A couple my wife and I hang out with are into the board game Risk, and although we've never played it we agreed to play over the coming MLK weekend.
Here's the problem - I may have touted my Risk prowess a little too high when I really have no idea what I'm doing. We do own a copy, so we'll sit down and play a game or two to get the rules down, but does anyone have good tips on playing, etc?
I'm not a good loser, so I'd like to crush my foes with decisive authority. PA, I leave it in your hands to make me the next Patton.
If you're a turtle player, Australia has positives, but some huge negatives. It's hard to dominate the board from Australia, but it's also harder to be taken out.
North and South America are my favorites, with Africa coming in third. Look for land that is attackable from the least number of positions.
Just some thoughts.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
I'm going to throw this out here: Sentry is wrong.
The mechanics of Risk traditionally reward aggressive play. Rather than look for choke-points like Indonesia<->Australia, look at the map like a series of phase lines. My ideal phase line has a limited number of territories that I'll hold while also having a lot of different territories on the border held by my opponents hold. The benefit of this is it's easier to consolidate your defense in a limited number of territories, while your opponent has to try and defend more territories with a limited number of armies.
I don't have any advice on the actual gameplay, but be prepared to be up until about 2-3AM depending on when you start, and be aware that at least one person will end up pissed off at you and not talk to you for about a week.
Success in Risk actually depends a lot more on negotiation and deception than on board strategy. You want to be Palpatine, not Napoleon or Alexander. Make treaties, break them, and above all try to keep your opponents from realizing how strong you are.
Can you play risk without the cards? 'Cause a few friends of mine wanna play and my copy in at my parents, which is too far away. I found one from 1975 at a thrift store the other day, but I didn't buy it because it was missing the cards and I can't remember if they're useful or not.
Success depends on luck and cards. You need to try and take at least one territory every turn to get the card. remember that you get to take other players cards when you take them down. You are forced to turn in immediately, if you have more than a certain amount of cards, five I think. You get the troops immidiately. So it might be a viable strategy to go balls to the wall and take someone out, later in the game.
But mostly I would suggest forgeting about risk and getting a real strategy game, like "Settlers of Catan"
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Can you play risk without the cards? 'Cause a few friends of mine wanna play and my copy in at my parents, which is too far away. I found one from 1975 at a thrift store the other day, but I didn't buy it because it was missing the cards and I can't remember if they're useful or not.
I'd rather pay $7 than $40 for another board.
Risk without cards is just playing candyland. the cards are the whole strategy.
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
I'm going to throw this out here: Sentry is wrong.
The mechanics of Risk traditionally reward aggressive play. Rather than look for choke-points like Indonesia<->Australia, look at the map like a series of phase lines. My ideal phase line has a limited number of territories that I'll hold while also having a lot of different territories on the border held by my opponents hold. The benefit of this is it's easier to consolidate your defense in a limited number of territories, while your opponent has to try and defend more territories with a limited number of armies.
very well sir, I accept your challenge. I think I can take you.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Australia is really the best continent to go for, but only in the first couple turns. If you don't have it by the third turn, give up on it. You also need to break up other people's continents without leaving yourself open. For example, the proper way to take and hold South America would be to control all the territories adjacent to it and use them both as buffers and as ways to prevent your opponents from getting armies from Africa or North America. And yeah, be aggressive. If you take someone out you get their cards, so you should be more worried about killing weak players than weakening strong players. Never go after Europe or Asia until the end of the game, they will just frustrate you and get you killed while the smart players accumulate armies by holding Australia and the other easier continents.
Also, I don't like using cumulative card rewards. It makes any good preformance in the early and middle game worth significantly less because any chump with 2 territories at the end can play a set and all the sudden become a world power with 80 armies or some bullshit. Use card but make them worth a static 5 or 10 armies. That way you will still need cards to win but they will not allow somebody who barely hung on to turn around on the last turn and win the game.
My awesome systems admin has Risk II (circa 2000) on the network. I'm going to play that to get some ideas. I suspect I'll be cursing bullshit die rolls for days to come.
Also, if you hate the card routine, play with monopoly money. Make certain provinces worth X amount per turn and make buying units cost a certain set of money. This was my groups favorite way to play.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Success in Risk actually depends a lot more on negotiation and deception than on board strategy. You want to be Palpatine, not Napoleon or Alexander. Make treaties, break them, and above all try to keep your opponents from realizing how strong you are.
This is straight truth right here. The best Risk-players I've ever met all have these sort of personality traits. They would have half the board and still convince other players the little guy contained and barely holding onto South America is the devil. Know the kind of people you're playing with, who you can and can't shit-talk to. With games between acquaintances you have to know how to successfully manipulate the social order the group usually maintains.
As far as some simple board strategies for someone who hasn't played much if at all...
There are more important chokepoints to consolidate than others. Specifically places like the barrier created by Ukraine and Middle East: Hopefully you fully own one of the continents they belong to, and holding the other both allows you to consolidate defenses and to disrupt the other players bonus from holding an entire country.
