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Risk (game)

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Risk
The Risk board
The Risk board
A typical game of Risk in play. Many game elements such as the board, dice, units and cards are visible.
Players2–6
Setup time5–10 minutes
Playing time1–8 hours (player dependent)
Chancemedium
Age range8 and up
Skillsstrategy

Risk is a commercial strategic board game produced by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro. It was invented in the early 1950s by the French movie director Albert Lamorisse. Risk shares many characteristics with war games, yet relative to other war games, it is simple and abstract. It makes little attempt to accurately simulate military strategy, the size of the world, the logistics of long campaigns, or real-world luck.

Overview and most common rules

Risk is a turn-based game for two to six players. It is played on a board depicting a stylized political map of the Earth, divided into 42 territories, which are grouped into six continents. To start, each player rolls one die. The player who rolls the highest number plays first and the sequence goes clockwise. Each player in turn places an army on a territory to claim it until all territories have been claimed; following this, the players position among their territories the armies remaining from their starting number of armies (varying depending on the number of people playing; for six, each gets 20; for five, 25; four, 30; etc.).

File:Risk infantryman.jpeg
The infantryman, the basic unit of Risk.

The game is played by allocating armies to the territories that you control, and then attacking neighboring territories in order to conquer them. The game uses a form of area movement to regulate turns. The outcome of battles is decided by rolling dice. The attacking player selects up to three armies from his/her territory to participate in the attack, with the caveat that at least one army must be left behind. The attacker rolls one die, usually red, for each attacking army. The defending player may select up to two armies to participate in the defense of the territory (including their last army), and rolls that number of dice, usually white or blue. The attacker's highest roll is then compared to the defender's highest roll. The player with the higher of the two is deemed successful, and the opposing player must remove one army from the territory. If both highest rolls are equal, the defender is deemed successful, and the attacker must remove one army. The process is then repeated with each player's second highest roll. If the attacker is using more dice than the defender, the remaining dice are ignored. If an attacker succeeds in removing the last defending army, they move any attacking armies into the conquered territory.

File:Risk cavalryman.jpeg
The cavalryman which is equal to five infantry units.

Players may reinforce their armies at the beginning of their turn. First, a player receives additional armies each turn based on the territories in their control. The player will receive one army for each three territories under their control, with a minimum of three per turn. Additional armies are given for controlling all territories in a continent or continents (see table below). Second, players collect cards, drawing one card from the deck on any turn during which they captured a territory. At the start of their turn, a player may turn in any sets of three identical cards, or any sets of one card of each of the three types, for additional armies. The number of armies awarded increases as sets of cards are turned in. At the end of each player's turn, they may move any number of armies from one (and only one) territory they control into one (and only one) neighboring territory they already occupy, again always leaving at least one army in each territory.

File:Risk cannon.jpeg
The cannon which is equal to ten infantry units, or two cavalry units.

Since playing Risk with two players is not always as engaging as games with more players, some versions of the rules recommend having some territories occupied by neutral armies to come close to the strategic value and fun of an actual three-way game.

Rules and differences

Risk was designed by Albert Lamorisse and released in France in 1957. From the pre-1959 version, Parker Brothers and Hasbro have included many different rules for the game. In older versions, the armies shown here were represented by plastic Roman numerals I, V, and X rather than figurines. There are many computer and Internet versions which have different rules, and hundreds of Risk clubs which also have their own "house rules" or competition-adjusted rules. It would be arduous to include here all the different sets of rules, or to list every rule or goal that differs from place to place or version to version.

Strategy for standard rules

Continent # of Extra armies
Africa
3
Australia
2
Asia
7
Europe
5
North America
5
South America
2

The strategy of Risk is to have the largest number of armies in the place where they will be the most effective. One of the easiest ways to gain armies is to hold continents. If you hold an entire continent for an entire turn, you receive a number of extra armies, which is dependent upon the continent (see the table to the right).

A common strategy is to secure Australia or South America early in the game and sit back and build up armies. This strategy allows for a quiet and rapid way of getting reinforcements. If you are taking Australia at the beginning of the game, the smartest move would be to build up your armies in Siam. South America is a hard continent to secure because many people use it to move from Africa into North America. If you decide to play South America, keep many armies on Venezuala and Brazil. A good strategy after taking the two continents is to cautiously work one's way up North America. The player must be careful not to over-extend him- (or her-) self and allow himself to be taken in a sweep by someone who puts down cards. Another popular strategy is to simply take Australia and South America and let the other players kill each other off, and striking when the other players are at their weakest. If more than one player attempts to follow this strategy it can lead to an internecine bloodbath. This strategy can backfire if the game develops into a stalemate, where all the players build up in larger continents waiting for someone to make a move. The controllers of the larger continents will receive considerably more men than the controllers of the smaller continents. Also if a player uses this strategy and another player gains control of the larger continent above them, they will be his or her next target, because they receive fewer men each turn, and are therefore usually an easy target for invasion.

