Primarily a fixed capitol conquest player here.

Entering into the game, the first couple of turns my strategy is largely dictated by my board position and turn order. Can I place my cap in a natural choke point that isn't prone to being card blocked, and hold it until my turn? How disconnected are my troops, can I consolidate easily or will I be struggling to do so while also holding my capitol? Also, where are my opponents likely to play to, based on their capitol placement (if their turn is before mine) or where most of their troops are?

Sometimes I get lucky and have a good spot to place my capitol, other times I have to weigh my placement against competing factors. Early in the turn order, you have a bit more freedom since you can reinforce before others can blitz you while you're weak. Later in the turn order, you're almost always going to want to place your cap on one of your strongest positions, even if that means being in a bad spot, since losing your capitol before you even start is basically a guaranteed loss unless you get extremely lucky. Generally I seek to place my capitol in a place where I will not have someone elses directly next to mine, since I prefer to stay active and don't want all my troops to be tied down on defense. Given the choice between a natural choke point that I will have to fight and possibly die for, or a less advantageous spot where I can quietly build without being bothered by anyone, I will almost always choose the latter.

The initial few turns are about consolidating my position and getting a feel for my opponents. Figuring out who is passive and who is aggressive, who can be a good neighbor and who wants to play Mr Policeman and break everyone's bonus is very important for dictating the rest of my game.

My default strategy is to be a good neighbor unless I have a large enough advantage that I can bully without worrying about repercussions. I will sit back and take 10 turns to take a continent if it means that provides the opportunity for conflicts to arise elsewhere. I try to give my opponents little reason to attack me, both by discouraging them through making the stacks they need to go through large enough to be not worth attacking, and by opting for small armies on the borders and large "fuck with me and find out" counter attack armies. It all depends on the start of the game and the way my immediate neighbors play.

Mid game, I'm looking to anticipate people over-extending, or players botting out. Grabbing capitols when possible is important, but it's equally as important to understand that everyone else is thinking the same thing and you can use that to your advantage. Often I will see people overextend for a capitol, which causes comical chain reactions. In that situation, the person who has not thrown away half of their troops for the potential to gain 2 more per turn is usually the one who comes out on top. Having a feel for when to make a play or when to sit back and let others punch each other out for a capitol is dark art type stuff, it's a mix of gut feeling, experience, and luck. You can't always do this, as they say in Battlestar Galactica, "sometimes you gotta roll the hard six" and just make a move because the other option is to accept 2nd place or less, but with experience comes a better ability to understand other players motivations and avoid getting to the point where your options are limited.

One of the things about capitols that I like is being able to use them as bait. Kind of giving away the secret sauce here, but often times if I perceive that someone is angling to take one of my capitols, I will leave it defended enough to hurt them a lot but also weak enough to give them hope. Especially if it isn't important to guarding a continent bonus. As a good rule of thumb, a player will almost always lose 2x as many troops as as there are defenders. It's actually closer to 1.7 but there's enough variance that you can just call it two and be pretty safe. Sometimes it's better to write those troops and the +2 bonus off, knowing that whoever takes it will lose a lot of troops and weaken themselves, making them a target for other players (who will also weaken themselves) or causing them to leave a more strategically valuable position less defended. This is all situational obviously, but being able to identify those situations and capitalize (hehe) is a large part of what separates higher level players from weaker players.

Edit: Holy shit I wrote a novel, sorry. It's late and my brain is frazzled from playing games, I'm a bit rambly, and pleased as punch to see a nice post that will prompt some interesting discussion

I almost always lose, I watch the game and try to make things interesting without being too aggressive, like breaking borders and sticking my largest stack in there when I get bored and want to create some drama on the board give opportunities to other players, preventing easy cards by not allowing 1s around my territories especially towards non continent players. I get pissed off people play so boring and passively. Because I'm never playing to win I get myself into some situations which quite often end in someone suiciding on me, often disappointed. I like to think I win over the hearts of the other players with my moves to keep the game progressing. 15% win rate 6 player fixed over 60 hours Intermediate

These are great questions!

I think of FFA (free for all) multiplayer games as primarily psychological. Assuming everyone's on a level playing field, which is a big if, how can I negotiate sucessfully with my opponents? Such that I am able to give them what they want, up until and including the moment I am able to take the victory.

All of those sub questions are relevant. I start with a strategy and iterate towards a better one using information I learn from each game. I try my best to understand probability such that I make the most informed possible decisions. I understand the difference between good opponents and bad opponents and try to play to the particular situation. I allow and encourage my opponents to fight amongst themselves. I try to predict my opponents aims and give it to them where possible. I play over and over again until I've seen the scenario before, such that it only looks like I am predicting the future.