Whatever continent you've consolidated, there will be one place that you'll need to push as a single chokepoint to again disrupt their bonuses. Ex.: If you own North America, don't stop at Mexico and amass troops, stop at Venezuela and amass troops.
Otherwise, play a bit more defensively than you think you're playing at any given time.
Edit: I see Smurph has mentioned similar, but he recommends being aggressive. My recommendations come from playing the majority of the time without cards.
My awesome systems admin has Risk II (circa 2000) on the network. I'm going to play that to get some ideas. I suspect I'll be cursing bullshit die rolls for days to come.
Yes, yes you will.
If you can't get ahold of a continent within the first turn or so, put some armies on a territory that in a continent that no one cares about, and take over one territory a turn to build up cards. Turning in cards will help you win the game.
KrunkMcGrunk on
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DeadfallI don't think you realize just how rich he is.In fact, I should put on a monocle.Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
I used to be pretty decent at Risk, but it could've just been because my friends were lousy at it.
My strategies as follows:
Never go for Asia early, as it is too big and you will spread yourself hopelessly thin.
North America was always my stronghold, and I always did my best to conquer it first. You can hit Europe, Asia and South America, and it's small enough so that its easily fortified.
And as far as I'm concerned, Australia is a useless trap. It only gets you 2 armies per round and you can only hit Asia (If I remember correctly, I apologize if I'm wrong.) I always let my opponents get it first because they think they have some huge advantage. Maybe I'm wrong, but I never went for it until I at least had two other continents.
I liked aggressive play, especially if you get a territory in an enemy's continent even if they will take it back the next round and here's why - they don't get the army bonus for that round. I loved, loved running guerrilla attacks to take just one single adjecent enemy territory just so they would not get the army bonus.
Can you play risk without the cards? 'Cause a few friends of mine wanna play and my copy in at my parents, which is too far away. I found one from 1975 at a thrift store the other day, but I didn't buy it because it was missing the cards and I can't remember if they're useful or not.
I'd rather pay $7 than $40 for another board.
Risk without cards is just playing candyland. the cards are the whole strategy.
I play defensively trying not to spread myself too thin. I'll echo people here in that Australia is a Death Trap. Sure you may get 2 extra guys, but you're dealing with Asia which is a monster, and the 2 extra guys are peanuts compared to the extra guys you get from turning in cards mid game.
I like to attack till I get to choke pts, and then loading all my soldiers there. This is assuming you're playing with official rules.
Australia is not bad but you have to know what you're doing. Usually if you go for Australia right away the other players are going to be busy squabbling about Africa, Europe, SA and NA, leaving you alone for now. Expand north into Asia, lose as FEW armies as you can while still getting your cards.
As for general gameplay tactics... something that may not be evident to the beginner player is this. Say you have a territory, bordered by an enemy with 1 troop on that territory and next to his 1 army territory there is a large army. You don't want to take that 1 troop country unless you absolutely have to for your strategy. Even if you take his 1 troop, and leave 1 troop there of your own. You have just created a pathway for the enemy to steamroll through you.
And remember. Its not about what you can take. Its about what you can hold.
Nobody will play risk with me anymore because I backstab at the most game crippling times. I mean, isn't that the point of the game...to take all 3 of your continent reward troops from you and let your other enemies crush your unfortified defenses and then quickly turn on your conquerers?
Isn't it?
musanman on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Australia is not bad but you have to know what you're doing. Usually if you go for Australia right away the other players are going to be busy squabbling about Africa, Europe, SA and NA, leaving you alone for now. Expand north into Asia, lose as FEW armies as you can while still getting your cards.
As for general gameplay tactics... something that may not be evident to the beginner player is this. Say you have a territory, bordered by an enemy with 1 troop on that territory and next to his 1 army territory there is a large army. You don't want to take that 1 troop country unless you absolutely have to for your strategy. Even if you take his 1 troop, and leave 1 troop there of your own. You have just created a pathway for the enemy to steamroll through you.
And remember. Its not about what you can take. Its about what you can hold.
The last line is important. Being aggressive in Risk is good. But being overly aggressive leads to being so thin that you just get picked off in penny packets. Have an objective, go for the objective, but understand that getting the objective is only a single battle in the war. I'm sure every risk player has a story like "Well one time my group of six South African armies held off a force of thirty East Africans and at the end, there was one army in each country" which is a prime example of a pissing away good armies after bad.
Also note that if you find yourself in a cold war like situation in which two players have an even edge...it's always better to be the guy who pulls the trigger. The attacker has a small advantage in dice rolls.
Also note that if you find yourself in a cold war like situation in which two players have an even edge...it's always better to be the guy who pulls the trigger. The attacker has a small advantage in dice rolls.
uhhh don't defenders get ties?
musanman on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Also note that if you find yourself in a cold war like situation in which two players have an even edge...it's always better to be the guy who pulls the trigger. The attacker has a small advantage in dice rolls.
uhhh don't defenders get ties?
