What an excellent video. I am a professional risk player and have a channel focused exclusively on risk. Some things to consider not mentioned in this video include 1) when to eliminate players for their cards. You get 1 card per turn when attacking a territory. Getting a lot of cards for trade-ins can be valuable. 2) Diplomacy between players. While it may seem intuitive to keep your armies spread out to defend continents, it may be better to just keep 1s on your border and keep your main army back ready to counter attack. 3) remember the balance of the game. You win if you have more troops than the other players or are getting more troops than all other players.
Your thoughts and kind words are really appreciated. This is great advice. I'd love to have a chat with you if you're open to collaborating for a video. We're always looking for top ranked players at these classic games. Feel free to drop us an email if that's of interest to you.
When I was a B-52 crew member, on alert a week at a time, sitting in the alert facility, ready to run to our aircraft and fly into oblivion when the ball dropped, we played a lot of risk. We added a rule that whenever someone pulled the wild card, they turned it over the next card and that territory was nuked. All troops vaporized, the territory uninhabitable. Changed the strategy somewhat….
Risk was my introductory game to get my elementary school buddies to later play Afrika Korps, Battle of the Bulge, or War at Sea in the mid 70s. Many a summer vacation day was spent with the neighborhood kids gathered around Risk in my basement.
One thing I’ve seen a grandmaster do is not defend the borders directly, but 1 territory back in most continents in order to not create a Cold War situation with bordering players were troops just keep piling up and indirectly threatening that player if they invade you land.
@@freshairkaboom8171 You don't have to lock yourself in when using this tactic. You could just leave one border open and concentrate your troops on the border right next to it so you can still retaliate if someone decides to break you bonus and you're not trapped as your main army is still in a border territory.
If you hold an entire continent, doesn’t this make it very easy for a player to screw you out of your unit bonus? I suppose the thread is that, by taking your weak border territory, they’re exposing themselves to the large army behind it.
It's never a bad idea to have at least two well-fortified territories that are far apart from each other on the map. This makes it harder to take you out because you're not only in one region of the map and also makes it easier to switch strategies on the fly. Also conquering and lightly fortifying small and out of the way territories in continents that no one is actively trying to take can help you get a few extra reinforcements on the territory count.
You forgot to talk about "the stalemate" where any of the 3 remaining players who makes a move determines the winner (which isn't them).. you basically sacrifice yourself as soon as you commit to ending the game. Holding out on that stalemate for someone else to give up can sometimes take an hour lol
Somebody programmed an Apple Macintosh Risk game in the 80's. You could set it up for all 6 players to be AI. It was pretty bonkers watching all AI go against each other, as the turns were lightning fast. One key, though, it seems that the first AI to consistently hold South America always won. Always.
Been playing for 42 years everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face. It's tough when you are getting double teamed. Some times you have to throw in the towel and take someone down even if you go down. When your down to 3 players of equal strength you have to entice one of them to pick on the other player and when he does you have to be ready to pounce on them and steal their cards.
Can you help me with a problem I have been experiencing playing Risk recently. Auto set up, fixed sets. At the start of some games players will let each other conquer a country and then will not invade each others country. They won't attack anyone but will just keep gathering armies. Turn after turn its the same thing no attacking, just collecting armies. I am a firm believer that weak players should attack the strongest player. But if I attack anyone's country then every other player will gang up against me...any suggestions?
@@smokindragn1I have not been playing Risk for long but I see this sort of Give one territory take another to make a strong border approach lots between friends and it stagnates the game. I think if you have bordering territories, you have to try and take the upper hand by just third partying on the given territory which will likely be weak earlier in the game. It spices up the mid game quite a bit, even if you lose that territory again.
Great vid! Reminds me of the three day battles my friends and I would have in my garage growing up. Then they turned into week long battles once we started playing Axis & Allies 😂
My two propositions: 1. Sometimes just destroying an opponent for his cards is unprofitable. Lose 50 units to gain say 10? Lets our opponents do it. 2. Sometimes it's better not to attack to gain cards, especially when the map gets dense and each attack causes heavy losses. Losing 20 or more units to gain 10 doesn't make sense.
My thoughts. 1. The point is true, but if everyone does that, the game stalemates. Not fun. The strongest at some point must attack the weakest or someone to advance the game. 2. Yes this is true. A card is worth about 2 troops.
I would also suggest that part of the equation is that if you don't take a defeated opponent's cards, they will go to the player who takes them out to offset the loss of troops.
True but you're also competing against someone else that would get those cards, so it's more like a 20 troop difference - since you're also taking away those 10 troops from one of your still alive rivals. Chances are that you'll get lots of troops from those cards though later in the game, since card value scales.
All of this is quite understandable. Searching the internet ( you tube included) and reading a lot of players opinions, I made my own Risk game. Greenland is a continent unto itself. ( 5 territories) added one territory to South America( 5 territories). added New Zealand to Australia (5 territories) added 6 territories to Asia (10 bonus armies) in all I added a total of 18 territories from the original 42. But now we use Monopoly $$ as currency. you can build factories, naval bases, air bases, airfields, carriers, troop transports, air defense, radar stations, nuclear research, desalinization plants, plant crops, pump oil from existing oil fields...and even special forces units. The classic Risk game was just missing something and getting boring...
With my group of friends who played almost every week, a lot of times you would see the board left alone and everyone huddled to discuss possible treaties or alliances. By far my favorite game.
Especially in games with lots of players: When the cards become worth 30 or more it is often worth it to kill another player for their cards. Similarly, if you are stuck with 4 or 5 cards at the end of the turn others will be incentivized to wipe you out. Also if you fail to wipe someone out or you end the turn with few armies after overextending you become a prime target. Try to eliminate players to bring your total cards in turn to 5 or more so you are forced to turn them in and immediately get your spent armies back. Compared to cards, continents are gravy but aren’t what will win the game for you. It can be a valid strategy to ignore continents entirely when playing with a progressive card bonus structure.
