I am the game of Risk Online

10 Commandments of Risk Online

by Redstorm
(Major Command Risk Game Player and Blog Contributor)

Light from heaven

NOTE: This article is purely for fun
with no intent to offend anyone’s religion.

1. I am the game of Risk Online. You shall place no other gods before me.

Well, when you hope and pray that the dice will be good, just exactly who are you asking for help? The dice, Zeus, Mighty Mouse and even, yes, God have all passed my lips when I really need that roll. My good luck charm probably fits in this category since it hangs right above my monitor. I do sneak around and play other games now and then as well. SINNER
lightening.gif
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol.

Oops. My game avatar is so cool that I couldn’t possibly live without it. The way the jagged lightning moves sends shivers down my spine. What harm could it possibly be doing to anyone? And the background color red really stands out to intimidate all my opponents. I just can’t play Risk Online without it. SINNER

3. Do not take the name of your Risk game engine in vain.
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How in the hell are you supposed to do this? Can you even get through one game without wanting to punch your monitor or your dog? The inexplicable dice rolls, your opponents not doing what you want them to do and, of course, the #%&ing site downtime. Whew, it’s enough to make you want to wash your own mouth out with soap. SINNER

4. Remember you have a real life and keep the game in the proper perspective.

Uhhh. SINNER

5. Honor your father and mother.

Hurrah, I got one this time. I love my parents dearly. Well, not answering the phone when they call while I’m conquering the known universe doesn’t count, does it? SAINT SINNER

6. You shall not kill/murder.
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Isn’t that the bloody point of playing Risk online? I mean, geez, how can you possibly win a game if you don’t kill a few troops, right? Silly commandant for a Risk player if you ask me. SINNER

7. You shall not commit the grievous crime of cheating on your game partner.

C’mon, you know what I’m talking about here. Did you really pass all the troops you could have to your struggling partner or did you hold back some? When you discuss strategy with your partner, are you thinking of the team or yourself first? There is lots of room for guilt here. SINNER

8. You shall not steal.

Take, conquer, overthrow, overwhelm are all very translatable to the word steal, you thief. It’s one of those immutable parts of playing Risk; you have to steal others’ territories to prosper. SINNER

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

I consider myself to be an honest and honorable player, really! Can I help it if another player takes everything I say during a game as gospel? Isn’t there some room here for a little disinformation tactic or two? SINNER

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s territories or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

RISK Board Game Commercial Gif

Guilty as charged. When I play I want it all. No apologies were given for that. SINNER

Where do you stand?

by Redstorm

RISK Game of Thrones

Review: RISK Game of Thrones

Review by By Chris Yeoh

RISK Game of Thrones Box Front

RISK Game of Thrones represents one of the newer acquisitions for the long-standing RISK board game franchise, and a near perfect symbiosis of a classic game with one of the most popular TV shows ever. If you are desperate to dominate the 7 Kingdoms, keen to become King of Westeros, or just looking to put your friends to the sword in your merciless quest for domination, then you’ve found the perfect RISK Game.

Working in tandem with HBO to develop the product, RISK Game of Thrones takes the best elements of the TV show, including all the characters you know and love (and some you love to hate), and puts them neatly in your hands. Combined with gorgeously rendered miniatures, a faithful representation of the world map, and the minute attention to detail as to what makes Game of Thrones so popular, this version of RISK has true universal appeal.

‘I Drink And I Know Things’: RISK Game of Thrones Overview

 

RISK Game of Thrones Cards

 

Spanning two continents, Essos and Westeros, RISK Game of Thrones allows games between everything from 2 to 7 players battle it out for supremacy. All the major houses from the show, you’ll be pleased to know, are represented: Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Tyrell, and Martell, but curious also is the inclusion of a mystery, game-specific 7th. The Ghiscari are the representation of Daenerys’ mortal enemies, the masters of Slaver’s Bay, and provide an adequate foil for her in Essos as part of a 2-player mode.