Defenders get ties, but the attacker gets a third dice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game)#Dice_probabilities has a breakdown of the win probabilities. In a situation in which both sides are rolling their maximum number of dice, the odds of the attacker getting two victories is ~4% higher then a one loss each. If the attacker only rolls two dice, then the defender gets the advantage.
The thing about risk is that it's a rather long game, and played straight, it's almost entirely random.
Most of the game is decided in the beginning, when people place their pieces. People experienced with the game understand good spots and know attack points (see above). People less experienced don't, so typically end up just putting pieces wherever (and then ignoring them).
My criticism of the game is that you could then play by just rolling dice for 3 hours, taking a person out of the game every half-hour to sit by themselves, until there's enough people for them to start their own game that's actually fun while the remaining two people roll dice back & forth for another hour. The only way to make the game interesting is table talk, which in Risk is simply a good way to make a group of friends hate each other by the end of the night.
The major problem is that the cards are a fix for bad game design -- with the cards, whoever goes last gets a huge advantage, and the game would never end without a major influx of troops once players are spread relatively thinly in their interior sections.
I would suggest any number of other games that are much more fun, have more player involvement in between rounds, and don't have player elimination as the major gameplay element. However, if you are bent on playing Risk, I would strongly suggest acquiring Risk 2210, which does a much better job at game balance -- and lets you conquer the moon, too.
Well, you were right about bullshit die rolls/computer BS. I just played a 4-player game against the PC over lunch and went from controlling N & S America, Africa, and Eastern Asia to losing the whole game. I'm on the fence about the cards, they seem okay, but can tilt the entire game for someone who should have lost. Makes it fun I suppose, but that just seems broken.
wtf.
I get the impression I shouldn't drink while playing this, we could lose these friends in a hurry.
John Matrix on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Well, you were right about bullshit die rolls/computer BS. I just played a 4-player game against the PC over lunch and went from controlling N & S America, Africa, and Eastern Asia to losing the whole game. I'm on the fence about the cards, they seem okay, but can tilt the entire game for someone who should have lost. Makes it fun I suppose, but that just seems broken.
wtf.
I get the impression I shouldn't drink while playing this, we could lose these friends in a hurry.
Generally the sober guy will win. There are a couple rules variations for dealing with the cards. You can either do a fixed amount for turn in based on what's on the cards. Or the escalating value, which I believe is the normal rule. The fixed amount makes the game last longer. The escalating value can get pretty insane when the game has gone on long enough. It depends on the group of players. I prefer flat values but my family prefers escalation.
Most of the game is decided in the beginning, when people place their pieces. People experienced with the game understand good spots and know attack points (see above). People less experienced don't, so typically end up just putting pieces wherever (and then ignoring them).
There is a rule option for army placement in which the cards are shuffled and then dealt out. The cards you get are your starting areas.
They key to wining at Risk is to manipulate the people you play with. Everyone has a power hungry megalomaniac inside them and you need to bring that out. When someone leaves the table explain to the rest of the team of how close that person is to winning, and the benefits of destroying them. Make secret alliances and betray your ally as soon as they're weak.
Breaking up continents is a good way to keep other people from getting too powerful. You don't have to conquer the whole thing, just take one country and retreat. It's even better if you can convince someone else to do it for you.
Risk rewards being a dick.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
They key to wining at Risk is to manipulate the people you play with. Everyone has a power hungry megalomaniac inside them and you need to bring that out. When someone leaves the table explain to the rest of the team of how close that person is to winning, and the benefits of destroying them. Make secret alliances and betray your ally as soon as they're weak.
Breaking up continents is a good way to keep other people from getting too powerful. You don't have to conquer the whole thing, just take one country and retreat. It's even better if you can convince someone else to do it for you.
Risk rewards being a dick.
Instead of taking a single territory try taking two or three if they are only defended by lone armies. Then as you retreat, leave a small force deep in their territory. Quite often it can draw off re-enforcements that would be used to counter attack you.
Like other have said, Risk is about manipulation first and foremost. Always get the person that occupies the most territories near you to attack someone else. You can do this by explaining how their natural path has to go through their territory, either because they are pissed at you and want you gone or because they want them gone.
As for actually what to do and where to go. Go for South America first. It is worth the same or 1 more point than australia, but has 2 countries it can go to. If it is possible get into Africa next. If you can get these 2 continents, you can Just take territories for Cards and pull back, making your army strong for a few rounds(noone else will have continents if you can take these 2, maybe australia but that is so damn far away you dont have to worry and you get many more units per turn than they do). Someone may occupy Europe for a bit during this. If this happens explain to whoever has most of their troops in NA or Asia that the Europe threat can much more easily be weakened before their next turn than the SA/Africa strongholds. This works great on the NA player cause NA is a natural progression for Europe during mid game. After occupying South America and Africa for a while, it doesn't matter where you go next.
