How games of Risk went in my family -My brother and I see each other as the primary threat -Fight each other constantly to keep the other from controlling a continent -Forget Dad is also a player -Dad mops the floor with both of us
_Mission: Impossible_ Really, though, there's only *one* method I've seen for taking this element out of Diplomacy; _roleplay._ Step out of your *own* persona for a moment, and create a "proxy character" who is doing all the backstabbing. My Ex played a game of Diplo once where, when she betrayed an alliance, she "roleplayed" it as a sudden shift in political control for her _own_ country. The "old guard" was out and a new political movement was in control and first order of business: dealing with the "allies" of the *old government.* She wrote out an entire _proclamation,_ in-character, as a "speech" from the new head of government and sent it to her former Ally after the turn was resolved. Her ally's response: OOC> Ooh, that was *soo good!* IC> _Ooh, you are _*_soo dead!_*
The problem with people playing RISK is that they often neglect the social element of the game. You can have the largest empire or the most strategic position on the board, but anger enough players and they'll just gang up on you. I remember watching some mobile RISK gameplay and being impressed by the complexity of the interactions. Short term alliances would form around trading back and forth border territories and leaving only 1 token unit in order to keep hoarding cards while boosting defenses in strategic locations, as the long term bonuses from trade-ins vastly overshadow the short term territorial gain. Plus another aspect of RISK's social game is grudges - beat a player too much or too hard, and you have an enemy for the rest of the game. You can exploit this by playing both sides during grudges, too.
Justbweather yhe storm. Eventually your position will be weak enough that your no longer the threat and you can point out troop buildup within their alliances.
True Risk it one of the best party games for that reason as iyt's really made for it... Unlike Poker where they simply ban playing the game which they call card counting in favor of making it a pure social experience... Also kinda makes Risk the party and gamy version of Deplomacy which for the best exerpince you need a full player count and let a full day pass so every has time to be social. Which unlike chess which used to be played that way to give everyone time to make the best move on the table in depomacy the game is uber simple but the social bit isn't. So yeah Risk is just a great balance of social and gamplay while eeasy enough to learn quickly even if it won't ever click for most people... Makes you wonder why it isn';t more popular like chess, monopoly and those pure socal card games where the card want you to do something?
in high school i played risk with 3 of my friends all the time and i annihilated of them through a combination of deception and strategy learned from other strategy games. this worked a little too well as they eventually formed a coalition at the start of every game to wipe me off the map
@@crimsoncrusader4829 Unironically, yeah, that's what actually happened. Napoleon wanted to impose the Continental system purely to spite the British rather than just finding new trade routes. Instead of pacifying the nations he conquered, he carved new ones and placed his own incompetent family on their thrones. As brilliant a general and a statist he was, his grip on the continent was shaky at best. Jokes aside, RISK is really more about psychology than RNG.
There's also the quick gains issue. If you appear too dominant, the table will naturally unite against you. Staying off the radar until it's too late is crucial in games like this.
That's why cards exist. It's the only part of the game that is deliberately hidden from other players, so you could look like you have jack and keep losing territory when in reality you can deploy 100+ troops at any point.
@@M30W3Ralso the missions, not being able to figure out the mission of another player is a huge disadvantage. We had this one time, the average or so player fiddled around in Africa and South America the entire game and then went all in with reinforcements. We thought he’s gonna conquer Africa fully and secure it, but no, the mad lad had to secure Asia. He could have easily lost in that gamble but he miraculously didn’t. Spent almost all manpower except like 2 soldiers. This baffled everyone.
@@M30W3Ralso the missions, not being able to figure out the mission of another player is a huge disadvantage. We had this one time, the average or so player fiddled around in Africa and South America the entire game and then went all in with reinforcements. We thought he’s gonna conquer Africa fully and secure it, but no, the mad lad had to secure Asia. He could have easily lost in that gamble but he miraculously didn’t. Spent almost all manpower except like 2 soldiers.
The only way to play. Hoard a set and wait til the last player uses their set to shore up defenses. Then doomstack elsewhere to throw them off balance.
I used to play Lux Deluxe (which is basically just Risk+), and there was an AI, Reaper, that showed how starting in an unfavorable spot can actually be an advantage. This is because their strategy is to minimize losses while always being sure to conquer a territory every turn to build to reinforcements. It would then consolidate its army into a doomstack. But the AI deliberately chooses spots in areas seen as 'bad' like Asia, places too big to conquer or defend, for two reasons: one is to make it unattractive to take on their doomstack, because Reaper deliberately avoids getting set bonuses if it borders them against a dangerous enemy. Meaning, you don't get much for taking over Reaper's territory, either to stop continent bonus reinforcements or to get some of your own. Two, it's because while they are an unattractive target themselves, Reaper still stays very close to the other armies. It then pounces on an opponent that will give them the best surrendered cards/armies lost ratio, then resumes its strategy until it sees another victim -- unless it has so many reinforcements from farming cards that it can easily crush the other armies regardless of what territory they're holding. This is because Reaper's strategy is to farm card bonuses, not territory bonuses. It's a very interesting strategy when you're playing a large number of opponents and there is fierce competition for continent bonus reinforcements.
In six player unless you get an easy Australia/South America this is the starting strategy I play. But remember you can easily pivot if you see an continent open.
I always try to take North America. When playing against the computer, I was able to conquer North America and defend it so well that I was able to conquer one territory outside of North America each turn after that and defend all of the border territories well enough that once it got down to two players, it became impossible for the other player to conquer another territory, meaning they couldn't get any cards to turn in and thus I could slowly advance one territory at a time, slowly defeating them. Now, of course, this is harder with human players who can realize this strategy ahead of time and try to either gang up on the player using this strategy or use other methods of breaking it.
Problem is that going for North America as your first continent can quickly end up with you falling far behind on economy if you just get a little unlucky. Once someone has South America and commits to preventing you from unifying NA you're in big trouble of just being unable to build up enough of an army to finish the job in NA.
I have won by far the most games from Australia, but yes my second choice would be North America, followed by South America and Africa. Europe and Asia is generally way too hard to win from starting out.
That applies to Asia as well , much depends on the first round of play. Asia has a wonderful position of holding and deprivation of other large gain continents. You gain the most troops per round and can deprive others of north america via Alaska and Europe ( this is a given as necessary to reduce your front ) Ukraine. Use the early advantage to reduce Australia and you have 9 extra troops all while depriving north america and Europe from opponents. After that single incursions into wherever your opponent trys to build strength will get you your card for the turn. But again , alot turns on how many are playing and what you start with. Computers are the easiest to beat , I would let others pick the starting countries in a game for me to play against the computer , and no matter how hard they made it for me , I never lost. For the record , I found 3 players to be the easiest.
The psychology he is describing is not present in my friends or I when we play. He often describes being able to decrease choke points with threat of retaliation, but if I see that I could kill a single troop in Africa to stop you from getting a bonus 3 guys, I'm gonna commit forces to that attack. And you will take it back next turn and that's fine, but you ain't getting the continent bonus, not on my watch.
Sure, that can work if everyone is breaking bonuses. But if anyone decides to work together and not break each other's bonus, you'll quickly find yourself as the smallest army with no alliances to back you up. If your friends are playing one way, try and change the meta and give yourself an advantage.
Taking South America first is key to a lot of wins. Only two entry points. Then build up a defensive front from Mexico while also building up an army to attack Africa. If you can get SA and Africa, then you are still dealing with minimal entrance points (either 3 or 4) but you have two continents. Defend all of African entry points. Then attack Mexico and go after North America. If you can get NA, SA, and Africa, you can have 3 continents that only have 5 entry points max (Alaska, Greenland, and the top of Africa). You can also take Iceland and eastern Russian to prevent any continent other than Australia from being taken. Then just wait until the other players have tired themselves out and take over the world.
I've always done the South America Strategy and quickly take over North America. The only problem is I'm too good at this strategy and everyone gangs up on me for the early lead. If I can defend myself then I win the game. If not I'm the first one out
Having run a Risk board gaming club for friends for 13 years i can confirm that the majority of winners start out early with controlling Australia or South America.
I rarely see Australia win. It’s tough to expand from and take other continents. South America is best to start from, then take North America. You only need three choke holds and gain seven extra Armies per turn.
“And only slightly less well-known is this! Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!” (Laughs and falls over from the iocaine powder.)
I played a game of Risk in college once where I explicity stated that I was going to start in Asia and win... and when it came down to there being three of us left, player 3 threw themselves at player 2 instead of me because of my pre-game declaration. I cleaned up what was left and won.
No mention of card strategy, have you ever played risk? On dice; just attacking because you can roll 3 dice is a surefire way to get your teeth kicked in, with 37% basically playing out to needing double their numbers to not get obliterated.
If you look at the statistics, 34% of the time, you each lose one unit. So they are getting obliterated just as quickly as you are in that situation. So 71% of the time, the defending player is losing troops at an equal or higher rate than the attacker is.
@@Hennu_TRM And if you can time the cards just right, you can line up your opponents and destroy them all and take their cards so you can turn cards in again instantly. If you can take out two opponents in one turn this way, you have a massive advantage.
@@protorhinocerator142 True. Most risk games in my memory ended when one player was able to use their set to defeat a player, take the cards, and play another set.
