Classic & Classic-Style Maps [approved]

[stahrgazer]

Classic & Classic-Style Maps
Map by sully800
Guide by stahrgazer with thanks to Robinette and the Strategy Guides Project team for their assistance.

Click image to enlarge.

Introduction
The Classic map reflects six of the main landmasses of the world with major cities as region names. Hold each region (city) of a bonus zone (landmass) at the start of the turn for the zone bonus indicated in the legend, the series of small globes along the bottom of the map.

Some players might be interested to know that this map is the last in a Classic progression. The first "Classic globe" map was replaced with two "Classic cube" maps: one with obscure Artsy names, another with geometrical Shapes; each with the same play-pattern. The Classic Shapes map was converted into the Society of the Cooks’ Strategy Training Map when, after a long and intense foundry process, Conquer Club settled on this aesthetic, "globe" map with cities of the world represented as regions. Older members occasionally reminisce about "the good ol' Classic," meaning the original "Classic globe" map from Conquer Club's launch.

At 42 regions and 6 traditional bonus zones, the Classic map offers sufficient strategic challenge for those who want to risk the agony of defeat for the thrill of victory against one or many opponents using a variety of the game options Conquer Club offers.

show: Classifications - Size, Features, and Complexity

With no alternative victory conditions - that can be found on some Conquer Club maps - the only way to win on the Classic map is to assault and conquer every opponent. The exception to this is Assassin, where one need only eliminate that one opponent to win the game.

How to play Classic

show: How to play Classic-Style Maps

Classic is fun for two to eight players, whether the setup is:

• Two player (1v1)
• Multiplayer (1vAll – the player against 2 to 7 opponents)
• Terminator
• Assassin
• 2 to 4 Doubles teams
• 2 Triples teams
• 2 Quads teams

Recommendations
In general, go with automatic deployments; but you might want to opt for manual deployments sometimes in games with four or more players.

Flat rate or escalating spoils each offer pros and cons; players will argue vehemently as to which is best. For multiplayer (1 v. all) games, the option of choice is usually escalating, if for no other reason than to ensure the game ends rather than stalemates. No spoils, especially for team games; and nuclear spoils; offer chances to experiment with alternative strategies so that the same map becomes an entirely new game. On the Classic map, spoils are generally a matter of preference.

Fog of war is not necessary to Classic, but it is unique to online games and adds some spice. As personal preference, I do recommend the setting.

Conquer Club game options can change the strategy required to win. Rather than restrict yourself to just your comfort zone, have fun, experiment with all the varieties of game options. Classic is a versatile map!

show: Two Player

show: Multiplayer

show: Team Games

show: Terminator and Assassin

show: Manual Deployments

show: Similar Maps

show: Other Related Strategy Guides

[laughingcavalier]

Hi Starh
Hope you're sitting comfortably - pour yourself a beer, line up the mint tea, whatever's your style... some very interesting stuff you've written...
I'd suggest: start by thinking about your readers. Likely many players fairly new to the game wanting a quick fix. From that I'd make two main recommendations:
1. Edit vigourously for length - my thought on the Classic guide more than any other is it should be concise - not much longer than nagerous' on Space as a guide.
2. You've made a lot of good points so to control the length you must test them with the question: what is essential for a Classic guide and what could better go into say a general gameplay guide or general how to play classic-style maps?
So in detail I'd suggest:
- Bonus defense considerations/fog/deployments/spoils: these are more general than map-specific - edit them right down & let readers find their detailed understanding elsewhere - you just need to make the point.
- One on one: you've emphasised the importance of bonuses, you also need to do region count, which may not be decisive on turn 1 but can be on later turns - my personal opinion is terr count is usually more important than bonuses; also could edit this down.
- Multiplayer: can you make more distinction between escalating (separated stacks & sweeping) & no spoils/flat rate (bonuses & building)? Robinette might not 100% agree with some things as you have said them here
- Terminator/assassin: are these points general or map-specific?
- Team games: is hitting bonuses important? what about massing forces (sometimes from a long way out) against South Am & Aus? in quads do you go for elimination? how do you keep all on your team active?
- Additional notes: are these general points or map specific?
- Similar maps: maybe best way to handle this is to say there are many classic-style maps imitating/developing from this map, & list the most important/most played ones from the strategy guides.
Other stuff I'd like to see:
Ranking of bonuses - Aus, South Am, Africa, North Am, Europe, never Asia - gameplay is so often about Aus/S Am,then the scraps.
Downside of bonuses - so many players know Classic so well you are targetted if you take Aus
Typical gameplay development & dilemnas - eg if take Aus, how do you expand? if take N Am you are exposed to attack from nearly all the other power-centres on the map.
Freestyle 6-8p: does anyone still play it?
Trainspotters appendix - brief history of Classic: the map that Hasbro killed, Art, Shapes, the re-make.
Gl & hf

[stahrgazer]

thanks, cavalier.

