Conquer Club

I'm not really into trench but I've been seeing a ton of games being started with this setting and have nearly accidentally joined a few. Is this merely due to it being a new "fun" setting or is there maybe a little "innocent" farming going on?
I can see an inexperienced player joining a game on a complex map and having a hard time but they could be expected to at least have played risk before and have an inkling of how to play with a good hearty reading of the legend. However, if it were a trench game I should think they would be completely and utterly screwed.
So, having introduced myself as not playing very much trench games, what is everyone's opinion on how much inadvertent point dropping is going on due to this new setting? I ask because I really have no idea, it just seems that there is an inordinate amount of games with this setting considering how unusual it actually is. I am totally willing to accept that this is just a result of "riding the wave" of a new setting but would like to have a gauge of what's really behind the popularity of the new setting.

I'd expect that there definitely is some inadvertent point dropping as a result of the trench games. Even experienced players can get caught by it and I would not be surprised if some people are taking advantage of this fact. Alternatively there will be many who are using this setting simply because they like the strategies involved or that it is relatively new... or even just to get the medal. Speaking personally I like the setting but always try to keep my settings a bit varied and I don't really play that many games any more... mostly tournaments for now.

I think you would get a good idea about the intent by looking at the map and the rest of the settings though.

Do you have any game numbers for us to have a look at. I play a fair bit of trench as it just adds to tactical awareness

It may be unusual for many, but trench was actually the only way I played at home until I found CC, which is one of the reasons I love it so much. I don't play many games on it, but eventually I will again.

Thanks.
I want to be clear that I don't have anything against the setting per se, I'm just noticing quite a few fog-trench games filling up with cooks, etc..
I realize that a lot of players are just starving for something new and this setting is just what they have been looking for.

EDIT: Hmsps, just look at the waiting games list for an idea of what I'm referring to. Lambs to the slaughter comes to mind.

trench is very interesting but can be way more bitchy than normal settings with shit dice. it's all about the position, and sometimes you just fail with a huge stack vs a small one, you lose a position and a bonus or fail to break the opponent's and it's basically game over for you. On some maps if you start second you are basically fucked unless the opponent gets a major dicefail.

betiko wrote:trench is very interesting but can be way more bitchy than normal settings with shit dice. it's all about the position, and sometimes you just fail with a huge stack vs a small one, you lose a position and a bonus or fail to break the opponent's and it's basically game over for you. On some maps if you start second you are basically fucked unless the opponent gets a major dicefail.

I would say that knowing this alone would be enough for an experienced trench player to completely obliterate a newer/inexperienced player?
I realize that there is always an advantage gained by experienced player over an inexperienced but this setting just seems to tip the scale to the point where even amazing dice would not lead a new player to victory. Perhaps a warning flag is in order?

i'd say 50% of the trench games i set up are joined by someone that says "(insert explicit word here)man, i didnt know it was trench"

Funkyterrance wrote:

betiko wrote:trench is very interesting but can be way more bitchy than normal settings with shit dice. it's all about the position, and sometimes you just fail with a huge stack vs a small one, you lose a position and a bonus or fail to break the opponent's and it's basically game over for you. On some maps if you start second you are basically fucked unless the opponent gets a major dicefail.

I would say that knowing this alone would be enough for an experienced trench player to completely obliterate a newer/inexperienced player?
I realize that there is always an advantage gained by experienced player over an inexperienced but this setting just seems to tip the scale to the point where even amazing dice would not lead a new player to victory. Perhaps a warning flag is in order?

yep your right and was brought up when it first came out
there are certain maps with certain settings will guarantee wins great if your medal hunting or the other. and leads to a lot of players dead beating because its quicker to end the game. suggestions have already been raised about a i quit button etc but probably will not happen. regarding a warning flag cant see that ever being implemented there isn't one for freestyle