As you are turtling you pit the other players against eachother. This is easy because you can explain to them that attackign you is futile because you have so many units guarding your borders. They will weaken their own army in which case the person on the other side of them can take them out easily. They will scramble to occupy territory letting you amass a large army. When you can easily take out someone without thinning your troops too much do so, you will gain all of their cards for taking them out of the game.
If you are really good at manipulating other players decisions on the board you will have them saying "God! I know you just trying to get me to do this, but I have to do it anyway."
Side note, if you have iPod Touch or the iPhone, you need to download Lux Touch right now!
saint2e on
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JeanHeartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
I like to go for North America as my first base. It gives 5 bonus armies, and you only have 3 borders to defend ( Alaska, Greenland and Mexico).
Whatever you do, don't go for Europe first. Since it's in the middle of the map, everybody is attacking it, thus it's almost impossible to defend it.
And I agree about downplaying your strenght. My whole diplomatic strategy is basically '' Hey look at me and my tiny armies, im so pitful! You really think I'm a threat? I think you should go after red instead, look how much territories and armies he hold! He'll be very hard to stop if we dont do anything about it soon!'
Jean on
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
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FandyienBut Otto, what about us? Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
I'd like to reiterate the turtling up in australia or south america approach. I've found it's great for letting everyone else kill each other and then swarming out like some sort of australian horde.
Get the rules established, clear as fuck, right at the outset. My friends and I play with each man as 1, each horse as 3, and cannons 10, which I believe to be technically incorrect (horses = 5?) but works splendidly. Also, we scale the escalating trade-in bonuses waaaay down, and the games still go on for crazy lengths of time (especially when we played Risk Melee, wherein my math-nut buddy made up an Excel spreadsheet tying each Risk country to an "equivalent" Smash Bros. Melee stage; you pick six characters and roll to see which one you use each round, then duke it out in the game instead of rolling stupid cheating whoredice).
Be sure to maintain a couple of velcro territories, wherein you each keep a single guy on it to kick around for cards and let your bonuses build up. (So named because their flag changes often enough that they ostensibly get sick of taking it up and down and just use velcro for easier access.) Territories are doled out at random at the outset, as God intended.
Also, do not allow that shit where whoever knocks another player out gets all their cards. That ends the goddamn game 8-9 times out of 10. Just give them an extra card.
Man, you guys are playing some pussy games. Risk isn't a strategy game. I know some real strategy games that real put-hair-on-your-chest games: World in Flames Paths of Glory
These are two games that I think are are the best at being as close to a historical representation of the actual conflict, but remain fun to play. World in Flames take a couple days to play it through, while Paths of glory takes a little less time to play, but you won't find better games out there.
Get the rules established, clear as fuck, right at the outset. My friends and I play with each man as 1, each horse as 3, and cannons 10, which I believe to be technically incorrect (horses = 5?) but works splendidly. Also, we scale the escalating trade-in bonuses waaaay down, and the games still go on for crazy lengths of time (especially when we played Risk Melee, wherein my math-nut buddy made up an Excel spreadsheet tying each Risk country to an "equivalent" Smash Bros. Melee stage; you pick six characters and roll to see which one you use each round, then duke it out in the game instead of rolling stupid cheating whoredice).
Be sure to maintain a couple of velcro territories, wherein you each keep a single guy on it to kick around for cards and let your bonuses build up. (So named because their flag changes often enough that they ostensibly get sick of taking it up and down and just use velcro for easier access.) Territories are doled out at random at the outset, as God intended.
Also, do not allow that shit where whoever knocks another player out gets all their cards. That ends the goddamn game 8-9 times out of 10. Just give them an extra card.
Personally I always play that you take their cards.
Heres a standard rule breakdown of what i usually play.
Start off with random country deal. Roll dice to see who goes first then go clockwise from that person.
Put one guy on each country you own, then each guy takes turns placing 5 men until ~60% of your men are placed, then its just a free for all to place the rest (at this point it should be obvious what everyone's strategy is anyways).
Horses count as 5 soldiers.
When you kill a guy you get their cards. Depending on the rules you decide on, if you get more than 5 cards as a result of this you must cache either now, as in, in the middle of your turn, or you must cache at the beginning of next turn; which would probably be more along the lines of the traditional rules. Personally I like making people wait till their next turn as it means they can't suicide their armies to take a guy out, then just parade around during the same turn.
Also; people who say caching ruins the game... no. It makes the game. If you lose because of the cards, then you aren't using valid strategies. I always keep track of the number of cards my opponents have. I take care to stockpile defensive armies if i think an opponent will cache and try to fuck me over, or I will take some other method to weaken them; such as depriving them of a continent, or i might try weakening another opponent to make a tempting target other than myself.
At the same time if a weak opponent has some cards... maybe its time for his empire to die?