Love your input style. Am considering your comments, and have pm'd you for some clarifications of your ideas.

One thing I'll note, tho:
I do believe it's important to give people some basic understanding of game choices, rather than only tell them, "If you want to understand fog, go read the fog manual."
That philosophy comes from what I did at work: I wrote user guides. It was always best on the user to give them some basic points, then refer them to some other reading for more details on those points.

With that in mind, I agree, I have some additions to make on this, like adding in some points about Freestyle; some clarification and consolidation to make, like the build options (points I made somewhere, but maybe did not emphasize in all the right places.)

And, maybe, some map-specific examples for each point.

But that would lengthen, not shorten, the guide.

Another point, and one I think I'd like Admin input on, in particular, is the "History of the Classic map" idea you had.

I considered it, and made a deliberate choice, "not" to provide it.

• Comparison to the copyrighted game is already somewhat obvious; CC made a deliberate choice to de-emphasize the similarity. Mention of that in the guide would serve to re-emphasize that, "This map is Risk under cover." Point we want in the guide? I really thought, not.
• "Risk the agony of defeat" in the first sentence was my tongue-in-cheek play on Hasbro history, and I chose to leave it at that.
• Target audience: new player. What the heck does a new player care that "Once upon a time, CC had the Risk board online. To get away from that, they made some obviously-not-world maps and could not decide whether obscure names (Arts) or obvious Bonus Zones (Shapes) was the better choice. In the end, the desire for a globe-looking map overrode those considerations, so sully800 came up with the current version. People argued and groused - human nature to grouse over 'change' - but now that the change is there, most people enjoy the Classic map, even those who'd still like CC to somehow get permission to use the Risk board."
• I chose, instead, to emphasize the variations of play Conquer Club has to offer. Why here, why now? Because Classic is easily recognized as similar to a boardgame people may be familiar with, but CC enables so many variations of that, that playing this map can be totally different than playing with wood (ancient versions) or plastic (newer editions) blocks on a laminated piece of cardboard (Risk)

That last idea, in the end, the emphasis on CC variations of gameplay, was my theme for this guide on Classic. My thinking is, if there is one guide people may read, it might be the guide on Classic. Classic is, after all, Classic. So, what better way to showcase the variations CC has, than in this guide? So, give them some generic teasers, some hints about how to do this or that... then give them ways to get more information (lists will ultimately become links as guides become available, and the list of similar maps came right out of the "Features" reference website that allows a "search for similar maps") on topics and maps of their choice.

I don't think my approach is wrong, but I admit, I left some gaps in that approach that I need to fill in and clarify, if the decision is to stick with this approach.

[alstergren]

Other people are more suitable to comment on substance - but just strikes me that that it could be fun, in the intro, to add a note about the history of this map. First CC map, Classic one night went away and instead we got the two cube maps - then after a looong foundry process we finally got this one. Could be a nice touvh to dish out some history to the masses.

[laughingcavalier]

Yup, history's a good idea - you can keep it short if you want & make it so it doesn't get up hasbro's nose.
Still stand by the changes I suggested: shorter & with some specics added.

[stahrgazer]

Yup, history's a good idea - you can keep it short if you want & make it so it doesn't get up hasbro's nose.
Still stand by the changes I suggested: shorter & with some specics added.

History is a "who cares" for players coming to the site 1-2 years from now (seriously, who, later, cares how many tries it took to get something right?) but I added a variation of what alstergren said.

Rearranged some things,
Edit: that might make it seem shorter for you.

Nah, it's longer, but specifics are added

[nagerous]

Wow, this looks like it is progressing nicely! Keep up the good work stahrgazer

Any extra strategic tips from the classic fiends? Maybe we should get Robinette in here, see what she thinks

[stahrgazer]

Maybe we should get Robinette in here, see what she thinks

I pm'd her this draft to get her comments.

[nagerous]

The Conquer Club map foundry is constantly busy, so this list is by no means complete. Still, this gives the player who enjoyed Classic an idea of some of the other similar maps available on CC.
Alexander’s Empire
CCU
The Citadel
Crossword
Extreme Global Warming
Iceland
Luxembourg
13 Colonies
Japan


These seem like some odd choices, some of the more classic style maps would be better to list such as Canada, Asia, Germany and The British Isles.

