Well I did a ton of drudgework and have compiled what I believe to be the "order of complexity" for all the maps presently in the site. For simplicity's sake, I split them into four independent categories (Simple, Moderate, Complex, Conquest), and ranked them. I have more detailed information than this if people want me to post it later.
All maps are ordered from hardest to easiest.
Simple To be understood as being without any gimmicks whatsoever, only straight continent bonuses similar to Classic.
#1: Indochina #2: France #3: Germany #4: North America #5: High Seas #6: World 2.1 #7: Middle East #8: Africa #9: Europe #10: British Isles #11: Portugal #12: Cairns Coral Coast #13: Netherlands #14: Caribbean Islands #15: Brazil #16: Puget Sound #17: WWII Australia #18: Iberia #19: U.S. Senate #20: Arctic #21: Hong Kong #22: Asia #23: Ancient Greece #24: WWII Iwo Jima #25: South America #26: Canada #27: Philippines #28: Mongol Empire #29: Middle Earth #30: Luxembourg #31: Ireland #32: Crossword #33: USA #34: Australia #35: Iceland #36: Classic #37: Doodle Earth
Moderate To be understood as maps that have a gimmick or two, like split bonuses, capital bonuses, a bombard or two, one-way attacks, and the like.
#1: Battle of Actium #2: USApocalypse #3: WWII Western Front #4: Solar System #5: Circus Maximus #6: Chinese Checkers #7: Sydney Metro #8: Siege! #9: Italy #10: Texan Wars #11: NYC #12: Extreme Global Warming #13: American Civil War #14: Malta #15: BeNeLux #16: 8 Thoughts #17: Greater China #18: Great Lakes #19: Madness #20: Dust Bowl #21: WWII Eastern Front #22: Space #23: Midkemdil #24: Soviet Union #25: Discworld #26: Montreal #27: Tamriel #28: Duck and Cover #29: Egypt: Upper #30: Scotland #31: San Francisco #32: Alexander's Empire #33: CCU #34: Egypt: Lower
Complex To be understood as all non-Conquest maps that have insane amounts of gimmicks or by mechanics are substantially more difficult than the average map.
#1: Conquer Man #2: Waterloo #3: Battle for Iraq! #4: Pearl Harbor #5: Bamboo Jack #6: WWII Gazala #7: Supermax #8: Age of Merchants #9: Egypt: Valley of the Kings #10: Prohibition Chicago #11: D-Day: Omaha Beach! #12: Rail Europe #13: WWII Ardennes #14: Operation Drug War #15: Berlin 1961 #16: Rail USA #17: Arms Race! #18: Draknor - Level 1 #19: King of the Mountains
Conquest To be understood as those maps that start each played with one or very few territories and populating the rest of the map with neutrals.
#1: Das Schloss (the old one, not the one in process right now) #2: Treasures of Galapagos #3: Age of Realms 2: Magic #4: The New World #5: Age of Realms 3: Mayhem #6: Age of Realms 1: Might #7: Feudal War
I shall post explanations and justifications later. Any suggestions for edits I encourage.
Hence why I'm accepting input. I put MY picks for hardest maps on site. I don't have an uninformed opinion (only 4 of those maps I haven't claimed a victory on, and they all have been released in the last couple of weeks). I did everything on basis of how hard it is to start off (World 2.1 does not have a hard start in the least) and how easy it is to expand a base of power (Conquer Man, fairly difficult if the dice are being a pain), then the number of different ways ultimate victory can be claimed.
For all of the Simple and Moderate maps, I listed all the maps in terms of the bonuses and special features (if any) each had, and rated the bonuses on four different levels (easy, medium, hard, impossible). To make rating the maps easier I split them into 5-map pairs and graded each of those by relative difficulty, then created a composite list by comparing the 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's one to each other.
Complex maps didn't get a bonus breakdown as they have an insane number of bonuses nine times out of ten. I'll be posting both the breakdowns and my justifications later, but do suggest changes in the rankings.
