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Risk is a commercial strategic 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 war games, 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.

Overview and most common rules

Risk is a turn-based game for two to six players. It is played on a board depicting a stylized political map of the Earth, divided into 42 territories, which are grouped into six continents. To start, each player rolls one die. The player who rolls the highest number plays first and the sequence goes clockwise. Each player in turn places an army on a territory to claim it until all territories have been claimed; following this, the players position among their territories the armies remaining from their starting number of armies (varying depending on the number of people playing; for six, each gets 20; for five, 25; four, 30; etc.).

The game is played by allocating armies to the territories that you control, and then attacking neighboring territories in order to conquer them. The game uses a form of area movement to regulate turns. The outcome of battles is decided by rolling dice. The attacking player selects up to three armies from his/her territory to participate in the attack, with the caveat that at least one army must be left behind. The attacker rolls one die, usually red, for each attacking army. The defending player may select up to two armies to participate in the defense of the territory (including their last army), and rolls that number of dice, usually white or blue. The attacker's highest roll is then compared to the defender's highest roll. The player with the higher of the two is deemed successful, and the opposing player must remove one army from the territory. If both highest rolls are equal, the defender is deemed successful, and the attacker must remove one army. The process is then repeated with each player's second highest roll. If the attacker is using more dice than the defender, the remaining dice are ignored. If an attacker succeeds in removing the last defending army, they move any attacking armies into the conquered territory.

Players may reinforce their armies at the beginning of their turn. First, a player receives additional armies each turn based on the territories in their control. The player will receive one army for each three territories under their control, with a minimum of three per turn. Additional armies are given for controlling all territories in a continent or continents (see table below). Second, players collect cards, drawing one card from the deck on any turn during which they captured a territory. At the start of their turn, a player may turn in any sets of three identical cards, or any sets of one card of each of the three types, for additional armies. The number of armies awarded increases as sets of cards are turned in. At the end of each player's turn, they may move any number of armies from one (and only one) territory they control into one (and only one) neighboring territory they already occupy, again always leaving at least one army in each territory.

Since playing Risk with two players is not always as engaging as games with more players, some versions of the rules recommend having some territories occupied by neutral armies to come close to the strategic value and fun of an actual three-way game.

Rules and differences

Risk was designed by Albert Lamorisse and released in France in 1957. From the pre-1959 version, Parker Brothers and Hasbro have included many different rules for the game. In older versions, the armies shown here were represented by plastic Roman numerals I, V, and X rather than figurines. There are many computer and Internet versions which have different rules, and hundreds of Risk clubs which also have their own "house rules" or competition-adjusted rules. It would be arduous to include here all the different sets of rules, or to list every rule or goal that differs from place to place or version to version.

Strategy for standard rules

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The strategy of Risk is to position armies in the places where they will be the most effective. At the beginning of the game, one of the easiest ways to gain armies is to hold continents. If you hold an entire continent when your turn begins, you receive a number of extra armies, which is dependent upon the continent (see the table to the right). At the end of the game, the armies gained from Risk card sets begin to overshadow continents. This is particularly true in games with the full six players because it is easier to eliminate an opponent in order to gain their Risk cards.

General Strategy

• Defend your border countries in greater strength than interior countries. This discourages hit-and-run tactics designed to break your continent bonus.
• On the other hand, remember that a weakly defended interior invites anyone who cracks your borders to gut your territory.
• After winning a battle, it is tempting to leave a single occupying army in a territory and push all others into the newly defeated territory. This leaves a strong front line with no reserves. If an opponent breaks the leading edge of the player's advance, they can often run deep into his or her rear area as they only have to defeat a single army in each territory. Leaving two or three armies in each territory will slow your advance, but it minimizes the damage if an opponent breaks through.
• Conquer at least one country each turn so that you get a Risk card, even if you expect to immediately lose this country. In fact, it is not uncommon for two players to trade control of an unwanted border to gain Risk cards. Try to keep a border on poorly defended areas to allow easy conquest.
• Avoid irritating someone in a clearly more powerful position. Only attack a stronger party when it will benefit you.
• Conversely, if you attack a weaker opponent, make sure you cripple their ability to hurt you. Don't push an enemy into suicidal self-defensive assault.
• If someone is suicidally or persistently attacking you, consider focusing on eliminating them to end the drain on your armies and territory.
• Do not be afraid to do as the name of the game implies. Sometimes you must be willing to take risks, and sacrifice your borders and soldiers to further your gains. Always take advantage of an opponents weakness, even if it leaves you spread thin. Just remember to keep a cool head and think rationaly.

