Conquer Club

What makes a good strategy-map?

Discuss.

Options. Lots of options.

A balanced combination of particular map and xml elements can lead to a good strategic map, and the more thoughtful implementation, the better it generally is.

Take American Civil War for example. It's basically a 'normal' map, except there are continent bonuses that overlap one another, and one-way attack routes from Maryland to the entire southeast and south coast. This creates a wonderful map dynamic that allows players to position themselves in many ways.

Waterloo, understandably, is also one of the best strategic maps. I find myself having to play different strategies every game, as the drop largely defines the players' strength in areas more than other maps, and different playing styles have to be countered in different ways. A multitude of small bonuses also helps (the two generals, the flags, the villages, etc)

Maps themed on a particular element also work well. Draknor stands out as one of them, having only 1-way attacks everywhere. This makes for a very interesting map, especially with small teams, or large numbers of players.

Another good themed map that is often overlooked is Circus Maximus. No map drops more equitably than this one. Everyone starts on almost the same footing, and it comes largely down to where you position your men, and how many you leave on certain borders you have. I have seen people use the blockade (all troops in the rear) and others use the steamroll (all troops up front). No one tactic will always win on this map, you have to tailor your tactics to your opponents. It really is a shame that this map is used primarily for noob farming, as it is one of the best maps on the site.

While I have only played 8 thoughts a handful of times, I think this is also a good strategic map, for the same reason VotK is. A central hub that is at once offensively important, and defensively vulnerable makes a map all the more gritty in gameplay. I imagine this will be the case with the Eastern Hemisphere map once it gets quenched.

very concise, i agree entirely with circus max and 8 thoughts - my two favourite singles maps but never really played by anyone.

the best maps for team games are those with multiple small bonuses (great lakes, europe, soviet union etc)

Imperium romanum,these is very good strategy map.

There is, of course, more to a map than the start, but I'd like to champion the cause of maps offering balance at the start... I steer clear of the maps on which somebody routinely drops an instant bonus (Siege), or is able to grab and hold a strategically important bonus (see below) on their first turn. The worst feeling is to open up a new game and think to yourself you've already lost.

Some maps - the Ages, Feudal, New World - take care of this through pre-determined drops - which is a good start but doesn't necessarily guarantee a fair start - you could set up a map in which everybody only gets one start, but then one players has an easier road to victory. I agree with the above mention of Eight Thoughts - I've never started a game on this map that was so unbalanced that the rest of the players couldn't do something about it. There are a number of other maps that I think allow enough flexibility at the start to make every game interesting - Rail USA, Arctic, Waterloo, and the much under-reated Middle East, among others.

Almost everybody obviously loves the Classic map, and one thing that makes the map work fairly well is that what at first looks like the best and easiest start - Australia - isn't necessarily so. Sure, it's nice to grab that +2 and only have to hold one territory to maintain it, but it's not in a strategically important location... where do you go from Australia? How do you hit your enemy who is just two territories away from taking North America, or the guy who is going to nab S. America this turn and is moving into Africa? Classic isn't by any means the best strategy map, but it was pretty well thought out and has stood the test of time.

I haven't played too many games on the map and it's my map but I think Operation Drug War is a good strategy map.

You have multiple options for getting bonuses but no one option can overpower the others. You kinda have a rock - paper - scissors thing going on with the different bonuses. The idea was to combine the good things from a "mirror image" (mind isn't letting me get the word right now) map. everyone gets the same options from the start. But we wanted to take away the stalemate possibilities which I think I did.

The 'perfect' example of a good game would be one like below


Game 3125056

Symmetrical?

And the listed game was epic...

C.