Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of Risk. In my younger days I used to think it was an excellent game, but after I was exposed to eurogames, its flaws become more evident. Now that I know better, I would say the game has the flaws of having player elimination, too much downtime, far too much luck, and overly dominant strategies (take Australia and hold). Despite this, I will always have a certain fondness for the game because of the enjoyable times I’ve had playing it.
Last night, I ran into an ad for a web site called conquerclub.com. While they never actually mention Risk (for legal reasons, I’m sure), let’s just say that they provide the ability to play a game very similar to Risk for free online. I think online play is a great match for Risk, because it mitigates key flaws in the game. I no longer mind player elimination since I don’t have to sit and watch, and I don’t mind the typical downtime for the same reason. In addition to this, they have different boards you can try and some rule variants that would be difficult to implement in a face-to-face game. Most games require you to move once per day (although if you don’t, your bonus armies will carry over to the next turn).
Last night I signed up for my first game, which differs from the regular game in two key ways: there is no set turn order, and the fog of war is enforced in the game. The lack of turn order is primarily to reduce wait time, but could still affect player strategy. My first thought is to wonder if players sometimes string two turns together (by moving at the end of one turn, and the beginning of the next) in order to blitzkrieg a position. Adding a fog of war, however, is something I expect will change the entire dynamic of the game. Not knowing the state of the rest of the map adds a huge uncertainty to any large-scale plans you might hope to carry out on your turn. Bottling yourself up in Australia is no longer nearly as attractive if it means you’re unaware of the world scene; and taking one country away from an opponent to prevent them from gaining a continent bonus is no longer obvious if you’re not sure who holds the other side of the continent. It adds a whole new reason to stage an attack – for information. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how this might add new life to the game.
In fact, just for fun I'm throwing down the electronic gauntlet - I have just created a new game (#1719311). Join if you dare. I'll see you on the battlefield.
4 comments:
Since you posted this blog, there are more variations to conquerclub. I started playing conquerclub when I heard about it through players that were going to the Intnernational Risk Tournament of champions (http://www.risktoc.org/). I have been playing Risk (the board game version) for about 20 years. I found it difficult to find players locally between tournaments. So I started playing Risk on the PC, then Risk on the Playstation and later the Playstation 2. Then I found Lux (http://www.sillysoft.net), which is very fast paced and costs about $25 after the 30 game or so demo. Later I found out about conquer club, which is good for more strategy and slower paced. I would be happy to challenge you to a game. Just create a private game and let me know the password.
Good article. I can read lots of "passion" for the game, and to be honest Risk deserves all of it.
It's a great game. Online variation have taken Risk to the nest level by adding all the extra maps, rules and variations. It's quite fascinating.
It's relatively easy to think of a few variations at home when you are playing Risk, but not all work. The good thing about online is that you can test these rules with large number of players and see if they stand the test of time. I.e. is it easy to exploit a hole and in an unfair way. After a while the, much like law, they get better.
All in all, the core strategies stay the same. If you know how to do diplomacy well, you usually have a good chance to win the game. The rest comes to tactics, knowing the ground and so on. I talk about a lot of these topics and show where to play risk online free. Risk is truly a great game, and as the article suggests, things like fog of war make Risk even more exciting.
Hey Madpuzzler, nice article. Risk was always a favorite of ours back in highschool. We'd stay up until 4am finishing a game, then we'd all hate eachother in the morning.
Here is another good community site to play a variation of Risk online.
Cheers
There are lots of places to play risk online. Reviews and ratings can be found here Play Risk Online. Conquerclub has a rating of 7.1 i think.
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