Game Control Strategies

In terms of values of each continent, North America is one of the most valuable to conquer throughout the game. North America combines a high continent bonus with easy defense. Because it has only three entrances, North America proves to be a crucial part of the game.

Once North America is secure, many players move on to South America. The conquest of this continent adds two extra armies per turn with no extra defense points. (The border countries of Alaska, Greenland, and Central America become Alaska, Greenland, and Brazil.) An added bonus for a player controlling both of North and South America is his or her ability to easily prevent opponents from gaining a continent bonus on Asia, Africa, and Europe. Many games degenerate into stalemates between North America, South America, and Africa vs Australia, Asia, and Ukraine, with Europe split between them.

Other candidates for board control are Europe and Africa. Like North America, Europe's continent bonus is five armies per turn but it is much more difficult to defend and has inferior opportunities for further expansion. If North America and Europe appear unattainable, Africa can be attempted despite its lesser continent bonus. Africa provides good routes to expand into either South America or Europe; Africa's best chance is to wait until it can take advantage of a weakened North America or Europe.

Defensive Strategies

A common defense-oriented strategy is to secure Australia or South America early in the game, sit back, and build up armies. This strategy allows for a quiet yet steady gain in reinforcements. Players often defend Australia from Siam to give a buffer country and discourage others' attempts to gain Asia. Siam also gives access to other Asian countries which can be conquered for Risk cards. South America is more difficult to defend than Australia because many people use it to move from Africa into North America or vice versa. However, South America can succeed in a Balkanized environment which weakens its neighboring continents.

Players using this strategy must be wary of another player gaining control of the larger continents above them. Often they will be the next target, because they receive lesser reinforcements, are often easy to conquer, and can pose a threat if ignored.

Once built up in either Australia, South America, or both, a defensive player will wait for the other players to kill each other off and strike when they are weakest. If more than one player attempts to follow this strategy it can lead to an internecine bloodbath. This strategy can fail if the game develops into a stalemate, where all the players build up in larger continents waiting for someone else to make a move. The controllers of the larger continents will receive more reinforcements, leaving the owners of smaller continents at a disadvantage. This strategy is most powerful when Australia or South America can start its offense with bonus armies from a late Risk card set and further the offensive campaign by knocking others out for their Risk cards.

Sideline Strategy

After securing South America, attack Central America and North Africa so as to prevent other players from securing larger continents than South America. Right when one's armies is large enough, attack and secure Africa. Then use the following rounds to recover the defence in North Africa, Eygpt and East Africa. By this time you would have eight reinforcements per turn, these eight defence specialists shall become your attack force in the later part of the game. Also, you might have notice the player holding North America add lesser armies than you per turn, concentrate your armies to this continent. Once sufficient, massacre or make the enemy retreat all the way back to secure North America. Once North America is secured, its all up to you to conquer and dominate the world.

Avoid Asia Strategy

Another rule of thumb many players follow is to never take Asia early in the game. It is the largest continent and the least defensible, and trying to hold it leaves the player open on many fronts. If a player does attempt to take Asia, they should hold Ukraine in order to merge three border countries into one.

Strike force Strategy

A tactic that is rarely used yet quite effective is the strike force strategy. After building up a large force, start advancing forward. When you take a country, advance all of your armies there. Every turn you must take several territories since you will lose the poorly defended territories you leave behind. This method relies not on territories but on cards for its reinforcement armies. Soon you will control most of the board. Counterattacks should be expected but since you have the bulk of your armies in one territory it will be hard for your enemies to eliminate you. Be sure never to block your line of attack with your own territories. Also, make sure that you take more territories then you lose or you will be eliminated. The upside to this strategy is that it would be hard to eliminate you, and you will have a large number of Risk cards. The downside is that if your enemies form an alliance against you there is no where to retreat to.

Endgame Strategy

Risk card sets quickly build to high value, making Risk sets more important than continents late in the game. When a person is eliminated from the game, their Risk cards are given up to the player who defeated them. Some players play a very effective game by mostly ignoring continents, focusing instead on wiping out other players and seizing their cards, particularly in games of 5 or 6 players. If two or three weaker players with 3 or 4 cards each can be defeated without hopelessly weakening the attacker in the process, he or she can often win the game, even against strongly-entrenched remaining opponents.

