Conquer Club

Map Name:Shoot Out!
Mapmaker(s):bamage
Number of Territories:7 (yes, only 7)
Special Features: The first map designed specifically for speed, freestyle play. Games will typically last minutes, not days or hours.
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made:
In the Old American West, gun fights (a.k.a. duels or shoot-outs) occurred. In one common scenario, each gun fighter would get one bullet. Their dilemma was: hurry to get the first shot or allow the opponent to hurry his first shot and miss, giving you the opportunity to take your time with yours.

This map attempts - and succeeds at - creating a metaphor for this dilemma.

It does this with the use of a six-shot revolver pistol (the weapon of choice in the Old West) in which up to five chambers represent the players, and the sixth chamber - the "live" chamber at 12 o'clock in the revolver - is a neutral stack set (and re-set) to six neutrals. Once taken, the "live" chamber can attack the trigger. The player who holds the trigger for one round wins the game (like Oasis).

Chambers can not attack each other.

Each player gets three (3) units to drop each round. Even though both the "live" chamber and trigger reset if you hold them, you still must manually drop your three units to your chamber, rather than have them auto-deploy. After all, "reaching for your gun," "aiming" and "firing" take time.

I realize that this design violates the "minimum territory" count rule. It is a bold departure, but requires absolutely no changes to the current engine.

I beseech anyone reading this map idea to consider the fun and speed with which this map will be played over and over again on Freestyle. Consider the dilemma faced by players watching the chamber army counts build, waiting (but not for TOO long!) to "DRAW!" and "FIRE!"

It will be easy to dismiss this map as too radical, but I love this community and I feel that it needs to become more amenable to members who occasionally want to play a very fast game. This map is also tailored to speed-click specialists, who too often use their speed where strategy should be the arbiter of success. This map gives speedsters a true outlet for their skill.

Please let me know what you think! Thanks!

Note on Art: I purchased the Old West and Gun Fighter images and am prepared to present the license. If the license is deemed inadequate (I think it's fine) I will commission an original work of equal or greater quality. I personally rendered the revolver.

Map Image:

I like it. Way to think outside the box and use the new open map policy to build something different. I too am interested in everyone's thoughts. Let me wrap my head around the gameplay for a bit.

Hello - Welcome to CC and the Foundry

You should find some useful information about the map development in the [Official] Conquer Club Mapmaker Handbook
If you still have questions after browsing that guide, feel free to contact me via PM or ask any specific questions in the Foundry Discussions subforum - you should find people eager to help and give any advice in there.

A couple of things:

1. The images are under copyright, so if you can show proof that you have permission to use them, or you purchased the right to use them, then you will not be allowed to use them.
2. The minimum number of territories you have to have is 24.

bamage wrote:Please let me know what you think! Thanks!

I think this is an excellent idea! I say that, despite the fact that I myself am not the least bit interested in playing this. I am not a speed demon, never have been, never will be. The idea of playing this leaves me totally cold, and yet I understand that there is a constituency for it. The kind of people that (reportedly) used to spend hours playing speed Assdoodles might very well spend hours playing this.

It's so very unlike what we have now that it may fill a void in CC's repertoire and bring back a whole boatload of old freestyle players. Or it might create a new subcommunity. I think it's worth trying, whatever special permissions need to be gotten.

isaiah40 wrote:1. The images are under copyright, so if you can show proof that you have permission to use them, or you purchased the right to use them, then you will not be allowed to use them.

I think you mean to say "unless you can show proof..." And he addressed that issue:

bamage wrote:Note on Art: I purchased the Old West and Gun Fighter images and am prepared to present the license. If the license is deemed inadequate (I think it's fine) I will commission an original work of equal or greater quality. I personally rendered the revolver.

isaiah40 wrote:2. The minimum number of territories you have to have is 24.

He's going to need special permission to deviate from the accepted rules. I think he anticipated that:

bamage wrote:I realize that this design violates the "minimum territory" count rule. It is a bold departure, but requires absolutely no changes to the current engine.

I think this is the kind of fresh new idea that may be part of what moves CC forward.

Dukasaur wrote:I think you mean to say "unless you can show proof..." And he addressed that issue:

bamage wrote:Note on Art: I purchased the Old West and Gun Fighter images and am prepared to present the license. If the license is deemed inadequate (I think it's fine) I will commission an original work of equal or greater quality. I personally rendered the revolver.

Sorry I missed that part. Yes he will need to show proof of the Commercial Use License.

Dukasaur wrote:

isaiah40 wrote:2. The minimum number of territories you have to have is 24.

He's going to need special permission to deviate from the accepted rules. I think he anticipated that:

bamage wrote:I realize that this design violates the "minimum territory" count rule. It is a bold departure, but requires absolutely no changes to the current engine.

This is what I get for skimming!
The higher ups would have to approve the region count, if so I would recommend this as a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 game because it will no fly as a 7 player map as the likely hood of first round elimination is extremely high.

Dukasaur wrote:I think this is the kind of fresh new idea that may be part of what moves CC forward.

Don't get me wrong, I like this idea, at the same time right now it has to fall into the current policies we have.

isaiah40 wrote:This is what I get for skimming!
The higher ups would have to approve the region count, if so I would recommend this as a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 game because it will no fly as a 7 player map as the likely hood of first round elimination is extremely high.

Only 5 regions are player starting points, so 7 players wouldn't work anyway. And it sounds to me like there is no way to attack eachother's triggers, only to fight over the top spot in the barrel, and the trigger (the map objective).

Awesome!