Funkyterrance wrote:I'm not really into trench but I've been seeing a ton of games being started with this setting and have nearly accidentally joined a few. Is this merely due to it being a new "fun" setting or is there maybe a little "innocent" farming going on?
I can see an inexperienced player joining a game on a complex map and having a hard time but they could be expected to at least have played risk before and have an inkling of how to play with a good hearty reading of the legend. However, if it were a trench game I should think they would be completely and utterly screwed.
So, having introduced myself as not playing very much trench games, what is everyone's opinion on how much inadvertent point dropping is going on due to this new setting? I ask because I really have no idea, it just seems that there is an inordinate amount of games with this setting considering how unusual it actually is. I am totally willing to accept that this is just a result of "riding the wave" of a new setting but would like to have a gauge of what's really behind the popularity of the new setting.

It fundamentally changes the game so much that its the only reason I came back to play CC so much and hardly play any other type of game, would be my reasoning, but I cant speak for anyone else.

If you dont see the attraction of it, all I can say is to each his own, but youre missing out.

If I had to choose between never playing standard, or trench again, I absolutely would quit standard for all eternity.

KraphtOne wrote:i'd say 50% of the trench games i set up are joined by someone that says "(insert explicit word here)man, i didnt know it was trench"

I play trench so much now, I actually say shit, I didnt realize it wasnt trench!

AAFitz wrote:

KraphtOne wrote:i'd say 50% of the trench games i set up are joined by someone that says "(insert explicit word here)man, i didnt know it was trench"

I play trench so much now, I actually say shit, I didnt realize it wasnt trench!

I love trench and find myself doing the same

BMO

Funkyterrance wrote:I'm not really into trench but I've been seeing a ton of games being started with this setting and have nearly accidentally joined a few. Is this merely due to it being a new "fun" setting or is there maybe a little "innocent" farming going on?
I can see an inexperienced player joining a game on a complex map and having a hard time but they could be expected to at least have played risk before and have an inkling of how to play with a good hearty reading of the legend. However, if it were a trench game I should think they would be completely and utterly screwed.
So, having introduced myself as not playing very much trench games, what is everyone's opinion on how much inadvertent point dropping is going on due to this new setting? I ask because I really have no idea, it just seems that there is an inordinate amount of games with this setting considering how unusual it actually is. I am totally willing to accept that this is just a result of "riding the wave" of a new setting but would like to have a gauge of what's really behind the popularity of the new setting.

I'd say it's the opposite.

Trench plays out much more like a real wargame. Risk (and regular Risk-based CC) is basically an abomination, in that as long as your troops are winning, you can continue advancing indefinitely. This leads to the Escalating Sweep, which I do admit is a great high, but it's not the way normal Avalon Hill or any other normal wargames play out. In most (non-Risk) wargames troops have a finite movement (or impulse, or some other term) and cannot move more than their specified movement in a turn. That might not be exactly what Trench is, but it's closer to it that freewheeling escalators.

So, I would say that non-Trench is counter-intuitive to a new player, and Trench, where once you capture an area you have a decent chance to hold it for a while, is much more what a regular person would expect from a wargame.

It's why Escalating endgame comes as a shock to a player whose stacks seemed perfectly threatening in order to deter attacks from his POV, but he does not see that the spoils are much higher than his stacks, and thus is hit by a storm of attacks that leave a once-decent empire in ruins. Trench warfare is more stable, and although I hate it for its lack of mobility and tactics in real life, it seems to be more applicable here, as an Escalating Sequential sweep basically means that your troops have supervehicles that can traverse a country as fast as you can click the Assault button, no rest needed, and that apparently your enemies are always sleeping when you play.

Dukasaur wrote:

Funkyterrance wrote:I'm not really into trench but I've been seeing a ton of games being started with this setting and have nearly accidentally joined a few. Is this merely due to it being a new "fun" setting or is there maybe a little "innocent" farming going on?
I can see an inexperienced player joining a game on a complex map and having a hard time but they could be expected to at least have played risk before and have an inkling of how to play with a good hearty reading of the legend. However, if it were a trench game I should think they would be completely and utterly screwed.
So, having introduced myself as not playing very much trench games, what is everyone's opinion on how much inadvertent point dropping is going on due to this new setting? I ask because I really have no idea, it just seems that there is an inordinate amount of games with this setting considering how unusual it actually is. I am totally willing to accept that this is just a result of "riding the wave" of a new setting but would like to have a gauge of what's really behind the popularity of the new setting.

