RISK suggestions and feedback

[minionofmidas]

I'd like to see a few fewer initial deployments.

[minionofmidas]

I'd like to see a few fewer initial deployments.

In the original game, six players means 24 initial battalions each, but I increased it to a rounder 30 because we use 50 territories instead of 42.  What sort of number did you have in mind?

That rule is somehow missing from the German translation of the rules, so I'm used to starting with a clean map in which every territory has just one army on it.

Which isn't really preferable to what we're playing with here - the first few sets of cards get too powerful - but I do think some kind of in-between point would be optimal. Currently, the early rounds see more troops leaving the board than entering, and I think that's wrong. (In the Capital version especially... which Everett simply won by keeping her troops alive until everybody else had depleted theirs.)

[minionofmidas]

I'd like to see a few fewer initial deployments.

In the original game, six players means 24 initial battalions each, but I increased it to a rounder 30 because we use 50 territories instead of 42.  What sort of number did you have in mind?

That rule is somehow missing from the German translation of the rules, so I'm used to starting with a clean map in which every territory has just one army on it.

Which isn't really preferable to what we're playing with here - the first few sets of cards get too powerful - but I do think some kind of in-between point would be optimal. Currently, the early rounds see more troops leaving the board than entering, and I think that's wrong. (In the Capital version especially... which Everett simply won by keeping her troops alive until everybody else had depleted theirs.)

I've never heard of that.  Unless the German version has different rules. 

It seems to. They're also somewhat unclear on a number of points, so any game of Risk with strangers entails a short rules discussion before you start. I'm used to being able to determine the number of dice I defend with AFTER the attacker has rolled, for example. Others don't play that way. And there's a variant, not covered by the rules, where everybody gets deployments and then everybody gets to attack, and the starting player of these two phases rotates around the table, which I played for awhile. Also works well.

[minionofmidas]

How about just the Mexican states?

[minionofmidas]

How about just the Mexican states?

No, I don't know them off by heart like I do African countries

Or even better... Pacific Island countries! (just for Gabu)

Only if we don't allow attacks across water.

[minionofmidas]

I certainly see the point there, but how about a compromise of 3 battalions?  That is the average number of battalions per state at the start of the game, after all.  (25 battalions divided by 8 states = 3.125)

Sounds good.

[minionofmidas]

With Canada out of the game, I'd really like to see a Maine - Florida link. Maybe instead of the pointless Maine - Massachusetts link you currently got.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, but you'll start a game of Mission before those two are over, right?

Right?

[minionofmidas]

With Canada out of the game, I'd really like to see a Maine - Florida link. Maybe instead of the pointless Maine - Massachusetts link you currently got.

It's not pointless. Every state should border at least two other states. Otherwise, Maine would be a dead end. You may note that there are no such dead ends in the original Risk game.

And, damn it Joe, the Mission and Capitals games were the ones I was really looking forward to! Domination was supposed to be a mere stepping stone...

It becomes pointless if Maine borders Florida.

[minionofmidas]

Well if we're bumping this fatherbuggerer...

Apropos of (not quite) nothing, and obviously too late for this game,

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is exactly wrong. One of each should be worth least as it's mathematically twice as likely to achieve with three cards than three of a kind - or six times more likely than each individual three-of-a-kind combination. (Not including the wildcards in the maths here, and assuming there are identical numbers of the three types of card.) 2/9th chance of getting one of each, 1/9th for three of a kind. 1/27th for each individual three-of-a-kind. And 2/3rd chance of having a pair and a single, of course.

That's what the rules of the real-life game have always said they're worth.

So? Still makes it all (ie 10) or nothing with some random seldomly occurring in-between steps... that the "must trade in at 5" rule forces you to use if you have them (and thus destroy your chances at the 10). I'm pretty sure that it's an actual design flaw - that they didn't do the math when they wrote it up. It should be changed. One each should be worth 4 in the next game. (No reason not to maintain the order of the three types of unit.)