How many game does it take you to learn a new map?

[Crazyirishman]

Just a curious question on how quickly other people learn new maps. I personally feel like after 3 I know how the basic game play of a map works, and after 5 I understand the caveats om a complex map, rarely getting a surprise after my 5th game on a new map.

How do learn?

[Funkyterrance]

For me it's usually 2-3 depending on the complexity. Some that are really straightforward just one game is enough though.

[BigBallinStalin]

42.0

[Dukasaur]

HighlanderAttack once told me it takes 20 to 25 games to get good at a map, and I tend to agree. Sure, you can navigate and understand the basics after 2 or 3 games, but that's not being good, that's just being not-hopeless.

[jsnyder748]

All simple bonus maps take 1 game. Then you are a expert on the map. This is depending on your previous experience of course.

I find that truly mastering a complex maps can take many hundreds of plays. Das Schloss is my best map and I am able to guess any move someone can make before they make it. Even with fog I can always tell if you brake out, fort somewhere, take a bonus and can guess the other teams current troop count. When you can walk around the map with a big stack and not hesitate about attack paths nor second guess yourself you have mastered a map. When you are able to do all these with blistering speed and without hesitation you have mastered the map. When you know the strategy for assassin, terminator, standard, escalating, flat rate, nuclear, adjacent, chained, unlimited, freestyle, trench etc. You have mastered the map.

But learning a map isn't too hard at all.

[Mr Changsha]

All simple bonus maps take 1 game. Then you are a expert on the map. This is depending on your previous experience of course.

I find that truly mastering a complex maps can take many hundreds of plays. Das Schloss is my best map and I am able to guess any move someone can make before they make it. Even with fog I can always tell if you brake out, fort somewhere, take a bonus and can guess the other teams current troop count. When you can walk around the map with a big stack and not hesitate about attack paths nor second guess yourself you have mastered a map. When you are able to do all these with blistering speed and without hesitation you have mastered the map. When you know the strategy for assassin, terminator, standard, escalating, flat rate, nuclear, adjacent, chained, unlimited, freestyle, trench etc. You have mastered the map.

But learning a map isn't too hard at all.

I would agree that I am able to play any basic map and play at least competently immediately on team games. However, for large standard games I think you need to play any map quite a bit before one can understand the flow of a standard game on that map. I can look at an 8 man 2.1 position and predict with great accuracy what is going to happen over the next 10 rounds. I can't do that with, say, eurasia (though it is a similar map) as I haven't played it enough or against a wide enough mix of abilities to really 'get it'.

So for team games yes..once is enough on a basic map to play decently well. However, if one specialises on a simple map one can learn to find its hidden depths and maximise results. But for large standard games, true excellence comes from many, many games. I would say that for my standard style one would need to play at least 30 games on it to truly understand it...in the sense of umderstanding how one's opposition are going to react to various positions and situations.

[Crazyirishman]

I should have been I bit more clear in the OP, I intended more complex maps. I also didn't account for all the different game types as I usually only learn new maps for clan games.

[NoSurvivors]

I learned mogul, operation drug war, pearl harbour Austerlitz, etc in one game (with help of a person or a guide).. That's really what it depends on; who/what you use to learn. If I didn't have those things I'd probably have taken a LOT longer

-Glorious Leader

[jsnyder748]

I should have been I bit more clear in the OP, I intended more complex maps. I also didn't account for all the different game types as I usually only learn new maps for clan games.

in that case there are two answers. 5-30 to learn a complex map depending on previous skill/similarity of other complex maps and many many more to master them.

[betiko]

well, it depends on what you mean by 'learn'. like be able to take any expert on that map? also learn it by yourself or through team games?

let's take king's court 1&2. I get the basics yet I suck at them, barely played them. I would need many many games on them to start being good and not fearing to play anyone.

[laughingcavalier]

I would be aiming at a 50% win rate from the first 2 games (team games) on a complex map, playing against opponents who know it but don’t rule it. There’s very few maps I’ve got to the sort of mastery jsnyder describes above. Also there are so many maps now, and I play few enough games, that I can’t keep up with all the ones I have learned. I used to feel really confident on Kings Court, for example, now I fear to tread there.

[danryan]

I'm about to find out. I haven't played anything in about a year.

[skillfull]

You are missing the point here.
It doesn't matter if you know the map( connections/bonuses etc) but how you play this game called risk.
How good are you on strategy etc etc. I have seen a lot of players who know the map but they can't play very well cause they just not good at this game.
So, you may know everything in a map but you might never be a master on it.
That's my opinion.

[benga]

I still learn, but I am slow

[Beckytheblondie]

One lengthy 8 player game with flat rate or no spoils will help you learn that map quickly. Staring at the screen, considering bonuses will emblazon that map in your head by the 20th round. That may, though, be the equivalent of 4-5 standard games worth of staring.

[jsnyder748]

You are missing the point here.
It doesn't matter if you know the map( connections/bonuses etc) but how you play this game called risk.
How good are you on strategy etc etc. I have seen a lot of players who know the map but they can't play very well cause they just not good at this game.
So, you may know everything in a map but you might never be a master on it.
That's my opinion.

true, everything does depend on overall skill. I'd like to say I know enough about strategy to go head to head against anyone on any setting, but there are always going to be people better than I am at certain things. I would say there isn't a more experienced objective freestyle player than me, but that doesn't mean I can win every time. I just know tricks that others don't and have spent so much time perfecting what I do.

[AslanTheKing]

you guys have missed the whole thing,
its never skill, never was,
its never strategy alone( it might pay off if u play vs someone who has joined new , is 9 years old, and has no idea anyhow)

its all pure luck, sometimes more, mostly less,
its a game with dice, that says all

so dont waste your time
download the xml file, have a look, and u know the map , even before u have ever played it
start the game, and u know in rd 1, what your chances are
there good or bad
and if cc likes u, u have the dice
without dice, screw knowing anything

this is a bad dice world, the rest is fake
(2 dollars worth a month- the smart ones dont even get premium, they get conqueror for free)

[betiko]

you guys have missed the whole thing,
its never skill, never was,
its never strategy alone( it might pay off if u play vs someone who has joined new , is 9 years old, and has no idea anyhow)

its all pure luck, sometimes more, mostly less,
its a game with dice, that says all

so dont waste your time
download the xml file, have a look, and u know the map , even before u have ever played it
start the game, and u know in rd 1, what your chances are
there good or bad
and if cc likes u, u have the dice
without dice, screw knowing anything

this is a bad dice world, the rest is fake
(2 dollars worth a month- the smart ones dont even get premium, they get conqueror for free)

this is like saying poker is pure luck.

[AslanTheKing]

this is like saying poker is pure luck.

no thats different, this is comparing apples with pears

poker is luck involved too,
when u get your first set of cards

then out of this cards u go for your highest possibilities ( no dice)
then there is the bodylanguage - u read your opponents ( no dice involved again)

its just the fact, that this is a computerworld, its a programm what gives u the dice
from random org or from disneyland , it doesnt matter

it will never get close to the reality in real life
comp progs kill every dicegame

dicegames in real life have a history, going back many 1000 years
comp history goes back 60 years