Saturday, April 15, 2006

Risk!

I've managed to keep up with a post each day while being on vacation this past week. While they may not be the longer/deeper pieces, I'm happy to have kept up the string started early last month.

Part of what has made it hard to post is that for the past few days I've been in Brooklyn, NY, where the evenings are usually spent playing perhaps the world's greatest board game, Risk, with my two nephews. They're vicious, and love to gang up on lil' ol' me, and our dealmaking is serpentine all along the way (although each of us does stand by his word -- no welching).

In honor of this fine game, I offer something to those who don't really know the game as well as for those who do.

For those who don't know the game, here's the Wikipedia page, which opens its entry with this broad description:
Risk is a commercial turn-based strategy board game produced by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro. It was invented in the early 1950s by the French movie director Albert Lamorisse. Risk shares many characteristics with wargames, yet relative to other war games, it is simple and abstract. It makes little attempt to accurately simulate military strategy, the size of the world, the logistics of long campaigns or real-world luck.

There's a weird movie connection in that Lamorisse directed the oft-viewed 1956 short, The Red Balloon (Le Ballon rouge). That's two nifty accomplishments for the guy -- a classic internationally successful short and the best mass-market board game since chess.

For the Risk fans, here's some interesting links:

A brief Risk history

A more personal yet more comprehensive evolutionary history of Risk

Several online clones -- can't tell you if these are considered copyright infringements on not, but they are available so one can only assume Hasbro can't cut them down -- some free, some free demos:

Lux Deluxe

MissionRisk

Final Conquest

Dominate

Conquest

I haven't checked them out so if anyone does and can vouch for quality, give us the word.

And remember, no matter how tense your game may be, it's like a relaxing vacation compared to the current high-stakes game of global domination unfolding in the real world right now...

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Do your nephews have Axis and Allies, it's the next gateway drug in strategy gaming.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I played Risk endlessly as a kid; I had no idea it was invented by Lamorisse. That's awesome.

What I most remember is the pleasure of pronouncing the word: "Kamchatka."

Mark Netter said...

I'm thinking my nephews need a shorter game that has a lot of the same thrill as risk, so I can get to bed earlier i.e. before early morning flights back to L.A. So I've got Settlers of Catan on my mind to send to them...

Mark Netter said...

And how about Irkutsk Yakutsk?
:)

Anonymous said...

today i relized that capital risk is not about collecting countries, but rather to control the opponent's capital, which is why I defeated ezra on thanksgiving, and the only reason you wn last night. GG anyway son!

Mark Netter said...

Hey, Gideon, you were the one who clued me in with your drive last night when you stole my capital in Iceland and almost got Ezra's previously well-protected capital in Argentina.

I woke up a turn or two later, turned in the cards for 12 armies plus just 3 for my weak position in territories, and had to carefully calculate how to divide them among 3 places.

Normally we say that you need a 3:1 ratio to insure victory in attacks but I couldn't quite do that; in any case, I took back Iceland first, got your Eastern Australia capital and finished kicking you out of Australia so in case I couldn't win the turn you wouldn't be able to turn in your card set and win it all back. Then I did the big sweep down from Southern Europe through the Middle East (as I remember it), North Africa and Brazil to take Argentina and the win!

Up until that turn, I hadn't even considered the possibility of going for the capitals and winning. And despite our thinking it would be a faster game (including dealing out random territories at the start) we still took 3 hours to play.

All that said, I highly recommend the Capital Risk variation when the regular rules get a little boring.

Mark Netter said...

Let's play Setters!

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