Risk: The Game of Global Domination

[Nomadofthehills]

Who plays?

Is this a game INTJs are inherently good at? Whenever I play against my friends, I find them so easy to manipulate! You would think they would learn not to trust me, but they don't...

Easily my favorite board game. Now, lets keep this about Risk, I don't care about Axis and Allies, settlers, etc.

Strategies besides Australia? Tips? Epic wins? Epic losses?

[thod]

Its a flawed game.

The problem is that attacking an opponent weakens both of you. This leaves a third party able to come in and mop up after you have destroyed each other. The result is that all parties sit building up armies hoping that the others will engage.

Try placing all your armies on one square. It rapidly becomes so large that nobody could attack it even if they wanted. Others wonder what you are doing. But once it is large and they are are weakened you can move it to take two continents and still fortify the border squares to prevent recapture. Then you just build armies again. Since you have the continents bonus you can fortify your borders faster than they can weaken them.

[Rudy]

As said in the motivational poster section:

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Far from my favorite game, but I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of crushing people. I favor the Americas, in addition to Australia.

[dragonsscout]

Risk is fun, but as thod said, it's quite flawed, mostly for the reasons he mentioned, but also because of the card system in longer games. I dislike at least part of it because of my less than stellar luck with dice (or my family's more than stellar luck). Really, were you go depends on where you start off. I dislike Australia because it is a bit too enclosed and hard to burst out of sometimes. The Americas can be good if people give them up easily enough.

I've had quite a few wins, but only one epic one. I was getting tired of playing and thought I was going to lose, so I just attacked with everything. The dice favored me for once, and I ended up winning a turn later.

As far as epic loses go, I once attacked my sister during the only family game we've played. I had Africa, Europe, and most of Asia, while my mom had N America and my dad, S America. My sister had Australia, and had one army on each space except the first, where she had two. I, meanwhile, had about thirty armies on Siam. I attacked my sister, had about a 1:20 ration for my armies destroyed to hers. My mom had China, so my plan was to sweep through Australia, move back to Siam, then sweep up through E Asia and get into the Americas through Alaska. Unfortunately after losing twenty armies to my sister's one, I was weak enough that my mom was able to break through (more dice hate) in Siam and take a bunch of my territories.

The next turn, I basically lost Asia and Europe, and was wiped out two turns later through an all out assault by the rest of my family. This benefited my mom, since she had N America and Europe by the end of it, while my sister still had only Australia and my dad had only S America. Africa and Asia were divided up. My sister and dad had exhausted their armies destroying me, so my mom just mopped up afterward.

[Ender]

I used to play Risk, but there's far too much luck involved for me to really get into it. Now if someone were to manage the vast undertaking of making a game like Risk, except with real strategies (ie: actually designing a system with real military strategies, how they work, how one would work against another, etc.). That would be something worth playing and it'd be one hell of a game.

[Freedom Geek]

Risk isn't that great. Far better wargames exist.

[TheLastMohican]

I play it when I can, but I've only been able to about a dozen times. I picked it up pretty easily, though, and it seems to work nicely for the Ni-Te combo.

I've only won once, but that one was a pretty epic victory. ;D

[Ben12]

Stratego is much better. All strategy, no luck involved.

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[Nomadofthehills]

I'm not saying it is perfect, but it is quite fun.

[blueback]

there's far too much luck involved for me to really get into it. Now if someone were to manage the vast undertaking of making a game like Risk, except with real strategies (ie: actually designing a system with real military strategies, how they work, how one would work against another,

Risk is a very high-level version of real warfare. It simulates fog and friction with die rolls, because no matter how far into the weeds you get you will still be basing your success on a certain amount of luck. It is impossible to fully separate the skill and willpower of a general or his armies from blind, random chance. So, risk just skips all the complicated exceptions which take forever to memorize and learn the strategy of and just lumps it all together into one random event. Thus making it accessible to everyone.

[Krazy P]

I liked Risk. Chess and Go are good. Years ago there was a magazine called "Strategy and Tactics" - every 2 months a new game would come on a different scenario.

I remember the one called "Oil War". When all the stuff started with Iraq and Afghan, I laughed - I knew all the names of the cities, the supply routes, etc. Very funny.

My favorite battle is Borodino. Lots of fun.

There was also a huge game called Civilization (not the one being sold now, this was back in the 70s).

Learning to play Go and Chess well is a good insight into the differences between the Western and Eastern minds. Worth learning just for that!

By the by, in high school I could kick Bill Gates ass in Go and Chess (and Bridge); he could kick my ass in just about everything else, however!

[Ender]

Risk is a very high-level version of real warfare. It simulates fog and friction with die rolls, because no matter how far into the weeds you get you will still be basing your success on a certain amount of luck. It is impossible to fully separate the skill and willpower of a general or his armies from blind, random chance. So, risk just skips all the complicated exceptions which take forever to memorize and learn the strategy of and just lumps it all together into one random event. Thus making it accessible to everyone.
I'm no expert on warfare, but I think this is a vast overstatement. If all warfare came down to was random chance then there wouldn't be any point in training someone to be a general; you could just use anyone.

Now, I cannot deny that in real life there is some random chance involved, but strategy itself is also very important.

Overall it just sounds like you're agreeing that there's no real strategy and then saying there's no point in trying to implement such a thing. In fact, I'm not sure whether you're claiming a strategy-based version would be unrealistic or impossible.

[metaserve]

Monopoly and Chess are two of my favorites. I haven't played too many strategy board games.

[Kisai]

Risk is dull as dishwater. It suffers from the same problems as Monopoly where after a certain point (all the properties are bought for Monopoly and everyone's turtled into their borders for Risk) nothing can be done until players decide to trade properties/beat up on another player. Unless everyone is playing anonymously, you're chances of success are dependant on how well you get along with the other players in real life.

I prefer Twilight Imperium.

[Dave C C]

I stopped playing Risk when Axis and Allies came out, a more complicated Risk.

[Valiyn]

Every experience I have with RISK is the defense Dice are loaded. They were quickly banned from any tabletop RPGs.

[Monte314]

I spent hundreds of hours playing Risk in college. Some games went on for days. We began to invent variations, laid multiple game boards end-to-end, etc. It was great.

[childofprodigy]

Sid Meier's Civilization 4 > Risk

[Rudy]

Sid Meier's Civilization 3 > Sid Meier's Civilization 4

[Kisai]

That reminds me of a funny story.

I used to play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I could mop up the CPU on moderate levels, but didn't have the min/max skills to beat the CPU on Transcendent.

I'm playing as the Gaians on Transcendent (six players, large random map). The Spartans find me first and extort tech out of me, but for some reason, they think I'm okay, as long as I keep giving them free tech.

When the map is fully revealed, the Spartans are ranked #1 in power, they are at all out war with #2 and #3, I'm #4, and #5 & #6 are unallied.

"Hmmm...", thinks I, "I can take over #5 & #6 whilst #1, #2, & #3 fight. There's enough turns left so that I can become a serious contender after all the smoke clears. This game is winnable!"

Then my desktop makes a funny whirring noise. Smoke starts coming out of the vents. The computer dies. Turns out the motherboard caught on fire at that moment.

[Rudy]

The computer really doesn't watch you winning on Transcendent, I guess =D