14 February 2014

A Risk for the Ages in Dobromesto

The Balkan state of Dobromesto was an idea I conceived during a class-wide game of the classic board game Risk. It was in a class I had social studies too, but this was a class titled "Sports and Entertainment Management and Marketing" my sophomore year. It was the last month and a lot of seniors finished school since they got out a whole month later than everyone else. That meant there were six or so of us left in that particular class. We split into two even groups. I was designated to lead my group based on my command of geography. There was a giant map on a corkboard that my social studies teacher wanted to get rid of since she found a better position elsewhere for the following academic year, as well as thumbtacks and dice which she lent to us. When we alternated picks, I first chase Macedonia as my command base. Then I proceeded to select the other Balkan countries except Greece had been taken before i could get to it. I also had Turkey in my possession and took Greece that way later on. I would rename Dobromesto with Skopje as it's capitol after picking up most of Oceania.



After two of the five weeks (we met every day of the week), four of the six had opted out which left the two commanders. By this point, I had all of Eastern Europe (think of the Soviet Bloc) and slowly crossed into Alaska after several skirmishes on my way to Canada. Britain was also mine to start and couldn't maintain getting Canadian access via Greenland for the longest time. Week four saw me take over most of North America while South America was neutral and Africa was enemy territory the further south you went. On the last day, I won on the very last move even though it was clear I had won seven turns into class with command over Sudan having finally defeated Kazakhstan from China the turn before. The final move on a 6-4-4 to 5-3 count, I had won over Angola (which I had previously won and then subsequently lost) from the Congo and achieved manifest destiny.

In the following three years, Dobromesto became the focus of a Facebook application in which ESPN had a College Town app courtesy of ESPNU. Pretty much, you built campuses to your liking and upgraded facilities. It was cool, I liked it anyway and kind of like Roller Coaster Tycoon or Sims. There were nine campuses with the main campus in Belgrade (Krivo Beogradsko) and only the athletic facilities were named after Macedonians. Nowadays, I've revived it for this HJC contest that's running to enter a made up country into the Olympics. The only difference was that Kosovo was not independent for about six months after the game of Risk had finished in reality.

Well more curling rankings are heading your way. Saturday's will be on Sunday due to the HCI post from today being featured here.

-Ricky

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