TaCktiX wrote:Hence why I'm accepting input. I put MY picks for hardest maps on site. I don't have an uninformed opinion (only 4 of those maps I haven't claimed a victory on, and they all have been released in the last couple of weeks). I did everything on basis of how hard it is to start off (World 2.1 does not have a hard start in the least) and how easy it is to expand a base of power (Conquer Man, fairly difficult if the dice are being a pain), then the number of different ways ultimate victory can be claimed.
For all of the Simple and Moderate maps, I listed all the maps in terms of the bonuses and special features (if any) each had, and rated the bonuses on four different levels (easy, medium, hard, impossible). To make rating the maps easier I split them into 5-map pairs and graded each of those by relative difficulty, then created a composite list by comparing the 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's one to each other.
Complex maps didn't get a bonus breakdown as they have an insane number of bonuses nine times out of ten. I'll be posting both the breakdowns and my justifications later, but do suggest changes in the rankings.
Hmm this dosen't explain why circusmaximus is on Moderate its hard as hell.<
Again, I sorted by GIMMICK PRESENCE. Eastern Front has the Star bonus, as does Western Front, something that is definitely not present in classic Risk. Circus Maximus has one-way attacks, and a lack of bonuses, both gimmicks, but not major ones. By the criteria I defined, I have been consistent. I swear, some people don't read explanations that well.
TaCktiX wrote:Hence why I'm accepting input. I put MY picks for hardest maps on site. I don't have an uninformed opinion (only 4 of those maps I haven't claimed a victory on, and they all have been released in the last couple of weeks). I did everything on basis of how hard it is to start off (World 2.1 does not have a hard start in the least) and how easy it is to expand a base of power (Conquer Man, fairly difficult if the dice are being a pain), then the number of different ways ultimate victory can be claimed.
For all of the Simple and Moderate maps, I listed all the maps in terms of the bonuses and special features (if any) each had, and rated the bonuses on four different levels (easy, medium, hard, impossible). To make rating the maps easier I split them into 5-map pairs and graded each of those by relative difficulty, then created a composite list by comparing the 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's one to each other.
Complex maps didn't get a bonus breakdown as they have an insane number of bonuses nine times out of ten. I'll be posting both the breakdowns and my justifications later, but do suggest changes in the rankings.
Hmm this dosen't explain why circusmaximus is on Moderate its hard as hell.<
Any ranking like this will be subjective to a certain degree - that is why there have been lengthy arguements/discussions in all the previous map sorting threads.
PB: 2661 | He's blue...If he were green he would die | No mod would be stupid enough to do that
TaCktiX wrote:Hence why I'm accepting input. I put MY picks for hardest maps on site. I don't have an uninformed opinion (only 4 of those maps I haven't claimed a victory on, and they all have been released in the last couple of weeks). I did everything on basis of how hard it is to start off (World 2.1 does not have a hard start in the least) and how easy it is to expand a base of power (Conquer Man, fairly difficult if the dice are being a pain), then the number of different ways ultimate victory can be claimed.
For all of the Simple and Moderate maps, I listed all the maps in terms of the bonuses and special features (if any) each had, and rated the bonuses on four different levels (easy, medium, hard, impossible). To make rating the maps easier I split them into 5-map pairs and graded each of those by relative difficulty, then created a composite list by comparing the 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's one to each other.
Complex maps didn't get a bonus breakdown as they have an insane number of bonuses nine times out of ten. I'll be posting both the breakdowns and my justifications later, but do suggest changes in the rankings.
Hmm this dosen't explain why circusmaximus is on Moderate its hard as hell.<
Any ranking like this will be subjective to a certain degree - that is why there have been lengthy arguements/discussions in all the previous map sorting threads.
1. you have British Isles, Europe, and Cairns Coral Coast on your 'Simple' list yet they include one-way borders.
2. I don't see how you can possibly say that Portugal is harder than Brazil or USA is harder than Australia. It makes zero sense to me if you're really talking about complexity. But, I guess to each his own. I'll just ignore your list from now on and not cause any more trouble even though I think it's silly. good luck.
