RISK, Game 1

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about RISK, which is a wargame I used to play as a kid. Each player starts with around 20 armies. In the first phase of the game, the players take turns placing an army onto an unoccupied country on a map of the world. In the second phase, these armies are reinforced with the armies that are left over phase 1. In the third and main phase, players take turns attacking from the countries that they own to adjacent enemy territories. There are a few rules which determine how many additional armies a player gains at the start of their turn. The winner is the player who ends up owning every country on the board, so the goal of the game is world domination. Enough people responded to my blog posting that we ended up having a pizza and RISK evening after work, and it was a great success. I narrowly ended up losing to my collegue Shep, and I hope to avenge my loss at the next RISK meeting. For the record, there are a couple of rules that we may modify to improve the game experience. First, the rules only allow one countries armies to be moved at the end of the turn for reinforcement purposes. This seems odd, since multiple countries can be attacked during a turn. So we're considering allow multiple reinforcements at the end of a turn. In addition, we found the number of additional armies gained for forming a set of cards was too great in the later stages of the game, allowing odd scenarios like a player being beaten down to a single country and then suddenly springing back after cashing in a set of cards for 40 additional armies. So we're also considering limiting the number of additional armies per set of cards to 10. Any additional ideas for improving the rules are most welcome!

Comments

[John Biehl]

Re: your recent game of Risk*
Years ago, I designed a rule to correct the continual increase in the number of armies given when a player hands in a Set of Cards. My Rule(invented by me circa 1966)is this;
3 Footsoldiers = 6 armies, 3 Horsemen or 1 of a Kind = 8 armies and 3 Cannon = 10 armies (the number you suggest). I believe you will find this range of armies works very well.
Although I haven't played Risk* for some years now, the above rule has been used in dozens of games and is 'game tested'. It works. Your idea of 10 armies would likely work as well tho it produces somewhat more armies and has no variation (which I believe you should still have). By the way, I call Risk* 'Earth Risk' as I have designed many other maps for playing Risk*. They all use (proportionally)similar ratios for the Sets of Cards as I suggest above. Some of my variant Risk* games are as good as or better than the original. My variant rules for Risk* are the above values for a Set of Cards, my Rampaging Neutral Rule and my Empire Rule. The last two are optional and are my only three alterations to the rules. They allow for a better game of Risk* than the commercial rules (in my humble opinion). Anyway, try my suggestion for the Set Values and see how your group likes them. (I expect you will reply). John

[shep mckee]

Beginners luck?

I'm looking forward to the rematch and agree that we need to modify the rules. Near the end of the game, it really seemed that the luck of the roll determined the eventual winner (versus any remaining strategy, as I no longer had one).

[Fauz]

RISK: Clone Wars, the Star Wars variant, has similar rules in place. Using your cards, you cash in according to the the type of cards used.
Cash in:
3 x Fighter Class (soldier) = 4 armies
3 x Corvette Class (cavalier) = 5 armies
3 x Capital Class (Cannon) = 6 armies
1 of each, = 7 armies.

This keeps that scenario mentioned above from happening.