CFB Risk Day 11 – ANN ARBOR HAS BEEN TAKEN!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!

Note: Today's recap written by a guest-speaker, filling in for our friend EastCoast Esq. Get well soon – that's an order, soldier.

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” – some guy

Some said it could never happen.  Others said it was only a matter of time.  It doesn’t matter now – what matters is that Ann Arbor has been captured by the vilest of degenerates.  In a brazen act of violence and violation of the alliance treaty, a force of twenty-three attackers successfully broke our defenses around Ann Arbor, overwhelming the forty-three brave and noble Wolverines holding it.  We cannot let this stand.  To hell with Thomas Wolfe – we *are* going home again.

A Call To Action:  We need all able bodied (er… handed?  Fingered?... anyone who can click on a mouse or tap a touchscreen?) men, women, children, pets, non-descript beings, etc. to join the resistance!  In the end, this war will be won by the team with the most number of players, so EVERY SINGLE PLAYER MATTERS!  See the bottom of this post for directions to your local recruiting stations (meaning the website links).

Currently Michigan is *still* the most powerful team in the game and there is reason for optimism going forward.  We recorded 738 players last night with a combined power of 1536 stars (with each player’s star power increasing as they continue to play the game); both numbers were improvements over the previous night’s values.  OSU is still the second most powerful team in the game, but while they had been gaining ground on us in player & star counts nearly every day for the past 1+ week, they actually showed a slight *decline* in both last night (531 players for a combined 1063 stars) as compared to Monday night.  If you haven't done so already, get involved!  If you already have, the get *someone else* involved!  Recruiting matters here.

This would be a good time to have a high level view of the war: some way to visualize how things are progressing... like a map.

Welp.  Not all is lost… in fact, there is still quite a bit of good news here.

To the north, you may notice that our big, beautiful, continuous chuck of Maize-colored (close enough) glory stretching from Chicago to Alaska - the long way – is no longer continuous.  Wisconsin has taken Nunavut from us, with their goal being to consolidate the central region of Canada (there are bonuses for holding certain regions in entirety, just like in the classic Risk game there are bonuses for holding entire continents – we already benefit from one bonus by holding all of eastern Canada). Our rogues were able to take Madison from them in a surprise move, so they will likely be committing forces to retake it.  Wisconsin was able to kill off Minnesota (who was *not* a member of the Big Ten Alliance) last night, but now have a suddenly resurgent Iowa State threatening them and our other ally, Nebraska.

In the West, we were able to expand from our Alaskan territory, threatening to move down into the Pacific Northwest as well as successfully land in Baja California – opening up southern California, the US southwest, and western Mexico to attack.  A few of the smaller teams are still scrapping for land in these regions and their forces may not be able match ours.  Nebraska has been pushing hard westward since the beginning, so it is likely we will link up with them soon.

Closer to our occupied home, we have seen mixed results.  Our own rogues repaid the osu rogues that took Ann Arbor by re-taking Toledo (which denies osu their bonus for holding the entire state of Ohio), so – as with almost every turn the last 7-8 days, expect Toledo to be hotly contested again.  We conceded Chicago to Wisconsin, but hold South Bend and West Lafayette. In truth, the entire states of Indiana and Illinois have been traded back & forth between Michigan, Wisconsin and osu so much that we might see those territories listed on a stock exchange soon.  A more concerning development is near the southern ends of those states:  Tennessee had some absolutely incredible luck last night and is now moving into the Midwest, working along with Texas A&M and Bama to end Wisconsin’s push into SEC territory for now.

Near the East Coast, Michigan and osu are both working to consolidate hold upon mid-Atlantic states, with some arm-wrestling about who gets which territories.  Farther south, both teams have effective fragmented Georgia Tech into various outcroppings… with all three teams vying for lands stretching from Lake Erie to Disney World (thanks to our landings in Georgia and North Carolina last turn).  South Carolina was killed in the scuffling, but somehow Notre Dame is still alive despite having < 50% odds of doing so for almost the entire game.

Wrapping up the south end of the board, Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico are currently a jumble of small teams that are slowly being gobbled up by current/future SEC teams, so expect consolidation to continue.

As a reminder, it is strongly recommended to join the Michigan Discord server and coordinate with our friendly team leaders for assignments/orders (see link below). This is how to *most effectively* use your attack & defend moves to get us closer to actually winning the game.  However… fighting for your school, your team and your home is always a good thing, even if you have your own ideas about how to do that.  In the end, it’s still a game and the purpose is to have fun.

Team Standings

As of the beginning of this week, we were down to 25 active teams in the game and the final rankings are beginning to become fixed.  Here is where they stand thus far (teams ranked by # of territories first, followed by a mix of metrics examining how efficiently they used their players & stars, calculated by Reddit user u/blissymaster):

1. Michigan (39 territories)
2. Texas A&M (27 territories)
3. (an) Ohio State (25 territories)
4. Nebraska (18 territories)
5. Wisconsin (10 territories)
6. Alabama (9 territories)
7. Tennessee (8 territories)
8. Oklahoma (6 territories)
9. Texas (6 territories)
10. Georgia Tech  (6 territories)
11. Iowa State (5 territories)
12. LSU (4 territories)
13. Oregon (3 territories)
14. Stanford (3 territories)
15. USC (2 territories)
16. Florida (2 territories)
17. Notre Dame (1 territory)
18. Washington (1 territory)
19. Hawaii (1 territory)
20. UCF (1 territory)
21. Georgia (1 territory)
22. Virginia Tech (1 territory)
23. Minnesota (killed Day 10)
24. Baylor (killed Day 10)
25. South Carolina (killed Day 10)

Steps To Play Every Day

(1) Sign up for a reddit.com account if you don’t have one already

(2) Visit collegefootballrisk.com – Click Sign in with Reddit – Select Michigan as your team

(3) Join the Michigan Risk discord by going to https://discord.gg/DRQyjp56kP (this is now a permanent link, so there should not be problems accessing it)

(4) Go to the "vetting" channel and type in your MGoBlog username and Reddit username.

(5) Once vetted, get your orders from the "orders" channel.

(6) Return to collegefootballrisk.com – Click on the blinking "target" icon at the bottom of the page (3rd button from the right), and then click on the territory you're attacking or defending.

(7) Talk trash with your fellow Wolverines as we prepare for tonight's roll.

How Does the Game Work?

It is up to each team to recruit players and coordinate moves. You can choose to defend any territory that your team currently holds or attack any adjacent territory. A "roll" happens each evening to calculate which teams have won which territories that turn based on the moves that were made by individual players. The ultimate goal is to conquer as much of the map as possible for your team. There are a number of different ways to do this, such as through recruiting players in sheer numbers or forming alliances with other teams.

So remember to drink your Ovaltine, submit your move before 10:30pm today and have fun taking back OUR castle!