People are definitely right about the psychological and manipulative aspects of the game. My personal strategy however it to attack the motherfuck that tries to manipulate me. Like, I'll agree with them. For example, blue tries to convince me red is bad. "yeah man, red is looking dangerous. look at that. Oh well, fuck you blue you're dead"
Get the rules established, clear as fuck, right at the outset. My friends and I play with each man as 1, each horse as 3, and cannons 10, which I believe to be technically incorrect (horses = 5?) but works splendidly. Also, we scale the escalating trade-in bonuses waaaay down, and the games still go on for crazy lengths of time (especially when we played Risk Melee, wherein my math-nut buddy made up an Excel spreadsheet tying each Risk country to an "equivalent" Smash Bros. Melee stage; you pick six characters and roll to see which one you use each round, then duke it out in the game instead of rolling stupid cheating whoredice).
Be sure to maintain a couple of velcro territories, wherein you each keep a single guy on it to kick around for cards and let your bonuses build up. (So named because their flag changes often enough that they ostensibly get sick of taking it up and down and just use velcro for easier access.) Territories are doled out at random at the outset, as God intended.
Also, do not allow that shit where whoever knocks another player out gets all their cards. That ends the goddamn game 8-9 times out of 10. Just give them an extra card.
Personally I always play that you take their cards.
Heres a standard rule breakdown of what i usually play.
Start off with random country deal. Roll dice to see who goes first then go clockwise from that person.
Put one guy on each country you own, then each guy takes turns placing 5 men until ~60% of your men are placed, then its just a free for all to place the rest (at this point it should be obvious what everyone's strategy is anyways).
Horses count as 5 soldiers.
When you kill a guy you get their cards. Depending on the rules you decide on, if you get more than 5 cards as a result of this you must cache either now, as in, in the middle of your turn, or you must cache at the beginning of next turn; which would probably be more along the lines of the traditional rules. Personally I like making people wait till their next turn as it means they can't suicide their armies to take a guy out, then just parade around during the same turn.
Also; people who say caching ruins the game... no. It makes the game. If you lose because of the cards, then you aren't using valid strategies. I always keep track of the number of cards my opponents have. I take care to stockpile defensive armies if i think an opponent will cache and try to fuck me over, or I will take some other method to weaken them; such as depriving them of a continent, or i might try weakening another opponent to make a tempting target other than myself.
At the same time if a weak opponent has some cards... maybe its time for his empire to die?
People are definitely right about the psychological and manipulative aspects of the game. My personal strategy however it to attack the motherfuck that tries to manipulate me. Like, I'll agree with them. For example, blue tries to convince me red is bad. "yeah man, red is looking dangerous. look at that. Oh well, fuck you blue you're dead"
Rules are in the game manual. There are some "Advanced" ones they suggest after mentioning making up your own. (Like a commanding roll where you can add one to your dice score once per turn, so you can defeat that player that has 1 army and keeps rolling double 6's).
Play by those rules, any home made rules will bring up arguments when people forget the rules and think you are cheating cause your beating their ass with these new rules you all agreed on.
Despite my dislike of Risk, I dislike house rules even more. In RISK, the game is played by:
Each person claiming a territory at the beginning, in a round-robin fashion, until each territory is claimed
Once a person is eliminated, all of their cards go to the winner, who must immediately cash them in if the total number of cards they contain is 6 or more.
Now, of course you can modify it in an attempt to make the game actually fun, but then it's not Risk. Monopoly is almost as bad -- the original game is actually rather quick, with specific rules for how everything is handled. None of this "Free Parking" shit (it's just an empty space, all funds paid out for cards return to the Bank) and none of this "I'll give you free rent so I don't have to sell anything" (no, sell your shit, bitch). Not to mention this often-overlooked aspect of the game:
Whenever you land on an unowned property you may buy that property from the Bank at its printed price. You receive the Title Deed card showing ownership. Place the title deed card face up in front of you. If you do not wish to buy the property, the Bank sells it at through an auction to the highest bidder. The high bidder pays the Bank the amount of the bid in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property.
Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.
Last time I played, I played by the actual rules, and the game took 45 minutes. It's not any better of a game, but at least it's less painful.
DVGNo. 1 Honor StudentNether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
Every Risk game I have ever won has come from successfully convincing others to take actions that most benefited me. However it's hard to do this consistently unless your uncommonly gifted at manipulating people, as they tend to stop listening to you after you've won a few games and they want to see you get yours.
Personally, I always favor Europe for my first continent, even if it has the most vulnerable fronts, it also gives you the most access to push on someone else, and provided you can convince the others that person deserves to die first, you shouldn't get in too much trouble.
Then you shouldn't be playing board games like RISK. Seriously, fix your "sore loser" problem now, or you're not going to enjoy that evening with that other couple, and neither will your spouse or guests.