Depends on how many players. But in all cases you want Australia first. And if you can't get it you want South America first. Thereafter your goal should be North America. Basically you want Australia the Americas and the east coast of asia. The other continents have unfavorable ratios of perimeter to territories. Asia plus Ukraine is defensible, but getting there is usually impossible.
I've recently been playing a fairly old PC game version (risk 2) and while "Australia first" used to be my go to, it no longer is. For it being the safest to defend, it's also the hardest to get out of. You are at least 4-6 borders away from all other continents, and I like to make sure that opponents don't hold their continent for the turn if I can help it. Having Africa means you are only 1 border away from all but Australia (which gets less reinforcements) and only 3 from North America.
The best version is the online capture the fort games. The tactics reguarding siege warefare apply to these games. Also the forts are 2 to 4 times as hard to capture as a regular territory.
The max is 5 cards at the start of your turn, you cannot have 6 cards ever, you must trade down to 4 max. In addition, the online version has a set troop option, 4, 6 or 10 for the cards.
The best strategy is always be weakest player on the map. Weakest but not worth to defeat. Just wait their fight. At the right time get the lead and win game. Ofc this is for classic map.
So at home in order to make all of the countries seem more viable (because everyone wants america and australia usually), we made south america worth 3 troops, africa worth 4, and europe worth 6. It seems to have evened out the playing field to me on which continent to hold
Always play fixed card units, though i find S.America is easier to end up stuck in than Australia. As no one ever goes for Asia you wont get blocked unlike s america where often player ends up blocked by whoever holds africa and north america
used to play risk online for years, i always tell people who dont really understand risk to learn about the meteor, wich is a simple to get into that takes practise to execute to perfection. What you do is; when you dont have a favorable starting position- pile your armies on one country and just keep taking small trades for your card each turn. During the early to mid game people will not harass you, because they will need to much armies for hardly any gains, just roam around europe/asia/africa borders. when the opurtunity comes when people are warring each other take note and just sweep out a continent. Now the hard part comes in, Wich is knowing how to invade each continent, splitting your armies leaving them behind to defend while bringing enough to finish your sweep. Europe is extremly vulnurable if peopledont know how to defend from behind the border. Also you can and should execute this strat if u happen to get australia by taking siam at least to free up your armies, no point to defend further inland(personally tend to split between siam and india or even china (but not both)it all depends on how the game goes) . Hope this was a clear explenation. If your played risk online a lot you probably should be familair with the meteor.
Yes this is a great explanation. I like to group my army together the first few turns, and then take out a player when it is worth it for their cards. When players are at 4-5 cards the first orbit is the key time to strike before armies get huge.
You want to delay turning in sets of cards as often and as late as possible. The reason is that in some rules the sets value increases geometrically; the better rule is to have them increase incrementally +2 or maybe +5 armies per set. Basically by delaying cashing in your sets of cards as much as possible you get higher numbers of armies, yes, players may be attempted to try to kill you off for your cards but that's no certain thing for them to do. Look at those cards as your "reserve". Late games with geometric sets wind up being massive global attacks and counterattacks till one player finally goes down for the count usually defeated by an enemy's very last armies...
@@LegendaryTactics maybe with arithmetic augmentation of armies for sets turned in you are right, but with geometric you definitely want to wait. this is why i prefer the former and disfavor the latter. always make sure which rule you are playing under coz this is a gamebreaker.
This is only for progressive mode (when card trade-ins get bigger each turn). In fixed you generally want to trade in early if you get a set of 6 troops or more. If you wait for 5 cards you may be eliminated early. Also in progressive having 5 cards after the first trade-in is normally a death sentence. If everyone else trade-ins for 35, 40 troops and you have only 40 troops on the board or so with 5 cards you get eliminated quickly.
Forget the strategy and tactics... No Australia - no win! Get it no matter what or lose the game 😎 (the motto of all low ranked players) Jokes aside, well made video, sir!
I just played the steamroll everyone while building up one or three troops and befriend one person card, managed to take control of North America South America Africa and Europe when I started in India. The game went on for 3 hours
I would want to get better at risk because I would be able to eliminate other players and it would help me strategize for next time that I play risk against people.
Can you help me with a problem I have been experiencing playing Risk recently. Auto set up, fixed sets. At the start of some games players will let each other conquer a country and then will not invade each others country. They won't attack anyone but will just keep gathering armies. Turn after turn its the same thing no attacking, just collecting armies. I am a firm believer that weak players should attack the strongest player. But if I attack anyone's country then every other player will gang up against me...any suggestions?
It sounds like whoever has the best passive income will just win over time, so i would suggest striking up an alliance to destabilize the board leader. It'll take a lot of good diplomacy, but you need to convince the other players that someone is pulling ahead.
I was a grandmaster with my old account before ranks restarted! Europe and Africa is not a bad strategy. Also who ever scores bonuses in Asia? Lol Also #6 is great advice. I see players early smash each other and its quiet entertaining to see 😂
Two big parts of the game unfortunately are learning how to detect either a new or crazy player who will attack in erratic ways and avoiding them or also watching for when a player just goes offline leaving the computer in control which will also attack good luck
i disagree about australia being the worse territory. it is very easy to capture in the early game. this makes it so that like 3rd turn of the game you can already own an easily defensible area. it makes you a lot stronger early game cause you get 5 armies a turn instead of 3
Think globally with what I call "Buffering". When you have choices of enemies to attack choose the territory to push away an opponent, often selecting a territory to take choose one where your opponent once defeated has his remaining territories to those that are not adjacent to yours. As an example your territories are in the Europe/Asia , if you attack a territory where the opponents' remaining territories are in the America's, that then limits a response to attack you back. This creates short term default alliances. The enemy that attacks my enemy is now my friend at least for the next round. MJS
One disadvantage of North America is that all the border territories don't border eachother so if someone manages to break one of your borders, you can't counterattack with your remaining troops at the other border territories without having to maneuver.
