mandatory rank up?

i believe the discusion about mandatory ranking up to where your points and tokens would allow has come up before but i think the best way to deal with issue is to mark on there avatar {or wherever}
  "too cowerdly for the rank of _ _ _ _"

They will never ever make that a necessity, Especially because even some of the owners and top Admin/Contributors are not ranked up!

It's a strategy to trick new players, who rarely click opponents profile, into thinking they are playing an equal or inexperienced players.

The tactic is similar to the same-time glitch, completely within rules.

I have said many times my reasons not to rank up, so I won't do it again.

If some of you think it's unfair that we don't show our real rank (I don't know why) I wouldn't be against that some mark advise the other players that our rank is higher than what we are showing.

The only problem (besides cowardly behavior) I see with not ranking up is related to the ranking system and it's direct relation to the D12 tournament.
There is not much point in having a ranking system when it isn't a correct representation of who the best players are.
2nd, the D12 tournament selects the top 12 players but it's really difficult to know what to aim for when suddenly 5 players who you've never heard of appear to be higher ranked than you.
3rd, there is also a problem when a number of D12 players are admins or moderators because I assume they can see the ranking points of these "not ranked up players" thereby they have an advantage in that they know wich players are in the top 12 whereas the rest of the players do not and seeing that quite a few D12 players are moderators or admin's that is an unfair advantage.
For example, let's say we are a couple of days removed from the next D12 tournament and you know you are a couple of 100 points shy of making the cut.
Well you can then play some quick 1 on 1 live games in order the get the points you are lacking ( and if you've checked out the last activity of the top players you will notice a huge amount of 1 on 1 games, usually against an opponent with little or no experience).
The other players who can't see the real ranking think they are in and don't go for a few more live games and wind up with a nasty surprise; they did not make the cut.
Either you make a clear and transparent ranking system or you scrap the D12 tournament but as things stand now the game is rigged.

Well in response to your third point - staff here, at least admins and moderators, don't have access to the number of points players have, outside of the public list of player rankings that is published each month along with the dominating 12.

In response to your first two points, maybe we should consider making the dominating 12 determined first by rank, then subdivided by points?

Vexer had access, how else did he make that list?
But I'll let it slide seeing that even without that "potential problem" the other remaining points still stand.
Subdivided by points doesn't make the rankings more transparent.
In all sports the most popular ones all have very clear rankings.
A large part of the attraction of any competition is knowing who's the best at any given moment.
The rankings on this site do the opposite.
Aiming for the D12 is like running the 100 meter sprint and not being able to see your opponents in the lanes next to you.
It doesn't make any sense.
Any formula that keeps the true rankings hidden defeats the purpose of a ranking system.
I'm not debatting the merrits of pretending to be a newbie because clearly it has it's advantages ( though personally I think it's cheating ) but if you allow or even advocate this then do face the consequences and do away with the rankings all together because they do no represent reality, they disguise it.

Well what do you think of my solution of determining the top 12 by rank not points? When I mentioned subdividing by points, I meant that if there are two Generals, for example, the one with more points goes on top.

Wow; I cannot believe what I read; it looks like you play your games to get points and have fun in later games. That it's why I am not interested in ranks, I just want to play and enjoy my games.

Anyway, I find really useful the points system because it lets me enjoy Limit Point Games (sometimes I also need games you "know"anybody will ruin them in the first rounds) but I got bored about all these discussions.

Whatever you decide about this it's fine, but if it's mandatory to rank up I hope that this were done automatically.

So you think that the top players that have a chance of getting in the D12 don't enter some 1 on 1 games to make sure they do?
I've literally heard player talk about this.
Aeronautic said as much in his farewell post on the forum for instance.
And what is the problem with working toward a goal?
If you look at the activity of most of the top players and look at their won games, you will notice that a large majority of their won games are 1 on 1 games with newbies.
How much fun is it to beat an inexperienced player in a 1 on 1 contest?
Not much of a challenge I would think.
Id' rather compete with the best so I can only assume they do it to keep their ranking points high but perhaps I'm wrong and they just like to win so much that they look for easy prey to get their fix.
The hidden rankings also have some other unintended consequences.
A lot of newbies like to play with other inexperienced players and when they get invited to a game with players that have an artificially low rank you are in effect cheating.
This would be like going to a boxing club for a friendly match against another amateur without knowing you are stepping into the ring against the worldchampion, fair? I think we all know better.
Determining the D12 according to rank/ by points would solve 1 half of the problem but not all of it.
And 1 last observation: on ALL the sites with this type of game that I've visited this is the ONLY 1 with hidden rankings, all the other have automatic rankings.
Now you can argue that that makes the D12 unique but I think there's a good reason why they don't allow this kind of decception.

I personally don't have an issue with people 'hiding' their rank for whatever reason.
However, as a solution, why not just change the badge colours of people who are a higher rank than displayed to, say, green.
This way it is immediately obvious to every player.