Once a player has become dominant in a particular session, the outcome becomes more or less inevitable. Risk is a game of numbers, and consequently, the game can swing in a player's favor once he or she controls enough territories and continents to build up a steady stream of reinforcements each turn. When this happens, there is very little that can be done strategically to stop them aside from uniting against them.

Politics and alliances

Whenever there are more than two players remaining in the game, alliances will be an important—perhaps the most important—part of Risk strategy. There are no rules restricting the formation or break-up of alliances. A good Risk player will use diplomacy to arrange alliances to take down stronger opponents and will similarly attempt to use diplomacy to avoid alliances being made against him/herself. The importance of this should not be underestimated. This "meta-game" is perhaps the single most important factor determining the outcome of Risk games amongst players who have already grasped basic Risk tactics and strategy. Computer AI simulations of Risk inevitably fail in portraying this aspect of the game. Some software packages support AI diplomacy but fail to capture the politics between people outside the game, and personal preference of their favorite countries (regardless of strategic value inside the game).

Dice odds

List of territories

¹On some versions sold in Canada, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are known as Western Canada, Central Canada and Eastern Canada respectively.

Official games

• Risk (1959) — original game
• Castle Risk (1986) — A version that focuses on Europe only, and each player's goal is to protect their castle from attack.
• Risk II (1999) — Official computer game by Hasbro Interactive.
• Risk 40th Anniversary Edition (1999) Features a Color-Enhanced board and metal pieces.
• Risk: Édition Napoléon (1999) — Adds generals and naval units.
• Risk: Édition Napoléon: Extension Empire Ottoman (2000) — Adds a sixth player.
• Risk: 2210 A.D. (2001) — An award winning futuristic version, produced by Avalon Hill, another division of Hasbro. The game features Moon Territories, ocean territories and Commanders.
• Risk: the Lord of the Rings (2002) — 2–4 player version based on northern Middle-earth.
• Risk: the Lord of the Rings: Gondor & Mordor Expansion Set (2003) — also includes a 2-player Siege of Minas Tirith mini-game.
• Risk: the Lord of the Rings: Trilogy Edition (2003) — Combines the first two LotR versions, but without the Siege of Minas Tirith.
• Risk: Godstorm (2004) — A version based on the mythological pantheons of various ancient civilizations; also by Avalon Hill.
• Risk: Star Wars: Clone Wars Edition (2005) — Fight on the side of the Separatists or the Republic. You can play by classic Risk rules or the Clone Wars variations where altruism pays off.
• Risk Junior: Narnia (2006) (coming soon)

Derivative board games

• Risk: 2042 — A modern-day variant with tanks, hummvees, helicopters and hovercraft; by Table Tactics.
• TEG — Táctica y Estrategia de la Guerra, “Strategy and Tactics of War” — An Argentinean Risk-based board game with extra goals.
• War- The name for Risk in Brazil. War, War 2 and War Junior are all part of the War Series.

Computer implementations and Video Games

• Risk II by Atari — A computer game with the standard and an advanced map.
• Risk — A computer game based on the Board game for the Sony PlayStation. You can do battle over the Earth or in specific continents. These Include: The Americas, Europe and Asia/Oceania
• Risk: Global Domination — developed by Cyberlore Studios for the PlayStation 2.
• GEWar — Risk-style game using Google Earth.
• Fracas — a computer game similar to Risk, but without the elements of chance
• A computer game version of Risk was available for early versions of the Apple Macintosh computer in the 1980s.
• An online game similar to Risk is available dominategame. A small Java applet must be downloaded to the players computer to interface with the site. It varies from the standard risk board game in that maps are designed by the users and uploaded to the site.
• Another online game using Java is Grand Strategy. Users can play free public games or register to create private games. Registration is relatively inexpensive and helps support the author's constant improvement of the game.
• Conquest a version of Risk for Windows and Pocket PCs.
• MissionRisk unofficial shareware version of risk that plays exactly the same.

