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Game Rules! table of contents

back to top How to Play

Official GoCrossCampus school tournaments are open to any member of the participating college community, company, or other organization with a valid email address (e.g., @school.edu for a university). Players can join the game at any time.

The campus has been divided into a field of play with many regions, corresponding to landmarks on campus. Every turn, players (you!) have a chance to log in and place armies on regions that their team owns, and assign each army one of three orders:

  • defend the current territory
  • move to an adjacent territory controlled by the same team
  • attack an adjacent territory controlled by a different team

When the turn is over, the orders are processed. First, all armies with orders to move do so. Then armies attack, one at a time. Whenever an army attacks a territory with no remaining defenders, or a neutral territory, that territory is conquered by the attacking team, and next turn, will be controlled by that team. Turns progress until one team wins the entire board, or the game enters lightning rounds.

back to top Game Setup

Recruitment Period:

Typically, the first three turns of a game are a Recruitment Period during which teams can only place their armies, but not move between territories (via attack or move). This time is spent strategizing on placement of armies and recruitment of schoolmates. Thereafer, full turns commence, in which teams can start attacking each other.

Team Balancing:

At the start of a game, each team is initialized on a fairly equal number of territories based on the map.

1. Intra-campus games:

Each school's student government or campus group that is organizing the game has worked hard to try to create balanced teams. If you have any comments on how teams were set up at your school, definitely let us know, but also understand that those decisions were not made by us.

2. Inter-campus games:

Inter-campus games have a team-balancing multiplier applied to all armies that players earn in the game. The multiplier is calculated using a simple formula based upon school participation and size. School size is defined as the total undergraduate population, and percent participation is based upon this figure and the number of players that have signed up for the team.

The team-balancing multiplier simply multiplies the number of armies a team gets during placement. It is designed to make the game fair so that smaller schools have the same chance at winning as larger schools.

how is it calculated? »

Suppose there are three teams:

  • School A - 16,000 undergraduates
  • School B - 5,333 undergraduates
  • School C - 2,000 undergraduates

For each school, the multiplier = (max undergrads of largest team)/(max undergrads).

So for each school, the multiplier evaluates to:

  • School A: 1.0
  • School B: 3.0
  • School C: 8.0

But the actual multiplier awarded to a team each turn is also a function of the school's participation.

So in the end, the number of armies you have is multiplied by [(multiplier - 1) * (% multiplier awarded)] + 1.

Thus, if School B had 2,000 players on any given turn, it would have a 37.5% participation at their school, giving them 33% of their multiplier. Using the equation above, this means that School B would have their number of armies multiplied by [(3 - 1) * (0.33)] + 1, which equals 1.66. So if a player were to get 10 armies on that turn, he or she would actually be able to place 16.7 armies. Of those, he or she can only place 16 whole armies, and 0.7 will carry over to the next turn.

back to top Armies

Controlling Armies:

Each player can control armies independently from their teammates. However, it has been found that teams with strong leadership and a consolidated set of orders tend to fare better in battle due to their cohesive strategy and strength in numbers.

Earning Armies:

  • Each player gets 1 army per turn just for logging in. In addition to this, the player gets several bonuses. These bonuses differ for each game.
    • Reliability Bonus: 1 bonus army for having signed in and placed armies every turn for 5 turns.
    • Conquer Bonus: 1 bonus armies if your team has conquered 1 or more territories in the last turn. This does not scale with the number of territories conquered (i.e., your team doesn’t get 3 bonus armies for conquering 3 territories).

Placing Armies:

Armies can be placed on any territory controlled by the player's team. Placements are permanent: once placed, an army cannot be recalled and re-placed. In addition, players must place ALL of their armies at once.

Once all armies are placed, they can be given one of three orders: to defend, attack, or move. Orders can be changed and updated at any point during the turn.

Finally, using scripts or another automated processes to place armies, issue orders or conduct other in-game operations will result in severe penalties for the team.

back to top Combat

Defender-Attacker Advantage:

Battles take place between two army units at a time. In every one-on-one battle between an attacker and a defender, the odds are weighted for the defender: 58% to 42%. Every battle results in one of the armies being destroyed and the other remaining victorious. The attacking army that wins in battle will continue attacking until it is destroyed or the target region is conquered.

How Turns are Processed:

First, all armies that have orders to move to adjacent regions do so: those armies are moved into their target regions and set to defend.

Second, attacks are processed in a round-robin style, where every team has a chance to make a single attack with one of its armies, one at a time, until all attacking armies have either conquered their target territory or have been killed.

Thus, armies attacking from a region that is attacked will not be killed in the attack. Instead, they will continue with their attack as planned.

see example »

For example:

The scenario:

  • Team A holds 4 armies in Atlantis: 1 defending, 2 attacking Bulgaria, and 1 attacking Cassiopeia.
  • Team B holds 1 army in Bulgaria, defending.
  • Team C holds 3 armies in Cassiopeia: 2 defending and 1 attacking Bulgaria.

The attacks progress as follows:

A's turn:

Out of 3 attackers, the system randomly selects an army attacking Cassiopeia. One army in Cassiopeia is attacking, so C has two valid defenders; one is chosen randomly. They fight, and A, the attacker, wins!