Just had a really nice game I was in control the whole game. First I gave up the biggest continent to the player with the best position and made an alliance with him. For the rest of the game I put no troops near his borders and didn't ally anybody else. He got stronger and I took the top corner of the map (small continent) than I waited for everyone to fight and when the player under me was low I used my cards (waited for 5) and took him out and got his cards. Than I made an alliance with the player who was boxer in a content and next to the big player and just waited until my new ally got attacked by the big boy. Because I got 3 extra cards I was able to put 10 more units in in my next turn and I ended my alliance with the big player and cancled all his bonussen. The other player was grateful and because I left a big stack in front of his corner he wasn't able to cross me if he wanted to. I was very pleased with this round because litterly everything went according to plan. I had the perfect timing and I Didn't mess anything up xD I'm relatively new to the Mobile game. I played before like 30 games half a year ago but now I'm really starting to get it :)
@@LegendaryTactics thnx man! I've encountered some conspiring players today I hope they get Reported because I really don't like cheaters. Today I played a game also with my brother and I said to him mate we cannot play together only against Ai because it would be cheating otherwise. So I gues not everybody has these moral Standards in the game. But the games very nice!
Stalling on dice rolls as a defender or even an attacker to see if the overzealous dice rollers throw trash or all 6s you can adjust how many defending or attacking dice you throw to counter. They throw all 6s then you throw one dice, they throw 1s you throw all your dice. This only works when playing the board game and will probably make your siblings or friends bring out the Yahtzee cup to counter.
Good tips. However some dont really translate well to online ffa. There are A LOT of griefers whose sole mission is to focus on distrupting your stragegy if they don't start with the territory they want. I have seen so many instances of these annoying individuals that garuantee mutual distruction for you and them by the other players just because they weren't able to settle in the comfy positions of Australia or South America. And dont get me started on the stallers. It starts when 1 player is out, 2 players have built huge armies and terratories, and the last player is laging behind with an army just big enough that makes the other 2 not want to attack them in fear of retaliation from the other. They then start stalling. Running out the timer to give the illusion they are gone or afk. Not taking territory or anything. Just continueing to build troops on a singular point till the other 2 attack each other and then they magicaly come back to the game and wipe the board.
You failed to mention Horde Strategy. When playing Horde you do not concentrate on holding territories but rather on building your strength and getting cards. You want to take one territory and gain 1 card per turn. You hold out on turning in cards to gain the biggest increases. You usually attack the weakest adjacent territory unless it would A box you in or B allow a nearby player to gain a full continent with its additional troop bonus. The more players in the game the better Horde Strategy works. In order to beat you one of them almost certainly has to sacrifice themselves in a seemingly suicidal attack against your Horde. Sometimes the dice are with them. Many times they are not. A win using Horde Strategy is by far the most spectacular because once you feel your horde is big enough you break out and take the entire board in one turn.
When playing with 5 or 6 players I will sometimes pass and fortify by not attacking. This allows u to slowly build up and without multiple cards u become less attractive to the stronger players to wipe u out.
Despite being mathematicaly sound I've found Austraia to be one of the worst continents because there is no easy way to get further troop bonuses without going through highly contested areas. I've always found it better to get South America as fast as possible for a slight early game edge when expand into North America. You can how have a 7 troop bonus while only having 3 attack positions and it keeps you on the edge of board away from where most of the action is going on. By then you should have a fairly strong lead in the game.
When I get Australia I like to attack around the map and deny the continents of others. This allows me to stay strong and them weak. I can always transition to another continent later if I see a better opportunity.
I'm going to be discussing this idea in an upcoming video with a Pro Risk player. While there are certainly times that you should capture and hold Australia, there are also times when the cost is too high for the reward.
How do you deal with the moronic players that throw everything at you as a revenge gesture, for example for exploiting a hole in their defence before they become too powerful, even if that will have them lose the game in the end?
Convince them to attack someone else. Identify early on who plays well and who plays on emotion and exploit them for your advantage. Then win in the endgame against them
For me South America is better than Australia. They give the same bonus, and SA does have an added border. BUT -- in Australia you are isolated. Your chance of getting Asia is low, so it is hard to build. BUT --- having SA, you can invade NA and have a good chance to take it over. When you have both SA and NA, then your bonuses become game winning most of the time.
This is exactly why I never ever play with fixed rewards; 80% of the time it becomes some exhausting bs with people holding on to their continent and nobody attacking nobody because the loses are much greater than the rewards of beating someone else since you get weak af. Progressive is the best, it tends to favor the offensive players, and most of the time in less than 15 turns the game is done
1v1? Get a lot of territories to make them under 12 or any number like that to let them the least amount of troops possible. Mostly territories whit only 1 troop
I am teaching my girlfriend how to play… your strategy can be crappy but if those dice are hot you’re going to win. Can’t beat somebody if they’re always rolling sixes and fives 😅
Barring a very niche set of circumstances, no competent player will even try to hold all of Asia because no sane player would let them. In well over 100 FFA games on classic map, I've pulled it off a grand total of once. And it was mostly dumb luck.
12 army / territory limit optional rule changes much about this game, our house rule on card sets giving the pictured unit instead of just 2 bonus infantry for owning the territory on the traded in cards. Also after 30 cash in armies it goes back to 3, starting over. No stacking over 12 forces attacks
Hey I want to ask a couple of things 1)Do we use the horses & canons instead of troops for saving space only?? 2)A horce can attack to a trooper or only to another horse??,if yes does horse got an advantage?if the horse loses to a trooper do I lose the “whole” horse?? 3)If I attack with 3 troopers to a land that have 2 troopers, the defender must put both of the troopers to defend the land or he can choose? if you choose to play Defence with one trooper he remaining with 1 trooper (that i cannot attack) HOW I WILL GET THE LAND??😂 Thanks in advance
I don't think progressive is horrible. Fixed cards get quite often in big stalemates. Progressive is starting slow, but after a while. It became easy to kill if you are on a single spot. Either try to stay in multiple places or if you are already whit only 1 spot left, have 3 cards and you can trade it, trade it and don't attack. Basically hundreds of troops, but the value of getting this player down would be extremely unworthy. Even putting themselves at risk to get out as well
It's too bad that an early player player elimination paired with a tug of war slow finish does happen with this game. Perhaps that's why the TH-cam algorithm sent you this video - so it will never happen again!