>unlikely to attack Brazil except all you need to do is take *one* province and then they don't get the troop bonus from owning South America, then just shuttle troops back to Africa if you want and you'll still get a card. So, that's 2 very good things at very minimal cost, so I don't think that Venezuela strategy is very solid
I've always thought that there's a fundamental flaw in the game. Almost every game winds up having two superpowers and one or two smaller armies with no realistic chance of winning. The smaller army ultimately decides the winner by choosing which superpower to attack.
There’s different things you can do to change up the game. For examples when o play with my young nephews every chooses 1 spot ok the board to put a quarter and that territory is a “strong hold” and gets +1 defense. Each player also gets a DnD mini figurine which is a hero unit who gets +1 attack and +1 defense. When occupying a strong hold you get +1 unit on that space at the start of your turn. It’s fun. Friends and I would do it with Lord Of The Rings Risk when kids.
I've always won when it came down to 3. If you manage to always hold cards til 5, it removes an element of chance and sets up a chain turn in. When there's 3, get get your ops to expend their troops when you have the bottlenecks, then hit them with demoralizing chain turn in. Leave small terrifies to easily take more cards and let ops see your plan. Too late for them to help each other
@potatoskunk5981 it's just a matter of picking where your fronts are (waterways only when possible) and piling troops on them. Even if they penetrate and try to do heavy damage, defenders have advantage; let them know you're about to reinforce and undo their progress after they've weakened themselves
I've had good luck conquering Asia as my second continent when starting from Australia. I think a lot of players think I couldn't possibly be trying something that crazy, so they don't realize the threat until it's too late. It involves securing Siam, then taking the Middle East, Kamchatka or Alaska, and Ukraine. Once they're all secure, the Siam armies take over the rest of Asia. From there, the usual route is: North America, South America, Africa, and finally Europe.
Good job. I don't think I've ever seen a single player conquer all of Asian and actually keep it for a full turn in order to get the 7 troop bonus unless they were already had control of most of the board already.
They would have gotten rolled at any of the tables I played on. If you leave your continent open, someone is taking it. Threat of retaliation means nothing, and you'll lose your bonus.
@Adador Then your table has yet to find out how disgusting unspoken non-aggression is. Whenever you and another player fight every other player gains advantage because you and the other player lost troops (It's why the Australian turtle can cheese wins in a table of low skill players) but if you settle in to general areas Europe/Africa+South America/North America You end up in the same boat but instead of +3 you all get +8 per turn and no the coward that hides in Australia is forced to make a move but they're trapped because of the huge armies in Afghanistan/Russia/Kamchatka Every troop you aren't using to point at your neighbor is a troop you can your neighbor can use against someone else and sometimes letting someone be the villain can be beneficial. If you're south America and stack on brazil you enable the north America player to threaten Europe and Asia naturally putting them into a 2v1 while you try and fight for/claim Africa in 1v1 where troop generation is 5v3 compared to the 4v3 the North American player is fighting onn2 fronts and a well timed betrayal can destroy them if thry don't have a trade
@@IC-23 Different tables have different social situations which impact gameplay. A player not working within the social structure of that group will lose, unless they manage to recognize and exploit it. If someone took a continent while not covering every checkpoint, they will lose it. If they try to go after the one that took away the bonus from them, it'll destroy both of their chances of winning. Since everyone is trying to win in the games I play, retaliation isn't a worry, especially if they have to do that retaliation with two to five fewer troops. If one is a big enough threat that fear of retaliation is a real threat, then they are strong enough that just about everyone else at the table is gunning for them anyway. Since everyone is trying to bring down the strongest faction, the ones that don't often end up next on the chopping block. It takes a long time for the game to settle. If they left Africa open, someone will take it and consider the player a newbie. An easy risk card and removing a continental bonus while having the support of everyone at the table? It's an obvious move to make unless one needs them as a buffer against someone who already took both N and S America, or something else unusual. No one wants to become too powerful too early. I have seen a player get wiped out by everyone else before his third turn just because he took Europe (of all places) on his first turn.
that’s what the slider is for you can lower the number of troops to just what you need (mobilizing 5 troops wins against 2 defenders 100% of the time in balanced blitz) if you’re playing true random then you could lose them all no matter what
@@seyj7457 Doesn't seem truly random when a 1% chance to lose all your troops happens half the time. I gamble at casinos so thinking of the odds hitting like that is ludicrous lol
forget australia. south america everytime, then africa. doesnt really matter tho, risk is 90% politics. just convincing your buds not to attack you and go after your opponents instead is the most important thing
A big point I'd make is it depends how many players you have. With small numbers the small continents lose appeal, you can go straight for North America for example or just rely on pure territory numbers.
I played a game with two other friends one time, and we got a crazy spread where each one of us had a strong concentration in the powerful continents. I took Australia and proceeded to lock down Asia early game since I had so many troops already in it. The other guys were too busy conquering America and Europe, respectively. Eventually, it got to the point where we each had a major continent and the ones beneath. Asia and America tag-teamed Europe, bringing it to its knees. But neither taking it entirely. Then we were stuck in a huge stalemate. We all just camped troops until I had enough to break into America. By then it was basically over. I've never seen Asia taken early game but it was nasty
In my experience, holding North America is a lot more valuable than holding Africa, even beyond the 2 extra armies. Due to how the map is set up, the Alaska-to-Kamchatka connection is not very obvious, making most people unconciously disregarding it as a vector of attack, thus reducing the border states to 2 or 2 1/2 at most. Also because of this, fighting often takes place in the middle of the map, with Africa changing owner a lot more time than North America would. In my experience, once you are allowed to keep North America for a turn or 2, it will be yours unless someone actively needs it as for their assignment (or needs to destroy you). In regard to Australia (and South America to a lesser extend), once you have a good shot of taking it in the early game, always hold onto your armies elsewhere in the world. Once you take it, best plug it up with a stack in Southeast Asia or Indonesia and use those 2 extra armies to bolster your operarions elsewhere rather than expand into Asia.
Did anyone play dominate game when that was a thing? Basically simple looking online risk. I can tell you that the only strategy was taking as much teritory as you could with one stack on the map in order to have more troop spawns and less troop spawns for your opponent. At the highest level it ends up being no one is getting extra troop spawns from holding continents outside of maybe the early game... Its a game of attrition, not holding territory. Get stack -> take as much territory as you can that hurts your opponents without making your stack too weak. That's the game - the players who sit and hold South America or Australia are usually the ones who are third/fourth in a game of six, while one/two are doing this strategy against each other, though these players might start in one of those two continents.
When playing with 3 or 5 players, diplomacy can be a hugely influential factor. My observation has been that a player who largely gets left out of the trench warfare can very quickly build up a dominant force, then sucker punch a weakened opponent at the opportune moment.
I remember I was hanging out with my friends, and I would play Risk with them every time we ate lunch during our break, one day I was getting so many victories and high rolls, one of my friends threw a chair across the room.
I have won more than 14 times straight with Australia, it is by far the place I have had the most success starting from. But yes North America is not bad either, but it is hard to keep if other players know what they are doing.
@@ProgressIsTheOnlyEvolution It's interesting how, just like in life, deception is a key element. Some may claim it's not in Risk but that's when skill comes in.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 Yeah you are right, when people play games more frequently then games like Risk, Chess, War of the Rings, Star Wars Rebellion and other strategy games very much has deception and misdirection, diplomacy etc. in it. The people who think these games does not have greater strategy in it, are people who don't play it very well. Too many forget that in games like Risk, Castle Risk and Lord of the Rings Risk, the more you fight the more you loose troops. So you can't afford to fight everything and everywhere. Therefore you need diplomacy and deception to have your attacks get the most effect, picking your battles and in many cases be patient while you watch your enemy loose troops against each other. And yes it is just like real life. I love board games because it is one of the best ways to know how people REALLY are when everything is on the line, without it having the same serious consequences as in real life. If more people played board games more, I think they would make far better decisions in real life.
Winning risk is all about the cards. If you defeat a player you get all their cards. You wait until the trade in values are relatively high, have at least 4 cards, and then use your cards to go on a massive offensive against a relatively weak player who has 3 or more cards. You may take big losses but you’ll get reinforcements if you end up with 5 or more cards. Sometimes you get enough to take out another player again and just keep chaining it together. In one turn you’ll have totally transformed the board and have amassed so much territory that victory is inevitable.
That's why a rule change for redemption is necessary. There's too large a jump in # of armies gained through succeding conversions. Might make the game longer. Definitely change the strategy.
This assumes your playing by that rule , don't forget there are 2 options for cards , one as you say with increasing values and the other which is fixed value depending on type of card. This is why talking about a strategy in the game is rather difficult. Because the best strategy depends on alot of variables.
I feel like if you can take Africa, you are usually able to strike at a weaked South America and then hold them both fairly easily. I find going for Africa to be a solid early play because nobody really expects it. And there's a lot of natural choke points.
Back when I played this game a lot, I would go for South America. It was often overlooked and easy to conquer. I would then plant the bulk of my army in Mexico and North Africa to ensure neither of those continents can be conquered while also defending my own territory. I would only move out to deny Europe or Asian if another player seemed to be getting the upper hand, but I would retreated at the end of my turn back to my choke points. When I had amassed big enough armies or if Africa/N. American looked vulnerable I would sweep out and conquer them. Though N. America was preferable, but often there was one player determined to conquering it so it was not taken before Africa. Essentially once I had claimed either Africa or N. America the game was over. The only time this didn't work out was when other players played more passively and didn't actually contest each other like they should. So a player took Asia without any real resistance and I wasn't in a position to challenge him, thus he was able to amass large amounts of troops unopposed. This is pretty rare as everyone understand Asia is a huge threat if someone controls it, so there is nearly always 1-2 people contesting it from being completely taken over.