The standard edition, skirmish, will be familiar to even the most casual fans who play RISK, as players build armies, roll dice, and take over one another’s territories for victory points. But in including extra cards and rules, RISK Game of Thrones also has a fascinating “Dominion” mode which will satiate the hunger of any player looking to get more into the political intrigue aspect of the show. “World At War” takes this further, including both continents and upping the number of players to 7.

‘You Win Or You Die’: Rules and Gameplay

 

RISK Game of Thrones Character Cards

As mentioned before, Skirmish is the most basic form of gameplay. It’s everything you love about the vanilla version of playing RISK, dressed up in Game of Thrones cosplay. Charmingly, there are some very Song Of Ice and Fire-style variations to this though – instead of just capturing territories, one must also capture ports and castles.

At the beginning of the game, every player gets the same number of territory cards (from The Wall all the way down to Dorne), and must place armies in each territory. Then follows the standard phases, namely: Reinforcement (and trading in territory cards for various bonus armies), Invading (and rolling the dice), Movement, and Drawing a Territory Card (if you have successfully captured a territory that turn).

In a somewhat unique twist, you can also invade across the sea. If you hold a port, you can attack any other port on that same coastline (and be attacked!) meaning you can never be too cautious in leaving yourself exposed.

 

RISK Game of Thrones Board Set Up

 

The most notable difference is the end game phase. Somewhere within the reshuffled deck of territory cards lies the card ‘Valar Morghulis’ (aka ‘All Men Must Die’). When this comes into play, every family dies apart from the player who holds the most aforementioned territories, castles and ports, who then becomes in the winner. The addition of the random element means you can never truly know who will be on top when the smoke clears.

Undoubtedly the most interesting aspect of playing RISK Game of Thrones is the addition of the Dominion mode, which requires around 6-7 people to play properly (and if you want to play across the entire world). In order to make the game represent the plot-driven nature of the show, there are a lot of additional features. For instance, territory cards can be traded in for armies but also for gameplay assets like favourable dice rolls. Also new are further Objective Cards, and the Seats Of Power, which function as sort of capital, and must be retained (or re-captured) to win.

 

RISK Game of Thrones Territory Character Objective Cards

 

Gold represents a driving resource. With this gold (which you can get from holding ports among other things), you can buy special cards and abilities. One of these cards is the Maester card, which are powerful ‘special’ abilities that can snarl up an attack from even the largest army, providing a player with any number of temporary special abilities.

Paying gold also activate the Character Cards, welcoming familiar faces of the show (divided along house lines, of course) into play, and providing everything from an additional defence die (provided by Stannis Baratheon), to the ability to look at the top two cards of the deck and discard one (Tyrion Lannister).

Small quirks like this, while paying homage to the spirit of the show, also mean that a player must work more tactically than in the vanilla skirmish version of the game, as having the biggest army no longer guarantees an easy win. Indeed, the correct cards, played at the right time can really turn the tables.

‘Power Is A Trick’: Pros and Cons of playing RISK Game Of Thrones

Perhaps the most wonderful and most notable aspect are the miniatures that come with the game. Stunning rendered, each one is as true to the major houses as possible, doing a fine job of representing each sigil.

RISK Game of Thrones Game Board and Army Pieces

Some complaints have been made, including given the size of the board, you do not receive enough playing pieces to amass a significant enough army across the whole world if needs be. Colour schemes are also a little similar in certain areas, and given the intricacy of the map (which holds a lot of amazing detail), it can be sometimes hard to see where some territories begin and others end. Perhaps they could have stretched the map to fill right to the edges of the board, and defined a few armies a little better (maybe with some more stand out colours).

Any Game Of Thrones fan worth his or her salt is going to want to play the most accurate representation of the TV show they love, and the Dominion feature allows them to do that. The nature of Dominion, as well as the special cards and characters demands that you not just aim towards having the biggest army, but rather world tactically. But because of its relative complexity, and the fact it needs upwards of 6-7 players to run, be ready for the game to span a whole evening – though you might be having so much fun you won’t notice or care.