Thank you for the excellent post.

I make my decisions based off of my starting deck of territories. Usually try consolidating one or two continents if possible.

Patience alone can get you to at least Expert.

Risk is an outdated game. I used to like it but it's really long and yeah, really luck based. If you like the feeling of Risk I suggest you try a modern area control, "dudes on a map" game.

Root which is more of a wargame but I think it has a lot of stuff in common with Risk, but you know, fun.

Kemet, Ankh, Blood Rage, Inis, Ethnos I haven't played these but are generally well loved games.

Risk really isn't a good game. You should try Dune if you want a much more tactical area control game.

Your last point shows high randomness working as intended. A feature of randomness is allowing players of different skill to play together. The variance can be huge. And it allows you to play with people who might otherwise not play because they have zero chance to win. The randomness gives him the chance and it played out in your game.

Risk is a dice game with a sizable luck component. You can make plans and usually the bigger army will win a fight, but a stroke of bad luck can take you down. You need to be willing to accept that: It is supposed to work that way.

(Also, you said that you turned in three sets of cards for extra armies on one turn. According to the rules I know, you have to turn in a set as soon as you have five cards at the beginning of your turn (because you’re guaranteed to have one at that point), so you can never turn in more than one set. But there are many versions (and house rules), so maybe your rules are different.)

>I had a plan, i had a backup plan

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth

Never played secret mission mode. For regular Risk strategies, I like to try and conquer Australia, as there is only one way to attack its border. Just save up and defend your borders if you have a continent.

There’s some good stuff here. I’ll add a little strategy I play. When I’m trying to hold a continent, I’ll try to make sure my opponent has an easy country to take somewhere. A lot of turns are just “take one country, take my card, end turn.” As long as there’s an easy country for them to pick off somewhere, they’re not as motivated to break the continent.

This might be a bit different than what others have said (Australia) but I always preferred to lock down SA and go for NA first from there.

• although SA fights on two fronts vs Australia's 1, it's generally less contested
• Australia can only move to Asia, which is huge/takes a lot of time and effort to win and can get attacked on a number of fronts once you've done it
• Expanding from SA to NA increases your fronts from 2(manageable) for +2 reinforcements to 3 (very manageable) with +7 reinforcements. From there you can build up to go into Europe or Africa or Asia with a solid force for comparison, if I recall, Asia + Australia is 4 territories you need to stack up (the ones bordering Ukraine/Africa +Kamchatka) for +8 reinforcements.

So when placing armies, I'd always try to focus on SA and central America NA area if possible.

This is my normal risk strategy. But I guess it also involves a lot of tabletalk etc lol bc that's just how I play. Still though, give it a shot!

Take and hold Australia and don't let go. Africa and South America are the next easiest continents to hold. Never fight for Asia but never let your opponents hold it all either.

Everyone's saying Australia, which is fair enough, but good luck if you are no where near it or other people have designs on it.

I recommend you go watch some "pro" risk players who play online on YouTube to get a sense of what you should be doing.

You will learn things like proper army placement and reinforcement, how to make sure you are unattractive to attack, always giving yourself something to attack easily to gain a card, as well as continent drifting to move to a more advantageous position. Also work on your diplomacy, it can be crucial to winning, especially in a more casual setting.

But I would be wary learning too much though. if you're playing in a casual setting with the same people repeatedly, someone who ends up studying any game and getting much better at than anyone else can potentially ruin it for everyone else and then everyone stops playing.

We have what we call the “Earthquake”(invented by my dad and uncle when they played when they were kids) where you shake the board and destroy everything.

In all seriousness though, my friends and I usually play total dominance. It takes way longer but we find it more fun. Also, we totally ignore the territory rules and just play based on what we decide before it starts so it’s always different.

For me, it's been more about game modes.

I've done the Capital as well, but it's more as in a "secret" capital, which causes the player to lose the game and forfeit all his/her troops, if the Capital city is lost. The Capital is a secret - written down on a piece of paper. It makes the game mode a bit quicker.

I've also played with an added mission, which gives a bit more option to work with in terms of strategy.

Total Domination is also one, but I've played this less and less, because it's too time consuming.

The one time I remember playing the group always used assassination rules. You distribute names/colours before the game to assign the targets. If you are the player to eliminate your target, you instantly win. (If somebody else eliminates them, nothing happens.)

Try to look at and think about everyone's position, and what strategy you would pursue in their place.

Keep a close eye on global troop totals. Your impression of the board can be wrong; global troop count is a really good rule-of-thumb to figure out who's winning. (I play fixed cards, not sure if this is quite as true in progressive)

Be willing to play for a while without a continent.

