Risk Analysis: Conclusion, sort of

The series of atrociously boring posts is finally over. While I can’t say the analysis was very in depth or interesting, it got me thinking and writing on quite a few different topics. Hopefully this arduous analysis will yield some interesting topics to discuss in future posts. In addition, it got me used to a regular (well, almost) blogging schedule. I can only hope I have not scared away a potential reader with my apparent obsession with Risk.

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.

Risk Analysis: Rolling and Downtime

This week I will be super efficient and cover two topics (although I have already touched on dice rolling):

“The game is full of dice rolling.”

AND

“There is not that much to do while other players take their turns.”

http://www.hlcomic.com

Sitting around waiting hardly qualifies as fun, yet in many board games (and to a certain extent, some video games) it is absolutely required. If the game has a turn-based structure, like Risk, every player but one is left idle with usually nothing to do. In board games the term for the time spent waiting is “downtime”, while multiplayer video gamers might use the term “spawn time” or “round time”. There are two simple solution to reducing downtime: Reducing time spent “out” of the game, or giving the player something to do during downtime, in effect removing it. Extensive dice rolling is somewhat related to having long turn times, since a long battle takes a lot of time, while players not involved are only interested in the results.

Risk Analysis: Diplomacy

“Diplomatic negotiations are few and very basic.”

Risk is a game of war, not peace, but there is some room for the fine art of diplomacy in the game. But since the purpose of the game is armed conflict, you can’t expect that any agreement made will last very long. A long term alliance between two players will provoke other players, and will nullify any benefits of the alliance. But what opportunities do exist for sly manipulation in Risk, and can we change the rules to encourage a little (temporary) teamwork?

Risk Analysis: On the offensive

Thanks to exams, my posting schedule is now more ruined than ever, but here are some poorly organized thoughts on offence versus defence.

I discovered this interesting web page and book, for people who are interested in more advanced Risk strategy: http://www.totaldiplomacy.com/

“Offensive moves are often discouraged, and there is no way to break through a defensive wall with a good grander strategy.”

The best way to attack in Risk is focusing all your armies on one single point. Or as the Hasbro website puts it: “When attacking, a 3-to-1 ratio (or better) will most likely make you Da Man”. (Reading through the page, it seems there is a new Risk version, including Objectives and Airfields (and Dudes, apparently)) Focusing your forces on one point is usually a good strategy, since a defender invariably has to spread out to protect all possible invading directions.

Risk Analysis: Movement

You can “surge attack”, making it possible to move troops and conquer land unreasonably quickly.

Risk’s movement rules are pretty weird. When attacking you may move any army as far as you like provided that you win the battle, but when moving troops into friendly territory, you may only move armies from one area into another. Trying to find the real-world counterpart for these rules is pretty hard, and for me it involves imagining berserking warriors that smell so bad that the supreme commander himself has to go to a province in order to force the soldiers across the borders of a territory. Abstracting actual army movement and supply chains is fine, but the original Risk movement rules actually do not make sense and therefore are harder to learn and somehow are less fun.

Risk Analysis: Luck, Chance and Risk

Seems I am somehow on a biweekly schedule.

“There is too much luck involved.”

Chance is a common element in many games going far back in history, such as playing dice for money.  There are many ways chance can affect a game, though I will only concentrate on a few of the more significant ones. First off, we have the excitement factor, even though it rapidly diminishes over time, and makes way for a sense of lack of control from the players’ part. This excitement stems from the fact that neither the roller of dice nor the observers know the outcome of a roll. This uncertainty will eventually lead the players into creating “certainties” by probability calculation. This can be seen in many games that are skill games but actually have a great deal of “luck” (such as Poker, but Poker also has a great deal of psychology and game flow understanding as well). It is somewhat present in Risk, when a player is deciding whether or not to attack. More strategic decisions such as when and where to attack also involve some probability calculation, but really these choices are more intuitional.

Risk Analysis: Game Length and Elimination

So much for a consistent schedule… Here is today’s (or two weeks ago’s) topic:

“The game can stretch out for a long time, and often players are eliminated and thus left out of the game.”

Every time someone suggests playing Risk, the picture that forms in my mind is one of a board full of plastic pieces. I know the game has progressed quite far, only two – maybe three – players are left. The other players have been eliminated or given up after hours of tiring tug-of-war, and if there still is a third player left, he is being chewed up by his two larger adversaries. Soon the final battle between the titans will stand – who wins seems more determined by chance now that the differences in army production are so small. Even combinations of Risk cards will not tip the scale noticeably, even though early in the game they decided which players were going to be eliminated. Just before I start to panic, I snap back to reality; and we decide not to play Risk, ever.

Risk Analysis: No strategic depth?

Last weekend was rather busy, so I have moved that week’s post to this weekend instead.

“There is little opportunity for interesting decision making due to a lack of meaningful choices and strategies.”

Is there really no so called “strategic depth” in Risk? Strategic depth can be described as the amount and variety of choices the player can make regarding his overarching plan to solve a problem (i.e. strategy), as well as the way these decisions interact with each other. In Risk, there is one goal, and one problem to solve: Global Domination. The only way to win is to eliminate all other players, and how is that accomplished? By slowly taking more and more of their territories until you produce and control more armies than your enemy, thus increasing your chances of taking more territories faster.

Risk Analysis: Introduction

Risk is most likely one of the most popular board games of all time, but it is also the game every “serious” gamer loves to hate. Perhaps its design can be blamed on the fact that it was created in a time when there were very little experience in designing games. The rules have changed since then, though only minimally. I have decided to improve (or at least change) Risk, not in a fit of hubris, but to analyse a relatively simple game and suggest improvements while keeping the spirit of the original.