First, i am not an experienced risk player. I am a newbie here and to risk too.

I am not bad at maths and I have been looking for good risk strategies using game theory. These ideas could easily be foolish ideas but you cannot loose anything but time reading this. These ideas must be written 1000 times on the web, but I haven't seen anything like these anywhere by now. These may be obvious but i may give somebody a good tip.

Let's examine an attack!

What happens, if red attacks blue? A normal attack, 3vs2 dice. As i have seen the players expected army lost are about 1 army. So this attack makes only red and blue weaker. This show that you mustn't attack while you have armies for that in multi player games(against 1 player, you may:) because there is no laughing third person who gets stronger while you fight). Even if you attack everybody, you will be the greatest looser of your conquest.

What is the value of a territory?

This is a good question. Depends on the situation. Usually about 1/3 armies per turn(these things can change with the number of players, against 1 player, a country has a value of 2/3(becouse the opponent WILL attack you with that 1/3), but in a multi player game, you can count it as 1/3, because your enemy could attack the others, because he has more opponents). This makes 1/3 army to you but it prevents your enemies from creating 1/3 army to them. If that is the only remaining territory of a continent, that is controlled by a player, it has a lot more value. It decides if the player gets a continental bonus or not.

You must consider the value you pay for a country and the value of that country. If a conquest of a continent will cost you about 10 armies and it gives you 2 soldier per turn it is not a good trade i think. You need 5 turns to get even, at least! Others may conquer a territory and you don't get anything for a couple of turns. So continents are by far worse than they seem to be i think. I usually do not go for continents.

But there are 3v1 fights, that are worth fighting. I think your expected army lost is a bit higher than 1/3 so in 2 turns it is a pure profit.

Cards are worth getting usually but you should not pay anything for them. The expected armies you are going to get/3 is the highest cost of  getting a card. They give you the element of surprise.

Summary: You should play defensively. Lead those 3v1 attacks. You must find a good reason to attack a player with 3v2 dice. If you know those armies will attack you, then you could attack. You should find the way that gives you as many armies as you are able to get. Because you must as strong as you can.

Now i let you criticise my work.:)

Wingless wrote:

Summary: You should play defensively.

That's not always (usually?) a good strategy, as the attacker has an advantage.

Continents can come at a hefty price and they aren't always worthwhile to obtain, but they can pay off and they also mean that your opponent doesn't have the continent/bonus.

I said it wrong. It should have been this: You shouldn't kill your troops in heaps of attacks without a good reason. I know that you won't ever win a match with pure defensive play. Agression is vital in war games. Of course I try to expand too and stuff like that. But what I wrote is correct i think. Those players profits the most very much battles that do not take part in the fight.

Yertle i believe that you are a good player and as a good player you are very likely to think correctly, but until you say what have i said incorrectly and why agressive play is better thatn this, I am not going to understand your statement.

Wingless,

I think what Yertle is saying is:

If you don't attack and you prefer to defend, how will you get Bonuses and Cards?  These have special "hidden" values and you must consider this by playing very aggressively on most boards.

"You shouldn't kill your troops in heaps of attacks."
"The players that profit the most from a battle are those that don't take a part in the fight." (my edit)

For the most part I agree with this. It is a great rule of thumb for something like the Risk map with 4 or more players on a typical turn. There are many exceptions on the Risk map where you should be more aggressive. The rule of thumb itself fails on many nonstandard boards.

I think the dictum can be summarized as "choose your battles wisely," which is in more than one way the method I have used for 144 CP's and counting.

I didn't say you should never attack. I said do not to attack when the award is not greater then your investment. Cards have a great value and are usually worth getting, but for example on Astrowar as the first i wouldn't attack anyone to get a card becouse it has a huge cost. 1 conquered country is enough to get your daily card and there is usually a one army enemy country to attack. This is the basic move, and the other attacks depend on the calculations.

With 2 players, i would attack as long as i have anything to attack(but i wouldn't do 2v2, 1v1, and battles like that.)

I do not understand the second part of your post, asm. My mother language is very different from english. I agree with your first part.

Here's some strategies for team games. If you don't know all of these already stay the !&@%^! off my team.

1. Get the !&@^%! out of my way. If I own the majority of a continent and you still have a single country with 3 units on it in that continent I will reach out over the interweb wires and strangle you. You need to do one of the following in order of desirability:

A: Transfer them them to me.
B: If the board settings don't allow that, transfer them to you somewhere out of my way.
C: Attack an enemy with them. I don't care if you are rolling 2 vs 2, the object of the exercise is to kill the enemy, but I'll be happy if you just kill yourself.
D: Attack a neutral with them.

