New York City Map by
snapdoodle &
Benny Profane Guide by
Dako Click image to enlarge. Introduction The NYC map is based on New York City's five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx) and its world-famous metro.
It is a large map containing 80 regions - 65 of them are land regions, 15 are subway stations. There are 14 bonus zones in the city. 9 of the borough bonus zones can be combined into larger bonuses that give you a few more reinforcement troops than the sum of the smaller bonus zones. The 3 subways that run across the city are bonus zones in their own right and provide extra assault routes, providing connections between distant parts of the map. The final bonus zone is a collection of 4 small islands. You need to hold 3 or 4 of the islands to receive one of two possible bonuses.
This is a versatile map, good for any settings, but for the most even and balanced gameplay I'd recommend team games of quadruples or triples with no spoils and chained reinforcements.
show: Classification
Size: Large.Features Collections - Unlike bonus zones these only require a specific amount of the designated regions to gain a bonus.Double Dipping - Regions show up in multiple bonus zones.Naming Challenges - The region names are written in a complex way occasionally causing deployment mistakes.Starting regions count per player
How to play NYC show: Two Player
Each player starts with 26 regions and it is easy to drop a whole bonus zone on your 1st turn. The first player has an opportunity to lower his opponent's region count during initial turns thus making him deploy fewer troops on his next turn. You need to capture at least 3 regions to lower your opponent's deployment by 1, which is quite possible as you will have 8 troops to deploy.
show: Escalating
Since NYC is a big map, it will be hard to run the map with a medium spoils cash (10-15 troops) and you will need to wait till 30-40 troop cashes or even higher to access all your target's regions. This is the reason why this map often ends in stalemate for escalating singles games. There are few genuine bottlenecks on the map - most of them are in Staten Island and around The Village area. It is advised to hold regions with a lot of borders across the map because they give you additional attack routes and increase your mobility. Try to get Jamaica , The Village , East Flatbush and Claremont Village as they have the most borders and therefore are key regions on the map. Almost every region on this map has more than three borders so you don't need to worry about being locked out from the main action.
show: Flat Rate And No Spoils
For flat rate and no spoils games it is best to hold regions with fewer borders but higher zone bonuses. Inner Queens , Outer Queens , Staten Island , Small islands and Uptown Manhattan are the best to try to hold. Do not forget that subway stations give direct access to the middle of the bonus zone and you need to put a defensive troop stack there as well.East Brooklyn might seem easy to conquer and hold, but it has multiple disadvantages. If most players are targeting it, it is hard to protect and hard to expand from later. Its bonus is worth only +3 additional troops and it has 3 borders to defend – these borders may be assaulted from 8 different regions. Do not try for huge bonuses (such as Outer Queens ) from the start. Staten Island is the best area to start from because with the addition of 3 Small Islands you can hold 2 bonuses with 2 borders for +3 bonus. The Bronx is a good place to expand if you initially dropped a lot of regions there, as it is the easiest zone with 2 bonuses - West Bronx and East Bronx . This combination has only 4 borders and will award you with 10 troops per turn! Later you can grab the 6 Train bonus zone with 5 border regions and it will give you 14 additional troops per turn. But it takes time and a good initial troop drop to conquer these Bronx bonus zones so do not try to take them if you see that it will be impossible to hold them - better to clear the surrounding area and then try to acquire the bonus itself.
show: Team Games
The most common bonus will be Staten Island and 3 Small Islands. You can protect them from outside the zone borders but it is better not to because they can be assaulted from other regions. Your opponent will attempt to trim your defense again and reinforce again, and so on until the last player will break you. So sometimes it is better to put a defense on 2 adjacent regions or block from the inner side of the bonus zone so that your opponents will have only one chance to break you (and will block other teammates to continue the break if they have failed). In team games it is important to develop one area and advance from there rather than having multiple spread-out strongholds across the map.Small Islands or Staten Island bonus zones. But do not panic if your opponent has put a solid defense on the Small Islands - the bonus is worth +1 troop only (we do not count the full bonus as it is much harder to hold) so maybe it will be easier for you to even the position in terms of troop income by taking 3 regions from your opponent. Always evaluate if it is better to break the bonus or take some other regions with opponent 1's across the map. It would be good to trap a player within the bonus he holds. This way he will not be able to use his big troop bonus right away and will be forced to deploy on teammates. So you will have one more turn to counter that deployment or land a finishing blow.
show: Additional Notes
Metro stations are very handy in moving around the map. Sometimes they allow a player to bypass 2 or more regions. This increases your mobility but it also means that you need to be aware of your opponents using the same tactic. Train stations really flourish in the 6-8 escalating games - you can assault a station, assault the next station and before you advance you have a choice to return to the land regions. This makes it easier to eliminate an opponent.The Bronx or Inner Queens . If it is a fog of war game - best bet would be a train station. It will be very hard for opponents to spot that you have conquered a train line, but +7 bonus will pay you back in 1-2 rounds.
Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:09 pm