Your analysis on best continent is all backwards. I'd say South America is the most important territory. It's defensible with just two armies and it gives you the edge of extra troops to build up your third army and conquer NA, which is a great jump up in vale as you stated. Also the two defending armies in SA are easily preventing Africa and NA from being taken, as they can be comfortably positioned in West Africa and Mexico early on - the former of which neighbors Europe as another potential disruption tactic (unnecessary later as iceland becomes your 2nd choke point, along w/ Siberia disrupting Asia as well). Australia is the only continent you cannot disrupt this way, so I try to start by taking it even before SA, but if that doesn't work out I'm fine, since it's so far away and by the point you get the Americas and start contending with the Aussy player they're no match for you. I barely lost a game since I started playing in this way, and the few I lost were due to other players ganging up on me.
The best continent is the one you can take and hold safely. I explain this in the collab I did with legendary tactics and myself. I play this game dozens of hours each week so I have learned to win with every continent. Except Asia. No one wins with just Asia lol.
I learned nothing from this video. Zero insight anyone who played 3 times wouldn’t already know. You actually say ‘take risks’. That’s the name of the game! ‘Adapt to the board state’. You think? 🤦♂️
You are making this WAYYYY TOO complicated my friend. Becoming good at risk comes with experience. I.e: you're a pro if you started playing on the board, not phone.
It's comical, because I get one message like yours, immediately preceded by one that says that this is all way too easy. I don't know who to believe!!!!
The problem is most players are selfish, greedy, dumb and will make u lose and ironically themselves lose by not understanding keeping balance of power. For instance how many times do we see a player with a lead advantage and instead of a weaker player opting to attack them and team up with another weaker player so to speak, they will attack a weaker player to own a continent or hoping the stronger player wont retaliate this ensuring victory for the player with a lead ultimately. The problem with playing games with other people is that most people have no common sense and are dumb. So if u are a person with above average intelligence and u are not playing w other players of above average intelligence it results in not a great gaming experience. Thus is life. Sureounded by idiots.
Incredible how wrong this is. I could write a comment 10 paragraphs long or I could ask you to redo the whole video better. You might think I'm just some punk but I did make rank of Grandmaster on the Risk app which corresponds to top 1000 out of a couple million downloads. The real ranking is: Australia is not just #1 but a super OP #1 South America is #2 No continent and floating around in Siberia is #3 Everything else is terrible but you can still do ok with North America if you have a very docile and shy South America. Europe is next but borderline unplayable. Africa unfortunately is the worst case scenario. Nobody is crazy enough to try to take all of Asia. It's just not possible or smart. The only way you can ever have all of Asia is when you're cheating with half the other players or the game is within striking distance of being over.
What an excellent video. I am a professional risk player and have a channel focused exclusively on risk. Some things to consider not mentioned in this video include 1) when to eliminate players for their cards. You get 1 card per turn when attacking a territory. Getting a lot of cards for trade-ins can be valuable. 2) Diplomacy between players. While it may seem intuitive to keep your armies spread out to defend continents, it may be better to just keep 1s on your border and keep your main army back ready to counter attack. 3) remember the balance of the game. You win if you have more troops than the other players or are getting more troops than all other players.
Your thoughts and kind words are really appreciated. This is great advice. I'd love to have a chat with you if you're open to collaborating for a video. We're always looking for top ranked players at these classic games. Feel free to drop us an email if that's of interest to you.
how does one become a professional risk player?
Thanks for the additional advice. I've subscribed to your channel.
@@LegendaryTactics I am very interested in this. I will send you an email now.
@@boardgametotears Glad to have you on board!
The best continent is the one you can get and hold!
Great video!
Couldn't agree more!
When I was a B-52 crew member, on alert a week at a time, sitting in the alert facility, ready to run to our aircraft and fly into oblivion when the ball dropped, we played a lot of risk. We added a rule that whenever someone pulled the wild card, they turned it over the next card and that territory was nuked. All troops vaporized, the territory uninhabitable. Changed the strategy somewhat….
Thanks for sharing your story. That is an awesome house rule. It would add some variability to the game.
That's pretty cool! I'm going to remember that.
was this in Minot? cause if it is, its still a thing!
That sounds like a great rule I might have to steal that
Risk was my introductory game to get my elementary school buddies to later play Afrika Korps, Battle of the Bulge, or War at Sea in the mid 70s. Many a summer vacation day was spent with the neighborhood kids gathered around Risk in my basement.
It's a great gateway game for sure.
Risk is an amazing game. I hope you are part of the Risk discord, as we have a thriving community with people playing with each other.
One thing I’ve seen a grandmaster do is not defend the borders directly, but 1 territory back in most continents in order to not create a Cold War situation with bordering players were troops just keep piling up and indirectly threatening that player if they invade you land.
You're absolutely right. I made a grandmaster strategy guide and he talked about that approach.
Doesn't that lock in your stack?
@@freshairkaboom8171so the whole thing is your stack will not be hit if they choose to break but you can hit them back
@@freshairkaboom8171 You don't have to lock yourself in when using this tactic. You could just leave one border open and concentrate your troops on the border right next to it so you can still retaliate if someone decides to break you bonus and you're not trapped as your main army is still in a border territory.
If you hold an entire continent, doesn’t this make it very easy for a player to screw you out of your unit bonus? I suppose the thread is that, by taking your weak border territory, they’re exposing themselves to the large army behind it.
It's never a bad idea to have at least two well-fortified territories that are far apart from each other on the map. This makes it harder to take you out because you're not only in one region of the map and also makes it easier to switch strategies on the fly.
Also conquering and lightly fortifying small and out of the way territories in continents that no one is actively trying to take can help you get a few extra reinforcements on the territory count.
You forgot to talk about "the stalemate" where any of the 3 remaining players who makes a move determines the winner (which isn't them).. you basically sacrifice yourself as soon as you commit to ending the game. Holding out on that stalemate for someone else to give up can sometimes take an hour lol
Somebody programmed an Apple Macintosh Risk game in the 80's. You could set it up for all 6 players to be AI. It was pretty bonkers watching all AI go against each other, as the turns were lightning fast. One key, though, it seems that the first AI to consistently hold South America always won. Always.