2. On boards where you can transfer to a teammate, if you are not using those units on a given turn and you do not need all of your transfers, then give them to me. Say you have a 2 vs 2 team game where each team starts with 30 units. If one team's players consistently transfers 10 units back to each other at the end of each turn, then they are playing with an effective 80 vs. 60 units from the very start of the game.

3. Attack me you idiot. If you own 90% of a continent and I go out of my way to drop my units down to 1 on the spots I control don't just sit there and stare at them, KILL THEM and get the bonus!

4. Don't you dare trade in cards when you only have 3 or I will shoot you in the head.  Exceptions for later in the game or using them to eliminate someone are acceptable.

I can think of more but it's late.

4. Don't you dare trade in cards when you only have 3 or I will shoot you in the head.  Exceptions for later in the game or using them to eliminate someone are acceptable.

11's, What is your rational here?  Do you consider this a general rule of thumb when playing solo too?

It's not as strong as 1 through 3 but I felt I needed a 4th. The card thing is contingent on too many variables to really be a rule, but I do find it a good indication early on in a game to see if someone knows what they are doing. If your teammate trades cards for 4 units when they could wait a round and be guaranteed 14, then it's usually a bad sign.

I'm not buying that rule.  In fact, I cash early more often than not.  On most boards, if the scale is 1, I'd say I cash 90% of the time, with just about the only reason I would consider not cashing is if I'm sitting on a wild card. If the scale is 2, it becomes more of a 50/50 proposition, but even here there are many things that tip the scales for me, and I'll cash for any one of them.

• In many games the possibility of lowering an opponent's bonuses (either continental or global) by even one army become considerations.  These are armies that will come back to haunt you.
• Even by the fourth round in some games, bad rolls can prevent you from gaining a card.  Bonuses generally guarantee the taking of the another card. In situations where you are even marginally concerned about this, it's probably a good idea to cash.
• It goes without saying that if you can take a continent and have a decent chance at securing it you should cash.
• Your opponents may not be able to cash for 2 or even 3 more rounds. This reason alone makes cashing early with a card scale of 1 superior strategy, and with a card scale of 2, it may be marginally advantageous.  More over, consider that some may have not been able to secure a card in an earlier round and they're behind in the card tempo and may not be able to cash for as much as 4 rounds.  By cashing early you gain considerable momentum in these situations.

If you play on my team, follow 11's rules 1-3, but change rule 4 to "Cash early and often".

you need a 1E.
E. If there's nothing else to attack but me, attack me 1 at a time you idiot.

and here's a #4 for you.

4. Talk to me. The more i know what you're thinking the more i can anticipate where to help you and vice versa. If it's a foggy game, let me know what you see at the end of your turn, screenshots sent privately are even better.

1E. Good advice W.

WT said what I was going to say. :P

M57 wrote:

I'm not buying that rule.  In fact, I cash early more often than not.  On most boards, if the scale is 1, I'd say I cash 90% of the time, with just about the only reason I would consider not cashing is if I'm sitting on a wild card. If the scale is 2, it becomes more of a 50/50 proposition, but even here there are many things that tip the scales for me, and I'll cash for any one of them.

• In many games the possibility of lowering an opponent's bonuses (either continental or global) by even one army become considerations.  These are armies that will come back to haunt you.
• Even by the fourth round in some games, bad rolls can prevent you from gaining a card.  Bonuses generally guarantee the taking of the another card. In situations where you are even marginally concerned about this, it's probably a good idea to cash.
• It goes without saying that if you can take a continent and have a decent chance at securing it you should cash.
• Your opponents may not be able to cash for 2 or even 3 more rounds. This reason alone makes cashing early with a card scale of 1 superior strategy, and with a card scale of 2, it may be marginally advantageous.  More over, consider that some may have not been able to secure a card in an earlier round and they're behind in the card tempo and may not be able to cash for as much as 4 rounds.  By cashing early you gain considerable momentum in these situations.

If you play on my team, follow 11's rules 1-3, but change rule 4 to "Cash early and often".

OK.

IRoll11s wrote:

M57 wrote:

If you play on my team, follow 11's rules 1-3, but change rule 4 to "Cash early and often".

OK.

Come on 11's, You're not going to go down without a fight are you?  I'm not sure I'd buy all the crap I just made up.

