Due to the fact that I was bored out of my mind yesterday, me and my buddies decided to crack open my old “Risk” game and started playing. I was the first one to be eliminated in the game! I had troop masses of 2-4 armies spread throughout Asia and Europe. I tried conquering and expand my territory but to no avail. I’m wondering what are some of strategies that some of you might have out there… Is Australia and New Guinea key (thats what my friends says)??
I’m not so sure this is a GD thread, but I could be wrong.
Personally, I prefer to consolidate my armies first and attempt to take over a “country” attached to a “choke point.” It is then easier to defend until I can build up my armies and expand my empire.
I’ve seen a lot of people hold on to Australia, convinced it will win them the game, and I’ve never seen it work. You can win from anywhere on the board.
Risk is about seizing the moment to build and unleash armies; the territorial aspect is a bit illusory. It’s a matter of timing the development of your blob to coincide with the opportunity to annihilate enemies, as well as (in a multiplayer game) successfully playing the diplomacy angle.
Hints to keep you going:
-
Get a card every turn. It’s worth giving up a few armies to get a card, even if you’ll likely lose the territory you took to get it.
-
If playing with increasing card redemption totals, hold on to them for as long as you can.
-
When defending, roll as many dice as possible.
-
LEARN THE DICE ODDS. You should know the risk/reward odds of every battle.
-
Fight the diplomatic war, too.
-
He who defends everything defends nothing.
As a form of entertainment, I suspect that Risk® would attract a better class of poster (for the topic) in Cafe Society.
Now THERE’s a game that benefited greatly from computerization.
If you have 2-4 armies in each of your countries, then every single one of your countries is ripe for the picking by anyone who feels like it. You want at least ten armies on a spot, and probably more like 20, to consider that spot defended. This is easiest if you can control a few choke points on the front, so you can leave your rear countries (those which don’t border on anyone else) undefended. And you don’t want to be “spread throughout”: If you keep all your countries close together, not only is it easier to defend, but you have a better chance of holding onto a continent.
Also, it’s useful to border with as few other folks as possible. If you only border with one person, it matters very little how many countries you have which border, since he’ll only have the armies available to attack in one place at a time, anyway. But if you border everyone, then everyone can (if they choose) attack you each turn.
That “if they choose” is also critical. If there are more than two players, you can potentially gain a huge advantage by talking to the other players and making appropriate deals with them. Of course, this isn’t so much a game strategy, as a social skill, so it’s very hard to learn to do it well. But at the very least, you need to recognize the value of diplomacy. There are also some strategic aspects of diplomacy: For instance, if your defenses are good enough, the other players might think it more worthwhile to pick on each other, rather than you. You might also attack a territory you don’t expect to win, to make things easier for someone else to take it. Or, if you find that a particular player has a grudge against you personally, you can try to arrange matters such that he has to go through someone else to get to you.
Finally, a specific strategy I’ve found sometimes works well, if you’re playing with increasing card value: The wandering nomads. Put all of your forces in a single country. Every turn, take the single country which is weakest, of those which surround you, then stay put there. As you turn in cards, that single lump of force will get bigger and bigger, and it’ll be an unappealing target to other players, since they’d lose a lot for little gain in taking it. Finally, when you’re big enough, explode out and take a continent, preferably one which has been weakened by other folks fighting. I find North America best for this in general, with only three entrances, not too many countries to take, and worth 5 armies a turn, but use whatever you have convenient at hand.
It’s all about cards and timing. Play conservative. Make sure you always get a card, but try to avoid getting into huge fights early. Assuming you’re playing with increasing card set values, there’ll come a time when you turn in a set, have two cards left, and a weakish opponent is sitting next to you with 4 cards. Drop all your new armies on his doorstep and take him out. Do your best to leave any remaining army blob on the border with the next likely target. Cash in the set of cards you’re obligated to since you have 6, drop the armies onto your remaining blob on the border, and take out the next guy. And so on. Try to avoid being a juicy target for this sort of strategy yourself.
Ultimately there’s a hell of a lot of luck involved, though.
Personally, I like the nuclear variant where instead of your turn you play a card and that territory loses all its armies. It’s a handy way to blunt the juggernaut.
If you take Australia early you’ll probably last until the end of the game, but it’s hard to win. There’s no place to go from Australia except the long slog through southern Asia. It’s easy to get stalled.
I much prefer South America or Africa as a power base. They’re almost as easy to defend as Australia, but much easier to launch offensive strikes from.
South America, yes… Africa, I don’t know. The border with South America isn’t too bad because usually whoever is sitting there is getting fewer armies than you. But you still have too many border countries to control for the amount of reward. North America has the same number of chokepoints, and gives more armies.
When playing a “turtle” strategy, I always prefer to move my defensive front out a country (so Siam if holding Australia, or Central America/West Africa if holding S. America) to give myself a little breathing room. Plus, it prevents someone from holding those continents.
Europe, N. America, and Asia are really hard to hold early in the game. There are too many access points for each continent and holding any one of them only invites attack to prevent you from getting the extra armies. usually if someone establishes control of one of those continents, the other players will start cutting deals so someone can break the cartel.
Doesn’t Africa have 2 chokepoints, not 3?
That’s odd. In my games, whenever someone takes hold of Australia or South America early, defends there borders adequately, and gets a card every turn, they usually win the game.
Ah yes, you’re right. Although it has a lot more bordering countries than S. America, so it’s still a pain…
You were right the first time. You can go from Brazil to West Africa, Europe to North Africa, and Saudi Arabia to East Africa. The names might not be exactly what’s on the Risk board, but that’s the jist of it.
When I used to play it, Australia was the best bet
- let the rest fight themselves to a standstill and then inexorably march out.
Becoming involved in a land war in Asia is a classic blunder.
Almost as bad as going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
See, that’s what I was thinking at first, but I busted out my Risk board last night, and there are connections from Brazil, Western and Southern Europe to North Africa, and connections from Southern Europe and the Middle East to Egypt. There’s no West Africa (a mistake I made as well; clearly it’s been too long since I’ve played Risk).
But I figure bordering one country each in Africa and North America (as S. America does) is better than bordering four countries, three of which are on the big continents.
The last time I played I won and had gotten Australia on my first turn. The additional two armies a turn over my opponents made a big difference over time.
The trick with Australia is to not get too absorbed with it. If you keep losing control of it, it’s probably not worth the loss of armies (and concentration of armies in a dead-end area) to keep regaining it just for the 2 armies/turn it nets you.