I'd say it's the opposite.

Trench plays out much more like a real wargame. Risk (and regular Risk-based CC) is basically an abomination, in that as long as your troops are winning, you can continue advancing indefinitely. This leads to the Escalating Sweep, which I do admit is a great high, but it's not the way normal Avalon Hill or any other normal wargames play out. In most (non-Risk) wargames troops have a finite movement (or impulse, or some other term) and cannot move more than their specified movement in a turn. That might not be exactly what Trench is, but it's closer to it that freewheeling escalators.

So, I would say that non-Trench is counter-intuitive to a new player, and Trench, where once you capture an area you have a decent chance to hold it for a while, is much more what a regular person would expect from a wargame.

Opposite of what, specifically?
I'm assuming you mean the part about a new player not having a chance in a trench game? If so, my original point was that most people come here knowing how to play risk at least as it exists as a board game and therefore have the basic tools needed to play a non-trench game. Everyone who has played the RL version is aware of what happens when an escalating game progresses but different types of reinforcements/spoils are one thing, trench warfare is more a less a whole new and different animal.

I guess he means that if you've never gotten used to Risk before, Trench is more stable and more relatable, as table-turning and sudden takeovers are rare.
But if you are used to Risk, Trench Warfare is the more counter-intuitive way to play.

Just_essence wrote:But if you are used to Risk, Trench Warfare is the more counter-intuitive way to play.

Yes. Whether or not trench is more "equal opportunity" to new players, they need to be comfortable playing on this setting in order to take advantage of this fact. Considering that most inexperienced players are not comfortable with this setting, the even playing field becomes more or less a moot point.

The european RISK board game has trench as a standard setting.

Funkyterrance wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Funkyterrance wrote:I'm not really into trench but I've been seeing a ton of games being started with this setting and have nearly accidentally joined a few. Is this merely due to it being a new "fun" setting or is there maybe a little "innocent" farming going on?
I can see an inexperienced player joining a game on a complex map and having a hard time but they could be expected to at least have played risk before and have an inkling of how to play with a good hearty reading of the legend. However, if it were a trench game I should think they would be completely and utterly screwed.
So, having introduced myself as not playing very much trench games, what is everyone's opinion on how much inadvertent point dropping is going on due to this new setting? I ask because I really have no idea, it just seems that there is an inordinate amount of games with this setting considering how unusual it actually is. I am totally willing to accept that this is just a result of "riding the wave" of a new setting but would like to have a gauge of what's really behind the popularity of the new setting.

I'd say it's the opposite.

Trench plays out much more like a real wargame. Risk (and regular Risk-based CC) is basically an abomination, in that as long as your troops are winning, you can continue advancing indefinitely. This leads to the Escalating Sweep, which I do admit is a great high, but it's not the way normal Avalon Hill or any other normal wargames play out. In most (non-Risk) wargames troops have a finite movement (or impulse, or some other term) and cannot move more than their specified movement in a turn. That might not be exactly what Trench is, but it's closer to it that freewheeling escalators.

So, I would say that non-Trench is counter-intuitive to a new player, and Trench, where once you capture an area you have a decent chance to hold it for a while, is much more what a regular person would expect from a wargame.

Opposite of what, specifically?
I'm assuming you mean the part about a new player not having a chance in a trench game?
Yes.
If so, my original point was that most people come here knowing how to play risk at least as it exists as a board game and therefore have the basic tools needed to play a non-trench game. Everyone who has played the RL version is aware of what happens when an escalating game progresses
No.
but different types of reinforcements/spoils are one thing, trench warfare is more a less a whole new and different animal.