RISK Game of Thrones: Conclusion

 

RISK Game of Thrones Set Cards

RISK Game of Thrones is a very fine adaptation of a TV show. In starting with the basic mechanics of how to play RISK, they have added a lot of unique strategy to maintain the flavour of the show, while being easy to learn all the same.

As a strategy game, it has all the makings of a classic RISK game. With the licenses from HBO and the inclusion of favourites like Tyrion, Brienne, and more, this version of RISK is sure to be a hit amongst the most avid Game of Thrones watchers and RISK board game fans alike.

 

END OF REVIEW

 

Just in case you were interested, I’ve added some links.


Risk on Steam

Risk on Steam vs Classic Risk

Review by Nikola Brankovic
(Independent Game Reviewer)

risk on steam map

Risk on Steam by PopCap Studios was a game that I was very excited to have the chance to review. Risk is an ultra-popular board game which was with us since the late 1950’s, so I was really looking forward to a modern PC iteration of it. After all, there are so many ways this grand conquest strategy game can be made awesome on the PC, and I really need the break from complex 4x (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate) games and enjoy just the most important aspect of the strategy games in its pure form – enemy extermination.

Pop Cap Risk Game

risk on steam set up options

I had reasonable hopes for this game when I saw that it was developed under the tutelage of PopCap Studios, which already has well-accepted games in their portfolio. However, after a few hours with Risk on Steam, I was left disappointed, as this game has too many flaws to ignore, they affect every aspect of the game and ruin any potential fun you might have with it.

Let’s start with the most glaring flaw first. The original Risk is more than just a board game, it’s a social experience as well, with players trying to outsmart each other. A part of this feeling is lost with all multiplayer games, as the communication is limited to audio cues at the best of times, but Risk lacks not only voice chat to accompany the strategy going on, it also lacks the most basic multiplayer matchmaking system. The game was originally released without the multiplayer at all, allowing only single-player matches against the (lacking) AI, but the multiplayer was added on later to remedy this. However, the only players you can play against are the ones you call into your matches directly, the game doesn’t have a lobby system or a server list that would allow you to quickly match up against strangers who also feel like playing Risk online.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take it from the top. The first shock for me came when I run the game initially and discovered that it doesn’t support 16:9 screens properly, as it runs at 4:3. This is really out of the question for a game in this decade and scores some major negative points with me.

The starting game menu lets you set up a match immediately, having you select the color of your side, and allowing you to implement any additional rules if you want. The standard setup uses classic rules. Thankfully, the initial board setup can be done automatically, you don’t have to manually place figures on the territories assigned to you.

The Maps

risk on steam

The map and the figures were the next shocks. I was hoping for a well-designed and thought out map with interesting models for the figures, or options to change how they look (national armies, fantasy armies – implementing additional skins shouldn’t be too complex of a task), but all I got to look at where low-resolution single-color models which barely had drop shadow, let alone any advanced graphical effects. If this was a board game instead of a PC game, the figurines would have been made of clay that was colored with water colors.

Now, do you remember one of the basic features that make strategy games playable and has been in all games for the last 20+ years? The save feature? Well, this game has limited game save feature – you can save the state of your current match and you can restore it, but if you want to, let’s say, save the current game against an AI you’re playing and go play a match with a friend, you’re going to lose all of your progress against the AI – the game can’t deal with two saved states at the same time.

Conclusion

Risk on Steam

I try to say something nice about everybody, but I really had to rake my brain to say something nice about Risk on Steam. Here goes – the very low graphical fidelity of the game makes it run very smoothly on laptop machines, even the ones that are a few years too old for gaming. Other than that, there are very few positive sides to this game, it doesn’t look pretty, it doesn’t have a compelling gameplay mechanic for a PC game and the price is ridiculous for a game of this quality. To finish things off, it seems that the game is (or at least was, before getting patched) extremely buggy, the steam forums have plenty of threads reporting how the game crashed for no apparent reason.