Pop culture and trivia

• Risk is played in the Seinfeld episode "The Label Maker" by Kramer and Newman. The two play an extended Risk game throughout the episode. Towards the end of the episode, Kramer is on the verge of victory as they play on the subway. However, after Kramer taunts Newman, regarding his position, "Ukraine is weak," a nearby Ukrainian man becomes enraged and smashes their Risk board.
• An episode of the TV series Undergrads revolved entirely around the four main characters playing an all-night game of Risk.
• In an episode of Red Dwarf, the character Rimmer regaled his shipmates with the incredibly boring tale of every dice throw of every move from every game of Risk he played in college. Rimmer insists it is building to the "exciting part" where he rolls a six and a three and his opponent rolls a three and a two. It was exciting for him because it got him into Irkutsk.
• A group of students in Uckfield, UK have started work on a huge board game based on this game. Called "Risk Extreme", it can be played by many people and allows players to conquer every single one of the 193 countries in the world (including Antarctica, not a real-world country). Although construction is still underway, it appears that the game will be played on multiple boards by teams.
• In the Playstation 2 Version of the game, one of the opposing generals, Ferdinand, will comment, "All Your Base Are Belong to Me" during capital Risk mode. This is a reference to the All your base are belong to us Internet phenomenon.
• Bizarrely, New Zealand and The Philippine archipelago are left off most versions of the game board.
• In the R.E.M. song "Man on the Moon", Risk is one of the several board games mentioned in the first stanza.
• In one episode of Malcolm in the Middle, the family plays March and Conquer, a combination of Risk and several other games.
• In one episode of Peep Show, a game of Risk is played by Mark, Jeremy and Sophie.
• In No Exit, an episode of The West Wing, Debbie Fiderer and Charlie Young decide to play Risk whilst the White House is locked down due to a chemical scare.

External links

• Hasbro’s official Risk page
  • Hasbro’s Risk: 2210 A.D. page
  • Hasbro’s Risk: the Lord of the Rings page
  • Hasbro’s Risk: Star Wars: Clone Wars page
• Risk 2 on MySpace - new members welcome
• WarZone: A free online gaming server for Risk II
• XMP Chat: Another free online gaming server for Risk II

Strategies

• Risk, Strategies Explained — Guides for beginners and advanced users on how to use diplomacy and cunning tactics to win the game.
• Risk FAQ by Owen Lyne — An explanation of the rules, in many versions. Includes alternate rules and strategy tips.

Tactics

• Battle Odds Calculator by Games by E-mail — Battle probabilites for an individual territory or a conquest of multiple territories.
• Risk Probability Calculator — For both normal Risk and the Lord of the Rings variant.

Variant Rules

• Capital Risk — Players start in Capitals and spread to conquer the world.
• Cold Cash Risk — An “unholy merger” of Acquire and Risk.
• One World Dominion — 44 new territory cards. You may play cards individually to take the action stated on the card.
• Rise and Fall: Dynasties at War — A more complicated version set in ancient China.
• Risk 2000 — Variant rules that add natural resources, weapon building, oversea trades, and technology development.

Online Variants

• Grand Strategy - A free, web-based multiplayer variation. Team games and a variety of game styles and historical maps. Designed for the casual gamer: pause your games, take one turn every day, or complete the game in just minutes.
• LandGrab - A free online multiplayer variation. Includes custom maps (and a map editor for creating new maps), leaders, capitols and fortresses. Games can be played on any timetable, including real time (with changes shown in real time).
• Final Conquest - A free online multiplayer Risk-based game.
• Conquer Club - A free online multiplayer variation. Offers player rankings, individual & team games, an active community and a wide array of game styles & maps.
• World at War — A free online turn-based multiplayer variation. Offers players a lot of extra options like team-play, air-lift, fog of war, capitals, anonymous and daily games on (currently) 23 different maps, including the classic map.
• DominateGame — A fee-based online multiplayer version of the game.
• Gambit - A free browser-based, play-by-email, Risk-based game at GamesByEmail.com. No flash or installs required.
• jRisk — A multi-platform, network-playable Risk game.
• KsirK — An open-source (GPL) computer-clone of Risk under KDE/Linux.
• Lux Delux — A downloadable Risk game with support for user created maps and AIs. Available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
• Risk: Google Maps — A variant based on Google Maps. ([http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/04/145224&tid=217 shut down after a legal complaint from Hasbro).
• Tenes Empanadas Graciela (TEG) — A computer version of TEG made for network play.
• TurboRisk — A freeware version for Windows by Mario Ferarri.
• WarNet — Brazilian online variant, in English and Portuguese.
• Risk Online — Online multiplayer turn-by-turn, 24 hours for playing your turn.
• World Conquest — Online single player Macromedia Shockwave game.
• FISK on Voitta.net — A free online multi-player turn-by-turn game, played in HTML, no installs needed.
• Dice Wars A small version of risk played with dice created in Macromedia Flash.

Risk Clubs

• RISKNerds — Australian Chapter of RISKNerds.
• Chicago Risk Local chapter of Risk games

• Origins Award winners
• Risk (game)
• Board wargames
• 1959 introductions