I had played Risk before coming to CC, but never escalating; always just normal flat-rate risk. Escalating is something I only discovered on CC. I know my experience is not typical and escalating is actually more common, but I guess the limited sample of people I met in my life is a statistical anomaly.

But in any case Risk is a children's game; an entry-level oddity that one plays until one discovers real wargames. But once you do start playing real wargames, like Avalon Hill's Stalingrad or Avalanche's Third Reich, you soon learn about movement limits and troop impulses, and even if you never play any wargames and only study war through books, still you can't escape the notion that an army can only move so far in a day, and the Risk idea that you can rush from Hong Kong to Dakar in a single turn is counter-intuitive.

Still, even if Risk was your only exposure to wargaming, normal flat rate risk still requires three or four turns to clean up after you have achieved dominance. Not like escalating at all.

(And trust me, I'm not knocking Esc. I love the feeling of an escalating sweep! It's just something new that I discovered after joining CC, not what I expected.)

Dukasaur wrote:

Funkyterrance wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

Funkyterrance wrote:I'm not really into trench but I've been seeing a ton of games being started with this setting and have nearly accidentally joined a few. Is this merely due to it being a new "fun" setting or is there maybe a little "innocent" farming going on?
I can see an inexperienced player joining a game on a complex map and having a hard time but they could be expected to at least have played risk before and have an inkling of how to play with a good hearty reading of the legend. However, if it were a trench game I should think they would be completely and utterly screwed.
So, having introduced myself as not playing very much trench games, what is everyone's opinion on how much inadvertent point dropping is going on due to this new setting? I ask because I really have no idea, it just seems that there is an inordinate amount of games with this setting considering how unusual it actually is. I am totally willing to accept that this is just a result of "riding the wave" of a new setting but would like to have a gauge of what's really behind the popularity of the new setting.

I'd say it's the opposite.

Trench plays out much more like a real wargame. Risk (and regular Risk-based CC) is basically an abomination, in that as long as your troops are winning, you can continue advancing indefinitely. This leads to the Escalating Sweep, which I do admit is a great high, but it's not the way normal Avalon Hill or any other normal wargames play out. In most (non-Risk) wargames troops have a finite movement (or impulse, or some other term) and cannot move more than their specified movement in a turn. That might not be exactly what Trench is, but it's closer to it that freewheeling escalators.

So, I would say that non-Trench is counter-intuitive to a new player, and Trench, where once you capture an area you have a decent chance to hold it for a while, is much more what a regular person would expect from a wargame.

Opposite of what, specifically?
I'm assuming you mean the part about a new player not having a chance in a trench game?
Yes.
If so, my original point was that most people come here knowing how to play risk at least as it exists as a board game and therefore have the basic tools needed to play a non-trench game. Everyone who has played the RL version is aware of what happens when an escalating game progresses
No.
but different types of reinforcements/spoils are one thing, trench warfare is more a less a whole new and different animal.

I had played Risk before coming to CC, but never escalating; always just normal flat-rate risk. Escalating is something I only discovered on CC. I know my experience is not typical and escalating is actually more common, but I guess the limited sample of people I met in my life is a statistical anomaly.

But in any case Risk is a children's game; an entry-level oddity that one plays until one discovers real wargames. But once you do start playing real wargames, like Avalon Hill's Stalingrad or Avalanche's Third Reich, you soon learn about movement limits and troop impulses, and even if you never play any wargames and only study war through books, still you can't escape the notion that an army can only move so far in a day, and the Risk idea that you can rush from Hong Kong to Dakar in a single turn is counter-intuitive.

Still, even if Risk was your only exposure to wargaming, normal flat rate risk still requires three or four turns to clean up after you have achieved dominance. Not like escalating at all.

(And trust me, I'm not knocking Esc. I love the feeling of an escalating sweep! It's just something new that I discovered after joining CC, not what I expected.)

Risk is a children's game?