So there IS promise in my intuitive style.....
@@LegendaryTactics Experience, not intuition.
I don’t know why, but watching AI battle is always entertaining. It’s fun to do it in chess as well.
There is only 1 tactic... Australia at all costs.
All in, all the time.....
Swear this is how most people play online
Been playing for 42 years everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face. It's tough when you are getting double teamed.
Some times you have to throw in the towel and take someone down even if you go down.
When your down to 3 players of equal strength you have to entice one of them to pick on the other player and when he does you have to be ready to pounce on them and steal their cards.
This is perhaps the hardest part of the game. Winnong over the other players.
Yeah. But when you have 3 players who play the game indiscriminately, those are the best games, especially in bigger arenas.
Can you help me with a problem I have been experiencing playing Risk recently. Auto set up, fixed sets. At the start of some games players will let each other conquer a country and then will not invade each others country. They won't attack anyone but will just keep gathering armies. Turn after turn its the same thing no attacking, just collecting armies. I am a firm believer that weak players should attack the strongest player. But if I attack anyone's country then every other player will gang up against me...any suggestions?
@@smokindragn1I have not been playing Risk for long but I see this sort of Give one territory take another to make a strong border approach lots between friends and it stagnates the game. I think if you have bordering territories, you have to try and take the upper hand by just third partying on the given territory which will likely be weak earlier in the game. It spices up the mid game quite a bit, even if you lose that territory again.
Great vid! Reminds me of the three day battles my friends and I would have in my garage growing up. Then they turned into week long battles once we started playing Axis & Allies 😂
Very helpful and well made video, thank you so much🎉
Glad it was helpful!
My two propositions:
1. Sometimes just destroying an opponent for his cards is unprofitable. Lose 50 units to gain say 10? Lets our opponents do it.
2. Sometimes it's better not to attack to gain cards, especially when the map gets dense and each attack causes heavy losses. Losing 20 or more units to gain 10 doesn't make sense.
My thoughts. 1. The point is true, but if everyone does that, the game stalemates. Not fun. The strongest at some point must attack the weakest or someone to advance the game. 2. Yes this is true. A card is worth about 2 troops.
I would also suggest that part of the equation is that if you don't take a defeated opponent's cards, they will go to the player who takes them out to offset the loss of troops.
True but you're also competing against someone else that would get those cards, so it's more like a 20 troop difference - since you're also taking away those 10 troops from one of your still alive rivals. Chances are that you'll get lots of troops from those cards though later in the game, since card value scales.
Nobody ever lets me have Australia online
All of this is quite understandable. Searching the internet ( you tube included) and reading a lot of players opinions, I made my own Risk game. Greenland is a continent unto itself. ( 5 territories) added one territory to South America( 5 territories). added New Zealand to Australia (5 territories) added 6 territories to Asia (10 bonus armies) in all I added a total of 18 territories from the original 42. But now we use Monopoly $$ as currency. you can build factories, naval bases, air bases, airfields, carriers, troop transports, air defense, radar stations, nuclear research, desalinization plants, plant crops, pump oil from existing oil fields...and even special forces units. The classic Risk game was just missing something and getting boring...
Your version sounds like a cross between Risk and Axis and Allies.
Or an early civ version.
With my group of friends who played almost every week, a lot of times you would see the board left alone and everyone huddled to discuss possible treaties or alliances. By far my favorite game.
Especially in games with lots of players: When the cards become worth 30 or more it is often worth it to kill another player for their cards.
Similarly, if you are stuck with 4 or 5 cards at the end of the turn others will be incentivized to wipe you out. Also if you fail to wipe someone out or you end the turn with few armies after overextending you become a prime target.
Try to eliminate players to bring your total cards in turn to 5 or more so you are forced to turn them in and immediately get your spent armies back.
Compared to cards, continents are gravy but aren’t what will win the game for you. It can be a valid strategy to ignore continents entirely when playing with a progressive card bonus structure.
Very cool
Depends on how many players. But in all cases you want Australia first.
And if you can't get it you want South America first.
Thereafter your goal should be North America. Basically you want Australia the Americas and the east coast of asia. The other continents have unfavorable ratios of perimeter to territories. Asia plus Ukraine is defensible, but getting there is usually impossible.
This is sound advice. Thanks.
sometimes you should have only have one country just to watch other players killing each other
I've recently been playing a fairly old PC game version (risk 2) and while "Australia first" used to be my go to, it no longer is. For it being the safest to defend, it's also the hardest to get out of. You are at least 4-6 borders away from all other continents, and I like to make sure that opponents don't hold their continent for the turn if I can help it. Having Africa means you are only 1 border away from all but Australia (which gets less reinforcements) and only 3 from North America.
Some older boards have one less route into Africa though, right?
Thank you learn a lot and I have been playing since 1976😢
The best version is the online capture the fort games. The tactics reguarding siege warefare apply to these games. Also the forts are 2 to 4 times as hard to capture as a regular territory.
Thanks! I'll have to give that a try.
The max is 5 cards at the start of your turn, you cannot have 6 cards ever, you must trade down to 4 max. In addition, the online version has a set troop option, 4, 6 or 10 for the cards.
you can have maks 9 if you have 4 and kill an opponent with 5
@@Voltar78 yes, you can have 9 but your are forced to trade down to 4 immediately.
The best strategy is always be weakest player on the map. Weakest but not worth to defeat. Just wait their fight. At the right time get the lead and win game. Ofc this is for classic map.
There is a good argument for laying low, and not attracting much attention. But you also have to make sure you've got a strong position to build from
Weakest English too
Sounds good to me 👍
Perfect!
So at home in order to make all of the countries seem more viable (because everyone wants america and australia usually), we made south america worth 3 troops, africa worth 4, and europe worth 6. It seems to have evened out the playing field to me on which continent to hold
Nice video
Thanks
This is Legendary Tactics
It is!
