by RoyInAtlanta on Thu May 01, 2008 9:12 pm
Gentlemen,
I am a former officer of US Marines, and have been playing Risk, or other board games for over 30 years.
Although I do enjoy playing ConquerClub games, I am continually confused as to how you came up with the rank designators that you are using.
For example, you use oak leafs for Lieutenant, and a diamond for Captain. Many foreign military forces use diamonds, but they use one for each officer grade for the first few grades. E.g. one diamond for Lieutenant, and two for Captain.
I would like to gently encourage you to make the following changes to the icons for the Ranking.
1) Remove the single bar from cadet, and place it in as the lieutenant level. I would recommend using the square diamond you are using in the Captain slot, or finding another icon that is a simple circle, or perhaps a cadet hat icon that looks like a West Point hat. (I will volunteer to find an appropriate one if you choose to make any changes.)
2) Move the oak leaf from Lieutenant to Captain. (or better yet, move it to Major, which is the actual level a gold oak leaf represents.
3) Flip flop the Brigadier and Colonel icons, as the icon you are using for Brigadier is the classic rank symbol for Colonel in all US forces, as well as some foreign services.
4) It would be nice to see the single star in the spot for Brigadier, but at this point, I don’t know where the king-hat should really go. I am mostly interested in seeing the symbols that are in use in the military associated with the correct ranks.
I hope this doesn’t sound petty. You have a good game site, but these choices of rank insignia detract from the appearance that this is a serious gaming site. You have rank insignia associated with the names of ranks that are clearly wrong makes it look like you have limited knowledge of basic military affairs.
I don’t mean to be insulting in any way, and am sending this note as a sincere effort to help improve your site. Like I said, I enjoy playing, and hope you keep adding boards.
-Roy
RoyInAtlanta