I’ve been invited to a game of Risk tonight with some real loudmouth jackasses and I would just love to hand them their pampered asses. Unfortunately, I’ve never even played the game. As I type I’m perusing the official faq. But what are the basic rules and some winning strategies?
Conquer Austrilia and move out from there. South America is pretty good too, if you get a good initial draw and have most of it and some of the buffer zones (Central Am and Western Africa). Make sure you get a card every turn. Don’t be afraid to overextend yourself when attacking. Remember, every territory you take from the other guy denies him armys at the begining of his turn.
Never play with loud-mouth assholes. Even if you win, you lose.
Well I’m not an expert by any means, But I’m a big fan of the very simple “Stronghold Australia” strategy, if at all possible. Since it has only one choke point, Siam, you can guard the whole thing with one decent pile of troops there, and once the whole thing is your you just let the continental bonuses add up turn after turn. South America works okay but has two choke points so it is not as secure, but it is easier to go after North America which is pretty defendable for it’s size as a second stage.
No players worth their salt are going to let you lock up Australia easily though.
Oh, and take Kamchatka. Kamchatka never falls. At least, in the games I have played.
How to win at Risk:
Build up armies steadily.
Avoid early massive confrontation.
Let the others beat each other up, then step in and clean up the pieces. (That’s why Australia is nice – you’re just out of the way, builidng up slow. Then when the US and Russia duke it out, you are in the cat bird seat.)
Get a card every turn.
Be lucky.
Practice here: www.finalconquest.com
I prefer the South American Strategy myself- dump your forces into South America, defend the chokepoints, making occasional forays into Central America and Africa, to get cards, and then when I get enough I send a massive force to take North America. Once you have that, you have two contientes with only three chokeholds.
The Australian Strategy is popular, but risky. One, cause everyone’s heard of it, and two, because by the time you have enough armies to break out, someone may have captured a better continent.
I prefer a South American/African strategy. Lock up one of them as early as possible, fortify, then attack.
Problem with the Australia strategy is that the other players are picking up extra armies while you’re holing up Down Under. I go for what I like to call the Mongol Horde strategy… I take Japan and Kamchatka and work my way westward across Asia.
Hmm, am I the only one who really likes taking N.America? Its got 3 chokes, but I’ve found that time and time again, nobody really contests it. I can just sit there, building up armies while the rest duke it out in Europe/Asia/Australia.
I’ve never in my life managed to hold onto the whole of Asia for more than three turns. I’m deeply impressed by anybody who can manage to keep it.
I second the Australia and South America stratagies. Your biggest problem with either will be that the other players will probably also know them.
Just don’t fall for the most famous classic blunder, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”
Sorry, couldn’t resist
That’s actually a good axiom for Risk, though. Asia’s always a friggin battleground if you get those starry-eyed players who go chasing the billion armies.
Regarding North America: I like to capture and fortify S.A., then push into N.A. when I get the armies, if I don’t decide to pursue an African strategy.
It depends on your initial setup. Suppose you get 3 out of the 4 territories of Australia, go for it. On the other hand, if you get only one, there’s no point. You should put a few armies there to deter whoever wants to take it over, though.
A couple of things to look for. One, count territories. If one player holds 18, say, take one away from him. Two, don’t be an easy prey, like having a few armies but lots of cards.
Sometimes it maybe strategically wise to skip a card every now and then. This holds if the group uses the default rule for adding extra armies with cards.
Don’t be one of the people who gets involved in a massive war at the start. If someone starts piling troops in the deployment bit in one continent, don’t get into a cold war with them, since you’ll both get shafted when the game actually starts.
Don’t get too powerful early on, since everyone will ally to try and take you down.
If you’re going to go to war with someone with whom you are adjacent, attack them first. That way, they’ll spend most of the war trying to grab back their bonus from the territory you initially took, while you keep yours. Alternatively, they’ll try to take some other territory of yours (this isn’t always possible; depends on the continents), in which case you can feast on the soft centre of their nation. Or something like that, at least.
Don’t get annoyed with someone for breaking an alliance with you. There’s no such thing as allied victory in risk, and everyone is trying to win, so there’s usually no such thing as a permanent alliance. I guess this isn’t really applicable when playing with arseholes, though.