To conclude things – this is not much of a game, more like a game project that was started but was never successfully finished. Which is a real shame, since there were no interesting Risk games on PC since Risk: Factions.

Play Risk Tips and Strategies

Risk Tips and Strategies

by Redstorm
(Major Command Risk Game Player and Blog Contributor)

Forward: Several players graciously shared their game knowledge with me. I have freely edited their remarks while maintaining their unique intent. Any mistakes are purely my own.

Playing Tactics

 

risk tips and strategies

Don’t be a command monkey compulsively reaching for a command. While securing commands certainly has a great deal of importance in escalite and flat rate games, chasing them in escalate games is a recipe for disaster. I tend to employ a combination of the following tactics, depending on how the first couple rounds shake out:

Path of Least Resistance:

If I see a region with one troop in it adjacent to me, I take it. Quite often, I lose no troops. After a few rounds of this, I often find that I’m the troop leader, primarily because everyone else is going through the pain of taking regions defended by three troops, and losing half of their allowance or more each turn. They’re also leaving behind regions with one or two troops in them, which I’m happy to attack. If you haven’t already, try this out. It’s as easy as taking candy from a baby. Stack and Wait: If the game is nine or more players, it may not be worth burning troops early to get a card in the first round or two. I’ll just spread my deployments out across the board, boost my threes up to fours, then to fives, making myself a less appealing target. Once I’ve established a solid foothold, I begin my expansion.

Be Everywhere:

I want to be near weak players when the reserve bonus starts to grow. An opponent with three regions totaling nine troops isn’t going to be the first link in my chain of eliminations if he’s on the opposite side of the board from me, and I have to go through a bunch of other players to reach him. Instead of wasting time and troops securing a command, I try to keep a region or two in every command on the board. It’s easy to be in the right place at the right time if you’re everywhere.

Turtle/Spider:

 

turtle-shell risk tips and strategies

If I’m getting abused early, and I’m already the weakest player alive in round three, I’ll often pick one region and just stack and stack there, turn after turn, and refrain from attacking. A big number looks intimidating to other players, and once I have a strong presence there, I’ll attack adjacent regions, advancing either one troop, or all of them. The key is to keep the stack together. With luck and a reserve set, I can sometimes turn a weak start into a glorious chain of eliminations. Sometimes, I can start this without even turning in reserves myself at the start of my turn, simply because I already have enough concentrated force to kill somebody who holds the cards I need.

Maps

 

Philippines:

Watch out for the sea lanes. I usually try working the map from 1 side to the other; southeast or northwest. I usually prefer the southeast area for starting.

Far East:

Keep an eye on the 2 mini bonuses within commands (India and Indonesia mini bonus). They can be a bitch if they catch you off guard. The Mongolia command is decent.

12 Domains:

 

12 Domains Risk map

1st round: add all armies on 1 castle, castles with 4 hit a 2, if takes, advance 1, if draw, hit 1 more time with the 3 if lose stay with the 2 on the castle. For the castle with the 7, take as many territories as you can until you get to 3 remaining troops then move those 3 back to the castle. The basic rule of thumb is with an army of 4 or above you can attack anything; with an army of 3 you only hit territories with 1 troop and only if necessary. Try to conquer the domains as efficiently as possible, meaning doesn’t block your exit. That’s why Bruichladdich is the hardest domain to conquer followed by Calofar. If you start out with 2 domains connecting to the same town, you develop those domains first and try to get to the town ASAP because 2 connected domains are insanely strong in the beginning. After you just got done conquering the entire domain, you should end up with like 24 troops on the frontline of that domain, 1 turn later, move the 8 from the castle to that frontline, the turn after that you take the town depending on whether enemies are threatening to take over that town immediately, move the 8 from the castle to the town.

WATCH OUT if you’re joining a match on the Twelve Kingdoms map, and it’s set to low or no movements (like Border One or Border None). The trick to this map on those settings is to NOT capture up all the territories in your starting area. LEAVE A PATH OF NEUTRALS BETWEEN THE TOWER AND THE OUTER MAP, and only capture the territories to the side of this path.