I’ve always found it good to hold the choke point but do it on the other content. So for example in South America. Hold the choke point in Africa. As that will hurt their bonus but keep yours
Every year me and my friends would host an open invite risk tournament over the last week of the school year. My last year we had 8 boards and still fell a bit short of enough boards for a full first round. Good times.
@greywolf7577 that might be fun to try sometime, but no. Just 8 simultaneous separate games six to a board. With bottom three eliminated round one then one winner from each board after that.
@@stevevernon1978 probably not since one player per territory would not be very fun with a lot of people just stacking men rather than pressing and invasion. Well there was the one guy who's whole strategy was "fortress Ukraine" and he stacked all his men on Ukraine since it has the most neighbors and it bridges Asia and Europe it's generally considered the least defensible territory. So he made it a fortress so people would have to go around the long way or challenge "fortress Ukraine."
@@fauxnoob4157 I've never even remotely had an opportunity to try my "plan" but a third of the players would die before their first turn, and half the rest would die before their 2nd turn.
A great psychological rrick is to tell a player that might attack you, just how much he will lose. For example, he may win one territory but will most likely be weekend. Giving you the opportunity for a strong counterattack. Then tell him with certainty that you will counterattack and take at laest 3 of their territories.
@sorin_markov it's a psychological trick. People will wiegh what they lose more than what they gain. It's not a hundred percent failsafe but it will give you a higher probability of everyone fighting eachother and leaving you alone. Especially if you are in a perceived weaker state. For example if the only territory you control is south America you can always say things like I'm a smaller nation than you, I only have 4 territory while you have 6. Person c over there is building up and has 8 territory.
With what you said about playing South America and Africa as only one choke point, I feel like you overlook the fact that people will still attack those undefended entrances because they understand that they can’t let you have the bonus and even though they’ll lose that territory right away when it’s your turn again, they will still try to never let you get that bonus
I’ve played thousands of games against AI opponents on my iPad, so take it for what it’s worth. But I found that if I can secure Australia early in the game, it’s almost impossible to lose. Make sure you put a sizable force on the choke point, Siam. That holds Australia for you and also prevents anyone from taking all of Asia. With that two-army advantage every turn, you can start building up a huge army on any one country, virtually anywhere on the board. Then “walk” that giant army around, crushing its neighbors and building up cards. Soon enough, you can use it to conquer an entire continent in just one turn, and/or eliminate other players. At that point, your victory is inevitable.
Got to play with nukes. A card set turn in can be used for armies or one strategic nuke, player's choice. A nuke can go into any one chosen territory. It destroys all armies and prevents future movement through that territory. If the board gets segmented into smaller areas with no access to other segmented areas, the person that takes the largest remaining contiguous area wins. We used the black color, which no player seemed to prefer to represent them. We also played with paratroopers. At the end of your turn, when you draw a card (only if you took a territory) 4 armies drop into that territory. If it's yours, reinforcements. If not, they attack whomever is there. Both these house rules were brought back from games in Vietnam by my father. I still vastly prefer them to vanilla Risk.
I guess, but every player can get cards as long as they conquer at least one territory per turn. So you have no advantage over the other players in that regard. But by holding continents, you at least get a few more troops each turn that can help you.
This is why Risk does have that alternative method of play , which we would almost always use. Where values are fixed depending on the type of card set exchanged.
One of the best strategies I've used is connecting all my territories on the North, and get one Australian territory. Distract them with Australia and push down the board
I was going to leave a relatively frumpy comment about how surface level this video was for it's tittle but then I read the channel name and it all makes sense 😛
I've played thousands of games of Lux and other Risk clones. The bottom line is to try to buy future armies (income+cards) as cheaply as possible (minimal early losses). Many approaches can work.. it's all about reading the game state and adapting. That said, I've hardly ever lost after locking down Australia or S. Am early, unless it was an unexpectedly bloody fight that put me behind the overall buildup of other players.
I always try to build my defensive front one territory into the ajoining contients to both defend my continent and deny other players the opportunity of capturing those continents.
1) Get a card every turn; 2) if in a weak position set yourself to deny others their continent bonus 3) if in a weak position hold on until you get 5 cards 4) Surprise everyone with a mad rush to secure a continent (probably SA and or NA) 5) victory.
The most important thing is to observe your opponent’s playing style and a very basic but super essential strategy is to put all troops in one stack and keep this stack as open as possible to as many players as possible. Refrain from actually aggressing your neighbors, but you want to be able to retaliate in a meaningful manner and be able to kill weak players for cards. Theoretically Europe is the winning continent because it’s almost never in Africa‘s and North America‘s interest to beef with you, South America has no border to you and Australia is easily defended off from the Ukraine as Africa probably stacks in the Middle East where they have access to friendly cards unlike North Africa.
I always seem to find I can judge the moment to attack and win when the probability is in my favour, but I struggle to identify how many troops is enough to defend a territory. Too often I over or under estimate and end up with either too many inactive troops doing nothing but detering attacks, or I mistakenly think I've got enough troops in defence and end up easily defeated. Judging probabilities is relatively easy. Judging how hard other people will try to attack me is much more difficult.
I’m not sure what refutes his “every time” claim more, the fact that the game is based on probability (more often?) or the fact that the last point is that you are using human psychology, which is tenuous and unpredictable.
Funny thing about me when I play. When I know I'm going to lose I make a push to Japan to make my final stand. For some reason, I seem to roll extremely well when defending Japan as my final stand. I get so many 5s and 6s.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 It would drive my dad nuts. He'd lose half of his forces on average just to blast me off of there and very rarely did it take less than 4 turns to do so.
I would mass an army, and take one territory per turn. Then, when people each had 3,4,5 cards, I would unleash on one player at a time, take their cards, trade in, target another player take there cards, etc. Works best when you have 5 or 6 players, and people have already traded in a few card sets already. When you are ready to strike, you can typically run the board in a single turn.
Good strategy. I think card conversion rules needs revising. The jump from each one gains too many armies. I played a Lord of the Rings version and they made the values different, like 3 cannons gained a fixed #, three foot soldiers a different fixed #, etc. I also think that when you turn in your cards if you have one of those countries you should be allowed to place those extra two armies where you can use them as they are useless in the middle of nowhere most times. I also think you should have a choice at the beginning of your turn to move armies rather than only after finishing attacking (but not both).
Make a treaty with one player who represents a threat to your position, and then propagandize everyone to attack the player closest to winning. Once the best player is neutralized break your treaty.
Left out a huge key to choke points. The best ones let you mass troops in a single territory that the enemy has to split into two. You mention Venizuela being a choke point, but Central America gives you a much larger advantage. C. America vs. Venizuela will turn into a stalemate. If you hold C. America instead, you have the option to take West or East U.S. for a territory card and retreat back into C. America if need be. Same goes with holding West Africa over having a Brazil vs. West Africa stalemate. You *need* to be able to collect cards without losing your massed army every turn to do so. Continent bonuses win an extra territory or two. Cards win the game, and they weren't even mentioned in this video.
Asia can be held with four territories - Ukraine -, making it superior to Europe and depriving anyone from receiving a bonus for Europe, or three with Australia, plus a two-troops bonus.
My friends and family don't like playing Risk against me because I tend to win unless they gang up on me. So I don't play 3-player risk games anymore. With 4 players you can always coax 1 person to at least harass the other two if you manage your borders right.
If you play progressive bonus troops for card trade ins, just stack troops and take 1 territory for a card and stop. Same next turn. Once you have enough troops for all territories + enemy troops + 15%,you win. Don’t bother holding any continents. You only need one territory and your massive army. The other players will spread themselves out, not realizing eventually these trade ins will be worth 50, 60, and 70 armies. Works every time.
One thing I learned from a LOT of Risk games... don't spend too much effort trying to forge alliances. Soon enough your opponents will figure out what you're trying to do and gang up on you.
Yup that’s my general strategy. South America into North America unless I don’t get contested too hard for North America. Once you control them both you can defend from 3 points. And by pushing forward 1 space on all those points you deny everyone except Australia their continent bonuses. Once that happens, the game is pretty much yours.
Spoken like someone who has never played Risk… I’ve lost so many troops rolling 3 dice to 2 or even 1. It is and always will be a game of superior strategy AND luck.
It is all about chaining kills and turning in sets. You want a decent stack sitting far away from your main stack - this way to kill you they have to go around the board to get to you. An experienced player can pop off on the second set or third set. Usually the third set is when players start dying.
There's an another strategy I've employed when not able to get South America or Australia is trying gain 15 territories by the start of my next turn in the north but not threaten to gain a continent. I try to capture 17-18 territories and expect to lose a couple by the start of my next turn. My goal was to have no interest in Africa and then the Australian guy is concern about the South American guy exerting influence over conquering Africa.
Exactly, they almost always do, which is there are meta strategies and meta-meta strategies, which is why reading the board and your opponents is so important. A lot of it boils down to Sun Tzu's are ot war wherein he lays out four maxims. If you can win you must attack, if you cannot win then you should defend. If you cannot defend then you should run, and if you cannot run then you should surrender.
I think you've ignored the most important aspect which is the cycle of risk cards/bonuses. Getting five risk cards, putting down a huge army and wiping out someone with 4/5 cards in their hand is the game winning gamble/move. Ending a turn of massive conquests by putting down the next bonus at the end of your turn is massive advantage.
