Risk (the board game)

I've never seen the same group of people play Risk the same way. In particular, there rules seem to vary the most:

1. To allocate countries at the beginning of the game, do you pick them or deal out cards?
2. Is the max set value for 3 cards capped?
3. If you take over another player, and his cards allow you to turn in a set, can you turn it in immediately, or do you have to wait until your next turn? Does it make any difference if you now have five or more cards?
4. Are you allowed to make peace treaties?
5. Are you allowed to break peace treaties?
6. Did you get extra armies your first turn?
7. Could you trade cards?
8. If somebody forgot to take their card, and asked for it after passing, would he still get the card?
9. Any other rule changes from the standard rules?

Here are the Seal Beach, California, answers to these questions:

1. Deal out cards.
2. Capped at 50.
3. Yes, but only if you have 5 or more cards.
4. Yes. We tried to forbid it for a while, but players would hint at treaties, like "It must be cold in Alaska and Kamchatka" to suggest a treaty there. So after a lot of fighting, we went back to openly allowing treaties.
5. Yes, but it was seldom done. A peace treaty breaker would take months, or years, to earn his trust back. I can say with 100% confidence that I have played Risk hundreds of times and have NEVER broken a peace treaty.
6. No.
7. No.
8. Only by unanimous approval of the other players. This was usually given.
9. We toyed with a nuclear bomb rule for a while, but abandoned it. I don't remember how it worked.

So, how did you play Risk?

Mike, have you not played Axis & Allies?

Quote: Wizard

I've never seen the same group of people play Risk the same way. In particular, there rules seem to vary the most:

1. To allocate countries at the beginning of the game, do you pick them or deal out cards?
2. Is the max set value for 3 cards capped?
3. If you take over another player, and his cards allow you to turn in a set, can you turn it in immediately, or do you have to wait until your next turn? Does it make any difference if you now have five or more cards?
4. Are you allowed to make peace treaties?
5. Are you allowed to break peace treaties?
6. Did you get extra armies your first turn?
7. Could you trade cards?
8. If somebody forgot to take their card, and asked for it after passing, would he still get the card?
9. Any other rule changes from the standard rules?



So, how did you play Risk?

Here are the Mankato, MN answers to your questions:

1. Pick, consolidating power speeds up the game
2. No cap
3. Yes you *may* turn in immediately. If over 5 cards, you *must* turn in immediately
4. Yes
5. yes, but it rarely happened before forced (last people standing, etc.)
6. yes
7. no
8. no
9. We toiled with adding extra water passages, but none stuck (Eastern Australia <-> Argentina was the best we tried). We also toiled with a rule where allied forces would split the continent bonus if they were in an announced peace treaty.

I have the ability to play against the computer in this game, and have never played face to face with anyone. So in my case the only really applicable questions are below. IIRC these are all optionally set [havent played in a while].

1] have the computer pick the countries randomly, or you try to pick the countries in rotation, sort of a draft, and you may not get the countries you want in the process. You can have the computer play the role of more than one player, IIRC it always played at least two[?]

2] the card values could keep increasing, this seemed undesirable

3] you turned in the set immediately, I don't believe this was optional

6] no reinforcements first turn I don't think [I'd have to find the disc somewhere to be sure]

BTW never buy this computer game, it cheats like crazy. The computer can't compete on a fair basis. Computer games in general suck for this reason. On another forum a long while back I outlined the reasons, I can send that to anyone interested. IMO in some ways all chess computer games cheat, we can talk about that too if anyone wants. But I don't want to hijack this thread.

Quote: odiousgambit

I have the ability to play against the computer in this game, and have never played face to face with anyone. So in my case the only really applicable questions are below. IIRC these are all optionally set [havent played in a while].

I tried a few Risk computer games, and agreed, they were all lousy. I think I had the cheating kind you mention, and it was still easy to beat. As I recall, it was much too aggressive.

Speaking of computer war games, I have spent much too much time playing Dice Wars. Warning: very addictive.

Quote: Wizard

I have spent much too much time playing Dice Wars. Warning: very addictive.

wow, that is addictive!

funny how the faults of computer games largely still apply, such as being devoid of known rules, you just learn by playing. Of course, some may like that.

I've decided to blog about this, it'll be easy as I have done posts in board game forums. should appear soon.