(Fixed cards only) Be willing to play a zero card strategy a.k.a. not attacking anyone for a while.

Keep on people's good side until you're fully ready to betray them.

Save your troops; don't expend them on pointless endeavors.

Spend your troops; don't save them up when you could use them to effect a beneficial change in the balance of power.

Think about the balance of power. Look at all the players on the board, not just the ones close to you. Sometimes countries in real life arm little rebel bands in faraway places, Risk is no different in this respect.

Don't play 60sec timer. A lot of people will disagree with me on this but it's silly. You need at least 90s or 120s to execute complex multi-stage attacks late in the game, and to think through alternatives when things go awry.

Don't always blitz roll! Throw the dice the normal way sometimes. It throws people off for one thing. But more importantly than that it allows you to execute granular plans: "If I don't lose more than 3 for this first attack I will proceed to plan A, if I lose no more than 8 then I have a plan B."

(Not blitz rolling all the time also helps you think about the true power you can wield... if I have a 7-stack and a 10-stack bordering the same enemy country, I actually have 17 that I can use against that country. But by performing that attack as two blitz rolls, I've significantly removed some of the efficacy of that attack by running the first stack down to zero before going to the other stack.)

Be willing to forgive. As in just straight up not seeking retribution for enemies who attack you. You will fume and boil inside, but sometimes the best play is legitimately just forgetting it. Winning 1st place is the best revenge.

Play every game to the end, every time.

Do you like fixed or progressive?

Risk Legacy. It is literally exactly what you want in every way: 

1. All the good parts of Risk (combat, empire building, tactics) because it IS Risk.

2. The worst part (the frustrating victory conditions of conquering the entire world) is entirely removed, and replaced with several strategically interesting paths to victory points.

3. Its complexity increases one piece at a time over the course of several games and never feels complicated.

4. Even games late into the campaign, with all content unlocked, rarely run over 90 minutes.

Playing a Risk Legacy campaign was one of my favorite gaming experiences ever, so much so that I've done it four times and am looking for a fifth. Based on your post, I'm confident you all will absolutely love it 

Not a stupid question at all! Rules as written, you can't reset, as there are permanent stickers applied to various parts. As the others have said, once your campaign is finished you will have your own unique version of the game, fully playable and a fantastic version of Risk.

That said, I have never played a post-campaign game, not because I don't think it would be fun, but because the campaign was even more fun and I craved to do it again. So to that end, you CAN make make the game reset-able by using non-permanent substitutions and writing everything down. It's extra work, fiddly, and goes against the spirit of the game (if your changes aren't permanent, there will always be a temptation to undo something, and the campaign is meant for your choices to have consequences), but it is completely possible.

My personal advice is, if the cost is reasonable for you, play a campaign as written with permanent changes, and if at the end you want to do another campaign, buy a second copy and then make that one reset-able. That way you get the full, unadulterated campaign experience, a unique copy at the end for future single games, and the option for future campaigns if you ever want to.

Oh, and if possible, play with a full five players. It makes for the best gameplay by far.

I'm confident that this is the best area control game out there. No faffing about, points if you win battles, no advantages to turtling, just an all out brawl.

I've been toying with introducing a fan made expansion with factions, and I think that's the only thing missing from it - some asymmetry

Yeah maybe it's better to remove some of the X's. I guess Risk is not 4X's technically - not a lot of exploring technically.

I just have always thought it's a damn crying shame that people always ask "what's a better Risk?" and ironically there are not a lot of good answers. "Dudes on a Map" went the way of maximum complexity long ago.

You play 15 games that shape the board, and then you have a custom board that you can play forever.

One con of Risk Legacy is the winner of each game gets a benefit, and that means things get wonky unless you play with the exact same people every time.

One thing I absolutely loved about Risk Legacy is that it actually feels like you are shaping the world and a story is emerging from your actions. Other legacy games I've played just feel like following a pre-written story.

It is crazy how most of the responses on the post just completely ignored this part of your post:

but which only take around an hour, and don’t get excessively complicated

Take whatever people are saying here, go to Boardgamegeek, and crosscheck the game length and complexity on there. If it's over 3 - I promise you it's way more complex than Risk. If the playtime reads >90m on there - I promise you it's longer than 60 minutes.

The sensible suggestions here are Risk Legacy and Nexus Ops. Perhaps also Spheres of Influence... but good luck finding that.

There is a massive massive hole in the market for "simple 4x". Last Light kinda tried to do this? But even it is more complex than Risk and tried to ditch the dice combat.