About Australia,.staying in Indonesia or Siam is a huge mistake, you can treat it as a pseudo South America by Stacking in China/India so you're still able to threaten the board while simultaneously promising retaliation. Smart players will recognize that and not risk being blown to kingdom come since fighting for Australia is always a bad move but if youbplay with a regular friend group and intentionally destroy someone for thinking Australia was free you'll find it more likely people will respect the China/India stack in future games where youreon position for an early Australia
Once you have South America Africa and the Middle East, you can block other players and prevent them from completing north america, Europe and Asia by moving in and out of bordering countries.
Here's a curve ball: Imagine how much the game would change with Australia having a bridge to Chile. Local (unlicensed, surely) copy of Risk named "TEG" (Tácticas y Estrategias de la Guerra) did this and I assure you both Australia and South America are considerably harder to keep control of
This works well if you're playing what's called "fixed trade" rules. If you're playing the original rules, the card trades "progress," becoming more and more powerful. There is a BETTER strategy than what's taught in this video. Don't worry about continents at all. Have three big stacks at different parts of the world. Take one territory to get a card, then stop. Wait until you see a player about to get killed, then kill them and take their cards. You will likely have more than five, which forces a trade. If done right, your first kill will give you 20 troops, which you can use to kill ANOTHER player and get 25 more free troops. The masters of Risk play this way usually and sweep the entire board in 1-2 turns, while looking like "the underdog" because they have zero continents. The reason for splitting up to different parts of the world is to have "kill lines" on other players.
I got double teamed by my father and my friend once in risk. They managed to push me all the way to irkusk before I rallied and destroyed both of them.
My route tends to go 1. S. America 2. N America 3. Africa 4. Europe while taking the tip of Asia. . This route limits the places I have to defend with maximum troops per turn.
Australia is better than all of those options because you tend to not need to worry about defense much, and so while everyone else kills each other you can focus on diplomacy and building up your army, and then suddenly strike.
The trick I to time your offensives to knock players out of the game and take their cards. The continents don’t matter a whole lot because it’s usually just tit-for-tat border wars and the only continents people allow you to hold for any length or time provide such a small bonus that it’s relatively insignificant. You are likely to lose more people trying to fight for a contentment than what you would gain from holding it. Eliminate players, take their cards. I guarantee it always works 60% or the time.
My favorite is going for both South America and Africa, starting in either one. If any player is close to completing North America or Europe, lots of effort is made to prevent this. If you hold most of Africa but not complete it yet, it looks like you are just defending South America and players bordering you might wait for others to try and stop you as it's not that high a priority. I do tend to make lots of small stacks to pretend to look weaker and postpone finishing Africa.
My wife almost always places 2nd because she follows NO strategy. She randomly places troops and attacks out of no where. Very difficult to play against because you never know what she is going to do. She says its because she doesn't care but I think its brilliant.
No matter hoemuch strategy and psychology you apply; if you're like me and regularly attack 1 or 2 defenders with 18 troops and lose multiple times in a game, youll quickly realize luck is a necessary comdition to victory. Honestly, don't bither with Risk - play Castle Risk/Risk Europe (or betted yet, just get a COIN series game by GMT like Red Dust Rebellion and have some fun).
1) I’m a Top Grandmaster at RISK and NO, you can’t win EVERY game. If you’re as good as me, it’s about a 60-70% chance, you can never be certain to win a game. 2) just because you can attack doesn’t mean you should. 3) You explained Australia correctly 4) South America is not much better than Australia, I’d actually argue to say it’s worse because if a player has Africa and another player has North America, you cannot win the game because you are not blocked in Africa. You need to be in Asia to get cards. So South America is only good if you’re going to take another continent. 5) getting bigger continents is NOT the only way to win, “patience” is the only way to win 6) honestly don’t go for Asia unless there’s less than 4 players in the game. You’ll never hold it. Player will slam all there troops into you just to break you cuz most think it’s a game winning move. It’s too risky.
The downside to South America is that you can get boxed in so that you can't get cards. Maintaining a separate army in Eurasia to take easy cards can reduce this risk, but there's always a chance that someone will decide to kill that army to force you to break out of your continent or else get choked off from any cards. North America is hard to get in the early game. Not necessarily impossible, but difficult. There's another option: don't go for continents. Instead, maintain 1-2 armies in Eurasia and/or North America. Take 1 territory per turn to keep the cards coming in. Don't bother trying to hold territory. Try not to provoke anyone more than necessary. Just keep the cards coming in. Your army will get bigger, and as you get into the late game regularly turning in cards will become more important than continents. Also - there's a lot of value in maintaining to bases of power. If you have a continent, have a separate army somewhere else. If you own South America, have an army in Eurasia. If you have Australia, have an army in Europe or North America. This makes it easier to find a place to get easy cards without starting a major war. It also you much harder and riskier to eliminate in the late game. Someone who turns in for a massive army might be able to wipe out one of your power bases, but likely not both, and eliminating one would leave you vulnerable to the next person - who could finish the job, take your cards, turn in again, and crush the first person to attack you. So you probably don't get attacked until someone thinks they have the power to eliminate both power bases.
How games of Risk went in my family
-My brother and I see each other as the primary threat
-Fight each other constantly to keep the other from controlling a continent
-Forget Dad is also a player
-Dad mops the floor with both of us
Yup...this was the same for us, but it was my mom. She ALWAYS played the Pepto pink color and before we knew it...she coated the map!!!
Parents who are good at Risk know how to exploit sibling rivalry, haha!
Happened with me and my brother with catan we paid no attention to my mom and she won.
@@shawnadams1460 British Empire lol
Dad was playing MacArthur larp
The next step is clear now. How to win Diplomacy every time, without losing friends.
Dont ask for the impossible
Don't play with friends.
_Mission: Impossible_
Really, though, there's only *one* method I've seen for taking this element out of Diplomacy; _roleplay._
Step out of your *own* persona for a moment, and create a "proxy character" who is doing all the backstabbing. My Ex played a game of Diplo once where, when she betrayed an alliance, she "roleplayed" it as a sudden shift in political control for her _own_ country. The "old guard" was out and a new political movement was in control and first order of business: dealing with the "allies" of the *old government.* She wrote out an entire _proclamation,_ in-character, as a "speech" from the new head of government and sent it to her former Ally after the turn was resolved.
Her ally's response: OOC> Ooh, that was *soo good!* IC> _Ooh, you are _*_soo dead!_*
Oh... that sounds awesome...do they toss in a throw to see if *all* the military is behind the coup, and don't break away from the empire?
Never mind, I realized it didn't say coup, just changed political parties so not necessarily a couple.
The problem with people playing RISK is that they often neglect the social element of the game. You can have the largest empire or the most strategic position on the board, but anger enough players and they'll just gang up on you. I remember watching some mobile RISK gameplay and being impressed by the complexity of the interactions. Short term alliances would form around trading back and forth border territories and leaving only 1 token unit in order to keep hoarding cards while boosting defenses in strategic locations, as the long term bonuses from trade-ins vastly overshadow the short term territorial gain. Plus another aspect of RISK's social game is grudges - beat a player too much or too hard, and you have an enemy for the rest of the game. You can exploit this by playing both sides during grudges, too.
Justbweather yhe storm. Eventually your position will be weak enough that your no longer the threat and you can point out troop buildup within their alliances.
True Risk it one of the best party games for that reason as iyt's really made for it... Unlike Poker where they simply ban playing the game which they call card counting in favor of making it a pure social experience... Also kinda makes Risk the party and gamy version of Deplomacy which for the best exerpince you need a full player count and let a full day pass so every has time to be social. Which unlike chess which used to be played that way to give everyone time to make the best move on the table in depomacy the game is uber simple but the social bit isn't. So yeah Risk is just a great balance of social and gamplay while eeasy enough to learn quickly even if it won't ever click for most people... Makes you wonder why it isn';t more popular like chess, monopoly and those pure socal card games where the card want you to do something?
Napoleon's classic mistake, ignoring the social element
in high school i played risk with 3 of my friends all the time and i annihilated of them through a combination of deception and strategy learned from other strategy games. this worked a little too well as they eventually formed a coalition at the start of every game to wipe me off the map
@@crimsoncrusader4829 Unironically, yeah, that's what actually happened. Napoleon wanted to impose the Continental system purely to spite the British rather than just finding new trade routes. Instead of pacifying the nations he conquered, he carved new ones and placed his own incompetent family on their thrones. As brilliant a general and a statist he was, his grip on the continent was shaky at best.
Jokes aside, RISK is really more about psychology than RNG.
There's also the quick gains issue.
If you appear too dominant, the table will naturally unite against you.
Staying off the radar until it's too late is crucial in games like this.
That's why cards exist. It's the only part of the game that is deliberately hidden from other players, so you could look like you have jack and keep losing territory when in reality you can deploy 100+ troops at any point.
@@M30W3Ralso the missions, not being able to figure out the mission of another player is a huge disadvantage. We had this one time, the average or so player fiddled around in Africa and South America the entire game and then went all in with reinforcements. We thought he’s gonna conquer Africa fully and secure it, but no, the mad lad had to secure Asia. He could have easily lost in that gamble but he miraculously didn’t. Spent almost all manpower except like 2 soldiers. This baffled everyone.