That said, about rules: there's one thing I've done multiple times that always seemed to me to make for a more fun game (especially against seasoned players who usually know what the good spots are) : at the very start, you deal an equal number of cards to each player (first make sure to remove the wild cards.) Then, players put one army on each of the territories on their cards. After that, players take turns adding one army at a time to whichever territories they own. Feel free to change this to more than one army per turn, as long as you place all those armies on just one territory.
Then you play the rest of the game normally.
As for redeeming your cards, the rules are: At the end of your turn, if you have 5 cards, you have to redeem them for armies at the beginning of your next turn. If, during your turn, you end up with 6 or more cards, you have to redeem your cards immediately. That's how the official rules go.
Anyway, I definitely prefer Monopoly to RISK, when it comes to classic Parker Brothers games.
And Settlers of Catan is better than both of those, way more strategic while remaining simple to play, and a complete game can be played fairly quickly, instead of lasting into the early hours of the morning. I've played games with people who enjoyed it enough that after playing one game that lasted a little over an hour, they wanted to play a second game.
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North and South America are my favorites, with Africa coming in third. Look for land that is attackable from the least number of positions.
Just some thoughts.
The mechanics of Risk traditionally reward aggressive play. Rather than look for choke-points like Indonesia<->Australia, look at the map like a series of phase lines. My ideal phase line has a limited number of territories that I'll hold while also having a lot of different territories on the border held by my opponents hold. The benefit of this is it's easier to consolidate your defense in a limited number of territories, while your opponent has to try and defend more territories with a limited number of armies.
Or maybe my friends just take Risk to seriously.
I'd rather pay $7 than $40 for another board.
But mostly I would suggest forgeting about risk and getting a real strategy game, like "Settlers of Catan"
but they're listening to every word I say
Risk without cards is just playing candyland. the cards are the whole strategy.
but they're listening to every word I say
very well sir, I accept your challenge. I think I can take you.
Australia is really the best continent to go for, but only in the first couple turns. If you don't have it by the third turn, give up on it. You also need to break up other people's continents without leaving yourself open. For example, the proper way to take and hold South America would be to control all the territories adjacent to it and use them both as buffers and as ways to prevent your opponents from getting armies from Africa or North America. And yeah, be aggressive. If you take someone out you get their cards, so you should be more worried about killing weak players than weakening strong players. Never go after Europe or Asia until the end of the game, they will just frustrate you and get you killed while the smart players accumulate armies by holding Australia and the other easier continents.
Also, I don't like using cumulative card rewards. It makes any good preformance in the early and middle game worth significantly less because any chump with 2 territories at the end can play a set and all the sudden become a world power with 80 armies or some bullshit. Use card but make them worth a static 5 or 10 armies. That way you will still need cards to win but they will not allow somebody who barely hung on to turn around on the last turn and win the game.
In about 8 turns I turned the game from "Let's torture my son and your brother-in-law" into "Hahaha you both suck and I'm the ruler of the world."
To this day my father still won't play Risk with me. Axis and Allies either.
The cards play a significant part in this game. But not as significant as luck.
Yes Mister Kamchatka, that three sets of sixes in a row is bullshit.
This is straight truth right here. The best Risk-players I've ever met all have these sort of personality traits. They would have half the board and still convince other players the little guy contained and barely holding onto South America is the devil. Know the kind of people you're playing with, who you can and can't shit-talk to. With games between acquaintances you have to know how to successfully manipulate the social order the group usually maintains.
As far as some simple board strategies for someone who hasn't played much if at all...
There are more important chokepoints to consolidate than others. Specifically places like the barrier created by Ukraine and Middle East: Hopefully you fully own one of the continents they belong to, and holding the other both allows you to consolidate defenses and to disrupt the other players bonus from holding an entire country.
Whatever continent you've consolidated, there will be one place that you'll need to push as a single chokepoint to again disrupt their bonuses. Ex.: If you own North America, don't stop at Mexico and amass troops, stop at Venezuela and amass troops.
Otherwise, play a bit more defensively than you think you're playing at any given time.
Edit: I see Smurph has mentioned similar, but he recommends being aggressive. My recommendations come from playing the majority of the time without cards.
Yes, yes you will.
If you can't get ahold of a continent within the first turn or so, put some armies on a territory that in a continent that no one cares about, and take over one territory a turn to build up cards. Turning in cards will help you win the game.
My strategies as follows:
Never go for Asia early, as it is too big and you will spread yourself hopelessly thin.
North America was always my stronghold, and I always did my best to conquer it first. You can hit Europe, Asia and South America, and it's small enough so that its easily fortified.
And as far as I'm concerned, Australia is a useless trap. It only gets you 2 armies per round and you can only hit Asia (If I remember correctly, I apologize if I'm wrong.) I always let my opponents get it first because they think they have some huge advantage. Maybe I'm wrong, but I never went for it until I at least had two other continents.
