Players
On every territory you control you'll have one player from your country. Since you start with four territories you'll start with four players, and when you win a territory you'll gain another player, while the other player who was on that territory will be discarded.
When you attack someone on an adjacent territory, or you're attacked, I'll sim a cricket match in cricksim between the two players in the battle.
The playing XI's in circksim will go as follows:
1. Player
2. Player
3. Player
4. Player
5. Player
6. Player
7. Random
8. Random
9. Random
10. Random
11. Keeper
Player - Since you need six bowlers in cricksim, your playing XI will consist of six of the player whose army it is
Random - A random player with 0 batting/99 bowling, he can still score some crucial runs
Keeper - A random keeper with 0 batting, again he can still score some crucial runs
I'd like to add I'm trying to keep it as basic as possible for the first game. If we get beyond the first game, I'll allow more different players on each territory, so you'll have more proper players in your playing XI.
Since the players will make up the top six of your batting, and be your six bowlers, it's highly recommended that you pick all-rounders.
For example Jacques Kallis (South Africa) and Shane Watson (Australia) will more than likely be perfect players, as they are top order batsmen who are also useful bowlers.
Pure batsmen and pure bowlers are unlikely to have have much success, while keepers will be beyond useless as they can't bowl
Part-time bowlers (e.g. Sachin Tendulkar) could prove to be useful, as well as bowling all-rounders (e.g. Darren Sammy), but it's down to you to experiment and see what players have the greatest effect.
Any player who has played some form of competitive cricket in the later half of 2010 (Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec) or 2011 according to cricinfo is eligible, but players who no longer play international cricket will have their averages reduced.
Last of all the averages will be based on 50 over cricket.
Tactics
To win the game I'm going to say you need to control over one third of the map, so that's over 14 territories (hence 15), therefore you're going to need over 10 players.
Firstly I'd look to get together a list of about 10 - 15 names who you think will have the greatest impact. (Mainly all-rounders, but you could mix it up a bit)
Next I'd start thinking about what four players you want to start with. In terms of tactics you probably want to keep one/two of your best players in reserve for later on, because you need to control 15 territories to win, so you want to have a couple of big guns up your sleeve.
As this is the first game I don't really know what tactics will pan out to be the best, so feel free to experiment as much as you want.
Do not name your four starting players ATM, you'll do it through PM when you've got your four territories.
Also if you want to comment please do now, as I can still make changes while the draft/territory selection is in progress.
