CC Dispatch [123] Welcome Back

[Dukasaur]

Greetings, comrades, and welcome to the 123rd running of the Conquer Club Dispatch!

I welcome you all back from your summer pursuits, as we start getting ready for autumn, the busiest part of the Conquer Club calendar.


After the gargantuan issue we out

1. In OFFICIALDOM, bigWham carries on with his nautical delusions, while announcing some new features and some of the winners of the bot naming contest.
2. In CARTOGRAPHIC SURVEILLANCE, we have the fourth installment in dakky21's Guess the Map contest.
3. In WAR GAMES DaveH and the Tournament team update the TPA and last month's tournament winners!
4. In the MESS HALL JamesKer1 throws the spotlight on some noteworthy Suggestions, while long-lost BoganGod returns to the Dispatch with an attempt to upgrade our culinary lives!
5. In CURRENT RECON, I've reproduced the big announcements of the last few days. The opening of the Club Store, the Monthly Challenge for September, and the winner of the TPA5 Design Contest are presented.

Follow the links above to your favourite section, or use the convenient navigation buttons below:

[Dukasaur]

From the Deck of the Webmonster by bigWham

Spoiler

Greetings from The Deck Of The Webmonster.

*The Scene From The Duck*

Riding on my magic Pink Duck over the hills and valleys of the club these days I see amongst the frantic skirmishes and manic battles, but also bottlenecks of sluggish confusion. By which I mean, sometimes CC can be slow. Slowness is a painful blight and upsetting to even the most casual of gamers. Having done anything and everything to try and improve things with the existing infrastructure the conclusion has been reached that what we really need is... massively more powerful hosting.

Only this will allow us to get significant, sustainable gains in our current situation, let alone allow us to add more sweet, gooey, performance-draining features. So, buckle in and grab a hold of your torsos, for the future will be turboboosted!

*Random Feature Special*

Did you know that you can invite friends and enemies to games via email? Yep, just use the usual "Invite" text box either when you create the game or afterwards, and if they are not already a CC member we will shoot them an email to get them signed up... and when they sign up they will be joined to your game automatically.

*Awesome New Feature*

Check out the re-release of our Referral Program where you can score the equivalent of a 30% revenue share from any new users you refer!

*Coming Up In The Club*

The Bot Army is coming!! Some of our more dandy members have had flashes in the cold night of what approaches... by which I mean, here are the winners of our Bot Naming Contest (and a glimpse of some of what is coming)!

MGSteve - Cybabe (adapted from 'American Cybabe'... from what we've seen Cybabe is probably not from Earth)
jackal31 - Major Scrapmetal
Tripitaka - Halibot

[DaveH]

Hello friends, and welcome to your favourite part of the Newsletter, "War Games", where you can find information about CC Tournaments, and other stuff in the Tournament scene!

In this edition of War Games we continue to deliver our news staples with iAmCaffeine's Tournament Winners Update: August '14 and my update of TPA happenings in TPA Wrap.

Have you a favourite tournament? Was there one that you enjoyed so much that you want it rerunning? If so, you can vote HERE in jdean1's Top Tourneys. His article from the last edition is repeated below in case you missed it.

Good Reading and Good Luck!