Another rule of thumb players follow is never to take Asia early in the game; it is the largest continent and the least defensible, and trying to hold it leaves the player open on too many fronts. If a player does attempt to take Asia, they should hold Ukraine, because otherwise they have to guard from invasion in 3 different border territories (Ural, Afghanistan, Middle East). If they do not hold Ukraine the opponent need only have enough force to invade one of these territories to stifle the player's income of men for that turn.

In terms of values of each continent, North America is one of the most valuable of all continents to take early, or at all, throughout the game. The reason for this lies in the fact that North America has only 3 ways in and out of it, those being: Alaska, Greenland and Central America. North America proves to be a crucial part 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f f the game as time goes on due to its 5+/per turn reinforcement rate. Once North America is secure, another common strategy is to attack South America. The conquest of this continent allows for the addition of two extra armies per turn, while adding no extra vulnerable point (Alaska, Greenland, and Central America become Alaska, Greenland, and Brazil). An added bonus for controllers of all of North and South America is their ability to easily prevent opponents from gaining a continent bonus on Asia, Africa, and Europe.

A good rule is to always take at least one territory per turn, even if you expect to lose it the next. By taking a territory, you gain a Risk card. Combinations of 3 Risk cards can be played in future turns in exchange for more armies (this being a "reward" of sorts for aggression). A sudden influx of armies at the beginning of a turn can change everything.

After winning a battle, it is tempting to leave a single, occupying army in a territory and push all others into the newly defeated territory. This leaves a strong front line with no reserves. If an opponent breaks the leading edge of the player's advance, they can often run deep into his or her rear area as they only have to defeat a single army in each territory. Leaving two or three armies in each territory will slow your advance, but it minimizes the damage if an opponent breaks through.

Once a player has become dominant in a particular session, the endgame becomes more or less inevitable. Risk is a game of numbers, and, consequently, the game can "tip" very hard in a player's favor once he or she controls enough territories and continents to build up a steady stream of reinforcements each turn. When this happens, there is very little that can be done strategically to stop them. Although, many times when this situation arises, the opposing players will ally against him to squelch the strongest player, which generally works quite well.

Because cards in the standard rules quickly build to high value, some players, in games of 5 or 6 people, manage to play a very effective game by mostly ignoring continents, focusing instead on wiping out other players and seizing their cards. If two or three weaker players with 3 or 4 cards each can be defeated in the space of a few turns, without hopelessly weakening the attacker in the process, he or she can often win the game, even against strongly-entrenched remaining opponents.

Politics and alliances

Whenever there are more than two players remaining in the game, alliances will be an important—perhaps the most important—part of Risk strategy. There are no rules restricting the formation or break-up of alliances. A good Risk player will use diplomacy to arrange alliances to take down stronger opponents and will similarly attempt to use diplomacy to avoid alliances being made against him/herself. The importance of this should not be underestimated. This "meta-game" is perhaps the single most important factor determining the outcome of Risk games amongst players who have already grasped basic Risk tactics and strategy. Computer AI simulations of Risk inevitably fail in portraying this aspect of the game. Some software packages support AI diplomacy but fail to capture the politics between people outside the game, and personal preference of their favorite countries (regardless of strategic value inside the game.)

Dice odds

Odds of winning in Risk
(various dice combinations) 		Attacker
one die two dice three dice
Defender one
die 		Attacker wins 41.67 %
(15 of 36) 		57.87 %
(125 of 216) 		65.97 %
(855 of 1296)
Defender wins 58.33 %
(21 of 36) 		42.13 %
(91 of 216) 		34.03 %
(441 of 1296)
two
dice 		Attacker wins 25.46 %
(55 of 216) 		22.76 %
(295 of 1296) 		37.17 %
(2890 of 7776)
Defender wins 74.54 %
(161 of 216) 		44.83 %
(581 of 1296) 		29.26 %
(2275 of 7776)
Both win one 32.41 %
(420 of 1296) 		33.58 %
(2611 of 7776)

List of territories

North America Europe Asia
South America Africa
Australia

¹On some versions sold in Canada, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are known as Western Canada, Central Canada and Eastern Canada respectively.