Quote: Wizard

I've never seen the same group of people play Risk the same way.

Somewhat related:

Have you ever seen any group of people finish a game of Risk? Or, for that matter, Monopoly?

I never have, even if you include variations on the basic Monopoly design like Turista, Petro-dollars and such.

Come to think of it, excepting things like backgamon, checkers and chess, I don't think I've ever seen anyone finish any kind of board game.

Quote: Nareed

Come to think of it, excepting things like backgamon, checkers and chess, I don't think I've ever seen anyone finish any kind of board game.

Check into wargames simulation players. These things over the internet can take months to do. At that point 'not finishing' is considered an offense that should be answered with pistols at 10 paces.

Quote: Nareed

Have you ever seen any group of people finish a game of Risk?

Many times! I'll always remember the summer of 1984 fondly, which I refer to as the Summer of Risk. It could also be referred to as the summer of wine coolers, which I discuss in the Ripple thread. Whatever the term, a couple friends of mine, who were brothers, had very liberal parents who gave them the run of the house. That summer a group of several guys played Risk on their dining room table almost every day, and from about noon to midnight. I didn't play every single game, but there was always a game going on. Nobody ever cooked in that house, so there was no reason to disturb the rare unfinished games on the table. That was one of the most fun times of my life. Just goes to show you don't need much money to have a good time.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4168/blitzkrieg

This is an old war game from 1965 that had a number of neat ideas. The terrain on the board was covered in many hexagonal 'squares'. You had infantry, paratroops, Artillery, Tanks, etc. Each unit had a mobility number (number of squares it could move in a turn), an attack number, and a defense number. The terrain you were on also made a difference to the mobility number. Roads were faster, rivers slower, mountains even slower.
When enemy forces landed next to each other, battles took place with the attacker's attack score going up against the defender's defense score. Since the 'squares' were hexagonal, you could have 3 different points of attack on a single enemy position. A die was rolled to determine the outcome of the battle, so even though you may have the defender outclassed 4:1 but if a 6 is rolled, you would lose a unit.

This is all I remember of the game. I was a bit too young to really enjoy the game at the time, but I certainly remember it.

Topic at Hand.

We picked countries.
first turn got more armies.
no limit on sets turned in.
When you captured someone, if they had cards you could use them to make a set immediately. If you had 5+ cards you were required to use them.
No trading cards.
What's a peace treaty ? ;-)
Depended on how mad the person who missed drawing their card would get. When it was my brother "too bad, so sad" ........when it was my wife "Go ahead and draw your card dear"

In the '60s and early '70s I played all the Avalon Hill games; I even belonged to a club that played them by mail. I played against my dad, or my cousin and his friends. We played Guadalcanal with the hidden Japanese counters, 1914 with the unit attrition rules, and Jutland out in the driveway, at as close to real scale as we could (but only once).

Then I got a driver's license and discovered girls.


Risk rules in SW PA:


1. To allocate countries at the beginning of the game, do you pick them or deal out cards?

We dealt the cards.


2. Is the max set value for 3 cards capped?

No. It helped end the game, to let it progress.


3. If you take over another player, and his cards allow you to turn in a set, can you turn it in immediately, or do you have to wait until your next turn? Does it make any difference if you now have five or more cards?

You could turn it in immediately if you wanted to.


4. Are you allowed to make peace treaties?

Yes.


5. Are you allowed to break peace treaties?

Yes, but like others wrote, no one did it.


6. Did you get extra armies your first turn?

Yes.


7. Could you trade cards?

No.


8. If somebody forgot to take their card, and asked for it after passing, would he still get the card?

I don't remember.


9. Any other rule changes from the standard rules?

Not that I recall.

THE "Board" game right now is called Dominion. It's actually a collectible card game, in a box! Unlike it's predecessors, everyone is on an even playing field when you start, and you build your deck as you play. No need to spend ridiculous sums of money buying good cards to compete with friends.

You want to try Dominion.

We picked cards to start the game this created heavy stratagy sessions from the get go since we also allowed secret peace treaties and you could break them but no trading of cards.

We could turn in our set at any time with no cap.