DaveH
Tournament Executive

Tournament Winners Update: August '14 by iAmCaffeine

Spoiler

• Serbia's 2013 NHL Season [TPA4] won by overlander
• Win One America Civil War won by dean00
• Red's Doubles Competition won by tbayjosh & aad0906
• JK's RCMC III- Terminator won by osok68
• Natural Born Killer [TPA3 Premier] won by kizkiz
• Jigs Simple Poly Beta Battle II won by jackal31
• July Challenge Round Robin won by Endgame422
• Manually Trenching the USA Doubles won by Cump Sherman & Tuffyless
• WINNER — TPA May 5 -- Randomizer series won by overlander
• It's A Knockout!!! Madagascar won by gribon
• It's A Knockout!!! High Seas won by Tripitaka
• Dukasaur Plays Baltic 15 won by bobzimmerman
• DKs First to Promo Summit! won by redspyder
• Alaskan's Moose Challenge won by alaskanassassin
• Feudal War Cup VI won by zips5000
• 2014 FIFA World Cup won by blacky365
• American Football League 2014 won by Graceless_
• A History of Europe [TPA2] won by Swifte & cooldeals
• Now WHO is my partner?(TPA4) won by babgonosh
• Arms Poly Baltic States won by babgonosh
• MC's 1 vs 1 Random Round Robin [TPA4] won by shoop76
• History of Nuclear War IX won by Beko the Great
• Random Circular Tournament won by D4 Damager
• Osman's 1st Random Polymorphic SE won by osman76
• It's A Knockout!!! Solar System won by Jurasu
• DKs Best of 2011 V - Randomized won by carp1968
• Pokémon League Season1 won by Jim1086
• Angola's Map Blaster won by JPlo64
• Arms Poly Slovakia won by dowian2
• First Tournament Win - Australia won by hiitsmestevie1
• Bracketology - Brazil won by Serreski
• InnyaFacce FEUDAL EPIC QUADS PARACHUTE won by H2over, CPD SARGE, Chewie1 & MagnusGreeol
• A NON-CLASSIC NELSON OF MAPS [TPA4] won by Tripitaka
• KGB Assassin (TPA4) won by Swifte
• The Classic Games (CC Olympics Event) won by djelebert, Flirtz, MudPuppy & martinw

Players Who Performed Exceptionally (Wins)

• overlander (2)
• babagonosh (2)
• Tripitaka (2)
• Swifte (2)

Congratulations to all that have won tournaments this month, thank you to all those who have organised tournaments, and good luck to all next month!

TPA Wrap by DaveH

Spoiler

TPA Season 2: State of Play

Click image to enlarge.

All that is now left of the TPA2 tournaments is to allocate the prizes. Just as soon as they are finalied we will publish them here!

TPA Season 3: State of Play

Click image to enlarge.

There are 39 completed tournaments and 3 still to finish. None of the remaining three tournaments have finished since the last newsletter.The latest scores are:

uckuki (8,293); benga (6,626); Swifte (6,006); Gilligan (5,245); Aussie02 (5,024).

TPA 3: Standings
Link to Individual Scores (The Google scoreboard has not yet been updated with the latest results).

TPA Season 4: State of Play


There are 18 ongoing tournaments and 16 completed tournaments. Three have finished since the previous newsletter; my very own major; A Non-Classsic Nelson of Maps which had 150 players and the top three positions were shared as follows: 1st, tripitaka; 2nd dustin800 & shoop76; 3rd, greenbaize, jackofalltrades, mishalex & pearljamrox2.
Another finisher was Clive's KGB Assassin with Swifte winning.
Also flexmaster33's Randomizer Series with overlander winning.

Congratulations to all!

TPA 4: Standings

Top Tourneys by jdean1

Spoiler

Hello CC,

It is my pleasure to announce the Top Tourneys event and then the Top Tourneys Competition. The Conquer Club Newsletter Tournament Team is holding a Top Tourney voting contest. This event will be spearheaded by me, and everyone can submit their favorite tourney here: http://tinyurl.com/k9rsf43. Vote for your top 3 tourneys, each one getting a point with your vote and your favorite getting two points!

The Top 12 Tourneys getting votes will advance to a bracket, there will be byes and we will vote on 1v1 matchups until we get down to the top 4 tournaments. We will determine a ranking among them, and the top 3 on the list will be held again or a shorter version! Hopefully we can get the original owners to cooperate and run them, but if not me and the tourney team will run them. Points can be earned for the Top Tourney Competition in each of the tournaments, with the top 10 finishers all gaining points (10 for a win, 9 for 2nd, 8 for 3rd and so on). If a team tourney is chosen, the top 4 teams will gain points (10 points for each member for 1st, 7 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 3 for 4th).

The top scorer will earn a GA Medal and be crowned the Top Tourneys champ. So until August 25th submit your tourneys and have them enter the bracket.