If you want to leverage the auto deploy feature on the tower, then you should only capture the terts to the top and bottom, and leave the ones that are left for when you’re ready to “break out” from the starting territory. With six or fewer players on the map, you’ll start the game with more than one tower which means that, once you’ve capped the side territories for a single region, then you can focus your attention on a different tower while this first one racks up all the auto deploys. Twelve Kingdoms on Border One/None is a noob trap. Anyone going into this situation without knowing the trick almost always starts with a disadvantage.

You can bombard opponents’ terts, turning them neutral, in your domain. Bombard the terts that you don’t border first because you can kill those with no loss to yourself. You don’t get the dragons until your next turn IF you hold it. ALWAYS look for easy ways to take away your opponents deploy. For example, if I’m holding 2 villages with only 1 man on them, take them and take 4 deploys from me. In a close game, those 4 men are important. In the beginning of the game, look for the places where you outnumber your opponent. If you start with 2 domains in the west to my 1 you should concentrate on that area and make it a priority to take that domain away. You do that, you win the game.

A disclaimer:

Please keep in mind that my badmouthing of commands in escalate games doesn’t apply to all maps, just the medium sized ones. In Classic Massive, I absolutely go after commands. Hope you liked the Risk tips and strategies given above.

Risk: Godstorm Strategy Guide

Risk Godstorm Strategy

Review by Nikola Brankovic
(Independent Game Reviewer)

Risk-GodStorm-logo

If you are reading this, then you already know about all the various online RISK game options. But when it comes to a challenging Risk board game, RISK: Godstorm holds a very high position on any list of RISK games, and for good reason too! Here’s a strategy game that has only 5 “turns” and yet shows complexity many other games can’t reach.

If you are not familiar with RISK: GODSTORM, then read our game review first!

Risk Godstorm game review

Once you’ve read our review, then continue on with this RISK: GODSTORM strategy guide!

So, how exactly do you come up ahead during a Risk Godstorm battle? How do you assure your triumph (and potentially lose a few friends in the process)? Godstorm allows you several different playstyles, and they can be defined by the Gods you can summon and control in the game. From my experience with my gaming group the two playstyle sets most commonly used, aggressive and reactive, have excellent chances of bringing you to the end of the game successfully.

Risk Godstorm Offensive Guide

 

Risk-Godstorm-Board-and-Pieces

I’ll start with the explanation of the offensive tactics because they are considered stronger, but that doesn’t mean the other approach to the game is inefficient. This method is the least costly when it comes to faith (in-game currency that is used for summoning gods, purchase and activation of their miracles and bidding) because everybody starts with the God of War already summoned, so you don’t need to expand resources on getting him on the board.

Pure God of War Strategy

 

Risk-Godstorm-Set-Board-Pieces

You can play the game with no other God joining your side other than the God of War, but you should consider getting at least one more God for your defending army. His passive power is extremely potent – when attacking with GoW, he counts any draws as a victory for himself, instead as a loss. The difference is critical, especially since this god is often used to attack large stacks of units and break enemy armies.

What you want to be doing is focus on securing a major continent asap. Europe is too hard to hold, but Africa or Asia can be conquered and held with relative ease (especially if you already have a majority of territories somewhere, and plague token has been merciful enough to block one of the approaches to the continent).

Fulfilling this god’s mission is easy, that brings you one miracle card, and if you decide not to summon another God in first few turns, you can focus on getting absolute military dominance on board, since his miracles are cheap to cast and are mostly used to swing fights in your favor. Prevent enemies from taking a continent, make an ally of someone who borders you but holds a weaker continent. Expect to be backstabbed around turn 3.