Always play fixed card units, though i find S.America is easier to end up stuck in than Australia. As no one ever goes for Asia you wont get blocked unlike s america where often player ends up blocked by whoever holds africa and north america
used to play risk online for years, i always tell people who dont really understand risk to learn about the meteor, wich is a simple to get into that takes practise to execute to perfection. What you do is; when you dont have a favorable starting position- pile your armies on one country and just keep taking small trades for your card each turn. During the early to mid game people will not harass you, because they will need to much armies for hardly any gains, just roam around europe/asia/africa borders. when the opurtunity comes when people are warring each other take note and just sweep out a continent. Now the hard part comes in, Wich is knowing how to invade each continent, splitting your armies leaving them behind to defend while bringing enough to finish your sweep. Europe is extremly vulnurable if peopledont know how to defend from behind the border. Also you can and should execute this strat if u happen to get australia by taking siam at least to free up your armies, no point to defend further inland(personally tend to split between siam and india or even china (but not both)it all depends on how the game goes) . Hope this was a clear explenation. If your played risk online a lot you probably should be familair with the meteor.
Yes this is a great explanation. I like to group my army together the first few turns, and then take out a player when it is worth it for their cards. When players are at 4-5 cards the first orbit is the key time to strike before armies get huge.
Great explanation
@@OliveXCexactly that! God bless those games when someone tries to finish an opponent but just falls short!
You want to delay turning in sets of cards as often and as late as possible. The reason is that in some rules the sets value increases geometrically; the better rule is to have them increase incrementally +2 or maybe +5 armies per set. Basically by delaying cashing in your sets of cards as much as possible you get higher numbers of armies, yes, players may be attempted to try to kill you off for your cards but that's no certain thing for them to do. Look at those cards as your "reserve". Late games with geometric sets wind up being massive global attacks and counterattacks till one player finally goes down for the count usually defeated by an enemy's very last armies...
I feel like this advantage is more pronounced early in the game but less so after mid game.
@@LegendaryTactics maybe with arithmetic augmentation of armies for sets turned in you are right, but with geometric you definitely want to wait. this is why i prefer the former and disfavor the latter. always make sure which rule you are playing under coz this is a gamebreaker.
This is only for progressive mode (when card trade-ins get bigger each turn). In fixed you generally want to trade in early if you get a set of 6 troops or more. If you wait for 5 cards you may be eliminated early. Also in progressive having 5 cards after the first trade-in is normally a death sentence. If everyone else trade-ins for 35, 40 troops and you have only 40 troops on the board or so with 5 cards you get eliminated quickly.
Forget the strategy and tactics... No Australia - no win! Get it no matter what or lose the game 😎 (the motto of all low ranked players)
Jokes aside, well made video, sir!
Much appreciated. I just found your channel - you are hardcore!
Australia, the best place to be blocked :D
I did it last year and it didnt work out lol, I had trouble breaking out of it
I just played the steamroll everyone while building up one or three troops and befriend one person card, managed to take control of North America South America Africa and Europe when I started in India. The game went on for 3 hours
I can't believe I'm here, but thanks, this helps my game
Glad it helped out. There is another interview of me and legendary tactics on his channel that you can check out if you haven’t already.
You know your opponents are all secretly here too, so you're in good company.
Conquer each continent that begins and ends with the same vowel (not counting directional adjectives like east or west). Basic strategy.
I would want to get better at risk because I would be able to eliminate other players and it would help me strategize for next time that I play risk against people.
i just keep going to master like 18.000 than down to beginner every time
Can you help me with a problem I have been experiencing playing Risk recently. Auto set up, fixed sets. At the start of some games players will let each other conquer a country and then will not invade each others country. They won't attack anyone but will just keep gathering armies. Turn after turn its the same thing no attacking, just collecting armies. I am a firm believer that weak players should attack the strongest player. But if I attack anyone's country then every other player will gang up against me...any suggestions?
It sounds like whoever has the best passive income will just win over time, so i would suggest striking up an alliance to destabilize the board leader. It'll take a lot of good diplomacy, but you need to convince the other players that someone is pulling ahead.
I was a grandmaster with my old account before ranks restarted! Europe and Africa is not a bad strategy. Also who ever scores bonuses in Asia? Lol Also #6 is great advice. I see players early smash each other and its quiet entertaining to see 😂
when I was a kid I allways fortified Australia \o/
I think we all fortified Australia as kids!
"you need to use your charme and your charisma, to unite.." (screwed)
Based on the humor in your message, I think you will be just fine.....
Two big parts of the game unfortunately are learning how to detect either a new or crazy player who will attack in erratic ways and avoiding them or also watching for when a player just goes offline leaving the computer in control which will also attack good luck
Yes, that is true of playing Risk in 2023. I wonder how much people complained about that possibility back in the day when it was first released
i disagree about australia being the worse territory. it is very easy to capture in the early game. this makes it so that like 3rd turn of the game you can already own an easily defensible area. it makes you a lot stronger early game cause you get 5 armies a turn instead of 3
" Whilst Africa Is the easiest To invade it is the Hardest to Old "
- Colonisers
Best tip is to fight wars without shooting any bullets, do this by manipulating players against eachother
Think globally with what I call "Buffering". When you have choices of enemies to attack choose the territory to push away an opponent, often selecting a territory to take choose one where your opponent once defeated has his remaining territories to those that are not adjacent to yours. As an example your territories are in the Europe/Asia , if you attack a territory where the opponents' remaining territories are in the America's, that then limits a response to attack you back. This creates short term default alliances. The enemy that attacks my enemy is now my friend at least for the next round. MJS
One disadvantage of North America is that all the border territories don't border eachother so if someone manages to break one of your borders, you can't counterattack with your remaining troops at the other border territories without having to maneuver.