I'm not entirely sure why you would want to do this or what purpose it will serve, but okay. France is definitely not #2 complexity of simple maps, though. Arctic is #1 of those, too. BeNeLux is not a Moderate map, it's simple, especially if Cairns Coral Coast is counted simple. Supermax is way harder than Bamboo Jack. Pearl Harbour is way below WWII Gazala... I could continue except I don't really care how the list goes...
Reputation cleared. Never let it be said that Team CC don't investigate fairly. Although they take bloody forever to do it...
I agree with Edbeard on this one. There are a number of maps that should be ranked equal, IMO, since there's essentially no difference between them. It's easier to compare map difficulty in the medium range, but very hard at the simple and complex levels, as the maps are either too similar or too different to compare.
I have some things I'd shuffle around on your list, but I'll wait for the explanations to be posted before I go through all of them.
Great work, TaCktix, thanks for beginning this list.
I would like to point out that it's ok to rate 2 maps equally complex for the purpose of sorting maps by complexity (this is what I was asking for).
Equality should hopefully remove some of the debate, please do continue, Tacktix, at least you are making a constructive effort to help new starters and I thank you very much for that.
Ok, I've setup a system for drawing the list into the script, so ready to go when we have a final version.
Can we try and get an amended default list - if you wish to contribute constructively, please mention exactly where you think maps should be ranked. To make this simpler, it is perfectly fine to rank 2 or maps equally complex. Remember this is not supposed to be a personal opinion but a guide for new starters - the criteria set out sounds perfectly reasonable. If it makes things easier, instead of complexity, think of it as number of gimmicks/mechanical variations from Classic.
---1--- Classic Shapes Classic Art Australia Canada Doodle Earth France Germany Ireland Madagascar Portugal USA ---2--- Africa Ancient Greece Archipelago Arctic Brazil Caribbean Islands Charleston Haiti Hong Kong Iberia Iceland Indochina Middle East North America South America U.S. Senate ---3--- Asia Europa High Seas Middle Earth Mongol Empire Puget Sound WWII Australia ---4--- Montreal Cairns Coral Coast ---5--- Luxembourg CCU ---6--- Malta Philippines British Isles Soviet Union ---7--- World 2.1 Europe BeNeLux Alexander's Empire Chinese Checkers ---8--- Scotland Italy Egypt: Lower ---9--- Egypt: Upper Civil War ---10--- The Citadel WWII Eastern Front WWII Iwo Jima ---11--- Tamriel ---12--- Great Lakes Siege ---13--- Halloween Hollows NYC Sydney Metro ---14--- Greater China Midkemdil ---15--- Texan Wars San Francisco Crossword ---16--- Duck and Cover Dustbowl ---17--- D-Day: Omaha Beach Extreme Global Warming Space ---18--- Madness Circus Maximus ---19--- 8 Thoughts ---20--- Berlin 1961 ---21--- Draknor Level 1 ---22--- WWII Western Front ---23--- Rail USA ---24--- Solar System ---25--- Rail Europe Oasis ---26--- Battle of Actum Egypt: VotK ---27--- Bamboo Jack Forbidden City USApocalypse ---28--- Feudal War ---29--- Age of Merchants ---30--- Age of Realms 1 ---31--- Prohibition Chicago ---32--- Operation Drug War WWII Gazala Pearl Harbor ---33--- Arms Race ---34--- New World ---35--- Age of Realms 2 ---36--- Age of Realms 3 ---37--- Supermax ---38--- Treasures of the Galapagos ---39--- Das Schloß ---40--- Battle for Iraq ---41--- Conquerman ---42--- Waterloo ------
Last edited by ZeakCytho on Sun Dec 14, 2008 3:31 pm, edited 6 times in total.
France is definitely not #2 complexity of simple maps, though. Arctic is #1 of those, too. BeNeLux is not a Moderate map, it's simple, especially if Cairns Coral Coast is counted simple. Supermax is way harder than Bamboo Jack. Pearl Harbour is way below WWII Gazala... I could continue except I don't really care how the list goes... 
