College football, played as RiskFBS FCS D-II D-III Carousel

The Carousel Imperialism Map

3,142 counties9 empires190 battles10 raidsFinal · Jan 12

Surveying the counties…

The FBS map without the preseason reset. Since 2014 every season opens with the borders the last one ended with, and land stays with the program when its coach leaves. The one reset is tied to coaching: a program that opens a season landless gets its home counties back if it hired a new head coach. How the reset works › Replay 2014 to today › This is the 2014 season, played to its final whistle.

Final conquests

Bowls 1

North Dakota State def. Sam Houston35–3 · Dec 19raid+17 counties
Arizona State def. Duke36–31 · Dec 27+74 counties
Oregon def. Florida State59–20 · Jan 1+406 counties
Ohio State def. Alabama42–35 · Jan 1+728 counties
Oklahoma State def. Washington30–22 · Jan 2upset+348 counties
North Dakota State def. Illinois State29–27 · Jan 10raid+63 counties
Ohio State def. Oregon42–20 · Jan 12+411 counties

Standings

The Empires

9 landholders · final

1Ohio State1,985,865 mi² · 1,703 co
2Oklahoma State702,965 mi² · 348 co
3TCU541,120 mi² · 618 co
4Air Force188,236 mi² · 133 co
5North Dakota StateFCS50,713 mi² · 80 co
6Memphis46,267 mi² · 70 co
7Arizona State36,361 mi² · 74 co
8Clemson32,450 mi² · 74 co
9Western Kentucky21,484 mi² · 42 co

2015 season ›All-time records ›

How the carousel resets

Borders carry over. New coaches can start fresh.

No preseason reset

The carousel begins here: 2014 opens with the FBS map's nearest-stadium borders. From 2015 on, nothing is redrawn before kickoff.

Land stays with the program

When a head coach leaves, retires or is fired, his successor inherits whatever the program holds, big empire or nothing. A mid-season firing moves nothing either: the interim takes over the same land.

III

The coaching reset

A program that opens a season with no land gets its home counties back if it hired a new head coach, or if it just moved up to FBS. Those counties are taken from whoever held them. A landless program that keeps its coach stays landless until it wins its way back.

During the season the rules are the FBS map's: win and take everything the loser holds. Compare the 2014 FBS map › Replay every season from 2014 ›

Articles of war

How the war works

The seeding

Before a down is played, every county in the fifty states is dealt to the FBS program with the nearest stadium, measured as the crow flies from the county's geographic center. Nobody starts landless in the FBS; nobody outside it starts with anything.

The conquest

When a game goes final, the winner takes everything the loser holds at that moment: home soil and every prior conquest alike. Games are replayed in kickoff order, so an empire can rise and fall inside a single Saturday.

III

The raid

A team with no land has nothing to lose, but it can beat any landholder and take the lot. That is how FCS, Division II and Division III programs raid their way onto the map, and land taken downward can stay there all season.

On the carousel map, land carries over from season to season since 2014 and stays with the program when a coach leaves; a program that opens a season landless gets its home counties back if it hired a new head coach. Ties, unfinished games and games without a score are ignored. Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands) are off the map. Neutral-site games overseas do not yet award foreign soil. A week appears in the timeline once its first game goes final. The current map is refreshed automatically every morning during the season. The 2014 campaign is complete. Stadium coordinates, colors and logos are today's; conference and division come from each season's own results. The full rules and methodology have the details.