On October 18, four armies fought for control of Boston College’s campuses, the two largest armies colliding on the Newton Campus. One snatched Practice Field and Hardey Hall from the other, cornering the defending forces on Game Field. As the two behemoths confronted each other, a mile and a half to the south on the main campus, two smaller, ragtag battalions swelled in size and strength and prepared to go forth.
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See the complete gameBoston College’s first game of GoCrossCampus (GXC), an online computer game created just over a year ago by five Ivy League students, is based on the strategic board game Risk, in which players vie to take over the world, country by country. In GXC, teams of players vie to take over a campus or campuses. The first game pitted Yale against Harvard during the fall of 2007 (Yale won). That landed GXC in the New York Times, and this past fall, some 100 games were played on and among campuses. Here at Boston College, 374 students joined eight teams, which were designated by class and by where players had lived as freshmen. The game was initiated and promoted by BC’s undergraduate student government and administered (at no charge) by GXC. Each team was assigned a color, and commanders were elected. Teams earned their strength, or “energy,” as the game calls it, from the number of players they recruited, the number of territories they controlled, and how often their players signed on to the game. The main and Newton campuses were divided into 88 territories that matched buildings, ath-letic fields, and greenswards. The battle was waged daily, with team movements, conquests, and casualties reported at 11 p.m. on the tournament website.
The image above shows the conflict as of day 31, also called Turn 31. This crazy quilt of uneven blocks of color belies a battle hanging in the balance. Much earlier, by Turn 18, four teams had been routed. Soon after, Orange, a team of seniors, and Purple, a team of sophomores, dominated the field. Orange had early on commandeered the Newton Campus (upper left), which was easily defended. From that strategic position, the team had pushed its way onto the main campus, sweeping along College Road and gobbling up buildings. Then Purple massed at the main gate and drove deep into Newton Campus. The two forces skirmished viciously over Hardey Hall and the main gate, located at the ends of the dotted yellow line on the right. At Turn 31, Purple has once again grabbed both key territories and has Orange clearly struggled to hold its lines. This would seem to bode well for Purple—except for those clumps of green and red to the south.
As Purple concentrated forces on Orange, it left its main-campus positions open to attack. (Numbers in the center of each territory represent energy. Note Purple’s many zeros.) Unbeknownst to Purple, Red, another team of seniors, had struck a secret no-attack pact with Orange. That freed both to concentrate their forces on Purple. Thus Red, which only a few turns earlier had dwindled to a single territory, swelled to nine in Turn 31, dislodging Purple from Robsham Theater (shown with Red’s remaining energy of 24), MDC Park (56), and Walsh Hall (49). Green, a renegade team of juniors, likewise assaulted Purple, snatching Merkert Chemistry Center (shown with 63).
As Napoleon could have told Purple, fighting on many fronts becomes untenable (even in cyberspace). Orange eventually repulsed Purple from the Newton Campus. Retreating and weakened, Purple collapsed in Turn 48. Red broke its alliance with Orange, only to have the larger team rout it in short order. Green succumbed next, and by Turn 55, the game had a victor. Under commanders Terence To ’09 and Phil Kowalski ’09, the campus was one solid block of Orange. There’s talk of a Beanpot tournament.