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Dan12
Diplomat
Posts:81
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| 16 Dec 2007 1:35 AM |
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I guess this depends on the continent, there are certain direction you may expand. For example, if you are in Australia, you usually build up and expand into Asia. If you are in South America, you either expand to North America or Africa. Similarly if you are in Africa, you have a choice to expand to SA, or Europe, but least likely to Asia. if you are in NA, you expand to SA, potentially Europe or Asia.
Where you expand to highly depends on who you are playing against or where the concentration of armies are. So as opening moves go, it all depends. If I have a player next to me who has already secured a continent, I won't consider that continent as a suitable expansion route. On the other hand, if a continent is contested by many players, then I just hang around waiting for them to weaken each other before I move in. |
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Europa
Diplomat
Posts:170
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| 16 Dec 2007 2:17 AM |
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| Good point, expansion depends largely on your opponents style and troop strength. I wonder though if there are maxims that are in play when you do decide to take over a continent? For example, if you are in Africa what are the steps you need to take before you are able to secure that continent? Well, you certainly need to secure three borders: South America, Europe and Asia going from West to East. How do you accomplish this? Do you take Brazil and the Middle East and try for a treaty from Europe? Is this the most likely scenario? If so, how do you accomplish this with out losing too much in the exchange? What if you forge into Europe, hold a treaty over Brazil-North Africa and then stack armies in the Middle East? Does this approach work? Obviously it depends on the scenario, but what seems to work better? How about an Asian treaty, and a detente in South America and expand into Europe? What seems to work more often, "ceteris paribus", that is, all things being equal? |
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Grant Blackburn |
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Dan12
Diplomat
Posts:81
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| 17 Dec 2007 1:28 PM |
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To be honest its difficult to say even as a norm. Ok, as a pattern I usually dont go to Asia from Africa, but try to secure Middle East and either go for Europe or South America. It all depends on who is there, how much armies they have got and what kind of players there are.
So if you want to examine this systematically you need to set lots of ifs and then decide what you do based on these conditions. can get complicated. have you tried this yourself?
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Europa
Diplomat
Posts:170
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| 17 Dec 2007 1:36 PM |
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| Yeah, I have. I am planning on releasing a table that outlines the values of each continent and gives some idea of what to do given a neutral setting. Of course any table I can produce will need to be adapted to the situation on the talbe at the time, but I think this is true of any strategy. State the general rule here and then players need to adapt it to the specific situation they face. I think that is really what this website is all about. |
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Grant Blackburn |
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Dan12
Diplomat
Posts:81
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| 18 Dec 2007 1:18 AM |
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| Cool. Looking forward to see your table. |
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Europa
Diplomat
Posts:170
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| 18 Dec 2007 8:17 PM |
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Hopefully it will be out within hte next month. I am still working on some of the variables and trying to make it useful in a number of contexts as well as have the formula used to construct the table be valid for other types of Risk maps as well. Keep your eyes peeled and we'll see where it goes.
This thread is actually part of what some of the ideas for the table is for. The idea is that some continents are easier to start in usually than others, but this isn't actually the case. For example, Australia seems to always be the center of attention early in the game because of its clear defensive capabilities but people do tend to for get the trade-off offensively and the fact that you have no choice but to invade Asia. Also, Australia early int he game tends to be very competitive and I have know many people to lose a game because they simply were not successful early on in securing the continent either because of poor strategy/tactics, bad luck, lack of will power or a combination. So, taking Australia isn't always a snap and it certainly isn't always the key to victory.
If you start off in Australia you need to follow a definite plan. You need to start by taking several key positions such as Siam, Indonesia and Eastern Australia to mount your capturing of the land. Having positions in nearby Asian territoires such as China and India also aid in your quest as well. You also need to the fortitude to place a large stack of armies in hte right place to begin your early assault. Once you take the territory, you then need to fortify well (this is why Eastern Australia is key to the strategy since if you start here and attack outward, you are one territory closer to Indonesia and Siam) and then launch enough strikes on the Asian mainland to keep would-be intruders at bay. At some point you need to seriously expand and you need to decide which of three continents you need to go: North America, Africa or Europe. How you decide the answers to these questions will determine your success or failure.
Think about South America, another of the more easily defended continents: here you need to think about two borders and as such, the types of treaties and other diplomacy you engage in will definitely determine your success here. Keeping in mind that North America is easier to invade than Africa since North Africa borders Europe as well means that you really need a good reason not to make a deal with the African player. Because of course North America doesn't really want a treaty with South America either since that route is much easier since it doesn't add boundaries to North America's empire, North America will want to go South and deal with Africa later.
These dynamics are what I really want this thread to be about in our discussions because from this information we can glean the relative value of territories in the game. |
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Grant Blackburn |
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heyya
Tactician
Posts:1
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| 19 Feb 2008 1:30 PM |
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| One tactic that I found to take Europe early on is to place a decent number of armies in one or two eastern territories at the start along with some smaller territories in Asia or Africa that are within a few moves of Europe. The plan, then is to build up to one or two large armies in eastern Europe while using the outlying small armies to gather cards while inching their way to Europe. By doing this, no one really sees you as a threat to Europe in that they can pass freely through it, gather cards from it, and you really do not attack any territories there. By the time your small armies reach Europe's boarders you should be able to use them to reinforce the country when you take it with your two sizable eastern armies. |
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Ehsan Honary
Site Admin
King
Posts:268
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| 19 Feb 2008 1:54 PM |
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That's an excellent idea. I like this method a lot which can be used anywhere on the map when you concentrate all your armies somewhere and leave it at that. It's like a cliffhanger in movies, everyone wants to know what happens next, which direction will you expand to and you keep them guessing. You can exploit their uncertainty and before they know, you have established yourself out of their reach and secured a continent.
Thanks for the contribution. |
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Ehsan Honary
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Bismark08
Strategist
Posts:14
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| 19 Feb 2008 7:34 PM |
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| Start in S.A. and quickly nail North Africa and Central America. You only have 2 borders and decent reionforcements. Fortify one of these expand through the other one. |
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