Official games

Derivative board games

  • Risk: 2042 — A modern-day variant with tanks, hummvees, helicopters and hovercraft; by Table Tactics.
  • TEG — Táctica y Estrategia de la Guerra, “Strategy and Tactics of War” — An Argentinean Risk-based board game with extra goals.
  • War- The name for Risk in Brazil. War, War 2 and War Junior are all part of the War Series.

Computer implementations and Video Games

  • Risk II by Atari — A computer game with the standard and an advanced map.
  • Risk — A computer game based on the Board game for the Sony PlayStation. You can do battle over the Earth or in specific continents. These Include: The Americas, Europe and Asia/Oceania
  • Risk: Global Domination — developed by Cyberlore Studios for the PlayStation 2.
  • GEWar — Risk-style game using Google Earth.
  • Fracas — a computer game similar to Risk, but without the elements of chance
  • A computer game version of Risk was available for early versions of the Apple Macintosh computer in the 1980s.
  • An online game similar to Risk is available dominategame. A small Java applet must be downloaded to the players computer to interface with the site. It varies from the standard risk board game in that maps are designed by the users and uploaded to the site.
  • Conquest a version of Risk for Windows and Pocket PCs.
  • MissionRisk unofficial shareware version of risk that plays exactly the same.

Pop culture and trivia

  • Risk is played in the Seinfeld episode "The Label Maker" by Kramer and Newman. The two play an extended Risk game throughout the episode. Towards the end of the episode, Kramer is on the verge of victory as they play on the subway. However, after Kramer taunts Newman, regarding his position, "Ukraine is weak," a nearby Ukrainian man becomes enraged and smashes their Risk board.
  • An episode of the TV series Undergrads revolved entirely around the four main characters playing an all-night game of Risk.
  • In an episode of Red Dwarf, the character Rimmer regaled his shipmates with the incredibly boring tale of every dice throw of every move from every game of Risk he played in college. Rimmer insists it is building to the "exciting part" where he rolls a six and a three and his opponent rolls a three and a two. It was exciting for him because it got him into Irkutsk.
  • A group of students in Uckfield, UK have started work on a huge board game based on this game. Called "Risk Extreme", it can be played by many people and allows players to conquer every single one of the 193 countries in the world (including Antarctica, not a real-world country). Although construction is still underway, it appears that the game will be played on multiple boards by teams.
  • In the Playstation 2 Version of the game, one of the opposing generals, Ferdinand, will comment, "All Your Base Are Belong to Me" during capital Risk mode. This is a reference to the All your base are belong to us Internet phenomenon.
  • Bizarrely, New Zealand and The Philippine archipelago are left off most versions of the game board.
  • In the R.E.M. song "Man on the Moon", Risk is one of the several board games mentioned in the first stanza.
  • In one episode of Malcolm in the Middle, the family plays March and Conquer, a combination of Risk and several other games.
  • In one episode of Peep Show, a game of Risk is played by Mark, Jeremy and Sophie.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Risk.

Strategies

  • Risk, Strategies Explained — Guides for beginners and advanced users on how to use diplomacy and cunning tactics to win the game.
  • Risk FAQ by Owen Lyne — An explanation of the rules, in many versions. Includes alternate rules and strategy tips.

Tactics

Variant Rules

  • Capital Risk — Players start in Capitals and spread to conquer the world.
  • Cold Cash Risk — An “unholy merger” of Acquire and Risk.
  • One World Dominion — 44 new territory cards. You may play cards individually to take the action stated on the card.
  • Rise and Fall: Dynasties at War — A more complicated version set in ancient China.
  • Risk 2000 — Variant rules that add natural resources, weapon building, oversea trades, and technology development.

Online Variants

  • Conquer Club - An free online multiplayer variation. Offers player rankings, individual & team games, an active community and a wide array of game styles & maps.
  • World at War — A free online turn-based multiplayer variation. Offers players a lot of extra options like team-play, air-lift, fog of war, capitals, anonymous and daily games on (currently) 23 different maps, including the classic map.
  • Grand Strategy - A free, web-based multiplayer variation. Team games, leaderboard and a variety of game styles and maps. Premium account options available: pause your games.

Risk Clubs

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