Risk Analysis: Theme/Setting

There is little to no connection to the historical setting of the game.”

(First, I thought I would make it clear that I sometimes try to make a distinction between theme and setting. The setting of “Crime and Punishment” is 19th century St Petersburg, the theme, as the title suggests, is crime and punishment. Thank you, English class book reports!)

I guess all I wanted to ask was why the little plastic men I move around the map are Napoleonic Era soldiers. It is of course completely understandable why the creators of Risk chose that time period. When the game was introduced in the 1950’s, choosing any of the World Wars to be represented in an apolitical family game was unthinkable. Going further back in time than the Enlightenment would also create problems with the credibility of the size of the warring empires.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that the setting of the game would be ridiculously easy to replace. Throw out the cannons and horses and insert lasers, tanks, Roman legions, or whatever you see fit. Perhaps this can be seen as a successful design, as it opens for numerous Risk clones/variants who change the setting to Lord of the Rings or Science Fiction. The thing with these variants are that each one adds new elements to the game that make sense in the setting. This is quite unlike Monopoly, where buying and selling properties feels natural with the classic setting, while it feels very awkward when you bring in Star Wars or Pokémon (The list goes on…). This is usually because there are almost no attempts to change the rules to fit the setting, like the many Risk variants have. The question is of course why none of these variants had one rule that did not fit without a Napoleonic setting removed. The reason is quite simple: Risk has no such rule or element. Its simulated warfare is purposefully simplistic. There is really no faults in this per se, so I will use this post to come up with additions that could be added to any Napoleonic war game.

Focus on famous generals: Some editions of Risk incorporate generals in the rules, which is natural as many of the commanders of the time (Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson) are quite well known even to this day, even romanticized.

When mentioning Nelson, the inclusion of naval warfare becomes almost vital: The British did extraordinarily well in the war thanks to their naval superiority.

Colonial Disputes: The Napoleonic War was preceded by and a result of many colonial disputes and revolts in the colonial Empires of Europe. Perhaps adding a colonial system would capture the spirit of the era.

Birth of Democracies: The French and American revolutions had already happened, and many monarchies feared their people more than ever. “Deomcratic” nations often found themselves hindered or attacked by those who kept their kings and queens.

Nationalism: For the first time, regular people identified themselves as French or English. An abstracted version of nationalism could add benefits to nations who strive to nurture it.