(I will point out that I am not showing a rank aligned to my points, but this is because I don't have enough tokens to rank up).

Wich is also ridiculous, why have all these mechanisms to distort the rankings?
Don't have enough tokens, really, most players after playing for a while drown in them and new players who otherwise qualify for a much higher ranking can't because they don't have enough tokens.
A game where you want to resign? Can't not enough tokens, waste of everyones time.
Either you have a correct ranking system or you have no ranking.
It's completely arbitrary and unreliable.
Do I qualify for the D12? Who knows you can't see it.
Is my opponent higher or lower ranked than me? Who knows you can't see.
Completely pointless as it is now.

Actually the resign button always works. It will let you go negative with tokens.

The reason why we haven't fixed this obvious problem yet is because the programmers disagree about it. It's a delicate situation. How can you convince a volunteer programmer to code something they don't want?

Personally I am all for automatic ranks. When the creator set things up the way they are he didn't anticipate players purposely not ranking up. The token system for ranks has always been a problem. The intent was to get players to play more games than they otherwise would to get enough tokens for the next rank but in reality it just frustrates people.

One of the reasons I like risk is because it's about more than just the game (the battlefield) by itself - lots of other factors play a role, just like a real battle.

One of them is chat, or manipulation. You can use it to impress (which can make players follow your advice) or deceive players to think you are weak (which makes players ignore you).
Should we disable chat, just because it has some negative consequences too (like potential teaming)?

Another one of them is rank, just like with chat, you can use it to impress or deceive other players. It's a very powerfull tool if used right.

One of the things Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War is that knowing your opponent (and yourself) are key to victory. Why should anyone be forced to give away this piece of information? Let them find it out themselves and make the game more interesting.



If ppl want to play with inexperienced players, let them create a maximum point game, or just state it in the chat, but please, don't just take away such a nice part of the game.
I loved it how I never exactly knew how good Muzuanne was, until they spoiled it by showing the D12 list - now I know.

I'm all for not showing actual points on the D12 list anymore.

Matty, not showing actual points on the D12 list would not work, a because if your points where not high enough you would not be in the D12 and by deduction of the other players in the D12 who's points or rank is accurate you would know just about how many points those who hide have.
b because not showing the points would make it more confusing for people and would make the selection of the D12 questionable (are the real top 12 selected or is the selection perhaps manipulated, without the points there would be no way of knowing).
It is a very powerfull tool but is it explained in the rules to newbies that this powerfull tool exsists?
No, there is no mention in the FAQ or the rules about automatic or voluntary ranking up, and since all other sites with this kind of game have automatic rankings this is a clear case of deception.
The least you should do if you want to keep this charade is put up a disclaimer that the rankings are not an accurate representation of players current experience/ability/ranking.
But now you often get a newbie who has no clue that the rankings don't work automatically.
That you want to take advantage of this is up to you but a fair and level playing field means to everyone starts with the same information and knowledge, this is clearly not the case.
If the option of hiding your rank is kept there is of course a remedy that everyone who wishes to take the time too can apply.
Just like some players feel the need in a capitals game to put up a disclaimer in the chat about losing your capital = defeat.
So too can we put up a disclaimer about players who hide their real ranking and prove it by posting a link to the D12 page in the forum.
If you like you can also make a little dig about not trusting players who are out to deceive newbies before they've even rolled the dice.
That should work wonders for the believability of the rest of the remarks players with hidden rankings make.
I have 1 final thought I would like to share.
And it is this question: many of you (vexer included) think it's cheating to reveal troopnumbers and or a players position in a fog game, correct?
But many of those same players want to keep the hidden ranks because it's a powerful tool and it ads an extra "dimension" to their tactical arsenal.
Well I would argue then that you have to also stop whining and moaning about giving away info in fog games because that too is a powerful tactical tool but with 1 small difference: only an idiot would not know that the info in a fog game is extremely unreliable, nobody is being duped in a fog game because it's perfectly clear that everything that's being said in the chat is potentially a lie.
If you are going to quote "the art of war", well deception and lying are a big part of that as well.
The giving and receiving of false information is a time-honored tradition in war.
Strangely enough the proponents for lying about your rank have a problem with people who disclose or lie about other players in a fog game.
This is hypocrisy and selective criticism at best, you can lie about your own ability/experience rank but you can't lie about where a player is on the map, how many armies he or she has etc etc.
If you allow the 1 you also have to allow the other.
The fake rankings work best with newbies and inexperienced players thereby creating an extra handicap for those players and they are all ready at a disadvantage to begin with given their lack of experience.
And if after all you still want to keep this system in place, do away with the rankings all together because inaccurate rankings have no value, they don't ad anything to the game other than confusion and frustration.

You're wasting your time bluebird. We'll see advanced card games without passwords before rank hiders are forced to show.

It doesn't fool experienced players, only newbs.