote: 5. How many people in total are in/have been in the program?
Commander9 wrote: 5. To give an exact number is pretty much impossible to due a fairly high amount of drop-outs, but I'd estimate that at least 400 people have passed through some stage of SoC team training (quite possibly more).
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Freestyle is a great place to have your one off creative talents given a whirl (assuming they are CC related of course). Speaking of which, welcome one and all to Aunt Squishy. PM SguishyQ or me with any questions you need to get off your chest (discretion almost assured).
And no doubt you will be shortly joined by many more!