Points to Consider: 1. You may not nominate your own tournament
2. Tie-Breaks to be decided by a 3-person panel vote of me (jdean1), DaveH, and another member of the War Games staff. If this occurs, we would gain extra opinions to help our decision from the winning players of the relevant tournaments.
3. Within the Top Tourney Competition, the War Games staff has the authority to remove a player from a tournament or not give them points or hand out penalties if players break tourney rules, competition rules or commit any acts determined to be against policy.

[Dukasaur]

JamesKer1 continues his dynamic tenure in the Suggestions department and brings us some current suggestions to think about.

For the first time ever, the Mess Hall features a recipe! Just think, we've eaten here for 122 previous issues, and until now nobody actually brought any food! Thank you BoganGod!

Suggestions Features- Early September by JamesKer1

Spoiler

A few weeks ago we featured the first community discussion. We are happy to announce that the discussion has come to a close and is currently pending Submission!

We are now encouraging all users to PM JamesKer1 any ideas that they feel should be discussed for the next Community Discussion.

Now, onto the Features!

Color Addition to Major Swords (2014)- This suggestion is pretty straightforward, and compliments well with recent submitted suggestions about ranks. What should be changed about those pesky swords to differentiate between Premium and Freemium?

Polymorphic Doubles (2014)- This suggestion is a unique addition to a previously submitted suggestion following the release of polymorphic games. This suggestion features a "double doubles" 8-player game, with the opportunity to expand beyond that to a "double triples" as well!


That's all for this issue. Happy Thinking!

Uncle Bogan's Cookery Nook by BoganGod

Spoiler

Uncle Bogan's Cookery Nook

Recipe of the Week

Pound cake pudding cups

Pre heat oven to 160degrees C or gas mark 5
Serves 10
1 cup raw or brown sugar
1 cup softened butter or vegetable oil
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup egg(5standard size eggs, in OZ/NZ 55g)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
pinch of mixed spice or nutmeg

Fruit of your choosing suggestions -
4 medium sized bananas sliced
or
6 pears peeled and grated
or
8 small apples peeled and grated
or
experiment with well drained tinned/canned fruit

Method
- Mix egg, oil, sugar, flour, vanilla and spice together till well combined.
- Mix fruit into cake batter
- Divide mix between 10 coffee cups
- Place coffee cups in a roasting tray
- Fill roasting tray with hot water until half way up the coffee cups
- Place in pre heated oven and bake for 45minutes - an hour depending on your oven
- Remove from oven, and water. Dust with icing sugar
- Pour a little cream on top and enjoy

[Dukasaur]

This continues to be a very popular contest!

Guess the Map -- Round 4 by dakky21

Spoiler

.
Last round we gave you a surprise and there will be more coming! In this fourth installment, the difficulty goes HIGHER than ever before!


In this contest, you will identify Conquer Club maps by small samples extracted from them. Look in the circles, see if you can spot what map that image is extracted from, and PM to dakky21. There will be 10 rounds with 9 images each, for a maximum score of 90. The images will gradually become more difficult as the issues move on.

• You must PM your answers to dakky21. Please do not answer by posting in the thread or PMing to anyone else. Only answers sent to dakky21 will be official.
• Answers to each issue's quiz must be sent within ten days after the actual publication date.
• Minor typos will be overlooked. If you mean "Jamaica" and you type "Jamiaca" that's fine. HOWEVER, we are not finishing your thought for you: there is both a Baltic States and a Baltic Crusades. If you just type "Baltic" that is a WRONG answer, because it would require us to finish the thought and decide between Crusades and States.
• Points will be cumulative over the 10 issues.
• Depending on interest, the 10th round may carry bonus images and/or bonus points.
• In case of a tie at the end of the contest, dakky21 will PM a supplementary tiebreaking list of extremely difficult images.
• Please format your answers as follows:Number dot space Name of Map
  (Example:
  • 1. Jamaica
    2. USA
    3. Austerlitz

Prizes:

• First place 2000 credits
• Second place 1000 credits
• Third place 625 credits
• Top five contestants get a GA medal.
• To qualify for any of the above prizes, you must score at least 35 points over the course of the contest.
• If and only if we get 25 or more contestants, we will have a random draw for a 6th GA medal.
• If and only if we get 75 or more contestants, the top player will get a Challenge Medal in addition to other prizes.
  Editor's note: we got the 75 in our first installment!
• Every issue the top contestant will get one or more Conquer Stars. Just like everything else about the stars, this is shrouded in mystery, so there's no telling what kind of star you will get! Drab? Auburn? Pink? A box of 50 Auburns? Wouldn't you like to know? This star prize can only be won once, so if you win it in week 1 and you are the top contestant in week 2 again, the prize in week 2 will go to the second place contestant, and so on down the list.

(for newcomers: guess the maps from picture above and read the rules above it)

Round 3 answers:
1. Draknor - Level 1
2. Fractured China
3. Middle East
4. USApocalypse
5. Italy
6. Orient Express 1883
7. NYC
8. Fractured China
9. Extreme Global Warming

Standings after Round 3:
1. Gabriel13 27
2. TheFlashPoint 27
3. Flow520 27
4. RedBaron0 27
5. SiriusCowKing 27
6. ooge 27
7. umbrellaman 27
8. Ffraid 27
9. CatchersMitt14 27
10. MoB Deadly 27
11. cooldeals 27
12. EdwinG 27
13. Garbi 27
14. DaveH 27
15. BuJaber 27
16. Cynther 27
17. rjhankey 27
18. anamainiacks 27
19. csiguy79 27
20. jonofperu 27
21. sempaispellcheck 27
22. Serbia 27
23. plurple 27
24. Koganosi 27
25. GioDuce 27
26. lokisgal 27
27. jackal31 27
28. Mad777 27
29. osman76 27
30. grt 27
31. Winged Cat 27
32. Killer4 27
33. Tripitaka 27
34. Swifte 27
35. Gilligan 27
36. Bruceswar 27
37. JamesKer1 25
38. Kinnison 18
39. skillfusniper33 18
40. chapcrap 18
41. DoomYoshi 18
42. ztodd 18
43. lilice 18
44. StorrZerg 18
45. benga 18
46. Phiba 18
47. TercioValencia 18
48. stealth99 18
49. codierose 18
50. jak111 18
51. redspyder 17
52. iAmCaffeine 17
53. IcePack 17
54. merch313 16
55. elonpuckhog 15
56. hopalong 14
57. ISN2 9
58. regan the great 9
59. TeeGee 9
60. nietzsche 9
61. Serreski 9
62. Metricsystemlove 9
63. agentcom 9
64. ckyrias 9
65. dgz345 9
66. AslanTheKing 9
67. big-bad 9
68. Arya 9
69. trinicardinal 9
70. Nicholasflak 8
71. Ukey 8
72. goldenwarrior 8
73. t4mcr53s2 8
74. TheTrueNorth 8
75. suzieq51 8
76. sonicspeed 7

[Dukasaur]

On September 1st, IcePack announced the Opening of the Club Store

Spoiler

Greetings!
I am proud to announce the next few updates on Conquer Club!

First, I would like to welcome Conquer Clubbers to the newly updated Club Store!


Tomorrow the Club Store will be accessible from the left navigation as 'Store'.

New/changed features of The Conquer Club Store:

• Have to be logged in to access
• Store has two sections: Buy (Cash) and Redeem (Credits)
• New discounts for bulk conquer credit purchases!
• With Cash you can buy
  • Premium Subscriptions with 1, 3 and 12 month options.
  • Credits
• You can Redeem Credits for:
  • Premium Memberships (1, 3, 12 Months)
  • Certificates that grant premium membership to other players (1, 3, 12 Months)
  • Inventory
  • Speed Game packs, allowing freemium members to pay speed games (5, 10, 25 Games)
• Certain restrictions exist on orders: for example, you cannot buy with cash and credits in the same order
• The payment options remain the same: Credit Card or Paypal
• An Account tab gives lists of all subscriptions, orders, credit transactions and cash payments you have made
• New Referral Program, where you can score a 30% share of revenues by referring your friends (or enemies) to CC

Next, we will hold New Store Celebrations!