@@M30W3Ralso the missions, not being able to figure out the mission of another player is a huge disadvantage. We had this one time, the average or so player fiddled around in Africa and South America the entire game and then went all in with reinforcements. We thought he’s gonna conquer Africa fully and secure it, but no, the mad lad had to secure Asia. He could have easily lost in that gamble but he miraculously didn’t. Spent almost all manpower except like 2 soldiers.
Everyone knows you win risk by flipping the game board with a rage quit
The Nuclear Option.
That's just the risk we all play
No that's monopoly
Don’t forget “Why must I play this game against this fool !”
Thats just how I win every time
My dad always just stacks all his troops on one territory and then goes on a rampage around the world
This is how it’s done… lol. The doomstack is real.
Does he win?
The mongol horde strategy
That rarely works. When people do this its best to team up and surround them so they cannot gain cards.
The only way to play. Hoard a set and wait til the last player uses their set to shore up defenses. Then doomstack elsewhere to throw them off balance.
I used to play Lux Deluxe (which is basically just Risk+), and there was an AI, Reaper, that showed how starting in an unfavorable spot can actually be an advantage. This is because their strategy is to minimize losses while always being sure to conquer a territory every turn to build to reinforcements. It would then consolidate its army into a doomstack. But the AI deliberately chooses spots in areas seen as 'bad' like Asia, places too big to conquer or defend, for two reasons: one is to make it unattractive to take on their doomstack, because Reaper deliberately avoids getting set bonuses if it borders them against a dangerous enemy. Meaning, you don't get much for taking over Reaper's territory, either to stop continent bonus reinforcements or to get some of your own. Two, it's because while they are an unattractive target themselves, Reaper still stays very close to the other armies. It then pounces on an opponent that will give them the best surrendered cards/armies lost ratio, then resumes its strategy until it sees another victim -- unless it has so many reinforcements from farming cards that it can easily crush the other armies regardless of what territory they're holding.
This is because Reaper's strategy is to farm card bonuses, not territory bonuses. It's a very interesting strategy when you're playing a large number of opponents and there is fierce competition for continent bonus reinforcements.
I learned a lot from playing against Reaper. They are cunning and shameless opportunists with a higher win rate than most other bots.
In six player unless you get an easy Australia/South America this is the starting strategy I play. But remember you can easily pivot if you see an continent open.
I gotta remember this. 🪖
Growing up with my sisters, they seemed to have a strategy I couldn't beat. Their definitive way was simply not to play.
World leaders should consider that strategy.
They were waiting to play a nice game of chess.
@@frostyrobot7689 Very subtle, very nice
North America is so worth it. 5 troops and 3 choke points. If you’re going for Africa, hold Middle East as well.
I always try to take North America. When playing against the computer, I was able to conquer North America and defend it so well that I was able to conquer one territory outside of North America each turn after that and defend all of the border territories well enough that once it got down to two players, it became impossible for the other player to conquer another territory, meaning they couldn't get any cards to turn in and thus I could slowly advance one territory at a time, slowly defeating them.
Now, of course, this is harder with human players who can realize this strategy ahead of time and try to either gang up on the player using this strategy or use other methods of breaking it.
Problem is that going for North America as your first continent can quickly end up with you falling far behind on economy if you just get a little unlucky. Once someone has South America and commits to preventing you from unifying NA you're in big trouble of just being unable to build up enough of an army to finish the job in NA.
I have won by far the most games from Australia, but yes my second choice would be North America, followed by South America and Africa. Europe and Asia is generally way too hard to win from starting out.
@@prrrromotiongiven1075Yep that is what I always did 😁
That applies to Asia as well , much depends on the first round of play.
Asia has a wonderful position of holding and deprivation of other large gain continents.
You gain the most troops per round and can deprive others of north america via Alaska and Europe ( this is a given as necessary to reduce your front ) Ukraine.
Use the early advantage to reduce Australia and you have 9 extra troops all while depriving north america and Europe from opponents.
After that single incursions into wherever your opponent trys to build strength will get you your card for the turn.
But again , alot turns on how many are playing and what you start with.
Computers are the easiest to beat , I would let others pick the starting countries in a game for me to play against the computer , and no matter how hard they made it for me , I never lost.
For the record , I found 3 players to be the easiest.
The psychology he is describing is not present in my friends or I when we play. He often describes being able to decrease choke points with threat of retaliation, but if I see that I could kill a single troop in Africa to stop you from getting a bonus 3 guys, I'm gonna commit forces to that attack. And you will take it back next turn and that's fine, but you ain't getting the continent bonus, not on my watch.
Sure, that can work if everyone is breaking bonuses.
But if anyone decides to work together and not break each other's bonus, you'll quickly find yourself as the smallest army with no alliances to back you up.
If your friends are playing one way, try and change the meta and give yourself an advantage.
I see you have never heard of good neighbor theory
Agreed. The only thing better than retaliation is not letting you hurt me in the first place 😆
That’s how I have played it always as well
Yeah I always try to capture a territory for a card whenever possible and if it means I can take out someone's bonus I will always do that
Taking South America first is key to a lot of wins. Only two entry points. Then build up a defensive front from Mexico while also building up an army to attack Africa. If you can get SA and Africa, then you are still dealing with minimal entrance points (either 3 or 4) but you have two continents. Defend all of African entry points. Then attack Mexico and go after North America.
If you can get NA, SA, and Africa, you can have 3 continents that only have 5 entry points max (Alaska, Greenland, and the top of Africa). You can also take Iceland and eastern Russian to prevent any continent other than Australia from being taken.
Then just wait until the other players have tired themselves out and take over the world.
I've always done the South America Strategy and quickly take over North America. The only problem is I'm too good at this strategy and everyone gangs up on me for the early lead. If I can defend myself then I win the game. If not I'm the first one out
Where's eastern Russia?
@@Ggdivhjkjl the territory that connects to Alaska. I don’t recall the name of it off hand so I described it as Eastern Russia.
I always conquer North America first. 5 troop bonus each turn for only defending two entrance points is well worth it.
If you take SA you should always have a stack in Asia to take cards, or you will easily get cardblocked.
Surely everyone already knew all this. How to really win risk: roll sixes!
Absolute win strategy: eat the enemy's dice while it's rolling
@@M30W3R
Or, eat the enemy.
Having run a Risk board gaming club for friends for 13 years i can confirm that the majority of winners start out early with controlling Australia or South America.
Yep, I always go Australia and am rarely contested
Australia is the better of the two.
I rarely see Australia win. It’s tough to expand from and take other continents.
South America is best to start from, then take North America. You only need three choke holds and gain seven extra Armies per turn.
My experience also, whoever takes Australia early on seems to always win.
Expanding from Australia has been my go to winning strategy whenever possible.
I just watched this with my roommate, now both of us will always win.
Haha
4:23 and once again you never start a land war in Asia
“And only slightly less well-known is this! Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!” (Laughs and falls over from the iocaine powder.)
I played a game of Risk in college once where I explicity stated that I was going to start in Asia and win... and when it came down to there being three of us left, player 3 threw themselves at player 2 instead of me because of my pre-game declaration. I cleaned up what was left and won.
Inconceivable!
That is a universal truth my brother...
Instructions unclear. Mordor is filled with troops after breaking through the whole map.
One does not simply walk into Mordor. 😂
They should make a risk board based on Middle Earth. I'm sure someone has done it.
@@greywolf7577It's called War of the Ring and is absolutely amazing!
There is LOTR risk. There is also StarWars risk and much more
@ There is also a game called Axis and Allies.
No mention of card strategy, have you ever played risk?
On dice; just attacking because you can roll 3 dice is a surefire way to get your teeth kicked in, with 37% basically playing out to needing double their numbers to not get obliterated.
If you look at the statistics, 34% of the time, you each lose one unit. So they are getting obliterated just as quickly as you are in that situation. So 71% of the time, the defending player is losing troops at an equal or higher rate than the attacker is.
If you have 5 cards you WILL have a match. If you have 4 cards you may not have a match.
That's what I'm saying, it's about the cards! The cards are literally a mechanic designed to end the game, therefore they are your win condition.
@@Hennu_TRM And if you can time the cards just right, you can line up your opponents and destroy them all and take their cards so you can turn cards in again instantly. If you can take out two opponents in one turn this way, you have a massive advantage.
@@protorhinocerator142 True. Most risk games in my memory ended when one player was able to use their set to defeat a player, take the cards, and play another set.
>unlikely to attack Brazil
except all you need to do is take *one* province and then they don't get the troop bonus from owning South America, then just shuttle troops back to Africa if you want and you'll still get a card. So, that's 2 very good things at very minimal cost, so I don't think that Venezuela strategy is very solid
Agreed
Pissing off your neighbour is a real good way for getting them to sue their army into you making you both lose
I've always thought that there's a fundamental flaw in the game. Almost every game winds up having two superpowers and one or two smaller armies with no realistic chance of winning. The smaller army ultimately decides the winner by choosing which superpower to attack.
That's why some rules should be changed to prevent this same, boring and inevitable conclusion as you succinctly point out.
There’s different things you can do to change up the game. For examples when o play with my young nephews every chooses 1 spot ok the board to put a quarter and that territory is a “strong hold” and gets +1 defense. Each player also gets a DnD mini figurine which is a hero unit who gets +1 attack and +1 defense. When occupying a strong hold you get +1 unit on that space at the start of your turn. It’s fun. Friends and I would do it with Lord Of The Rings Risk when kids.
I've always won when it came down to 3.
