Ever hear of this version of Risk?

Cafe Society
1

I’m a big fan of board games. I used to be babysat by a young woman who brought a new board game every time she babysat me. So even with such distractions as video games, movies and such, I really enjoy sitting down with some friends on a Friday night to a board game where I can really match wits and use my brain.

Back in 2001, Avalon Hill came out with a revamped version of risk called Risk 2210 A.D. I had seen this in game shops and was continually tempted to buy it. I saw it last month, and even though it was Christmas yet, thought to myself, “Okay, I really want to see if this is at least as good as the Original Risk” but the game was a whopping 39.99! So I decided to wait.

Well, patience paid off. AFter Christmas, my best friend found it on clearance for 50% off and bought it. The game is AWESOME. IF you liked Risk, this is a great step up. It has all the addictive properties of Risk, plus plenty of stuff that really streamlines the game.

In addition to land territories (they’re broken up in the same way they are in Risk, though it being the future they all have cool modern names and some geography has, ahem, shifted a bit). They also have underwater colonies you can fight over, and even the MOON is a battleground! The game takes place over 5 years, (after everyone’s turn one year passes) so its not a huge time-waster; a game can be played fully in 90 minutes to two hours, the same amount of time spent watching a movie. There are also command cards that can give you armies or fudge up your opponent’s plans, and whats more they give you BLANK cards so you can make your own!

MY favorite part of the new ruleset is turn order. Everyone earns ‘energy’ tokens that they can spend towards command cards and abilities. But they also have another use- During the beginning of each year, all players ‘bid’ energy tokens to see what order they go in. The person who bid the most goes first. So sometimes its worthwhile to save your energy tokens to ensure you get to go first. This can cause some unusual situations- a person who went last in Year 1 but goes first in Year 2 essentially gets two consecutive turns :confused: Or, if a person went first in year 1, but winds up going last in year two, they are having to defend against all the opponent’s invasions twice over. Of course, it all depends on how badly you want to go first. The more territories, continents, and colonies you control, the more armies and power tokens you get each turn. However, the benefits of controlling a whole continent don’t happen until the beginning of your next turn, so often a player will control the whole continent, but have 1 or 2 territories lost before they can benefit on their next turn!

Avalon HIll also came out with a revamped version of Stratego, another game my friend and I really enjoy. I’m really looking forward to checking that out.

2

Hmm…sound a lot like this game was designed in the Oval Office recently.

As a fan of Risk, but not having played it in…a long time…I appreciate the speeded up verision, as I remember games going on endlessly. But as a purist, I think I would have to try the new version to see if it ruined the strategy aspect of the original.

We used to make our own version…we would form open alliances and work as teams to slam the others, then the last battle would be working with the defeated armies by giving the losers one country and a buttload of armies to help in the final battle. Of course, those were in the days we smoked a lot of pot.

3

I saw a Middle Earth version of Risk in the shop yesterday. Sounds fun :)q

4

I saw it. I may have to purchase it. I LOVE playing Risk, but anyone who’s played it more than once knows that we may as well block out the evening, cause nothing else is getting done. So it’s hard to find people to play with.

5

I got Lord of the Rings risk for Christmas last year, and it’s really cool. The version I got only includes territories from Fellowship and Two Towers, though, so no Mordor or Gondor. The expansion pack came out this fall, but I can’t find one for sale anywhere! It’s sold out all over the net and at every toy and game store I’ve been to. Aargh!

6

I’ve been playing Risk for around 15 years now.

I’ve played both the Risk 2210 game, and the LOTR Trilogy edition Risk. Both are a great deal of fun.

We have a few house rules, and I’m curious if others have them as well…

Our rule makes the game quite a bit more strategic… you can launch an assualt from one territory to the other, and from that one seized territory you can go to any (or all) connecting territorys, but after that, you’re done with that army.

Makes games a lot longer, and a lot more involved.

Normal risk turns into “who can turn in and sweep the board clean” far to often for our taste.

Anyone else have rules?

7

We played a variant where we dealt the country cards to the players and THOSE were your starting countries. IME, that makes the early game (which is usually gather armies, claim a continent, and fortify) have a lot more action.

