This is the place to vote for the Educational map making competition.  Details are in this thread:

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/3190/Contestants_for_the_Educational_WarGear_mapmaking_competition

The only requirement to vote is you have to play each of the boards at least once.  Then to cast your vote, post here with your top 3 favorite boards ranked.  Once you vote, you can't change your vote. 

Deadline for votes: October 31, 2013

Here are the boards:

• Merge Sort - http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Merge+Sort
• Wargear & Sons - http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/3211
• 7 Wonders - http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/4799
• Finite State Machine - http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/4820
• Darkness Falls - http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/4798
• 1790 - http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/1790

Here is my vote.

1. Darkness Falls.  Read the dev journal for why.
2. Merge Sort.  Yes, I'm biased.  But I think that if you play this board a couple of times, you do learn an important piece of computer science.  I also like playing it.
3. 7 Wonders.  A nice bit of ancient history, on a board that is a bit different than the others.

1. Darkness Falls - I learned a ton making this map and made a point of sharing as much of that lesson with the community as I could; I'd say its more educational in that regard than it is educational in teaching geography and timezones. It's not exactly a flawless map. The end game gets a little confusing for reasons covered in depth in the 'dev journal,' a concept it inspired that seems to have started a trend on the forums that I love: author's sharing their thoughts and hows.

2. Finite State Machine - Even though it's not really any fun in the traditional sense, knowing what's going on behind the scenes makes this map a feat I can't not vote for. This is getting a vote for basically the same reason as Darkness Falls.

3. 7 Wonders - Bad labeling and fuzzy graphics forced me to play this with the board explorer open and to memorize the names and locations of territories, empires, and monuments. It's a sneaky way of making me learn. How educational! It's like putting cheese on your veg. And it was definitely the most fun of the bunch.

Cram: Your description of #3 there sounds like 7 wonders, not so much 1790... 

1. 7 wonders: It's not perfect, but it's not bad... and I couldn't choose another 1st (and I learned alot making it)

2. Wargear and sons: symmetry is killing this board, which takes away from the fun, but it's very well made, graphically nice, easy to learn and play, and I have to think through the music theory everytime I move.  

3. Merge Sort: Also done in by symmetry, but a great graphical representation of a concept and super easy to learn things from.  

It was a tough call. Great maps guys!

Darkness Falls and Finite state machine are technical achievements in their own right. 

This was a tough contest.  It's hard to make a map where you can learn something that is still fun.  Good effort from everyone though.  It's hard to vote on too.  Do I vote for the map where I learned the most?  The most fun one?

1. Merge Sort - Good map.  Nice illustration of the concept.  Good continents.  I agree - Symmetry is it's biggest problem, but I'm not sure what could be done about that.  Maybe make some of the larger # territories worth more, to make certain branches more valuable than others.

2. Wargear and Sons - I think this is the best in terms of educational value.  Very good looking too.

3.   Darkness Falls - Pretty fun.  Looks great.  Good use of factories to do something a bit different.

7 Wonders - Nice looking.  Fits the theme pretty well, and plays well.  This would have definitely placed, except I have a hard time telling where the territories are when it is foggy.  You can go to the board explorer to check, but constantly having to check sucks a lot of the fun out.

Finite State Machine - I'm proud of this map, purely from a design perspective.  I had to figure out how to do things that I wasn't sure were possible when I started.  I think it's a good example of the power of factories.  It's kinda fun, once you figure out how to play, although very slow paced.  I played so many games testing it to get something playable out of the concept, that I'm sick of it.

Sorry it took me 2 weeks to get these totaled.  I finally did:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjtIsJkyopekdFN6R1ZRMG5yV2lpQ3B5UXM2bVFjakE&usp=sharing

Winners:

1. Darkness Falls - Cram
2. Merge Sort - btilly
3. Seven Wonders - ratsy

Contact Tom to collect your prizes. 

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Also an announcement about the Video Game themed contest - Ratsy and I ran out of time and were not yet happy with our maps, so Cram was the only contestant.  Tom agreed we should just give Cram 1st prize. 

Hopefully the new rules for the contestant (i.e. non-themed contests, and more time & less often for the themed ones, and more time for voting) will improve participation for map makers & voters.

Two-fer.

Thanks, everyone. Have fun playing the maps. I've got some pretty good ones cooking right now, I think, and look forward to further development.