Don’t let someone pull a creeping zombie in Asia while you’re distracted. In a lot of games I’ve played, the end of the game has been preceded shortly with comments along the lines of ‘Holy Crap, how did green end up with so much of Asia?’. This is closely related to the Australia Strategy.
Other than that, I’ve got to echo the other advice of don’t play with bastards, never get involved in a land war in Asia, and get a risk card every turn.
~ Isaac
PS I haven’t actually played all that much, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I’ve never liked the Australia gambit too much. You get only a small number of armies for it. It’s hard as heck to get anything else as you bust out since Asia is so spread out. It’s frightfully easy for someone to take Indonesia early on and keep you from getting the armies you desperately need. Plus so may people know it the tend to focus too much on it and allow you to snag premium places elsewhere. By the time they realize what you’re doing you’ve got Mexico, the US and half of South America.
I’d focus my attention on northern South America and southern North America when placing armies. Take N.A. if possible for the 5 armies per turn you get and it’s easy to hold. Don’t stop at Alaska, hold Siberia. Don’t stop at Greenland, take Iceland. If that’s not available go for S.A. Not as nice as N.A. but it gives you a quick line to either N.A. or Africa both of which are not too hard to hold.
Once you got the Americas and Africa then Europe the rest should be easy. Especially if you’ve deprived your opponent from gaining control of Europe or Asia by holding Siberia and Iceland. Actually if you’ve gotten this far your opponent should recognize that they can’t win. You’re getting 13 armies per turn and they’re only getting what they got from Australia. They’re frantically trying to take Siberia but every turn it gets further and further out of reach. Perfect your evil maniacle laugh so that they know they’re in for a crushing defeat.
Plan out your lines of attack on Europe so that you’re able to keep your countries exposed to a minimum. When you get to the Ukraine quote Seinfeld.
Never forget the armies you get for turning in cards which you hold. A lot of people forget this.
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If at all possible, don’t let an opponent start his next turn with an intact continent.
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If you control a continent, don’t finish a turn with one of the outer territories left vulnerable to attack, because your opponents will be following rule 1.
Roll lots of 6’s.
Risk is first and foremost a political game. You want your opponents to think you are 1) not a threat and 2) on their side. The beginning of the game is the most important.
AVOID major conflict early on. Often major battles are fought in N. America and Australia. As a result, I find it best to focus on Africa or Europe. Or S. America, but I have rarely been able to get that without conflict. It is not necessary to take an entire continent early in the game (this somewhat depends on how many people you’re playing with - less people makes it more important) What you want to do is maintain a large enough force that people don’t want to try to control any of the continents you are partially occupying.
Don’t announce your intentions or try to justify your decisions to the other players. I often will just attack one piddly country no one cares about and then say “I’m done.” This helps me to gradually gain armies while NO ONE is attacking me so I am not losing any armies.
Hold out as long as you can to turn in your first set of cards. When you do turn in that first set, you should be able to capture an entire continent. Spill over into the borders of other continents - for example, if you have Africa, take the Middle East. If you have Europe, take the Ukraine and North Africa. (Greenland is usually more difficult and you don’t want to incite too much conflict from the N. America player) This will discourage other players from trying to take your continent.
Once you have a continent, call a truce with your most powerful neighbor (secretly if possible). This will help both of you by freeing up armies on your common borders for other purposes. Don’t trust them TOO much though (keep some defense) and when you are sure you are more powerful than them, try to steal a small continent in one fell swoop.
So how did it go?
How did it go?
Here is an article on Risk strategy:
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030712/mathtrek.asp
I always figure that I need to take at least one territory every time to get a card. They’re too important. I fortify the entry points to my continents heavily, figuring that it is better to fail on a conquest than fail on a defense.
And I try to keep my internal territories covered with what seem to be too many armies. If an opponent succeeds in entering a continent, a thin internal defense allows him to make too many gains and I’m not placed to respond in reconquest since my armies are too far away. OTOH, if my continent is thick with armies, a fallen territory can be attacked from several directions without as much re-deployment of troops, thus letting me respond faster. Plus, I can thin out a territory with a neighboring territory’s armies without depleting the armies of my re-conquesting force.
Also, I attack w/ as many armies as I can and penetrate to leave conquered territories more thickly occupied rather than going for depth of penetration with a thin defense.
Of course, I’ve seen people do well doing exactly the opposite of what I do. So what can I say?