Just had a really nice game I was in control the whole game. First I gave up the biggest continent to the player with the best position and made an alliance with him. For the rest of the game I put no troops near his borders and didn't ally anybody else. He got stronger and I took the top corner of the map (small continent) than I waited for everyone to fight and when the player under me was low I used my cards (waited for 5) and took him out and got his cards. Than I made an alliance with the player who was boxer in a content and next to the big player and just waited until my new ally got attacked by the big boy. Because I got 3 extra cards I was able to put 10 more units in in my next turn and I ended my alliance with the big player and cancled all his bonussen. The other player was grateful and because I left a big stack in front of his corner he wasn't able to cross me if he wanted to. I was very pleased with this round because litterly everything went according to plan. I had the perfect timing and I Didn't mess anything up xD
I'm relatively new to the Mobile game. I played before like 30 games half a year ago but now I'm really starting to get it :)
That's great! It sounds like you are not only figuring out the game, but also how to triumph over the players as well!
@@LegendaryTactics thnx man! I've encountered some conspiring players today I hope they get Reported because I really don't like cheaters.
Today I played a game also with my brother and I said to him mate we cannot play together only against Ai because it would be cheating otherwise. So I gues not everybody has these moral Standards in the game. But the games very nice!
Stalling on dice rolls as a defender or even an attacker to see if the overzealous dice rollers throw trash or all 6s you can adjust how many defending or attacking dice you throw to counter. They throw all 6s then you throw one dice, they throw 1s you throw all your dice. This only works when playing the board game and will probably make your siblings or friends bring out the Yahtzee cup to counter.
Where can i download the game? Steam removed it a long time ago in my country...
That's a shame! You can play it through Tabletop Simulator, but only against other humans.
@@LegendaryTactics Thanks man. Hope we will see in the game ^^
4:00 what does that even mean? can somebody explain
Good tips. However some dont really translate well to online ffa. There are A LOT of griefers whose sole mission is to focus on distrupting your stragegy if they don't start with the territory they want. I have seen so many instances of these annoying individuals that garuantee mutual distruction for you and them by the other players just because they weren't able to settle in the comfy positions of Australia or South America. And dont get me started on the stallers. It starts when 1 player is out, 2 players have built huge armies and terratories, and the last player is laging behind with an army just big enough that makes the other 2 not want to attack them in fear of retaliation from the other. They then start stalling. Running out the timer to give the illusion they are gone or afk. Not taking territory or anything. Just continueing to build troops on a singular point till the other 2 attack each other and then they magicaly come back to the game and wipe the board.
You failed to mention Horde Strategy. When playing Horde you do not concentrate on holding territories but rather on building your strength and getting cards. You want to take one territory and gain 1 card per turn. You hold out on turning in cards to gain the biggest increases. You usually attack the weakest adjacent territory unless it would A box you in or B allow a nearby player to gain a full continent with its additional troop bonus. The more players in the game the better Horde Strategy works. In order to beat you one of them almost certainly has to sacrifice themselves in a seemingly suicidal attack against your Horde. Sometimes the dice are with them. Many times they are not. A win using Horde Strategy is by far the most spectacular because once you feel your horde is big enough you break out and take the entire board in one turn.
It's called Risk for a reason and you have to Risk it for the biscuit
True!
When playing with 5 or 6 players I will sometimes pass and fortify by not attacking. This allows u to slowly build up and without multiple cards u become less attractive to the stronger players to wipe u out.
True, but sometimes you are a more attractive target because you don't have cards... Your enemy will see you as vulnerable
Despite being mathematicaly sound I've found Austraia to be one of the worst continents because there is no easy way to get further troop bonuses without going through highly contested areas. I've always found it better to get South America as fast as possible for a slight early game edge when expand into North America. You can how have a 7 troop bonus while only having 3 attack positions and it keeps you on the edge of board away from where most of the action is going on. By then you should have a fairly strong lead in the game.
When I get Australia I like to attack around the map and deny the continents of others. This allows me to stay strong and them weak. I can always transition to another continent later if I see a better opportunity.
As you said, "The best continent is the one you can hold!"
Ola! 🧡🙏🏼
Hello! Thanks for watching and contributing!
Camp in Australia and then strike when everyone is infighting
How did you played it on computer?
I'm using the Global Domination app on Steam. It's free!
While Australia is efficient to manage and defend, it's far away from your opponents, making it harder to eliminate other players.
Another drawback is that usually one or more other players will try and get it as well.
People can get maniacal about Australia despite knowing better.
I disagree with one of your tips. Never give up australia. It's the easiest to defend and hold onto, aside from that this was a great video
I'm going to be discussing this idea in an upcoming video with a Pro Risk player. While there are certainly times that you should capture and hold Australia, there are also times when the cost is too high for the reward.
How do you deal with the moronic players that throw everything at you as a revenge gesture, for example for exploiting a hole in their defence before they become too powerful, even if that will have them lose the game in the end?
Convince them to attack someone else. Identify early on who plays well and who plays on emotion and exploit them for your advantage. Then win in the endgame against them
Olive xc and I are going to be talking about this in an upcoming video where he's going to discuss how to establish relationships at the table.
Must trade in cards at 5 not 6.
For me South America is better than Australia.
They give the same bonus, and SA does have an added border.
BUT -- in Australia you are isolated. Your chance of getting Asia is low, so it is hard to build.
BUT --- having SA, you can invade NA and have a good chance to take it over.
When you have both SA and NA, then your bonuses become game winning most of the time.
When ever im playing against Grandmasters it's almost impossible for me to win haha
Until now! Muh ha ha ha
@@LegendaryTactics Haha your great!
Now if you had a tactic to avoid the 6 hour games where no one attacks because of a prisoners dilemma.
This is exactly why I never ever play with fixed rewards; 80% of the time it becomes some exhausting bs with people holding on to their continent and nobody attacking nobody because the loses are much greater than the rewards of beating someone else since you get weak af. Progressive is the best, it tends to favor the offensive players, and most of the time in less than 15 turns the game is done
@santiago carreño I like progressive, but it also feels like tactics go out the window and it lacks the tension a really good fixed game can have.
What if it’s a 1v1 I’m currently being railed
How did it go? Did the strategy guide help?
1v1? Get a lot of territories to make them under 12 or any number like that to let them the least amount of troops possible. Mostly territories whit only 1 troop
I am teaching my girlfriend how to play… your strategy can be crappy but if those dice are hot you’re going to win. Can’t beat somebody if they’re always rolling sixes and fives 😅
This is why so many people live the game. The most experienced player doesn't always win.
