I have been playing Risk for a long time, but I am fairly new here. I notice that many players with high ranks have played a large percentage of their games one-on-one. To me, you are not really playing Risk at all without a minimum of 4 players. Luck and starting position rather than strategy become much too big a factor. Play one-on-one if you wish, but I would like to see no ratings assigned and no ranks earned for any games played with less than 4 players. It would be a fascinating exercise to see how the rankings would change if games with 3 or fewer players were eliminated from the ratings. There is much (way too much) opportunity to manipulate the rankings and points by playing one-on-one games. I see players with winning percentages that are astoundingly high and simply not possible for "normal" risk games (4 players or more). Check it out - many high ranking players have played a large number of one-on-ones to inflate their rank. I don't believe the high ranking players are better game players than most -- they are using the system to inflate their ego and their scores.
Concise description:
Have all games with less than 4 players NOT count for any points or rankings.
This will improve the following aspects of the site:
Better and more fair rankings and more accurate representation of players real skill. Risk is a multi-player game. Always has been.