We would finish most games unless the board got flipped. We had some pretty upset players with the breaking of treaties. I played a lot in my early twenties and many of us were married and broke so it was cheap entertainment. We were playing one night at another couples house. He broke a peace treaty with his wife and they had a massive argument which ended with him leaving, he never did move back in and they eventually got divorced. ALLOW BREAKING OF TREATIES AT YOUR PERIL.

The most inovative thing we did with the game was when we had a lot of players we would put 2 boards together and have Kamchatka/Alaska on both boards as a star point.

Quote: Mosca

In the '60s and early '70s I played all the Avalon Hill games; I even belonged to a club that played them by mail.

Oh, man, I loved Avalon Hill. I spent my high school and college years wading through games of 1776, Alexander the Great, Afrika Korps, Panzer Blitz --- I must have owned twenty games.

I felt irrational pangs of regret when I learned they had been discarded from parents basement, as if I was ever going to play them again.

+1 on Mosca's house rules, though I don't recall many overt peace treaties when I played. Rather, there was more of a benign neglect of that difficult Brazil / North Africa question.

Wish I'd kept my old game, with the wooden armies.

[Edit] If your interest was in treaties, your game was Diplomacy

Quote: Calder

Oh, man, I loved Avalon Hill. I spent my high school and college years wading through games of 1776, Alexander the Great, Afrika Korps, Panzer Blitz --- I must have owned twenty games.

I felt irrational pangs of regret when I learned they had been discarded from parents basement, as if I was ever going to play them again.

+1 on Mosca's house rules, though I don't recall many overt peace treaties when I played. Rather, there was more of a benign neglect of that difficult Brazil / North Africa question.

Wish I'd kept my old game, with the wooden armies.

[Edit] If your interest was in treaties, your game was Diplomacy

Oh man, some of the original Avalon Hill games go for a fair amount these days... I'm just playing through Republic of Rome (reprint) and the backstabbing in that is awesome. Not as harmful as Diplomacy, where backstabbing is an art form... or loses you friends rapidly.

We allowed treaties, but never expected them to last for the whole game. We also played the Gibson's Games version that include secret missions, so card trade ins never increased during the game.

I've played some abstract variations recently (see : http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70214/pendulum-of-fate), but the game doesn't grab me anymore... El Grande is where I'd recommend a Risk player to go these days for beating up on your friends in mean ways, but having it over in an evening.

I collect boardgames, so if anyone does have a cellar full of old Avalon Hill games they want to give me (especially Squad Leader) :)

many of these old Avalon Hill games are played by email now, with special software aids to make it easy

I haven't played Risk in years, so I cannot answer the OP's questions accurately.
However, my work day has been seriously wrecked because I can't stop playing that damn "DICE WARS" game.
I could be fired by Friday........

The last Avalon Hill game I got was Anzio; it was impossibly complicated and no fun. 1914 was impossibly complicated, but I was good at it, so it was fun. The secret was to play France and be a butcher; leave your divisions in the lines until they were demolished. The attackers would wear down first, and time would run out.

Otherwise, my favorites were probably Bismark (like a good version of Battleship) and Battle of the Bulge. Bulge could go either way; it took some serious strategy as Allies to hold on until reinforcements arrived. But it also took some serious planning and some luck as Axis, to strike deep enough while maintaining supply lines.

A quick look about the web shows France 1940 as published in '72; I'm pretty sure I played that one, but I don't know that I owned it, I was out of high school by then.

Quote: odiousgambit

many of these old Avalon Hill games are played by email now, with special software aids to make it easy

VASSAL has kept the whole thing alive. Hexwars also has a lot of the SPI games...

Quote: Ericayne

my work day has been seriously wrecked because I can't stop playing that damn "DICE WARS" game.
I could be fired by Friday........

we were warned! same problem

Quote: Ericayne

However, my work day has been seriously wrecked because I can't stop playing that damn "DICE WARS" game.
I could be fired by Friday........

Ooo. You can't say I didn't warn you it was addictive. Eventually you'll get a good feel the computer's behavior, and you'll have a good sense of if you'll win or not just from the opening map. It also often comes down to a single key battle early in the game. You'll get bored with it eventually, but it may take weeks or months.

Despite having played that game hundreds of times, I still don't understand the algorithm for awarding extra armies. You get a minimum of 1 for largest set of contiguous territories you have. However, it also seems to award bonus armies for a successful turn. I think wiping out an opponent also helps.