Articles

Current Articles

What to Do When You are Outnumbered

What to Do When You are Outnumbered
Tactic, Strategy, Real-world example

Article Rating:::: 108 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Monday, February 4, 2013

You are playing Risk. Due to your starting position, bad luck with dice or bad luck with other players picking on you, you find yourself in a position where you are one of the weakest players in the game. What would you do now? Should you stay put where you are and hope that your luck turns? Should you concentrate on fortifying your continent so then you can have a stronger foothold in the game? Would you try to use diplomacy? What should be your main strategy?

To answers these questions, let’s have a look at an interesting battle that took place recently, in World War II.

Continue to Read...

Learn to Control Your Opponent so You can Control the Game

Learn to Control Your Opponent so You can Control the Game
Psychology, Diplomacy, Strategy

Article Rating:::: 54 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Monday, December 31, 2012

Your aim in Risk is winning but it is important to know this is not an abstract idealistic view like winning when you are playing chess. In chess you can think of perfect moves against your opponent’s moves. So long as you are making an ideal move, it doesn’t matter who you are playing against; you are more likely to win. Risk, and similarly life, is different. You are playing against humans with minds; minds that can have weaknesses which you can exploit. Unlike chess, in Risk you are not searching for a perfect move; instead you are searching for a way to control your opponent’s mind. The sooner you can do that, and the more successful you are in doing it, the more likely that you win the game. This is exactly the same in everyday life when you deal with your colleagues, the team that works for you, the stakeholders that you report to and the market at large.

Continue to Read...

How to Counteract Indecision

How to Counteract Indecision
Psychology, Diplomacy, Strategy

Article Rating:::: 35 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Monday, December 3, 2012

You are playing Risk. You have acquired a good size continent for this stage of the game and are busy strengthening your position. You tend to be cautious. You like to have a solid base before expanding to the rest of the map. You also don’t want to invade other Risk players for no reason. You are afraid that they will immediately retaliate and you don’t like to provoke them. The desire not to expand contradicts your overall objective which is to expand and conquer the whole world. These two opposite aims will create indecision in you. Each turn you tell yourself that if all goes well you may start expanding in the next turn. When the turn comes, you feel even more vulnerable than the last turn and decide to stay put and buy time. The indecision starts to bother you but what can you do about it? You don’t see a way out.

Continue to Read...

Forget About the Last Game

Forget About the Last Game
Diplomacy, Strategy, Online Risk Games, Negotiation

Article Rating:::: 31 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Monday, November 5, 2012

Scenario 1:

You still clearly remember your last Risk game. It is still fresh in your mind. You won, and won spectacularly. There was a tight moment in the game, but you made a calculated decision to counteract an invasion and turned it on its head. You made a player stretch too far and then attacked his home continent. After that, there was no stopping you.

You think that this was a fantastic strategy and are now about to play another game. Your success in that game makes you think that you can do it again. Your plan is to play the same strategy. It worked so well last time, so why not try again.

Continue to Read...

How to Respond to Intimidation

How to Respond to Intimidation
Psychology, Diplomacy, Strategy, Negotiation

Article Rating:::: 8 Ratings :::: 3 Solutions ::::Monday, October 1, 2012

 You have played Risk for a long time. You think of yourself as a good player. You decide to join a new Risk game site to play Risk online. You join a game and in this game you find yourself playing against a number of players who have a fairly high overall score. You still think nothing of this. After all, you are fairly good.

Continue to Read...

Strategy is Not a Recipe; You Need a New Solution Every Time

Strategy is Not a Recipe; You Need a New Solution Every Time
Diplomacy, Tactic, Strategy

Article Rating:::: 22 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Monday, September 3, 2012

There are tons of people that constantly think there is one magical way to succeed. Once they learn the way, they follow it and will become successful. Then, they can happily live ever after. The only problem with this mentality is that it is only a dream that will never come true. Sure enough, people become successful every day, Risk players win every day, people become rich every day; but not because of following a magical strategy. It’s a bit more involved than following a simple recipe.

Continue to Read...

Do Not Attack Everything; Choose Wisely or Perish

Do Not Attack Everything; Choose Wisely or Perish
Diplomacy, Strategy, Real-world example

Article Rating:::: 21 Ratings :::: 4 Solutions ::::Tuesday, August 7, 2012

In the sixteen’s century, Spain was at its peak. It had the largest naval power and having found the New World, it was extremely busy with various conquests, exercising its military and colonial power. Philip II, the Spanish king, disliked Protestantism and was determined to restore Catholicism to England. Meanwhile, England was in deep financial trouble. When Elizabeth I became the Queen, she decided that the only way to bring stability was get rich. A rich country could counteract the threat of its rivals such as France and Spain. Without money it was doomed. Step by step, Elizabeth worked to increase the wealth of the country through economic reforms. In particular she was very wary of a standing army’s expenses and was determined to stay out of costly wars. After all she wanted the country to get rich and there was no way to get rich if she was constantly at war or preparing for one.