I love Kemet but compared to Risk it is orders of magnitude more complex. Put just the humongous pool of upgrade options in front of somebody who is easily spooked by boardgame complexity and... yeah... they are going to run away.

And it satisfies the quick but tense battle resolution condition and as a plus it is a lot more about outguessing your opponent than rolling well.

I'm honestly surprised no one has mentioned Axis & Allies, it's been around about as long as Risk, and I personally find it much more palatable. There's also different flavors now including D&D and zombies among others. It's been awhile since I've played, 1 hour is possible, but the first couple of games I'd anticipate closer to 2.

Analysis paralysis? I've played a few different versions over the years, mostly 2 or 3 players, I don't recall taking much more than 2 hours other than having to learn the rules.

At the end, you'll have a unique version of Risk that you can play infinite times. It will have been permanently modified.

Youtube:

• Kill pete strategy
• Risk4ever
• Risky fil
• Mr Slin

Also ask questions here about things you're struggling with. People here are generally friendly and more than happy to help with any questions.

Babysteps. Easiest and first thing, play by yourself only on world map to see how computers behave. Once you got a grasp on when you will be attacked vs not when going for a continent, move back on to human opponents. Also, while there i want you to practice moving accross the world as fast as you can. Clicking, like in chess, means you should always be thinking when it’s not your turn, you should be trying to guess what your options are.

Next, move to world map progressive. Expect to lose, but i want you to notice the strategies used. Just back like the ai, learn against humans when owning a continent is worth fighting for and when not. It doesn’t matter if you lose but please never leave the game and always watch how the person that wins and what they did. If you have a good enough grasp, move back to world map fixed games and you then can start to play to win again.

There, again. World map only.

Don't over attack, try and do one attack and then fortify. Look for people your can take out easy either for a forced trade or 3 plus cards (progressive cards do this for the force trade when trade ins are higher)

I also have my own YouTube you can check out. I have a Tutor Tuesday series where I review another persons game and provide general tips and tricks to get better at the game of risk.

What type of settings do you like to play?

Are you playing progressive cards?

Welcome to online risk (fixed)

Watch as you get 6 or 8 troops as a bonus on your 5th card while your opponents get 10 every third card.

Then the other players who get 6 or 8 decide to attack the other players getting 6 to 8 instead of the guy who owned most of Australia from turn 1 plus 10 troops per, and let them win because they're afraid

Well my advice is to play maps other than classic. The whole Australia thing is really bothersome in my opinion, so I like maps where every territory has at least 2 sides.

just play your opponents. Try to shake things up and if everyone is playing too slow then find a new game lmao

Idk how New u are and what rank ... but i recommend if u are intermediair or higher filter ur games with ur rank or higher ... try to dont play against beginner or novice or bots ( u dont get ranked points for bots / and u lose more points if u lose against lower levels than u )

You can move an army from the country that claimed victory. If you have enough army left to attack the neighboring country, you may do so. In most instances, this is only a good strategy if you want to finish a game with an obvious outcome. Otherwise you get attacked and wind up losing the country where you started.

Its a bit unclear what you are meaning:

If you have an army of 20 and you attack and conquer a neighbouring territory, than you can move any number of armies into that new territory as long as you move a minimum of x (x= amount of dice you rolled in attack) and you leave a minimum of 1 army behind.

From that point, you can attack a new territory from the territory you just conquered.

This way you can sweep across continents and take over large amounts of land.

——————

The other thing you may be referring to is the reinforcement action. In original risk, after you are done attacking, you can move X amount of troops from one territory to one adjacent territory.

However in later versions of risk, there was a change to this rule, or possibly a variant to the rule, where you could move x amount of troops from one territory to one other territory that is connected in a chain (like a supply chain) of owned territories.

So if you owned n. And s. America, you could reinforce troops from argentina to alaska, as long as you owned a straight line of countries, but you could not reinforce to say, australia if there is no connection.

I personally prefer the old way myself

It’s a little hard to follow your language but I think you’re asking if armies that conquer and move to a territory can continue attacking from there, potentially conquering long chains of territories? If so the answer is yes, that’s how you do it.

So example, if u have 10 units in the territory your attacking from, u roll and win, u have to move at least the units u won the battle with, so if u rolled with 4 then u have to move 4 into the conquered territory, THEN u can move whatever number of armies left from the attacking territory into the conquered one (must leave 1 unit in defending). Then when your attacking is done (not after each attack, but at the end of your attacking round), u have one fortifying move to make.. for example if u control Ukraine Middle East, India, Siam and Indonesia, they are all connected, say u have 10 troops on Indonesia, u can move 1-9 troops to Ukraine because they are connected, and u get 1 fortify move, then once u do, u end ur turn and collect card.