A brief guide to my some strategies, and my thoughts on their usefulness. Some House rules that we play by. And some of alternative rules.
A selection of popular strategies. Some are included in the list of known moves.
The following rules have been played and found to be good:
As everyone knows, the one thing that stops RISK being a game to equal CHESS, is the dice throwing: indeed, "A player with a great strategy can be beaten by a five-year old with lucky dice.". An effective way to reduce, though not destroy the element of luck is as follows:
Whenever an attack is about to take place, a ratio can be applied to the number of forces involved in the battle. E.g.:
| ATTACKER | DEFENDER | RATIO | DICE RATIO |
| 13Bn | 4Bn | 13:4 | 3:1 |
| 10Bn | 5Bn | 10:5 | 2:1 |
| 28Bn | 21Bn | 28:21 | 3:2 |
| 12Bn | 13Bn | 12:13 | 1:1 |
| 7Bn | 25Bn | 7:25 | 1:3 |
Et Cetera...
As you can see, the main difference is that you
have a potential situation where someone could defend
with three blue dice. This seems to be fairer than normal.
Though I accept that the element of surprise is a factor,
is it really realistic that someone attacking 40 Battalions with only 3 Battalions
should really have the
advantage of three dice to two, and since we have removed
the attackers advantage, we also remove the defender's
advantage, a draw is a draw, One battalion is removed
from each side.
As ever there is a maximum of three dice involved on one side, and all fractions are rounded down. It looks mathematical, but if you think about it, how often have you looked at the board and said to yourself, I outnumber him three to one; two to one etc. It soon becomes automatic. As the battle progresses, the ratios will change, and so will the number of dice used, as in normal dice play.
Erik asks 'Why is control of Australia worth the same number of armies as control of South America? Even more ludicrous, why is Europe only worth an much as North America when it is so much more difficult to control? If you have ever asked these questions, here is an alternate rule that I have been using for years with enthusiastic agreement from everyone with whom I've ever played.'
The assumption is that the armies awarded for control of a continent should be based upon how difficult the continent is to take (measured by number of territories [T]) and how difficult it is to defend (measured by number of bordering territories [B]). I use the simple calculation (T+B)/2.5 (round up) to get the new value. Note that only Africa, Europe and South America change, increasing by one each. It seems like a small change but I have found it evens out play enormously.
| Original Value | Continent | Territories | Bordering Territories | New Value |
| 5 | N America | 9 | 3 | 5 |
| 2 | S America | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| 5 | Europe | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| 3 | Africa | 6 | 4 | 4 |
| 7 | Asia | 12 | 5 | 7 |
| 2 | Australia | 4 | 1 | 2 |
Additional Links
Additional
Country Links (R.D.O'Neill-Jones)
We like to play risk with additional linkages from Peru to Eastern
Australia, and Western Australia to Madagascar. It has opened the board up
considerably and makes for a much less constrictive game. In the interest
of fairness the number of armies given for holding Australia and S. America
have been increased by 1 each. On the downside, there seems to be an
alliance between the two continents every time we play. But we could never
go back to playing the old links now.
We have also toyed with the idea of adding an extra continent; Antartica,
for which you don't receive risk cards but do get reinforcements for
holding it, but we haven't worked out the finer details yet.
'Hey, I don't mind homosexuality, but its just wrong.'
Not all Yorkshiremen are of closed mind, some enjoy playing risk with a twist. Here are a few examples for you to try.
One territory per continent is removed from the risk cards:
The cards are shuffled and picked by the players, which ever territory they get is their capital, this must be defended at all costs. Depending upon the capital, each player gets whatever number of troops they would get for the continent to start with, which must go in that capital city, e.g. The Australian player starts his turn with 2 battalions in Eastern Australia, the Asian player with 7 in Japan, The European with 5 in Great Britain etc.
The Japanese player is always the General (i.e. he goes last) The player to his left starts and moves as normal.
Reinforcements are calculated at 1/3 but the minimum is 1, not 3. i.e. if you have 8 territories, you get 2 battalions, if you have 5, then you only get 1. The rest of the play is as normal.
The rule is that you may move into a conquered territory only as many Armies as you attacked with... this prevents that 25 army match from giving someone Asia in a single round. It also makes the game play a little slower and much more strategic... We also played with the house rule of maxing the matches out at fifteen Armies. It makes for long games.... which means more risk playing for you proverbial dollar... Now when I mean long I mean ya better start before dinner if you want to finish by midnight (with the max players anyway)
Essentially, Risk with *2* boards. Ideally the boards are of different types to avoid arguments / cheating.
Both boards are placed side by side, the link being from Kamchatka on one board to Alaska on the other, and from Alaska to Kamchatka. Players are dealt double the amount of armies that they would normally receive.
As in the normal game, if the player takes a country, he takes a card. However, in Virtual World Risk, if the player takes a country on each 'world' he would get 2 cards. Therefore, each player have two sets of cards.
However, although the armies gained from cards can be placed anywhere on each of the boards, only cards from the same pack can be combined to produce a set. You can't swap cards between boards.
Armies per turn are calculated in the normal manner.
A player who removes another player from a board gets all the cards associated with that board belonging to the eliminated player.
If a player holds the same country on both boards, armies can be moved between boards in the normal manner.
Alter game play completely by allowing marine landings.
Click on this link to download the Word document detailing rules and new cards for one variation of naval risk.
There are three Oceans on the risk board: The Indian Ocean, The Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Along the side of the risk board are lines of latitude and longitude. If a player holds tow territories that are linked by lines of latitude or longitude, e.g. South Africa & Argentina, Western Europe & Central America, Japan & Western United States, East Africa & Indonesia, New Guinea and Kamchatka they may use these sea routes to maneuver troops from one territory to another.
However, the maneuvering troops must spend at least one turn at sea, where they sit on the line of latitude or longitude (i.e. the sea route is seen as a territory). Whilst there they can not be attacked by an opposing army, however if one of the harbour territories is taken the troops at sea must maneuver to the remaining territory when it is there turn to maneuver. If they fail to do this, they are lost at sea. Similarly, if both harbour territories are taken whilst troops are at sea, then they are also lost.
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Last Updated: 05 Dec 2001