If you manage to always hold cards til 5, it removes an element of chance and sets up a chain turn in. When there's 3, get get your ops to expend their troops when you have the bottlenecks, then hit them with demoralizing chain turn in. Leave small terrifies to easily take more cards and let ops see your plan. Too late for them to help each other
The smaller army can come from behind once you start turning in for large enough armies. You just have to survive to that point.
@potatoskunk5981 it's just a matter of picking where your fronts are (waterways only when possible) and piling troops on them. Even if they penetrate and try to do heavy damage, defenders have advantage; let them know you're about to reinforce and undo their progress after they've weakened themselves
I've had good luck conquering Asia as my second continent when starting from Australia. I think a lot of players think I couldn't possibly be trying something that crazy, so they don't realize the threat until it's too late. It involves securing Siam, then taking the Middle East, Kamchatka or Alaska, and Ukraine. Once they're all secure, the Siam armies take over the rest of Asia. From there, the usual route is: North America, South America, Africa, and finally Europe.
Good job. I don't think I've ever seen a single player conquer all of Asian and actually keep it for a full turn in order to get the 7 troop bonus unless they were already had control of most of the board already.
If people are letting you take Asia often you aren't playing in the better lobbies.
@@vedangarekar1390 Yeah, I've never seen anyone get the 7 troop bonus from controlling Asia unless they were very close to winning the entire game.
I think Australia is the best place to start from
Never gunna hold it, not a chance you getting those bonus troops
This offered nothing beyond the obvious.
Ya there was definitely not a winning strategy in this video at all....
Welcome to youtube- land of clickbait.
They would have gotten rolled at any of the tables I played on. If you leave your continent open, someone is taking it. Threat of retaliation means nothing, and you'll lose your bonus.
@Adador Then your table has yet to find out how disgusting unspoken non-aggression is.
Whenever you and another player fight every other player gains advantage because you and the other player lost troops (It's why the Australian turtle can cheese wins in a table of low skill players) but if you settle in to general areas
Europe/Africa+South America/North America
You end up in the same boat but instead of +3 you all get +8 per turn and no the coward that hides in Australia is forced to make a move but they're trapped because of the huge armies in Afghanistan/Russia/Kamchatka
Every troop you aren't using to point at your neighbor is a troop you can your neighbor can use against someone else and sometimes letting someone be the villain can be beneficial.
If you're south America and stack on brazil you enable the north America player to threaten Europe and Asia naturally putting them into a 2v1 while you try and fight for/claim Africa in 1v1 where troop generation is 5v3 compared to the 4v3 the North American player is fighting onn2 fronts and a well timed betrayal can destroy them if thry don't have a trade
@@IC-23 Different tables have different social situations which impact gameplay. A player not working within the social structure of that group will lose, unless they manage to recognize and exploit it.
If someone took a continent while not covering every checkpoint, they will lose it. If they try to go after the one that took away the bonus from them, it'll destroy both of their chances of winning. Since everyone is trying to win in the games I play, retaliation isn't a worry, especially if they have to do that retaliation with two to five fewer troops.
If one is a big enough threat that fear of retaliation is a real threat, then they are strong enough that just about everyone else at the table is gunning for them anyway.
Since everyone is trying to bring down the strongest faction, the ones that don't often end up next on the chopping block.
It takes a long time for the game to settle. If they left Africa open, someone will take it and consider the player a newbie. An easy risk card and removing a continental bonus while having the support of everyone at the table?
It's an obvious move to make unless one needs them as a buffer against someone who already took both N and S America, or something else unusual.
No one wants to become too powerful too early. I have seen a player get wiped out by everyone else before his third turn just because he took Europe (of all places) on his first turn.
How to win? Don't play digital and risk 30 troops against 2 all at once because the randomizer will make you lose them all more often than not lmao
Just don't set it to auto roll. Manually roll the dice each time so that you can make sure to stop before you lose too many.
@@greywolf7577My preferred response to this is to keep it on auto roll and then just rage quit if I get a really bad beat 😅
that’s what the slider is for
you can lower the number of troops to just what you need (mobilizing 5 troops wins against 2 defenders 100% of the time in balanced blitz) if you’re playing true random then you could lose them all no matter what
@@greywolf7577a cousin lost 32 rolling each one
@@seyj7457 Doesn't seem truly random when a 1% chance to lose all your troops happens half the time. I gamble at casinos so thinking of the odds hitting like that is ludicrous lol
North America is easier to hold than Europe due to how many entry points each has.
forget australia. south america everytime, then africa. doesnt really matter tho, risk is 90% politics. just convincing your buds not to attack you and go after your opponents instead is the most important thing
If your friend has five cards. He will have exactly one set. This is a fact and good to know.
1:11 In my experience only 1 or 2 people at most go for Australia, and generally contiguous territory control is aimed for during setup.
A big point I'd make is it depends how many players you have. With small numbers the small continents lose appeal, you can go straight for North America for example or just rely on pure territory numbers.
I played a game with two other friends one time, and we got a crazy spread where each one of us had a strong concentration in the powerful continents. I took Australia and proceeded to lock down Asia early game since I had so many troops already in it. The other guys were too busy conquering America and Europe, respectively. Eventually, it got to the point where we each had a major continent and the ones beneath.
Asia and America tag-teamed Europe, bringing it to its knees. But neither taking it entirely. Then we were stuck in a huge stalemate. We all just camped troops until I had enough to break into America. By then it was basically over. I've never seen Asia taken early game but it was nasty
In my experience, holding North America is a lot more valuable than holding Africa, even beyond the 2 extra armies. Due to how the map is set up, the Alaska-to-Kamchatka connection is not very obvious, making most people unconciously disregarding it as a vector of attack, thus reducing the border states to 2 or 2 1/2 at most. Also because of this, fighting often takes place in the middle of the map, with Africa changing owner a lot more time than North America would. In my experience, once you are allowed to keep North America for a turn or 2, it will be yours unless someone actively needs it as for their assignment (or needs to destroy you).
In regard to Australia (and South America to a lesser extend), once you have a good shot of taking it in the early game, always hold onto your armies elsewhere in the world. Once you take it, best plug it up with a stack in Southeast Asia or Indonesia and use those 2 extra armies to bolster your operarions elsewhere rather than expand into Asia.
Just win every dice roll, bro. Just do it, it is as simple as that.
Yes, but how? You left that part out.
Did anyone play dominate game when that was a thing? Basically simple looking online risk. I can tell you that the only strategy was taking as much teritory as you could with one stack on the map in order to have more troop spawns and less troop spawns for your opponent. At the highest level it ends up being no one is getting extra troop spawns from holding continents outside of maybe the early game... Its a game of attrition, not holding territory. Get stack -> take as much territory as you can that hurts your opponents without making your stack too weak. That's the game - the players who sit and hold South America or Australia are usually the ones who are third/fourth in a game of six, while one/two are doing this strategy against each other, though these players might start in one of those two continents.
When playing with 3 or 5 players, diplomacy can be a hugely influential factor. My observation has been that a player who largely gets left out of the trench warfare can very quickly build up a dominant force, then sucker punch a weakened opponent at the opportune moment.
Not very *risky* now, is it
Never underestimate the spite of a father-in-law who didn't want to play to begin with. Throws all of this out the window
I remember I was hanging out with my friends, and I would play Risk with them every time we ate lunch during our break, one day I was getting so many victories and high rolls, one of my friends threw a chair across the room.
I tried to build out of Australia for years. I don't think I ever had success with it. I find that North America is the best way to start.
I have won more than 14 times straight with Australia, it is by far the place I have had the most success starting from. But yes North America is not bad either, but it is hard to keep if other players know what they are doing.
@@ProgressIsTheOnlyEvolution
It's interesting how, just like in life, deception is a key element. Some may claim it's not in Risk but that's when skill comes in.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 Yeah you are right, when people play games more frequently then games like Risk, Chess, War of the Rings, Star Wars Rebellion and other strategy games very much has deception and misdirection, diplomacy etc. in it.
The people who think these games does not have greater strategy in it, are people who don't play it very well. Too many forget that in games like Risk, Castle Risk and Lord of the Rings Risk, the more you fight the more you loose troops. So you can't afford to fight everything and everywhere. Therefore you need diplomacy and deception to have your attacks get the most effect, picking your battles and in many cases be patient while you watch your enemy loose troops against each other.
And yes it is just like real life. I love board games because it is one of the best ways to know how people REALLY are when everything is on the line, without it having the same serious consequences as in real life. If more people played board games more, I think they would make far better decisions in real life.
@@ProgressIsTheOnlyEvolution
Yes, war without the war.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 Exactly
Winning risk is all about the cards. If you defeat a player you get all their cards. You wait until the trade in values are relatively high, have at least 4 cards, and then use your cards to go on a massive offensive against a relatively weak player who has 3 or more cards. You may take big losses but you’ll get reinforcements if you end up with 5 or more cards. Sometimes you get enough to take out another player again and just keep chaining it together. In one turn you’ll have totally transformed the board and have amassed so much territory that victory is inevitable.
That's why a rule change for redemption is necessary. There's too large a jump in # of armies gained through succeding conversions. Might make the game longer. Definitely change the strategy.
This assumes your playing by that rule , don't forget there are 2 options for cards , one as you say with increasing values and the other which is fixed value depending on type of card.
This is why talking about a strategy in the game is rather difficult. Because the best strategy depends on alot of variables.
I feel like if you can take Africa, you are usually able to strike at a weaked South America and then hold them both fairly easily.