8

Hmm…you don’t by chance happen to work for Avalon Hill, poetgrrl? :wink:

But seriously, I agree with you - Risk 2210 A.D. is pretty addictive. Since it only last five “years,” I find it’s actually more strategic than original Risk. Not peaking too early and spending your energy wisely (as most games are won by the player who can bid to play last in year 5) are two elements you really have to pay attention to. And knowing when to play your cards - there’s nothing quite as frustrating as saving your cease-fire card (which prevents your opponents from attacking you) until the last year, only to be “frequency jammed” (a card that prevents the targeted player from using his/her cards) and see your plans for world domination go down the toilet.

Plus, I like the aesthetics of the diplomat commander, concealing his little gun behind his back.

9

I recently played a game of risk with 8 people and two game boards. Each board played just like normal; Alaska connects to Asia, etc. However, we had “portals” between the boards on Iceland and the Congo. We pretty much choose those two at random, and it probably could’ve worked out better with some different portals. It was still pretty fun, though. Both boards were pretty chaotic at the beginning, then two players came to dominate each board. It ended up being like a war between the worlds with one world launching a massive assault through the portals.

10

I played the Middle Earth version of Risk a week ago, and it was cool. The movement of the fellowship through the game acts as a clock, so the game can be finished in two hours. Also, the board is better designed; there’s no Australia-type region to fight over. And the addition of Leaders and Fortifications to add bonuses to die rolls is a cool one. However, I didn’t like the way it ended. There’s a die roll on some spots to determine if the timeline advances, so you never know for certain when the game will end. However, once it gets pretty close, all strategy goes out the window, as the only goal is to get as many territories as possible. Everyone spreads their armies as thin as possible, even attacking, say, 3 into 5, because there’s nothing to save them for.

Next time we play, we’ll have to think of a better way to determine the actual end. I like the bidding idea.

11

Middle Earth risk isn’t as good as the original, or 2210 AD. I like the original as sort of comfort food, but occiaisionally play a few games of 2210 AD.

As for Risk playing all evening: I play with experienced Riskers, so games generally don’t take eons.

12

That’s the way my family always played it. My mother was always lucky enough to get most of Australia and then use it to conquer us all.

13

I usually focused my all forces on any country I landed on on the easiest continents (South America is a favorite of mine) to hold, took that over, then fortified while everyone else was fighting amongst themselves.

14

I love Risk, but I hate playing it with new people.

Why?

Because everyone loses the rules and no one can ever agree on how to play the game.

Do you keep the cards you draw or do they go to the person who owns that country? Can you only fortify once or can you do it as much as you want? Can you only move an army one space when fortifying or can you move them anywhere?

These are the fights I’ve gotten into while playing Risk.

Havn’t played any variants yet.

15

Where the fuck were you guys when my comparative Risk Analysis thread sank like a stone a couple of months ago?

Damn, the curse of being such a hip trend-setter…

BTW, gotta go with the nuke commander!

16

I played Risk, then I found out about Axis & Allies :smiley:

17

And I played Axis and Allies, and then found out about Risk 2210. I wish the A&A board was twice as big.

[sub]Hey, we’re both in SK…fancy a game, sometime?[/sub]

18

I bought Risk 2210 for my brother but haven’t played it yet; we both grew up playing the basic game endlessly with our friends. My favorite home grown variant used Nuclear War/Escalation (the old Flying Buffalo game) to allow players to develop nuclear capability. It took some tweaking to get the play balance right (the first few games ended as you can guess), but it was great fun. I will have to dragoon my brother into dragging out 2210 some day soon!

19

I played Risk, then I found Settlers of Catan,

but seriously, even for a dedicated Eurogamer who may never again play the original Risk, LOTR Risk and 2210 are pretty good, with 2210 bordering REALLY good. I’m surpised it didn’t do better than it did.

20

Axis and Allies rules. Some friends and I deciced to try the computer version, but the network code is very poorly written - someone’s computer crashed and everyone else in the game hung waiting for that player’s turn to finish. We had to Ctrl-Alt-Del and start over. Hotseat worked ok, but you couldn’t see the whole map at once.