For a limited time we will have available:

• A 'New Store Discount' on 'Premium Membership - 12 Months', this allows people to purchase the same premium product for the same price they have known since the last price change in November 2007! This is only available as a credit redemption, so you will need to purchase (or have available) credits first. Look for it under the "Redeem" tab, for a limited time!
• New Store Celebration Tournaments. Making cash purchases and credit redemptions in the new store will issue special tokens that will allow you to enter special tournaments for real prizes.
• Special 'Made Of Stars' Tournaments with great prizes to celebrate the availability of inventory purchases.
  • Convert your lower level stars into amazing Amazon Gift Cards!
  • Use Stars won on the site, or purchased from the Club Store!
• Special Speed Game Tournament Series with great prizes to celebrate the availability of Speed Game Packs!

There will be plenty of other Store Purchase & Store Redemption Special Tournaments with great Amazon Gift Card Prizes!

• A Store Purchase Special with $100 Amazon Gift Card + 500 Credits first prize! Available for the first 16 players to collect 10 x Token01 and enter the Tournmaent!
• A Store Redemption Special with 1,000 Credits first prize! Availible for the first 16 players to collect 10 x Token02 and enter the Tournament!

Note: Redemption Token02 will be issued for each 100 credits redeemed in the order, so be sure to bundle your redemptions in greater than 100 credit increments instead of redeeming many small redemptions!

Lastly, we've heard you! As we move forward in the upcoming months, Conquer Club will soon be migrating to new and improved hardware, this will greatly improve the sites performance!

Cheers,
IcePack

On August 30th, sempaispellcheck announced the winner of the TPA5 Design Contest

Spoiler

And now, judging has finished!

Congratulations to our winner, ISN2, who will receive a General Contribution medal and either 6 months of premium or a guaranteed spot in all TPA5 tournaments, which will be adorned by his clean and elegant design!!
EDIT: ISN2 has chosen to receive 6 months of premium membership, to be awarded in the form of Conquer Credits.

Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the TPA5 Cup shield and signature:



Second place goes to dakky21, for his innovative entry:



And third place goes to Agent 86, for his colorful submission:



Thank you to all three entrants for their entries!!

To use one of these images in your signature, click the "Quote" button at the top of this post and copy the URL and image code into the "Signature" box in your Control Panel.

sempai

On August 31st, DoomYoshi announced the Monthly Challenge for September

Spoiler

Official Monthly Challenge for September 2014
Brought to you by DoomYoshi and the Community Team

CLICK HERE TO JOIN Flat Rate - Freestyle GAMES


CLICK HERE TO JOIN Nuclear - Sequential GAMES

This challenge was inspired by, and heavily plagiarized from, Mike Beninghof's article which can be found here.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they found that the Reichsmarine had an expansion program already quietly under way. However, the proposed fleet lacked aircraft carriers. Engineer Wilhelm Hadeler, the 36-year-old wunderkind of German naval architects, was tapped to draft a ship to fill this need, and he responded with a plan for a 22,000-ton ship carrying 50 planes. She would carry eight 8-inch guns in casemate mounts set rather low on the hull, later replaced by double mounts with 5.9-inch guns. While Hadeler’s design was somewhat backward in its heavy armament, he foresaw later developments by including a substantial anti-aircraft armament: 10 4.1-inch anti-aircraft guns (Germany did not produce a dual-purpose naval gun until very late in the war) and dozens of small-caliber automatic weapons.

The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 allowed Germany to build warships adding up to 35 percent of the total British tonnage in each given category, and this caused Hadeler’s design to be shelved. Instead, the Navy now wanted two aircraft carriers of 19,500 tons each, to equal the allowable treaty tonnage. The actual design came in at 23,450 tons. The anti-aircraft armament now became 22 37mm guns and seven, eventually raised to 28, of the same 20mm Oerlikon guns mounted on American carriers (the looming war was already being very good to Swiss arms makers).