Continue to Read...

Invasions and Expansions over 2500 Years

Invasions and Expansions over 2500 Years
Real-world example

Article Rating:::: 41 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Sunday, November 14, 2010

Sometime a visualisation of history can be quite powerful in seeing what the world has gone through. I recently came across this fascinating video showing the formation, expansion and decline of many civilizations in Europe. It is nice to watch as a particular land gets criss-crossed over time by various nations. 

The map animation particularly looks similar to what we see in our Risk games everyday and has a somewhat familiar feel to it. I wish the makers of the video stamped the animation with a year and also I wish to see this type of animation for the whole world and for much longer than 1000 years, may be starting from 5000 years ago to include Egyptians as well. 

Is anyone aware of such a video, or here is a challenge, is anyone up for it to make one? 

Continue to Read...

From Dice to Risk: The Ultimate Game (Part 3 of 3)

From Dice to Risk: The Ultimate Game (Part 3 of 3)
Risk Fans, Real-world example, Series

Article Rating:::: 18 Ratings :::: 6 Solutions ::::Saturday, May 22, 2010

As you saw in Part 1 and Part 2, there has been a long story of board game development and the need to produce a game that is enjoyable and simple but equally challenging and realistic. It would be great to learn something new every time we play and also to use our own life experiences and knowledge to play a better game.

Let’s explore the requirements of an ideal game. Board games can be categorised across three areas; luck, strategy and diplomacy. Some games are very strong on only a single dimension while others are strong in two or all dimensions. Each of these dimensions leads to a completely different game and playing style. Let’s look at some examples:

Continue to Read...

From Dice to Risk: The Vizier (Part 2 of 3)

From Dice to Risk: The Vizier (Part 2 of 3)
Risk Fans, Real-world example, Series

Article Rating:::: 9 Ratings :::: 0 Solutions ::::Saturday, May 1, 2010

As you saw in Part 1, as mankind progressed technologically, there was a need for a game with strong strategic element.

The word strategy is derived from Greek word strategos which means general. Hence, the roots of the word go directly back to military use. In game theory, strategy is defined as one of the possible sets of options that a player can choose from. Hence, strategy is all about a successive series of actions and choices that a player must go through to get closer to the final goal.

Much of our early history is about wars and expansions. Life consisted of being ruled by successive kings each with their own agenda. As years passed, people became more familiar with strategy. The world needed a game that symbolised this new lifestyle better and this lead to the creation of one of the most famous strategic games of all time. The game was chess.

Continue to Read...
Previous Page | Next Page
About the Author

I am a board game and Risk game enthusiast. I like thinking and talking about strategy in games which has led me to the creation of this website. Although Risk is a classic, I feel one can never get tired of playing this game. Read about what I think of the game and I am always eager to know what you think.

My Book: Risk Game Strategy

Total Diplomacy: The Art of Winning Risk

Available from Amazon as paperback and Kindle

Available in Apple Books

Learn More About the Book

RSS Feed

Subscribe

 
Latest Forum Posts
RE: Diplomacy In Online Risk
by Ehsan Honary
Hi Jamie. Well, I think not relying on diplomacy won't do you any good. The situation you describe i...
RE: World Domination: Ways to win Risk
by JamieRogers
I agree, Alan. If you are playing with the dealt cards setup, then you should generally go for which...
Diplomacy In Online Risk
by JamieRogers
As most members of my family or my friends dislike playing risk or only play occasionally, I play mo...
How can I win this match?
by Pyrux
Hi, I'm an italian guy named Lorenzo.  Today, me and my housemates started a Risiko (Ris...
RE: World Domination: Ways to win Risk
by Great Alan
British & French : Once the German enter Belgium, we shall crush them! Erich von Manstein : Sorry, ...
RE: North America Strategy Help
by Great Alan
You have 2 options, Shirokiba: 1. Transfer your strategic objective to other places. 2. Force yo...
North America Strategy Help
by Shirokiba
So, I just started playing Risk and I try going for North America, it typically works out rather wel...
RE: Tell me if this strategey is good or bad
by The General
Nailing is an excellent stratgy because it prevents your neighbor from receiving his bonus which mak...
RE: 3 player game: Me vs Husband and Wife team
by Ehsan Honary
Kumo, this is a rather interesting scenario and let me just say it is tricky. In general a 3 player ...
3 player game: Me vs Husband and Wife team
by kumo
So, every time I play against my buddy and his wife, it always turns out to be essentially me agains...

What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.

Sun Tzu