Strategy 31: The beauty trap. (The tender trap, use a woman to ensnare a man.)
Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within their camp. This strategy can work on three levels. First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane. Second, other males at court will begin to display aggressive behaviour that inflames minor differences hindering co-operation and destroying morale.
Third, other females at court, motivated by jealousy and envy, begin to plot intrigues further exacerbating the situation.
In Risk Game:
Well, if you can use woman against your opponents, then certainly do so. Rest assured that they will give up the game altogether, let aside wanting to win!
Strategy 32: The empty fort strategy. (Mental trap; empty a fort to make the enemy think it is filled with traps.)
When the enemy is superior in numbers and your situation is such that you expect to be over run at any moment, then drop all pretence of military preparedness and act casually. Unless the enemy has an accurate description of your situation this unusual behaviour will arouse suspicions. With luck they will be dissuaded from attacking.
In Risk Game:
If you are confronted with the possibility of a major attack to your continent with an overwhelming force, then group and concentrate your armies in one place. If there is no hope to save the continent, then save your armies. By attacking your continent, your opponent only gets another continent and not your armies. He will be left with a poorly defended continent and you left as a great threat. Your opponent may simply hesitate to attack your continent as a result.
Strategy 33: Let the enemy’s own spy sow discord in the enemy camp. (Use enemy’s own spy to spread false information.)
Undermine your enemy’s ability to fight by secretly causing discord between them and their friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While they are preoccupied settling internal disputes their ability to attack or defend is compromised.
In Risk Game:
Exploit differences of opinions between allies. In Risk, most of the conversation between allies is in the open and you can influence their development. You can always turn any conversation on its head by continuously pointing it to the wrong direction. For example, Player A and B are allied. Player A says I want to attack Player C. You can say, “No, I don’t think you should do that since it will make your ally’s life more difficult. I thought you where friends!” Player B now starts to get concerned and an argument may ensue. You have achieved your goal by setting them against each other.
Strategy 34: Inflict injury on one’s self to win the enemy’s trust. (Fall into a trap; become baited.)
Pretending to be injured has two possible applications. In the first, the enemy is lulled into relaxing their guard since they no longer consider you to be an immediate threat. The second is a way of ingratiating yourself to your enemy by pretending the injury was caused by a mutual enemy.
In Risk Game:
Pretend that another player is unfairly attacking you. Act like a victim. Say that you have done nothing wrong and you have been systematically targeted. Some players may have sympathy for you and want to help you or simply won’t expect you to attack them.
Strategy 35: Chain together the enemy’s ships. (Never rely on but a single strategy.)
In important matters one should use several strategies applied simultaneously. Keep different plans operating in an overall scheme; in this manner if any one strategy fails you would still have several others to fall back on.
In Risk Game:
The modern interpretation of this is to have a portfolio of strategies. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. There are always many ideas you can follow. Have them work out in parallel. Compensate the failure of one against the other.
For example, plan to conquer a series of continents one after the other. Have another parallel strategy to make a deal with a player to secure some of your borders. Another strategy is to make others fight each other rather than you. All of these strategies will benefit you in their own right. Failure of one is not necessarily the failure of your entire strategy. No big deal if you couldn’t make a treaty with another player. You can focus on continent expansion instead.
Strategy 36: If all else fails, retreat.
If it becomes obvious that your current course of action will lead to defeat then retreat and regroup. When your side is losing there are only three choices remaining: surrender, compromise, or escape. Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half defeat, but escape is not defeat. As long as you are not defeated, you still have a chance.
In Risk Game:
This is very true in Risk. If your opponent has attacked you and you have been severely weakened, regroup your armies, escape to a remote and isolated territory and stay put. Don’t attack anyone for anything other than collecting cards. Don’t let anyone to eliminate you. Never lose hope; there is always a chance to come back.
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