Correction Appended

At 1 a.m. on Oct. 15, Commander A. Xerxes Botkin ’11 sent out ‘an official dispatch’ from the ‘silence in the night.’ “DEFENDERS OF THE GORGES,” the message read, “We have survived the first major onslaught against us by the heathen armies of the incestuous, brother-loving Penn … We must build up our strength so that we can not only defend our land, but take the offensive and expand the borders of Cornell!”

Surprisingly enough, Botkin’s call to arms was not part of the University's Reimagining Cornell initiative. Rather, it was part of the largest Ivy League competition in history, a virtual strategy game on ivy.gocrosscampus.com in which students can “lay the smackdown,” “panse,” and “projectile-vomit” their way to eternal Ivy League glory, according to the website.

With 3,000 members currently enlisted, the contest has tripled in size since its inception in 2007 and is growing by the day. Although Cornell’s commanders only have 309 troops at their disposal — compared to Yale’s 622 and Princeton’s 621 — they are optimistic that they can outsmart the big guns with teamwork and strategy. Since each participant operates autonomously, it is up to the commanders such as Botkin to execute coordinated troop movements on the map, which is a rough map of the Northeastern U.S.

All that is needed to fight is a Cornell e-mail address and a few minutes a day. As the biggest Ivy, “Cornell has the potential to win if we recruit well,” Commander Joe Zwicker '10 said.

Zwicker gave out ‘quarter-cards’ on the Engineering and Arts & Sciences quads to get more students to sign up.

Commander Jason Lustig ’11 ascribed valuable life lessons to the contest, which is somewhat similar in style to the board game Risk. “Building alliances and working with the other schools’ commanders [teaches you] very important negotiation skills,” Lustig said. He also said future merchandisers could benefit from the recruitment aspect of the game — future lawyers from its elements of diplomacy and future CEO’s from its tactics and strategies.

The game is also encouraging rare communication between the Ivies outside the realm of sports. PickTeams.com, which was founded by a groups of Yale students, created the game to facilitate interaction between the Ivy League schools. Lustig said he joined the game because his friend at Brown told him to participate.

“So much of it is social interaction,” Lustig added. “I’m hard pressed to really even call it a game.”

Graduates or transfer students who have retained their old e-mail addresses often act as spies in the game, signing up for whatever school they feel less allegiance to and sending valuable troop information to their former school’s commanders. Although, this can make the game “frustrating,” according to Lustig, it also gives it a different, exciting dimension.

After finishing in second place in 2007, Cornell came in a disappointing 7th last year, betrayed by their allies at the time, University of Pennsylvania. Last year, Penn won the competition after, in the words of Lustig, “stabbing [Cornell] in the back.”

This year, Cornell is determined to “enact revenge” on the Quakers, who are currently allied with Princeton. Cornell has the support of Yale and Brown, at least for now.

But in order to succeed, Cornell will need the support of all “defenders of the gorges,” who can sign up on ivy.gocrosscampus.com any time.

Yesterday’s news article, “C.U. Declares War in Ivy League Game of Risk,”misattributed details of the game gocrosscampus, which should have been attributed to the website ivy.gocrosscampus.com. The article also incorrectly sited the creator of the website, which in fact was started by PickTeams.com. The Sun regrets this error.