I find going for Africa to be a solid early play because nobody really expects it. And there's a lot of natural choke points.
Back when I played this game a lot, I would go for South America. It was often overlooked and easy to conquer. I would then plant the bulk of my army in Mexico and North Africa to ensure neither of those continents can be conquered while also defending my own territory. I would only move out to deny Europe or Asian if another player seemed to be getting the upper hand, but I would retreated at the end of my turn back to my choke points.
When I had amassed big enough armies or if Africa/N. American looked vulnerable I would sweep out and conquer them. Though N. America was preferable, but often there was one player determined to conquering it so it was not taken before Africa. Essentially once I had claimed either Africa or N. America the game was over. The only time this didn't work out was when other players played more passively and didn't actually contest each other like they should. So a player took Asia without any real resistance and I wasn't in a position to challenge him, thus he was able to amass large amounts of troops unopposed. This is pretty rare as everyone understand Asia is a huge threat if someone controls it, so there is nearly always 1-2 people contesting it from being completely taken over.
I’ve always found it good to hold the choke point but do it on the other content. So for example in South America. Hold the choke point in Africa. As that will hurt their bonus but keep yours
I'd like an in depth video like this for Axis and Allies
Every year me and my friends would host an open invite risk tournament over the last week of the school year. My last year we had 8 boards and still fell a bit short of enough boards for a full first round. Good times.
Did you string all the boards together so that if you attacked from Alaska into Russia, you went to a different board rather than your own board?
@greywolf7577 that might be fun to try sometime, but no. Just 8 simultaneous separate games six to a board. With bottom three eliminated round one then one winner from each board after that.
did you ever consider playing "42 players at one board"?
@@stevevernon1978 probably not since one player per territory would not be very fun with a lot of people just stacking men rather than pressing and invasion. Well there was the one guy who's whole strategy was "fortress Ukraine" and he stacked all his men on Ukraine since it has the most neighbors and it bridges Asia and Europe it's generally considered the least defensible territory. So he made it a fortress so people would have to go around the long way or challenge "fortress Ukraine."
@@fauxnoob4157 I've never even remotely had an opportunity to try my "plan" but a third of the players would die before their first turn, and half the rest would die before their 2nd turn.
This video helps, because I like RTS games like Rise of Nation.
A great psychological rrick is to tell a player that might attack you, just how much he will lose. For example, he may win one territory but will most likely be weekend. Giving you the opportunity for a strong counterattack. Then tell him with certainty that you will counterattack and take at laest 3 of their territories.
He may win one territory but will most likely be the author of Blinding Lights?!? No way dude!
@sorin_markov it's a psychological trick. People will wiegh what they lose more than what they gain. It's not a hundred percent failsafe but it will give you a higher probability of everyone fighting eachother and leaving you alone. Especially if you are in a perceived weaker state. For example if the only territory you control is south America you can always say things like I'm a smaller nation than you, I only have 4 territory while you have 6. Person c over there is building up and has 8 territory.
@@sorin_markov Two days’ defeat leads to tomorrow’s victory.
With what you said about playing South America and Africa as only one choke point, I feel like you overlook the fact that people will still attack those undefended entrances because they understand that they can’t let you have the bonus and even though they’ll lose that territory right away when it’s your turn again, they will still try to never let you get that bonus
I’ve played thousands of games against AI opponents on my iPad, so take it for what it’s worth. But I found that if I can secure Australia early in the game, it’s almost impossible to lose. Make sure you put a sizable force on the choke point, Siam. That holds Australia for you and also prevents anyone from taking all of Asia. With that two-army advantage every turn, you can start building up a huge army on any one country, virtually anywhere on the board. Then “walk” that giant army around, crushing its neighbors and building up cards. Soon enough, you can use it to conquer an entire continent in just one turn, and/or eliminate other players. At that point, your victory is inevitable.
The doom stack theory.
Got to play with nukes.
A card set turn in can be used for armies or one strategic nuke, player's choice.
A nuke can go into any one chosen territory. It destroys all armies and prevents future movement through that territory.
If the board gets segmented into smaller areas with no access to other segmented areas, the person that takes the largest remaining contiguous area wins.
We used the black color, which no player seemed to prefer to represent them.
We also played with paratroopers.
At the end of your turn, when you draw a card (only if you took a territory) 4 armies drop into that territory.
If it's yours, reinforcements. If not, they attack whomever is there.
Both these house rules were brought back from games in Vietnam by my father. I still vastly prefer them to vanilla Risk.
that's a mid rule
@@SavageJarJar Played it for years. Works great.
@@douglasfels9789 only if you do not exploit it.
@@SavageJarJar Not sure what that means.
Don't try to win? Not my style. Or anyone's style in my family. :)
You really need a part 2 to talk about the cards. Progressive cards make holding continents in the late game worthless in comparison
I guess, but every player can get cards as long as they conquer at least one territory per turn. So you have no advantage over the other players in that regard. But by holding continents, you at least get a few more troops each turn that can help you.
@@greywolf7577
Still, this video is incomplete without discussing card strategy since it is a large part of the game.
This is why Risk does have that alternative method of play , which we would almost always use.
Where values are fixed depending on the type of card set exchanged.
@@rewar5870
They applied the fixed value rule in a Lord of the Rings version of Risk. I thought it made more sense.
One of the best strategies I've used is connecting all my territories on the North, and get one Australian territory. Distract them with Australia and push down the board
I would do the opposite...pretend to go for North America while actually going for Australia and then build from Australia to North America.
Sneaky bastids!
I was going to leave a relatively frumpy comment about how surface level this video was for it's tittle but then I read the channel name and it all makes sense 😛
I've played thousands of games of Lux and other Risk clones. The bottom line is to try to buy future armies (income+cards) as cheaply as possible (minimal early losses). Many approaches can work.. it's all about reading the game state and adapting.
That said, I've hardly ever lost after locking down Australia or S. Am early, unless it was an unexpectedly bloody fight that put me behind the overall buildup of other players.
I always try to build my defensive front one territory into the ajoining contients to both defend my continent and deny other players the opportunity of capturing those continents.
1) Get a card every turn; 2) if in a weak position set yourself to deny others their continent bonus 3) if in a weak position hold on until you get 5 cards 4) Surprise everyone with a mad rush to secure a continent (probably SA and or NA) 5) victory.
The most important thing is to observe your opponent’s playing style and a very basic but super essential strategy is to put all troops in one stack and keep this stack as open as possible to as many players as possible. Refrain from actually aggressing your neighbors, but you want to be able to retaliate in a meaningful manner and be able to kill weak players for cards.
Theoretically Europe is the winning continent because it’s almost never in Africa‘s and North America‘s interest to beef with you, South America has no border to you and Australia is easily defended off from the Ukraine as Africa probably stacks in the Middle East where they have access to friendly cards unlike North Africa.
I always seem to find I can judge the moment to attack and win when the probability is in my favour, but I struggle to identify how many troops is enough to defend a territory.
Too often I over or under estimate and end up with either too many inactive troops doing nothing but detering attacks, or I mistakenly think I've got enough troops in defence and end up easily defeated.
Judging probabilities is relatively easy. Judging how hard other people will try to attack me is much more difficult.
I’m not sure what refutes his “every time”
claim more, the fact that the game is based on probability (more often?) or the fact that the last point is that you are using human psychology, which is tenuous and unpredictable.
Probability is removed by engaging in battle with a large force. The more dice that are rolled, the more predictable the outcome.
Funny thing about me when I play. When I know I'm going to lose I make a push to Japan to make my final stand. For some reason, I seem to roll extremely well when defending Japan as my final stand. I get so many 5s and 6s.
Never thought of it like that.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 It would drive my dad nuts. He'd lose half of his forces on average just to blast me off of there and very rarely did it take less than 4 turns to do so.
@@FireBowProductions
I'm guessing your dad taught you the game.
I would mass an army, and take one territory per turn. Then, when people each had 3,4,5 cards, I would unleash on one player at a time, take their cards, trade in, target another player take there cards, etc. Works best when you have 5 or 6 players, and people have already traded in a few card sets already. When you are ready to strike, you can typically run the board in a single turn.
Good strategy. I think card conversion rules needs revising. The jump from each one gains too many armies. I played a Lord of the Rings version and they made the values different, like 3 cannons gained a fixed #, three foot soldiers a different fixed #, etc. I also think that when you turn in your cards if you have one of those countries you should be allowed to place those extra two armies where you can use them as they are useless in the middle of nowhere most times. I also think you should have a choice at the beginning of your turn to move armies rather than only after finishing attacking (but not both).
I call BS. Unless you have loaded dice, you can always get screwed out of a sure win
Can you please make a video about catan?
Make a treaty with one player who represents a threat to your position, and then propagandize everyone to attack the player closest to winning. Once the best player is neutralized break your treaty.
Left out a huge key to choke points. The best ones let you mass troops in a single territory that the enemy has to split into two.
You mention Venizuela being a choke point, but Central America gives you a much larger advantage.
C. America vs. Venizuela will turn into a stalemate. If you hold C. America instead, you have the option to take West or East U.S. for a territory card and retreat back into C. America if need be.
Same goes with holding West Africa over having a Brazil vs. West Africa stalemate.
You *need* to be able to collect cards without losing your massed army every turn to do so.
Continent bonuses win an extra territory or two. Cards win the game, and they weren't even mentioned in this video.
Clickbait.