I would say the evolution of team games has increased the complexity and level of thought required to play the game to a high standard. The evaluation of odds, position and turn order is no simple matter either. Dubs speed demands a level of concentration, quick thinking and communication that is not to be scoffed at, while all forms of Risk demand bravery as an integral component of success. These are not qualities that children tend to excel in. Furthermore, long standard games ask one to have almost unlimitless amounts patience (children in my experience tend to have the attention span of a well-trained dog), all standard games need a rather large dollop of base cunning - a quality one must admit children are not lacking in - while finally high-level risk play of any kind needs a kind of self-control rarely found in the kind of being that would typically eat so much candy or chocolate that they actually vomit.

Risk is children's game?

I don't doubt any game could be played in a child-like manner, but just because Risk - or whatever it is we play now - doesn't fit your definition of a war game doesn't mean it is a child-like game. Frankly I wasn't aware I was playing a war game. I play a strategy game, which it seems to me is an entirely different thing, and I rather fail to see how just because a game fails to include the elements you mentioned, it therefore follows the game is not involving or strategic, never mind being actually child-like.

KraphtOne wrote:i'd say 50% of the trench games i set up are joined by someone that says "(insert explicit word here)man, i didnt know it was trench"

Always amazes me when people join my games without even taking 5 minutes to acquaint themselves with the map and settings,what possible pleasure is there in plunging head first into a game you can only win with amazing dice?There is a reason why stripers remain stripers and it's impossible to protect players from their poor decisions.

Funkyterrance wrote:Opposite of what, specifically?
I'm assuming you mean the part about a new player not having a chance in a trench game? If so, my original point was that most people come here knowing how to play risk at least as it exists as a board game and therefore have the basic tools needed to play a non-trench game. Everyone who has played the RL version is aware of what happens when an escalating game progresses but different types of reinforcements/spoils are one thing, trench warfare is more a less a whole new and different animal.

I think you're oversimplfying how standard the rules of risk are for people. Every time I meet new people that play, they have different rules. I have yet to meet a person that has used the exact same ruleset as another person assuming they haven't met. To say any random new person coming here is knowledgeable about the basic CC settings is foolish.

There are probably so many trench games out there due to there is a trench medal now.

Trench is not actually a bad thing for beginners due to you have to move slow and take your time and think about every move.
escalating for beginners seems like it would be more difficult.
I believe that is why soc trains with escalating because if you can play escalating you can play any other type of game.

my last point with beginners and trench is that it makes it harder to suicide on people.

generalhead wrote:There are probably so many trench games out there due to there is a trench medal now.

I don't underestimate the power of medal hunting, general.
I'm sure this does explain a good percentage of the games being created.

maasman wrote:

Funkyterrance wrote:Opposite of what, specifically?
I'm assuming you mean the part about a new player not having a chance in a trench game? If so, my original point was that most people come here knowing how to play risk at least as it exists as a board game and therefore have the basic tools needed to play a non-trench game. Everyone who has played the RL version is aware of what happens when an escalating game progresses but different types of reinforcements/spoils are one thing, trench warfare is more a less a whole new and different animal.

I think you're oversimplfying how standard the rules of risk are for people. Every time I meet new people that play, they have different rules. I have yet to meet a person that has used the exact same ruleset as another person assuming they haven't met. To say any random new person coming here is knowledgeable about the basic CC settings is foolish.

Ahem...
Aside from the foolish part I would accept the possibility of what you wrote. I'm basing of course my analysis on my personal experiences with varying opponents in rl. That being said, I have seen some variation but most people obey the rule book for the most part and any differences were minor at best. I'm interested to hear what basic CC settings would confuse a new player to the extent of trench?

I seriously think that trench isn't a good way to farm funky. mostly if you play 1vs1 manual trench, the one who starts first is basically assured to win. and in general in most cases of 1vs1 trench games. and 1 dicefail can mean game. The whole point is to get enemies 1 territory away from your bonus so you are sure to keep it.