It's probably sacrilege but: wouldn't it be cool if we could get the best "Risk" players from the 'top' sites to play in a cross-site tournament?   I'll bet there are a number of players here who don't play exclusively on WarGear.  So the idea would be to get x number of players to play in an arranged tournament where you had to play alternate games on each site.  Sites would have to be free sites.  or maybe it would be a home/away thing like the America's Cup, or Ryder's Cup. You'd have to have a captain who represents each site and picks the team, etc.  It could be perceived as free publicity for all sites involved, right? 

Hey, I'm just spitballing..

This is a great idea (such a good idea I won't even post the obvious, self-aggrandizing joke I came here to make). Is Conquer Club still a thing? What are the main competitors to WG anymore? I'm super out of touch with the online Risk clone scene.

My guess is that the blossoming of EA/King/SelloutTM app developers for mobile and bookface platforms have probably eaten up a majority of the casual players. I mean, who wouldn't want to pay a microtransaction to re-roll or buy an extra army =P

Doesn't mean that there aren't still plenty of players, good and bad included, on sites like Wargear, CC, Warlight, etc.

Cramchakle wrote:

My guess is that the blossoming of EA/King/SelloutTM app developers for mobile and bookface platforms have probably eaten up a majority of the casual players. I mean, who wouldn't want to pay a microtransaction to re-roll or buy an extra army =P

Doesn't mean that there aren't still plenty of players, good and bad included, on sites like Wargear, CC, Warlight, etc.

..you meant to include Tos, right?  I don't play on any of those sites - and it's been years since I took a move on Warfish.

Anyway, seeing as the idea of clans never really got off the ground (and honestly, I don't know that I'd be all that interested), a cross-site competition in an ever shrinking community of non-pay-for-an-extra-roll purists just seems like a cool initiative.

Mad Bomber wrote:

What boar(ds)?

Well, if it followed a Ryder Cup model, you would have a host site, but the advantage of the internet is that all sites could simultaneously co-host the competition.

Games could be played on every site's 'standard' board, which, with the exception of a rogue border here or there, would need to be roughly like a standard Risk board.

But there could be the home team advantage part of the tournament, where games would be played on a board of the captain's choosing. There may need to be guidelines for this if only because this site sports boards that are so un-Risk-like, but it makes sense that the first Dice Cup would probably involve one board per site, and in the interest of fairness, a steering committee composed of members from all involved sites would have to run the affair.

As far as format is concerned, it's only limited by imagination.  There could be team games - 1v1 matches - or even games where some kind of in-game stat is part of the scoring.

It's fun to think about, but I can only imagine it would be a logistical nightmare to publicize/coordinate (quickly puts finger on nose). The politics of who decides what would certainly be contested in some quarters.  Heck, we all would have a tough time agreeing on who the best five active players on this site are.

M57 wrote:

Heck, we all would have a tough time agreeing on who the best five active players on this site are.

This is an interesting question! The WGWF divide makes it even more potentially contentious. I know I would put up Cona Chris and Hugh against any player in the world, on any board, Risk-like or not at all. BlackDog, Mad Bomber and Amidon37 would probably be my next group... and if I wanted a specialist for a Risk board with mostly Risk-like setup, I wouldn't bet on anybody against Babbalouie. That's 6...

Love the idea!  I'll be in the bleachers cheering on Team War Gear. 

If this idea gets off the ground it would be cool to be able to check in (view) games in progress on all the sites involved, even though I am not a member of any of them other than WG, and be able to view the history.  Perhaps entering opponent's sites as a "spectator", registering with the website and agreeing to receive some sort of propaganda from them via email, but not officially having to join. 

asm wrote:

M57 wrote:

Heck, we all would have a tough time agreeing on who the best five active players on this site are.

This is an interesting question! The WGWF divide makes it even more potentially contentious. I know I would put up Cona Chris and Hugh against any player in the world, on any board, Risk-like or not at all. BlackDog, Mad Bomber and Amidon37 would probably be my next group... and if I wanted a specialist for a Risk board with mostly Risk-like setup, I wouldn't bet on anybody against Babbalouie. That's 6...

The easy solution is the captain picks the team, and seeing as Championship points are apparently the most coveted around here, Mad Bomber would be the first to come to mind. If MB declines, then Cona Chris would get the next right of refusal, etc.

On the other hand, if you follow a Ryder Cup model where the captain isn't allowed to play, then you have a problem, because you don't want to sacrifice your best player to the captaincy.  The advantage of having a non-playing captain is that ego doesn't play a part in deciding who plays in which format and on which board etc.  Again, the other sites would have to be on-board with these types of guidelines.

On the other hand, it could be seen as somewhat unfair to NOT offer the captaincy to the player's who deserve it the most.  So a pretty decent solution is to offer the right to play OR be the team captain in down the line fashion.  Using this protocol, you would hope that your top 5 players would opt to play, and your 6th ranked player would accept the captaincy, but anything could happen.  For instance you could end up with #1,2,5,8,11 on the team and #7 as captain.

Other sites would have to figure out their own ways to pick their teams and captains.  Gaah!