I liked aggressive play, especially if you get a territory in an enemy's continent even if they will take it back the next round and here's why - they don't get the army bonus for that round. I loved, loved running guerrilla attacks to take just one single adjecent enemy territory just so they would not get the army bonus.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
fucky. that means no Risk for me.
I like to attack till I get to choke pts, and then loading all my soldiers there. This is assuming you're playing with official rules.
North America is pretty easy to get a hold of and hold on to.
Try to take a territory every turn to get a card. Trade in your cards for more armies. More armies = winning.
As for general gameplay tactics... something that may not be evident to the beginner player is this. Say you have a territory, bordered by an enemy with 1 troop on that territory and next to his 1 army territory there is a large army. You don't want to take that 1 troop country unless you absolutely have to for your strategy. Even if you take his 1 troop, and leave 1 troop there of your own. You have just created a pathway for the enemy to steamroll through you.
And remember. Its not about what you can take. Its about what you can hold.
Isn't it?
The last line is important. Being aggressive in Risk is good. But being overly aggressive leads to being so thin that you just get picked off in penny packets. Have an objective, go for the objective, but understand that getting the objective is only a single battle in the war. I'm sure every risk player has a story like "Well one time my group of six South African armies held off a force of thirty East Africans and at the end, there was one army in each country" which is a prime example of a pissing away good armies after bad.
Also note that if you find yourself in a cold war like situation in which two players have an even edge...it's always better to be the guy who pulls the trigger. The attacker has a small advantage in dice rolls.
uhhh don't defenders get ties?
Defenders get ties, but the attacker gets a third dice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game)#Dice_probabilities has a breakdown of the win probabilities. In a situation in which both sides are rolling their maximum number of dice, the odds of the attacker getting two victories is ~4% higher then a one loss each. If the attacker only rolls two dice, then the defender gets the advantage.
Most of the game is decided in the beginning, when people place their pieces. People experienced with the game understand good spots and know attack points (see above). People less experienced don't, so typically end up just putting pieces wherever (and then ignoring them).
My criticism of the game is that you could then play by just rolling dice for 3 hours, taking a person out of the game every half-hour to sit by themselves, until there's enough people for them to start their own game that's actually fun while the remaining two people roll dice back & forth for another hour. The only way to make the game interesting is table talk, which in Risk is simply a good way to make a group of friends hate each other by the end of the night.
The major problem is that the cards are a fix for bad game design -- with the cards, whoever goes last gets a huge advantage, and the game would never end without a major influx of troops once players are spread relatively thinly in their interior sections.
I would suggest any number of other games that are much more fun, have more player involvement in between rounds, and don't have player elimination as the major gameplay element. However, if you are bent on playing Risk, I would strongly suggest acquiring Risk 2210, which does a much better job at game balance -- and lets you conquer the moon, too.
wtf.
I get the impression I shouldn't drink while playing this, we could lose these friends in a hurry.
Generally the sober guy will win. There are a couple rules variations for dealing with the cards. You can either do a fixed amount for turn in based on what's on the cards. Or the escalating value, which I believe is the normal rule. The fixed amount makes the game last longer. The escalating value can get pretty insane when the game has gone on long enough. It depends on the group of players. I prefer flat values but my family prefers escalation.
There is a rule option for army placement in which the cards are shuffled and then dealt out. The cards you get are your starting areas.
Breaking up continents is a good way to keep other people from getting too powerful. You don't have to conquer the whole thing, just take one country and retreat. It's even better if you can convince someone else to do it for you.
Risk rewards being a dick.
Instead of taking a single territory try taking two or three if they are only defended by lone armies. Then as you retreat, leave a small force deep in their territory. Quite often it can draw off re-enforcements that would be used to counter attack you.
As for actually what to do and where to go. Go for South America first. It is worth the same or 1 more point than australia, but has 2 countries it can go to. If it is possible get into Africa next. If you can get these 2 continents, you can Just take territories for Cards and pull back, making your army strong for a few rounds(noone else will have continents if you can take these 2, maybe australia but that is so damn far away you dont have to worry and you get many more units per turn than they do). Someone may occupy Europe for a bit during this. If this happens explain to whoever has most of their troops in NA or Asia that the Europe threat can much more easily be weakened before their next turn than the SA/Africa strongholds. This works great on the NA player cause NA is a natural progression for Europe during mid game. After occupying South America and Africa for a while, it doesn't matter where you go next.
As you are turtling you pit the other players against eachother. This is easy because you can explain to them that attackign you is futile because you have so many units guarding your borders. They will weaken their own army in which case the person on the other side of them can take them out easily. They will scramble to occupy territory letting you amass a large army. When you can easily take out someone without thinning your troops too much do so, you will gain all of their cards for taking them out of the game.
If you are really good at manipulating other players decisions on the board you will have them saying "God! I know you just trying to get me to do this, but I have to do it anyway."
Whatever you do, don't go for Europe first. Since it's in the middle of the map, everybody is attacking it, thus it's almost impossible to defend it.