  • Atlantis (A): 1 defending, 2 attacking B, 1 attacking C.
  • Bulgaria (B): 1 defending.
  • Cassiopeia (C): 1 defending, 1 attacking B.

B's turn:

  • B is making no attacks.

C's turn:

There is only one attacking army to select. There is only one defending army in B to select. They fight, and C, the attacker, wins! C conquers Bulgaria and the one attacking army moves there.

  • Atlantis (A): 1 defending, 2 attacking B, 1 attacking C.
  • Bulgaria (C): 1 defending.
  • Cassiopeia (C): 1 defending.

A's turn:

The system randomly selects an army attacking B. There is only one defender to select. They fight, and B, the defender, wins! The attacker is destroyed.

  • Atlantis (A): 1 defending, 1 attacking B, 1 attacking C.
  • Bulgaria (C): 1 defending.
  • Cassiopeia (C): 1 defending.

B's turn:

  • B is making no attacks.

C's turn:

  • C is making no attacks.

A's turn:

The system randomly selects the army attacking B. There is only one defender to select. They fight, and A, the attacker, wins! A conquers Bulgaria from C.

  • Atlantis (A): 1 defending, 1 attacking C.
  • Bulgaria (A): 1 defending.
  • Cassiopeia (C): 1 defending.

B's turn:

  • B is making no attacks.

C's turn:

  • C is making no attacks.

A's turn:

The system selects the last attacker. There is only one defender to select. They fight, and C, the defender, wins! The attacker is destroyed.

  • Atlantis (A): 1 defending.
  • Bulgaria (A): 1 defending.
  • Cassiopeia (C): 1 defending.

The turn is over.

back to top Polls

There are three types of polls on our site:

  • Nominate as Commander: To elect a player as commander of your team.
  • Impeach Commander: To remove your team's commander from power.
  • Mark as Spy: To convict someone of espionage on your team.

To open a poll, 10 players need to nominate that the poll be opened. Polls stay open until the end of the next turn (i.e., if a poll opens during Turn 5, it will close when Turn 6 ends). In case of a tie at the time of closing, the immediately subsequent vote will decide the poll result.

Commanders:

Commanders are players that have special administrative privileges: they can send email messages to all members of a team, as well as edit the master battle plan that all team members can read.

Commanders are elected by a popular vote. Once 10 people have nominated a potential commander within a day, an election goes to a general vote. If a majority of those voting affirm the candidate, he or she becomes a commander.

Commanders can be impeached in the same way as they are elected: if 10 players vote to impeach, the impeachment goes to general vote. If a majority votes to convict, the commander is removed from office.

Spies:

Spies are people who have wrongly joined a team and are collecting valuable intel of strategic importance and passing it on to another team. It is the responsibility of all players on a team to browse the Team Roster to ensure that there are no spies amongst their ranks. If a spy is successfully captured via a majority vote in a poll, he or she will be immediately kicked off the team and unable to join or play on another team.

back to top Winning and Losing

A team loses when all of its armies and territories have been eliminated in battle. All the players on a losing team are removed from active play and may participate only in chat functions from that point forward.

A team wins when it has conquered the entire game board. However, if a winner hasn't been determined by a certain (predetermined) point, the team with the most territories can be declared the winner. In case of a tie, a winner is decided by the team with the greater number of armies. Each game has its own schedule. Please refer to the notice at the top of your game page for information of your game's turn schedule and end date.

At the end of the game, all teams will be ranked by the turn during which they were eliminated, with teams eliminated later given a higher ranking. If no team has conquered the entire game board, surviving teams will be ranked based on the number of territories held at the end of the game. If two teams were eliminated on the same turn, the team which was eliminated later during turn processing will be given the higher ranking.

back to top For Fairness

Some rules shouldn't be broken:

These rules exist to keep the game fun and fair for all teams and players. They apply to all GoCrossCampus games.

1. One person, one email. Do not register email aliases, listservs or other "junk" addresses.

2. Only play one account. One person should not play more than one account, even if each one of those accounts was started by a unique person.

3. Do not register people without their permission. Bringing a laptop into the cafeteria and signing people up as they wait in line is cool. Sitting in your room and registering everyone in your school's phonebook is not.

4. No scripts. Do not use any kind of script to interact with the site.

Penalties:

Penalties for violating the above rules will be assessed on a team-wide basis and determined by the scale of the violation. Teams are expected to self-police and use the spy nomination system to remove individual rule violators, although it is understood that teams can't do this perfectly and find every rogue team member. If excessive rulebreaking is taking place, a team will lose their conquer bonus until corrective action is taken. If problems continue, a team can be disqualified.

back to top Thinking About the Game

GoCrossCampus is something new. Many players try to think of it in terms of other things, such as board games, online RPGs, or turn-based strategy games. GXC is none of these - it is much more a sport or campus contest than a strategy game. Many veteran gamers jump into GXC without realizing that you can't win GXC by playing it like you would play most other online games.

In short, being successful in a GoCrossCampus game is about four things, in this order:

  • Recruiting
  • Organizing
  • Diplomacy
  • Strategy

Being a commander in GXC is not about simulating leadership. It's about actually leading. If you can't inspire your team or even convince them to follow your plans, it simply does not matter how brilliant your battlefield strategy could be.

back to top Any more questions?

Read the FAQs or contact us. We usually respond pretty quickly!