Wingless wrote:

I said it wrong. It should have been this: You shouldn't kill your troops in heaps of attacks without a good reason.

I agree with this. 

I like to play where I'm the strongest player without looking like the strongest player.  I very very rarely like to actually have the bonus troop lead, but I also don't want anyone else to have too good of a troop lead, which both of these things lead to attacking rather than only defending.  But for the most part, it is better to force your opponents to attack your opponents rather than for you to attack your opponents :).

As far as cards... I tend to agree with 11s on the Cards aspect.  I prefer to hold off on cashing Cards so I get to do the last blast rather than set up where other people should attack me at.  Also makes you look less threatening when you don't have a big troop lead from cashing in cards.
The exceptions being I'm about to be eliminated or could be eliminated, I'm going after an elimination, or I know I'm going to the next person forced to turn in then I may play early to get that good growth.

And I agree with 11's and weather's team play tips, although I'm not murdering teammate if you fail to follow them :p (although I may eliminate you, which is A LOT of fun).

In a multiplayer game without fog, I tend to hold cards as long as possible, not because the value of the cards increases, but because I more ofen than not want to appear as weak as possible relative to my enemies. I am going to create a thread about aggression management and discuss this further.

This, in my opinion, is the greatest part of designing boards: to challenge conventions, and break any "universal rules" one might have about how to play RISK.

That said, here are some universal rules, in no particular order:

1.) If someone breaks your continents, you should retaliate, immediately, over taking the continent back. It lets the other player know you're not afraid to fight, and slows you both down- sometimes this is enough to stop a feud. No use in taking a continent back if it's going to be broken again. Send a message.

2.) Feuds only end with a verbal communication. If you attack someone outside the confines of reasonable board balancing, you will go back and forth forever. So if you attack someone, try to do so devastatingly.

*3.) Understand the inter-player dynamics. Who's made enemies? Who are friends? This will go a LONG way in what decisions to make. Capitalizing on a feud is probably the simplest way to gain an advantage. When I see two players going at it, I'm immediately plotting on how I can capitalize. Moral: CHECK THE HISTORY.

4.) On a philosophical note, most victories on standard maps, I find, seem to come down to "that one turn"- I can't describe exactly what it is or when it happens, but it usually occurs around the 1/2 to 2/3rds mark of the game, and, well, it's game changing.

*5.) Be reasonably erratic- I like to shift phases from playing it safe to being ruthless. Predictablility is your greatest enemy, at any table.

6.) I don't ally/PM any more, but most of the top players do. There's a correlation. And if you do form an alliance, be the first to break it, and break it devastatingly (see 2).

7.) There's been lots of talk about when to cash cards. More important than my cards are YOUR cards. In fact, you will never be at the "ultra-elite level" (Just watch King of Kong for the 47th time) unless you do a card check, every turn. Usually, You don't want to break all bonuses of a player with 5 cards.

8.) My favorite: Manipulate people, with your actions on the board.

One example: In a 3 player match, if I am the 3rd player, the leader goes before me, 2nd place after me. I will sometimes ATTACK the 2nd player, to ensure he must go after the leader.

Also, setting someone up for elimination can be fun. The eliminator may get the cards, but he had to waste armies to do so, and if there are enough players on the board, we should be able to balance out the advantaged player. I will always try to make an elimination more tempting than not, so the eliminated has no chance to answer. Always better to have one less player on the board, especially if there were shared borders.

It's not just you on the board, try to get the other players to do as much of the dirty work as you can. Necessity trumps vengeance.

9.) Infuse some imbalance into the board. You'd be surprised how indifferent some players can be. Umm, take risks. Don't be afraid to throw the whole game, for everyone else, if you have a good chance to win, this turn (e.g. risky elimination (%40) for a double cash)

*10.) Know your opponent.

11.) Inject the word "intelligent" or "intelligently" into the appropriate places, of the last 10 hints. To constantly quantify each hint with "in some cases" or "when the time is right" would have been annoying.

12.) Don't listen to any of my advice. I used to have a natural sense for a board, but I think my play on standard maps is getting worse with time. These are hints from a fresher mind.

What do the asterisks represent?

I agree with most of those guidelines but with 12 more than any other. I can consistently beat expectation against average or worse players on the standard board. Against above average players I get my ass kicked over and over. And it seems to be getting worse. This is what I find endlessly amazing about Dud - he just wins, and wins, and wins. The guy has no fear - I see him all the time with his 2200 board rating on Global War playing against 5 other players with 1050s or less. And his rating just keeps going up.