Barring a very niche set of circumstances, no competent player will even try to hold all of Asia because no sane player would let them. In well over 100 FFA games on classic map, I've pulled it off a grand total of once. And it was mostly dumb luck.
Good call. Never fight a land war in Asia
Albert lamorrise says not bad, not bad at all
Thank you to Albert!
Without Antarctica you cannot hold Australia.
Antarctica should be the most valuable continent in the game!
good video if you're a novice
Yes! And that's why we made this video for higher level play: th-cam.com/video/fCmvhmxDh6I/w-d-xo.html
Tip #11 Avoid psycho noobs who want to suicide into you for no reason.
Lol. Sounds like there's a story there.....
12 army / territory limit optional rule changes much about this game, our house rule on card sets giving the pictured unit instead of just 2 bonus infantry for owning the territory on the traded in cards. Also after 30 cash in armies it goes back to 3, starting over. No stacking over 12 forces attacks
18 secounds in amazing voice like and sub from me
Thank you so much. It's kind of you to take the time to say so.
Hey I want to ask a couple of things
1)Do we use the horses & canons instead of troops for saving space only??
2)A horce can attack to a trooper or only to another horse??,if yes does horse got an advantage?if the horse loses to a trooper do I lose the “whole” horse??
3)If I attack with 3 troopers to a land that have 2 troopers, the defender must put both of the troopers to defend the land or he can choose?
if you choose to play Defence with one trooper he remaining with 1 trooper (that i cannot attack) HOW I WILL GET THE LAND??😂
Thanks in advance
Lol
Progressive cards are horrible. I much prefer fixed. Progressive allows for bad play to be excused by granting them insane amounts of troops.
I don't think progressive is horrible.
Fixed cards get quite often in big stalemates.
Progressive is starting slow, but after a while. It became easy to kill if you are on a single spot.
Either try to stay in multiple places or if you are already whit only 1 spot left, have 3 cards and you can trade it, trade it and don't attack. Basically hundreds of troops, but the value of getting this player down would be extremely unworthy. Even putting themselves at risk to get out as well
1:20 Cool, Discrete Math! My favorite! 🤮
This game is the worst. Last time I played I was ganged up on early and knocked out. I got to watch everyone play for 2 hours. I'll never play again.
yeah multiplayer risk has that problem 4 players get killed within 1 hour 2 players go on to play for several more hours.
@@QuizmasterLaw I may have to try mission style risk or 2v2. That eliminates that problem I hear.
It's too bad that an early player player elimination paired with a tug of war slow finish does happen with this game. Perhaps that's why the TH-cam algorithm sent you this video - so it will never happen again!
You need better friends or play online
@George_Kush I picked option 3. I play hundreds of the other games that are better than this one.
Your analysis on best continent is all backwards. I'd say South America is the most important territory. It's defensible with just two armies and it gives you the edge of extra troops to build up your third army and conquer NA, which is a great jump up in vale as you stated. Also the two defending armies in SA are easily preventing Africa and NA from being taken, as they can be comfortably positioned in West Africa and Mexico early on - the former of which neighbors Europe as another potential disruption tactic (unnecessary later as iceland becomes your 2nd choke point, along w/ Siberia disrupting Asia as well).
Australia is the only continent you cannot disrupt this way, so I try to start by taking it even before SA, but if that doesn't work out I'm fine, since it's so far away and by the point you get the Americas and start contending with the Aussy player they're no match for you. I barely lost a game since I started playing in this way, and the few I lost were due to other players ganging up on me.
I do like South America personally, but I was trying to focus on a more imperical approach here.
The best continent is the one you can take and hold safely. I explain this in the collab I did with legendary tactics and myself. I play this game dozens of hours each week so I have learned to win with every continent. Except Asia. No one wins with just Asia lol.
I learned nothing from this video. Zero insight anyone who played 3 times wouldn’t already know. You actually say ‘take risks’. That’s the name of the game! ‘Adapt to the board state’. You think? 🤦♂️
I'm sorry it didn't do anything for you. You must be a master player already! Is there any advice you'd offer that we missed?
Here's the best Risk tip you're ever gonna get: Play better games!
Ha ha, there's some truth in that, though it holds up pretty well for a game from 1959!
The only way to win this game is to spend $$$ It BS
Time to play analog!
You are making this WAYYYY TOO complicated my friend.
Becoming good at risk comes with experience. I.e: you're a pro if you started playing on the board, not phone.
It's comical, because I get one message like yours, immediately preceded by one that says that this is all way too easy. I don't know who to believe!!!!
The problem is most players are selfish, greedy, dumb and will make u lose and ironically themselves lose by not understanding keeping balance of power. For instance how many times do we see a player with a lead advantage and instead of a weaker player opting to attack them and team up with another weaker player so to speak, they will attack a weaker player to own a continent or hoping the stronger player wont retaliate this ensuring victory for the player with a lead ultimately. The problem with playing games with other people is that most people have no common sense and are dumb. So if u are a person with above average intelligence and u are not playing w other players of above average intelligence it results in not a great gaming experience. Thus is life. Sureounded by idiots.
Worst game on Steam, never loads, always kicks you out. Developers obvious ego trip, all around a shoddy attempt at a game built on dice luck.
Try the board game, much better. Especially with friends
That's interesting that Ukraine 🇺🇦 is imaged on this map.
Yes, it is interesting!
Incredible how wrong this is. I could write a comment 10 paragraphs long or I could ask you to redo the whole video better. You might think I'm just some punk but I did make rank of Grandmaster on the Risk app which corresponds to top 1000 out of a couple million downloads. The real ranking is:
Australia is not just #1 but a super OP #1
South America is #2
No continent and floating around in Siberia is #3
Everything else is terrible but you can still do ok with North America if you have a very docile and shy South America.
Europe is next but borderline unplayable. Africa unfortunately is the worst case scenario.
Nobody is crazy enough to try to take all of Asia. It's just not possible or smart. The only way you can ever have all of Asia is when you're cheating with half the other players or the game is within striking distance of being over.