God of Death Strategy

 

Risk-Godstorm-Cards

I find this strategy most fun, but is a bit riskier as you need to make two different attacking armies – you won’t stack it all on God of War. This makes both of your offensive gods slightly weaker, but you still want to try and fulfill GoW’s quest to get his miracle card as well as use God of Death to eliminate your opponent’s presence on the map.

God of Death passive removes any units killed in battle with him from the game instead of sending it to the Underworld. Your losses from both of your attacking armies end up downstairs, which would usually not be a good thing, but if you can keep the enemies away from relics and portals in the Underworld, you can keep bringing them back in the game with minimal effort. You want to be building another temple as soon as possible, to be able to provide reinforcements around the map.

CHECK OUT OUR RISK GODSTORM GAME REVIEW

Playing this way will leave you starved for faith, and if you lose a God, you will be sorely pressed to get back in the game. Keep him away from God of Wind, and try to invest in Death miracles. They are expensive to enact, but they are extremely potent, with the ability to place additional plague tokens or strike the largest armies in half – you will not be a popular player if you are using God of Death. If you have the ability to sink Atlantis, feel free to move in there and make yourself home, or try to lure someone to bring their army there, so you can drown them.

You will rarely be playing first, as Faith will be scarce, so you will need to plan your moves carefully.

Reactive Guide

 

Risk-Godstorm-Game-Pieces-(2)

I planned to call this “defensive” section at first, but that doesn’t apply here – it’s still a risk game and you want to be attacking even if you don’t plan to be hyper aggressive. Goddess of Magic and God of Air have miracles and abilities that can remove the advantages other people may want to use against you and to make themselves as a less attractive target. I’ve never been a fan of these tactics, but I can’t deny they’re effective – I prefer going head on against another aggressive god then having to wonder what kind of ace do the reactive players have up their sleeves if I attack them.

Goddess of Magic Guide

 

Risk-Godstorm-Game-Cards

If you want to live and let live as much as possible and want to give yourself best odds in defense, Goddess of Magic is a pretty solid choice. Her ability allows you to reroll any 1’s when she attacks or defends increases the odds of you defending successfully, and she’s got handy relics that increase Faith gain or reduce your Faith losses, leaving you more resources to dedicate to buying War miracles or building additional temples. Her relics are active even if she perishes, as they are permanent bonuses. You want to hold up on a continent with a choke point and prevent anyone from invading you while slowly securing yourself more territories. Try to avoid fighting against God of War, and try to have too large armies for God of Death to consider attacking you. You will make yourself less attractive target, and will be left alone.

God of Air Guide

 

Risk-Godstorm-Game-Pieces

Displacement, deception, and subterfuge are characteristics of God of Air, and he fulfills his purpose rather well. This guy is all about turning the Godstorm game into a regular Risk game by running around and removing other player’s Gods from the map. You want to identify where the opponent’s vectors of attack are, what they plan to conquer and place your god and army near, but not too near. You also want to play after your intended target, so don’t spend too much Faith (if any) bidding during play order phase. When your victim attacks his goals (sustaining his losses in the process) you want to be two easily conquerable regions away, charging in and deleting the God from the map.

This places other players in a deadlock – do they risk go after their intended targets with you nearby or do they turn against you and lose armies in fights that won’t bring them bonuses they want so they win after the 5th turn. If you manage to remove a God from the game do they re-summon him so they can use his miracles, or do they cut their losses and try to win in another manner. The advantages God of Air has when attacking other gods can be overwhelming, and a large number of troops the enemy have can quickly turn into massive army losses with Air miracles, but you do need to read other people so you can undermine them at the right time.

Do not fall into the trap of overinvesting in God of Air; he’s good for God fights only, you will still need to have your God of War conquering for you.

Final Thoughts on Risk Godstorm

 

Risk-Godstorm-Complete-Set-(2)

These four guide show how Aggressive and Reactive strategies work, pick the one that suits you the best and have a good game! What did you know about Risk Godstorm?

END OF REVIEW

Some people ask about prices, so I’ve added a link to Amazon.
This one is a lot cheaper then the $500 price tag for RISK: Black Ops!