Designing a carrier frustrated the new German team, who slipped a couple of engineers into the delegation visiting Britain’s “Navy Week” in 1935. They snapped pictures of the British carrier Glorious and even wrangled a tour of her near-sister Furious. Both ships had short flying-off decks in front of the main flight deck, something missing from Hadeler’s design. The British were already planning to give up this anachronism and mount anti-aircraft weapons there, but the Germans never realized this and fell into disagreement over whether their carrier should have this feature as well.

Some weeks later, this was settled when the Japanese agreed to give a tour of their carrier Akagi and access to their naval architects. Akagi had just been moved into Sasebo Navy Yard to remove her similar flying-off deck and extend her flight and hangar decks forward. Japanese engineers appear to have tried their best to help the Germans, handing over over 100 blueprints of Akagi and apparently of Soryu as well, then under construction in Kure.

With these lessons incorporated into the design, Flugzeugträger A began construction (German practice did not recognize “keel laying” as a significant milestone) on 26 December 1936 at Deutsche Werke in Kiel, taking over the slipway cleared three weeks earlier by the launch of the battle cruiser Gneisenau. Per German practice, she did not officially receive a name at first, and was later christened Graf Zeppelin in honor of the developer of airship travel.

Flugzeugträger B (following both Imperial and Weimar practice, the Nazi navy assigned letter codes to additions to fleet strength, and Ersatz or “Replacement” names to those ships replacing old units) began construction in 1938 at Germaniawerft, another private yard in Kiel, on the slipway vacated by the cruiser Prinz Eugen. German engineers planned to build her more slowly than Graf Zeppelin, to take advantage of any lessons learned from building the first carrier. Though never officially named, all understood that this second ship would be called Peter Strasser, after the head of the German Naval Airship Division who died while bombing England in 1918.

Unfortunately, construction of the Peter Straßer stopped in September 1939, due to the Germans allocating resources to some minor conflict in Poland. Yes, that's right... this marks the 75th anniversary of WWII. More importantly, it marks 75 years of not-a-ship.

The Graf Zeppelin was also never complete, and was used as a storage dump for stolen furniture, as well as a barge after it was captured by the Russians.


NO SIGN-UPS REQUIRED - Everyone is eligible!
To sign up all you need to do is join and win at least one game started between September 1 and September 30 with the following settings:


Settings
Maps: WWII Poland
Players per game: 3 (Three)
Game Type: Standard
Initial Troops: Automatic
Round Limit: Any
Play Order: Sequential or Freestyle *[See note]*
Spoils: Nuclear or Flat Rate *[See note]*
Reinforcements: Chained
Special Gameplay: Fog of War (Trench Optional)
Round Length: Casual or speed

NOTE -

Code: Select all

 Nuclear and Sequential must go together (Silver); Flat Rate and Freestyle must go together (Gold)
Nuclear + Freestyle is not valid! Flat Rate and Sequential is not valid!

Medal Criteria
You need at least 900 points for the Challenge Achievement Medal

If you play 19 games or less then:
Each join (bronze token) is worth 1 point
Each win (gold or silver token) is worth 100 points

If you play 20 games or more then:
Each join (bronze token) is worth 1 points
Each win (gold or silver token) is worth 10 points

At least 3 wins are required from each type of game

The settings that must be present are WWII Poland, 3 player standard, Foggy, Chained, automatic, Sequential and Nuclear or Freestyle and Flat Rate
Please double check and make sure you have all these settings set.
The other settings are open.

Wins will still be counted until October 31.

Notes

• Games must start between CC Time: 2014-09-01 00:00:00 and CC Time: 2014-09-30 23:59:59 to be considered for the Challenge.
• Any issues will be solved by me, DoomYoshi and my word is final.

Opening of the Club Store
winner of the TPA5 Design Contest
Monthly Challenge for September

[Dukasaur]

Actual publication date September 2nd, 2014 @ 1916.

[owenshooter]

have we re-considered allowing members to opt out of receiving this in their inbox yet? ugh...-el Jesus negro

[Dukasaur]

have we re-considered allowing members to opt out of receiving this in their inbox yet? ugh...-el Jesus negro

You can opt out easily enough by using an Inbox filter. It's a quick and easy solution.