[danryan]

Similar maps in style and size:

Alex Empire
Hong Kong
Brazil
France
Gemany
Brit Isles
Canada
Puget Sound
High Seas

[stahrgazer]

The Conquer Club map foundry is constantly busy, so this list is by no means complete. Still, this gives the player who enjoyed Classic an idea of some of the other similar maps available on CC.
Alexander’s Empire
CCU
The Citadel
Crossword
Extreme Global Warming
Iceland
Luxembourg
13 Colonies
Japan


These seem like some odd choices, some of the more classic style maps would be better to list such as Canada, Asia, Germany and The British Isles.

I agree, they seem like odd choices. They came right out of chip's chart, though, (search on similar maps brought up that odd list) which I took as a more official ruling than my own opinion. In the pm I sent him where I suggested that he update terminology (attack to assault, territory to region, etc.) I did ask him to consider updating the "similar map" search for some of the maps, Classic in particular.

So... I guess that's the question: go with chip's chart data for this (like we go with chip's chart data for Features)... create our own lists... or forget the idea of giving lists of similar maps because we can't figure it out?

[stahrgazer]

Okay, Robinette's first response was general approval, but a concern that I'd missed emphasizing a couple of things. v 2.1 is an attempt to address her recommendations (now waiting any new comments she may have).

Plus, I condensed a couple of the lengthy explanations and, I think, removed the Caps on Regions and such other than tables and titles where Caps make sense.

End result: probably the same length as before but slightly less 'wordy'. (I know, some are still cringing at the length but if it makes any of you feel better, Robinette didn't seem to think it was too long, she suggested additions, not subtractions. )

[stahrgazer]

well done...
but did you mention the 6 cities that border 6 other cities... this is important...
Nairobi,
Dubai,
Chicago,
Cairo,
Istanbul,
Moscow.
hehee... you should be sure you don't use the word 'territories' of 'countries'... on this map they are called 'cities'

I'm thinking her "hehee" was because she put a test in there.. it's not Cairo, but Hong Kong... (she didn't trap me, I saw it!) anyway... so version 3 includes R's comments

Which may mean, the only remaining question is, do we stick with chipv's table for "similar maps" or create our own lists?

[thunderhue]

Which may mean, the only remaining question is, do we stick with chipv's table for "similar maps" or create our own lists?

Why not create our own lists, with reasons why we think those maps are similar?

For instance, in what way is 13 Colonies like Classic? It has no regional bonuses and killer neutrals? Yet Brazil isn't on the list and it's gameplay is very similar.

I think if the guide author wants to include similar map references, they should provide reasons why they are similar (size, gameplay, recommended settings, special features, etc.).

My own stat-gathering to see if I'm on target:
Alexander's Empire - similar in size, gameplay; different by having dead space
CCU - similar in size, gameplay, different by having dead space
The Citadel - similar in gameplay, different in size (larger: 50 regions, 8 bonus zones), by having dead space, killer neutrals
Crossword - similar in size, gameplay, special features
Extreme Global Warming - similar in size, gameplay, different by having dead space
Iceland - similar in gameplay, special features, different in size (smaller: 36 regions, 6 bonus zones)
Luxembourg - similar in gameplay, special features, different in size (smaller: 19 regions, 6 bonus zones)
13 Colonies - similar in size, different in gameplay, by having no region bonuses and killer neutrals
Japan - similar in size, gameplay, different by having dead space

Yup.

[stahrgazer]

Which may mean, the only remaining question is, do we stick with chipv's table for "similar maps" or create our own lists?

Why not create our own lists, with reasons why we think those maps are similar?

For instance, in what way is 13 Colonies like Classic? It has no regional bonuses and killer neutrals? Yet Brazil isn't on the list and it's gameplay is very similar.

I think if the guide author wants to include similar map references, they should provide reasons why they are similar (size, gameplay, recommended settings, special features, etc.).

My own stat-gathering to see if I'm on target:
Alexander's Empire - similar in size, gameplay; different by having dead space
CCU - similar in size, gameplay, different by having dead space
The Citadel - similar in gameplay, different in size (larger: 50 regions, 8 bonus zones), by having dead space, killer neutrals
Crossword - similar in size, gameplay, special features
Extreme Global Warming - similar in size, gameplay, different by having dead space
Iceland - similar in gameplay, special features, different in size (smaller: 36 regions, 6 bonus zones)
Luxembourg - similar in gameplay, special features, different in size (smaller: 19 regions, 6 bonus zones)
13 Colonies - similar in size, different in gameplay, by having no region bonuses and killer neutrals
Japan - similar in size, gameplay, different by having dead space

Yup.

Lovely idea!
Falls right in line with what I was trying to accomplish with this guide, which was "Show what CC has to offer" (based on my assumption that Classic is likely one of the first maps any new player would play; thus, this could be one of the first guides read so could be used to showcase Conquer Club delights.)