Asia can be held with four territories - Ukraine -, making it superior to Europe and depriving anyone from receiving a bonus for Europe, or three with Australia, plus a two-troops bonus.
I never lost as a kid of the 80s.When no one was looking,I'd put more of my pieces on the board 😂
Yes, that's a very good strategy that can be applied anywhere.
Just roll 6s the whole time
Ive done this, it works
You can't lose!
My friends and family don't like playing Risk against me because I tend to win unless they gang up on me. So I don't play 3-player risk games anymore. With 4 players you can always coax 1 person to at least harass the other two if you manage your borders right.
If you play progressive bonus troops for card trade ins, just stack troops and take 1 territory for a card and stop. Same next turn. Once you have enough troops for all territories + enemy troops + 15%,you win. Don’t bother holding any continents. You only need one territory and your massive army. The other players will spread themselves out, not realizing eventually these trade ins will be worth 50, 60, and 70 armies. Works every time.
Best part of Australia is defending from a single point *in Asia*. Which is why it matters more in the early and endgame than midgame.
The Game just never ends when we play since when someone gets to strong the other 3 players form an alliance against him.
One thing I learned from a LOT of Risk games... don't spend too much effort trying to forge alliances. Soon enough your opponents will figure out what you're trying to do and gang up on you.
If I knew how to win every time, I'd probably be a lot more successful 😂
Cannot relate. I win every game and am immensely successful for it.
@@kcm7327 Proud of you bro!
Yup that’s my general strategy. South America into North America unless I don’t get contested too hard for North America. Once you control them both you can defend from 3 points. And by pushing forward 1 space on all those points you deny everyone except Australia their continent bonuses.
Once that happens, the game is pretty much yours.
Spoken like someone who has never played Risk…
I’ve lost so many troops rolling 3 dice to 2 or even 1. It is and always will be a game of superior strategy AND luck.
Africa is difficult to hold because the northern territories can each be hit from multiple dirrections
It is all about chaining kills and turning in sets.
You want a decent stack sitting far away from your main stack - this way to kill you they have to go around the board to get to you.
An experienced player can pop off on the second set or third set. Usually the third set is when players start dying.
There's an another strategy I've employed when not able to get South America or Australia is trying gain 15 territories by the start of my next turn in the north but not threaten to gain a continent. I try to capture 17-18 territories and expect to lose a couple by the start of my next turn. My goal was to have no interest in Africa and then the Australian guy is concern about the South American guy exerting influence over conquering Africa.
So what if every player tries your strategies at the same time?
Exactly, they almost always do, which is there are meta strategies and meta-meta strategies, which is why reading the board and your opponents is so important. A lot of it boils down to Sun Tzu's are ot war wherein he lays out four maxims. If you can win you must attack, if you cannot win then you should defend. If you cannot defend then you should run, and if you cannot run then you should surrender.
I think you've ignored the most important aspect which is the cycle of risk cards/bonuses. Getting five risk cards, putting down a huge army and wiping out someone with 4/5 cards in their hand is the game winning gamble/move. Ending a turn of massive conquests by putting down the next bonus at the end of your turn is massive advantage.
So this is really how to play risk well, not how to win every time.
(Results may vary.)
About Australia,.staying in Indonesia or Siam is a huge mistake, you can treat it as a pseudo South America by Stacking in China/India so you're still able to threaten the board while simultaneously promising retaliation.
Smart players will recognize that and not risk being blown to kingdom come since fighting for Australia is always a bad move but if youbplay with a regular friend group and intentionally destroy someone for thinking Australia was free you'll find it more likely people will respect the China/India stack in future games where youreon position for an early Australia
Once you have South America Africa and the Middle East, you can block other players and prevent them from completing north america, Europe and Asia by moving in and out of bordering countries.
Here's a curve ball:
Imagine how much the game would change with Australia having a bridge to Chile.
Local (unlicensed, surely) copy of Risk named "TEG" (Tácticas y Estrategias de la Guerra) did this and I assure you both Australia and South America are considerably harder to keep control of
This works well if you're playing what's called "fixed trade" rules. If you're playing the original rules, the card trades "progress," becoming more and more powerful. There is a BETTER strategy than what's taught in this video. Don't worry about continents at all. Have three big stacks at different parts of the world. Take one territory to get a card, then stop. Wait until you see a player about to get killed, then kill them and take their cards. You will likely have more than five, which forces a trade. If done right, your first kill will give you 20 troops, which you can use to kill ANOTHER player and get 25 more free troops. The masters of Risk play this way usually and sweep the entire board in 1-2 turns, while looking like "the underdog" because they have zero continents. The reason for splitting up to different parts of the world is to have "kill lines" on other players.
Africa has 3 entry points, with 4 adjacent places to attack. North America is the easiest to defend with the highest potential upside.
I got double teamed by my father and my friend once in risk. They managed to push me all the way to irkusk before I rallied and destroyed both of them.
So, how do you overcome terrible dice luck?
I attack 3 on 1 and lose very often.
I had 36 units attack a 2 unit location... And lost.
Was this on a computer or were you actually rolling physical dice?
@@joelpenley9791 real game.
I may have crazy bad luck, but love the challenge anyway 😀
Literal devil defenders rolling 66 6's in a row. It's a lot more common than one might expect if they haven't seen it
@@joelpenley9791 playing with real dice. I love the challenge 😄
If you attack with 36 units against 2 units, you should probably stop after you lost your first ten or twenty troops.
My route tends to go 1. S. America 2. N America 3. Africa 4. Europe while taking the tip of Asia. .
This route limits the places I have to defend with maximum troops per turn.
Just the tip?
@@D3y-s1g it's easy to defend and keeps them from controlling all of Asia till I build up enough troops to expand my land.
Australia is better than all of those options because you tend to not need to worry about defense much, and so while everyone else kills each other you can focus on diplomacy and building up your army, and then suddenly strike.
The only time ive legitimately tried risk the table got flipped
Try again.
The trick I to time your offensives to knock players out of the game and take their cards.
The continents don’t matter a whole lot because it’s usually just tit-for-tat border wars and the only continents people allow you to hold for any length or time provide such a small bonus that it’s relatively insignificant. You are likely to lose more people trying to fight for a contentment than what you would gain from holding it.
Eliminate players, take their cards. I guarantee it always works 60% or the time.
NA to SA to Africa has won me countless games.
Glad this video is six minutes instead of being stretched out over thirty minutes..
New title: the basics of risk game play.
My favorite is going for both South America and Africa, starting in either one.
If any player is close to completing North America or Europe, lots of effort is made to prevent this. If you hold most of Africa but not complete it yet, it looks like you are just defending South America and players bordering you might wait for others to try and stop you as it's not that high a priority. I do tend to make lots of small stacks to pretend to look weaker and postpone finishing Africa.
Always make your opponents believe the dice are loaded. They'll take too many risky throws
I used to win at risk every single time but now my family always targets me first 😂
When I was younger I'd always take and fortify Greenland to a ridiculous degree.
My wife almost always places 2nd because she follows NO strategy. She randomly places troops and attacks out of no where. Very difficult to play against because you never know what she is going to do. She says its because she doesn't care but I think its brilliant.
And it makes for a fun game, too. I think people lose sight of that too often.
She never wins and always loses.
No matter hoemuch strategy and psychology you apply; if you're like me and regularly attack 1 or 2 defenders with 18 troops and lose multiple times in a game, youll quickly realize luck is a necessary comdition to victory.
Honestly, don't bither with Risk - play Castle Risk/Risk Europe (or betted yet, just get a COIN series game by GMT like Red Dust Rebellion and have some fun).
1) I’m a Top Grandmaster at RISK and NO, you can’t win EVERY game. If you’re as good as me, it’s about a 60-70% chance, you can never be certain to win a game.
2) just because you can attack doesn’t mean you should.
3) You explained Australia correctly
4) South America is not much better than Australia, I’d actually argue to say it’s worse because if a player has Africa and another player has North America, you cannot win the game because you are not blocked in Africa. You need to be in Asia to get cards. So South America is only good if you’re going to take another continent.
5) getting bigger continents is NOT the only way to win, “patience” is the only way to win
6) honestly don’t go for Asia unless there’s less than 4 players in the game. You’ll never hold it. Player will slam all there troops into you just to break you cuz most think it’s a game winning move. It’s too risky.
The downside to South America is that you can get boxed in so that you can't get cards. Maintaining a separate army in Eurasia to take easy cards can reduce this risk, but there's always a chance that someone will decide to kill that army to force you to break out of your continent or else get choked off from any cards.
North America is hard to get in the early game. Not necessarily impossible, but difficult.
There's another option: don't go for continents. Instead, maintain 1-2 armies in Eurasia and/or North America. Take 1 territory per turn to keep the cards coming in. Don't bother trying to hold territory. Try not to provoke anyone more than necessary. Just keep the cards coming in. Your army will get bigger, and as you get into the late game regularly turning in cards will become more important than continents.
Also - there's a lot of value in maintaining to bases of power. If you have a continent, have a separate army somewhere else. If you own South America, have an army in Eurasia. If you have Australia, have an army in Europe or North America. This makes it easier to find a place to get easy cards without starting a major war.
It also you much harder and riskier to eliminate in the late game. Someone who turns in for a massive army might be able to wipe out one of your power bases, but likely not both, and eliminating one would leave you vulnerable to the next person - who could finish the job, take your cards, turn in again, and crush the first person to attack you. So you probably don't get attacked until someone thinks they have the power to eliminate both power bases.