I think that what you have presented here is rather interesting ... in theory ...

fighter would get one bullet. Their dilemma was: hurry to get the first shot or allow the opponent to hurry his first shot and miss, giving you the opportunity to take your time with yours.

In CC you don't win by being the first to conquer a win condition, you win by holding that condition for one turn. So wouldn't every player just stack and stack and stack and wait for someone to blow their own stack getting through the neutrals until ultimately the last or luckiest person would grab that trigger and be able to hold it for a turn.

It would take at least a few turns of stacking to even consider an assault of the barrel. Is 3 or 4 turns of stacking and waiting for your opponents to make the first move fun? Is waiting another 3 or 4 turns to stack up again before you can go after the neutrals because you had bad luck and lost all your troops the first time around fun? You wouldn't even get enough cards to turn in for bonus troops for at least 3 turns after someone blew their stack on taking out the barrel and that is at best.

Honestly I like the concept of a low territory map but this one might just be too few. The risk combat dice mechanic might not be the best for what you are proposing. And in a 2 player game each still starts with only 1 territory (5/3 = 1 each and 3 neutral) so it would probably come down to luck of the dice.

I think it needs stuff to start shooting immediately to take up the excitement level. If their were two guns and the barrel and trigger were 3 or even 1 neutral then you could start shooting. Targets could be placed on the bad guys hat, guns, and maybe chest. If you held both gunfighter guns or the chest you win. The hat could be a bonus for holding it like +6.

As for the image, it is nice and clean but I can't help but feel that I am gunning down someone in cold blood. If their were a wanted poster off to the side with that guys face and a bounty of "WIN" or something like that and the map were called "WANTED: Dead or Alive" I would probably be more into the theme of it. Also the map would need to conform to size restrictions. You could probably cut that down to 600 x 600 and use one image for both large and small maps as all that extra art to the sides is completely unnecessary.

Unfortunately as novel of a concept as has been presented here I just don't see the fun in it.

Just my 13 cents worth.

=D13=

sounds awesome, i might buy premium again if this passes

Dukasaur wrote:

bamage wrote:Please let me know what you think! Thanks!

I think this is an excellent idea! I say that, despite the fact that I myself am not the least bit interested in playing this. I am not a speed demon, never have been, never will be. The idea of playing this leaves me totally cold, and yet I understand that there is a constituency for it. The kind of people that (reportedly) used to spend hours playing speed Assdoodles might very well spend hours playing this.

It's so very unlike what we have now that it may fill a void in CC's repertoire and bring back a whole boatload of old freestyle players. Or it might create a new subcommunity. I think it's worth trying, whatever special permissions need to be gotten.

this is similar to my own personal view. although i'm extremely unlikely to be playing many games on this map, it's so different from anything we currently have that it will add to the site rather than simply shift play from other maps.

Swifte wrote:

isaiah40 wrote:This is what I get for skimming!
The higher ups would have to approve the region count, if so I would recommend this as a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 game because it will no fly as a 7 player map as the likely hood of first round elimination is extremely high.

Only 5 regions are player starting points, so 7 players wouldn't work anyway. And it sounds to me like there is no way to attack eachother's triggers, only to fight over the top spot in the barrel, and the trigger (the map objective).

correct! players cannot be eliminated, other than by nuclear and zombie spoils, so up to 5 players can take part.

dolomite13 wrote:

fighter would get one bullet. Their dilemma was: hurry to get the first shot or allow the opponent to hurry his first shot and miss, giving you the opportunity to take your time with yours.

In CC you don't win by being the first to conquer a win condition, you win by holding that condition for one turn. So wouldn't every player just stack and stack and stack and wait for someone to blow their own stack getting through the neutrals until ultimately the last or luckiest person would grab that trigger and be able to hold it for a turn.

freestyle has one tactic that is unavailable in sequential play: the much-maligned double turn, the use of which, in games on most other maps, is often considered to be something between unsporting and cheating. rather than needing a huge stack to win, u simply need to be first to play after capturing the trigger. it is precisely this aspect that lets us recreate the atmosphere of a showdown at high noon more successfully than a traditional map is capable of doing.

bamage, since u have said that the map is designed specifically for freestyle play, do u intend to place an exclusion on sequential games, so that only freestyle is selectable? if so, then we can disregard sequential games in this thread.

to increase strategy, it is possible to add an off-map region for each player that, when taken, supplies him with extra auto-deploy troops. however, this is not essential to the basic concept.

ian.

With two guns there would be 10 starting positions...

edit: dolomite already suggested this

First off i really like this idea,its the kind of nail biting speed play that i could see as highly addicitive.Secondly, it makes me think of this.Which is even better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGmUsJvRv7U

Promontory Summit coming out reminded me of this map. I still think it's a fantastic idea and hope to see it realized someday soon!

this idea has been suggested in one form or another countless times and it never went through. my bet is it won't this time either.



PS: despite the fact that i'm 100% sure people would love a map where they could gamble their points as fast as possible.

DiM wrote:PS: despite the fact that i'm 100% sure people would love a map where they could gamble their points as fast as possible.

I'm going off topic on this one - people would also like a lottery, where you buy a ticket with your points and hourly/daily/monthly draw can make you Conqueror instantly (you'd get all the points in the pot if you're selected)

The map has potential though I don't play freestyle. This gave me another idea, why not make 6-7 revolvers and same amount of people, but with zero troops deploy & no auto deploy. You have what you have and fight with it.

iancanton wrote:

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I pretty much agree with all of this. Very interesting idea.