And I agree about downplaying your strenght. My whole diplomatic strategy is basically '' Hey look at me and my tiny armies, im so pitful! You really think I'm a threat? I think you should go after red instead, look how much territories and armies he hold! He'll be very hard to stop if we dont do anything about it soon!'
Be sure to maintain a couple of velcro territories, wherein you each keep a single guy on it to kick around for cards and let your bonuses build up. (So named because their flag changes often enough that they ostensibly get sick of taking it up and down and just use velcro for easier access.) Territories are doled out at random at the outset, as God intended.
Also, do not allow that shit where whoever knocks another player out gets all their cards. That ends the goddamn game 8-9 times out of 10. Just give them an extra card.
World in Flames
Paths of Glory
These are two games that I think are are the best at being as close to a historical representation of the actual conflict, but remain fun to play. World in Flames take a couple days to play it through, while Paths of glory takes a little less time to play, but you won't find better games out there.
Personally I always play that you take their cards.
Heres a standard rule breakdown of what i usually play.
Start off with random country deal. Roll dice to see who goes first then go clockwise from that person.
Put one guy on each country you own, then each guy takes turns placing 5 men until ~60% of your men are placed, then its just a free for all to place the rest (at this point it should be obvious what everyone's strategy is anyways).
Horses count as 5 soldiers.
When you kill a guy you get their cards. Depending on the rules you decide on, if you get more than 5 cards as a result of this you must cache either now, as in, in the middle of your turn, or you must cache at the beginning of next turn; which would probably be more along the lines of the traditional rules. Personally I like making people wait till their next turn as it means they can't suicide their armies to take a guy out, then just parade around during the same turn.
Also; people who say caching ruins the game... no. It makes the game. If you lose because of the cards, then you aren't using valid strategies. I always keep track of the number of cards my opponents have. I take care to stockpile defensive armies if i think an opponent will cache and try to fuck me over, or I will take some other method to weaken them; such as depriving them of a continent, or i might try weakening another opponent to make a tempting target other than myself.
At the same time if a weak opponent has some cards... maybe its time for his empire to die?
People are definitely right about the psychological and manipulative aspects of the game. My personal strategy however it to attack the motherfuck that tries to manipulate me. Like, I'll agree with them. For example, blue tries to convince me red is bad. "yeah man, red is looking dangerous. look at that. Oh well, fuck you blue you're dead"
Rules are in the game manual. There are some "Advanced" ones they suggest after mentioning making up your own. (Like a commanding roll where you can add one to your dice score once per turn, so you can defeat that player that has 1 army and keeps rolling double 6's).
Play by those rules, any home made rules will bring up arguments when people forget the rules and think you are cheating cause your beating their ass with these new rules you all agreed on.
Each person claiming a territory at the beginning, in a round-robin fashion, until each territory is claimed
Once a person is eliminated, all of their cards go to the winner, who must immediately cash them in if the total number of cards they contain is 6 or more.
Now, of course you can modify it in an attempt to make the game actually fun, but then it's not Risk. Monopoly is almost as bad -- the original game is actually rather quick, with specific rules for how everything is handled. None of this "Free Parking" shit (it's just an empty space, all funds paid out for cards return to the Bank) and none of this "I'll give you free rent so I don't have to sell anything" (no, sell your shit, bitch). Not to mention this often-overlooked aspect of the game:
Last time I played, I played by the actual rules, and the game took 45 minutes. It's not any better of a game, but at least it's less painful.
Personally, I always favor Europe for my first continent, even if it has the most vulnerable fronts, it also gives you the most access to push on someone else, and provided you can convince the others that person deserves to die first, you shouldn't get in too much trouble.
Then you shouldn't be playing board games like RISK. Seriously, fix your "sore loser" problem now, or you're not going to enjoy that evening with that other couple, and neither will your spouse or guests.
That said, about rules: there's one thing I've done multiple times that always seemed to me to make for a more fun game (especially against seasoned players who usually know what the good spots are) : at the very start, you deal an equal number of cards to each player (first make sure to remove the wild cards.) Then, players put one army on each of the territories on their cards. After that, players take turns adding one army at a time to whichever territories they own. Feel free to change this to more than one army per turn, as long as you place all those armies on just one territory.
Then you play the rest of the game normally.
As for redeeming your cards, the rules are: At the end of your turn, if you have 5 cards, you have to redeem them for armies at the beginning of your next turn. If, during your turn, you end up with 6 or more cards, you have to redeem your cards immediately. That's how the official rules go.
Anyway, I definitely prefer Monopoly to RISK, when it comes to classic Parker Brothers games.
And Settlers of Catan is better than both of those, way more strategic while remaining simple to play, and a complete game can be played fairly quickly, instead of lasting into the early hours of the morning. I've played games with people who enjoyed it enough that after playing one game that lasted a little over an hour, they wanted to play a second game.
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