I love this board, it's one of my favorites. One the minus side, the two-player format is not balanced enough for the 2nd player, and I really don't like the scenarios without history. On the plus side, the multi-player game is a lot of fun, specially in fogged games where you have to develop a well-planned strategy to take over the world. Despite the 2 issues mentioned above, I think this is a perfect board!
A beautiful and well-designed board. I'd bump this up from 6 Stars to 7 when a 2-player (and preferably 3-player) scenario has been created to at least and give the first player less than the 66/33 advantage that (s)he currently enjoys in the 2-player game and the 40% advantage (s)he enjoys in the 3 player game.
But that's not it's fatal flaw.. the one that cost it two more points.. It needs a card progression that doesn't turn large player games into epic months long psuedo-stalemates. I'd actually play this board if it had cards that could force action. The 5,5,5.. cards favor turtles, and the 5,6,7,...18, 5,6,7,18 is not much better.
Exciting board. Lot's of strategic possibilities. I also like the fact that the bonusses remain the same so the focus is on planning instead of getting as many cards as possible.
Great map. Only problem with it is that Africa can only be attacked from 3 countries. This makes it very easy to defend it becomes impossible to attack. Even in regular Risk, Africa can be attacked from 4 countries.
Another problem is that the cards are fixed on 5 and you can't change the default. It should increase in units of 1. What help is it when you get 5 armies and the borders are all defended by 35. Also, no point in taking someone out for just 5.