Game #1, Part 4: Postmortem

Well, I lost.  Here is the board as it ended as well as a brief description of what happened and takeaway lessons. 

Black ended up winning when blue resigned which seemed odd to me as blue was by no means loosing.  There is a possibility they were working together, but no way to know for sure. 

Anyway I lost when blue managed to get control of south America with a large number of troops and establish himself in central America.   While I had taken North America, I had lost it by my next turn. 

You will notice that the two most successful players got the small continents early (Australia and South America) and managed to use that to gain an advantage against myself and puple and ultimately keep us from reaping the benefits of larger continents. 

Trying to conquer all of North America left me very weakened compared to blue and unable to keep him out of my territory.  Without North America I ultimately had no troop income to oppose him successfully and fell further and further behind with each passing turn.

I recently started a team game and will be focusing on that in upcoming posts.  As always, please comment and leave your feedback.  

Game #1, Part 3: Expansion

Hi all, just a quick update on the game tonight and a brief discussion on the aspect of luck.  First of all, here is the map as it currently looks after ny most recent turn:

As you can see, I've expanded greatly in North America although looking back may be a bit over extended.  If blue wants to he could do some serious damage to me with that stack in Brazil.  Next turn I will hopefully have the entire continent and will work to strengthen the borders.  While I may be vulnerable for a short while, if I can aquire and successfully hold North America I will be in a very good position. 

Regarding the luck of the dice, it is an aspect of the game but often one that new players lean on to blame their losses on.  While black did have good luck in conquering Australia (he barely lost an army) luck favors all players equally.  While you may have a bad game once in a while, if you find yourself often attributing losses to luck it may be time to look at your play decisions more closely. 

Game #1, Part 2: Gaining a foothold

Hi all and welcome back! The game has progressed a turn and today I will focus on the important topic of early expansion of one's territories.

Below is the map as it stands following everyone's first turn (blue has had 2 turns).  First lets see how my predictions stacked up:

Blue: Blue didn't quite sit back like I thought most likely, but I was correct about him moving into Africa.  It now seems much more likely he will go for the entire continent, and possibly South America.

Purple: Purple fortified his European position, took the easy territory of Kazakhstan and began moving troops from China towards Europe.  I was correct on this one.  Next turn he will likely expand further in Europe. 

Black: Black seems to be definitively going for Australia as I predicted.  The move to Siberia seems to be setting up a next turn conquest of China in addition to the likely push further into Australia.

Green (me): I grabbed a territory in North America. 

The question I will explore today is how quickly to expand in the beginning of the game.  As you can notice, no player went on an all-out blitz for as much territory as possible, but instead settled for modest gains and setting up a more powerful attack next turn by fortifying a territory to use as an attack base.

The reason why trying to grab land too quickly is a bad idea is because it weakens you to an easy counterattack, making it extremely unlikely that your gains will be more than fleeting.

This is because of the dice probabilities.  When attacking it is always best to roll the maximum number of dice (3).  For this to occur, you must have at least 4 attacking troops.

With three armies on a territory, the defender is able to roll two dice, at least initially, and thus in a battle of 3 vs. 3 each side rolls two dice.  Since the ties go to the defender. attacking 3 against 3 is likely to lead to defeat.

Should you persist in attacking early with understrength forces, you will likely be left with lots of one army territories.  Since one army can defend with only one die, these weak territories are at a significant disadvantage against an attacker rolling up to 3 dice. 

For the reasons stated above, expanding more slowly and setting up a base of attack with a troop movement is more effective in terms of preserving army presence on the board than trying to capture a continent more quickly and loosing more troops in exchange for a relatively weak hold.

Don't worry if this doesn't make complete sense right now.  Play a few games and more often than not you will see that the players who are very aggressive early on get  eliminated more quickly.  It takes time to know how quickly to expand and it is not a skill that you will perfect immediately.

That being said, here is the map after my next turn:

As you can see, I've taken another territory as well as set up a base of attack in Ontario.  With the added troops I will get next turn, I will hopefully be able to capture at least two more territories in North America and will use my troop movements to either create a new base of attack if needed or solidify one of my borders.

Until next time, Jay

Game #1 Part 2: The Lay of the Land

Welcome back everyone.  I'm glad to let you know that the game has in fact started and the opening positions are depicted below:

I am the green player and my opponents are the purple, black, and blue players.  There are neutral armies in Western Australia and Northern Europe.

The first thing that I notice when I look at this map are where each player's center of power is.  The easiest is blue as it was his turn first and he reenforced the Middle East with his 3 troops as well as moved an additional two in from Kazakhstan.  From the Middle East, blue could go into Africa, Europe, or even Australia.  It is for this reason that the Middle East is one of the most important territories in the game, especially as it progresses.

My center of power appears to be in North America as most of my armies are there or on bordering territories with only a few scattered elsewhere.

Black appears concentrated in Asia but with the troops in Siam could potentially make a move for Australia.

Purple seems concentrated in Europe which is a rather poor position as it is difficult to hold once conquered.  The benefit of his positioning is that there are only three territories left for him to conquer, one of which is neutral.

Looking at the map and getting a sense of each player's area of strength is very important when deciding how to begin the game.  By doing this you can get an idea of what the other players may do and how this might do as well as where you should focus your energies.  Here are my predictions:

Green (me):  I will attempt to expand further in North America.  Although NA is one of the larger continents and gives a relatively large bonus of 5, it only has three bordering territories, which makes it somewhat easy to hold if you can conquer it all.

Blue: I believe blue will not do much next turn, but may attack into Africa to gain a card.  He seems to be sitting back from a strategic location and letting the game unfold, which is a strategy I will discuss eventually.

Purple:  I predict that purple will begin attacking territories in Europe.

Black: I predict that black will make a move in Australia.

That's all for today, but check in tomorrow (depending on how quickly people move) to see my move and the rationale for it as well as if my predictions come true.  At this early stage in the game things are tough to predict so who knows what the board may look like next time. 

Also, feel free to share your insights and predictions in the comments!

Game #1 Part 1

 I will begin the strategy discussion through example based on a new game that I am beginning on dominating 12.  As you can see, I am using the classic board--the same one that most players are familiar with.  While this game will take place online, the same rules and strategies apply as with the cardboard version.  Here is a quick summary of the rules settings for this game:

Players: Four (including myself)

Cards: Increasing (Card sets increase by 2s and later 5s)

Fortifications: Adjacent

Starting positions: Randomly decided (All player spaces contain three troops to begin with and are randomly assigned by the AI)

All that remains is for the rest of the players to join, which will hopefully be by tomorrow!

Online Risk

In this blog I will be referencing games that I am participating in online.  Currently I play through the website http://www.dominating12.com/.  This site is free to use (although a paid premium membership is an option) and creating an account is very simple and only requires an email address. 

I like this site because of the large player base and the wide variety of available maps.  While there are some shortcomings, namely a lack of team games, this site fits my needs very well when it comes to a way to play online risk.  The long-term game mode is especially useful and allows you 24 hours to make your moves.  This means that you can check the site once per day and tend to all of your games at once (up to five at a time with a free accouunt). 

If you're looking for a way to play Risk online I'd highly recommend dominating12, and who knows, I just might see you in game!

Official Game Rules

Here is a PDF of the official Hasbro rules of the game for your reference.  An understanding of the rules is vital for improving as a player and putting into practice the strategies that will be discussed.

http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/risk.pdf