Which Continent?

[Jeff Hardy]

If there are three or four players which continent is best to go for on the classic map?

[BaldAdonis]

All of them. Then you've won.

[qazwsx12345]

All of them. Then you've won.

that didnt help much....

I'd say Oceania or North America

[Heart Break Kid]

First go for Oceania. Once you've got it go for North and South America.

[Plutoman]

From my experience, africa or Europe just make you a target.

Depending on placement, NA is good if you have a large amount of terits in it, otherwise SA or Oceania is the best, to expand from there.

[Bavarian Raven]

Asia...i have taken in in three turns in a 4 person game before!

[Plutoman]

Asia...i have taken in in three turns in a 4 person game before!

Try doing that several times in a row

[whitestazn88]

its all about south america, then you build up into NA by forting central, next turn take west us and east us and fort them, then take the continent by storm!

[oggiss]

its all about south america, then you build up into NA by forting central, next turn take west us and east us and fort them, then take the continent by storm!

Now I know why you are a sergeant :p

[kingprawn]

Asia...i have taken in in three turns in a 4 person game before!

Then you must have been playing with muppets. Did you manage to hold it?

[DAZMCFC]

Asia...i have taken in in three turns in a 4 person game before!

Then you must have been playing with muppets. Did you manage to hold it?

it was Kermit,Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef.


i voted S.A. with Oceania you can not progress as fast as Asia is to big to control against decent players that is.

[Plutoman]

SA is usually best, small, with several options for fast expansion without compromising your position.

Oceania is second best, but far from ideal. The rest, except for the possibility of NA, are too large to effectively hold, and even for NA, it usually makes you a target regardless of the few borders you have.

[pimphawks70]

SA is usually best, small, with several options for fast expansion without compromising your position.

Oceania is second best, but far from ideal. The rest, except for the possibility of NA, are too large to effectively hold, and even for NA, it usually makes you a target regardless of the few borders you have.

agreed

[bryguy]

ociana (or whatever its called) then S.A then Africa then Asia then the map

[spline]

I am almost shocked by the votes.

3 players, vast map in front of you. You can get a third of the world to start with. Why would you start from Australia? Why? what's the rational. Why do you want to be isolated, there are only two other players in the game anyway. You can have 14 countries, but you are going for a continent that has only 4! Am I missing something here, or are the majority of players conservative?

Meanwhile those who start from NA are winning anyway ...

[Plutoman]

I am almost shocked by the votes.

3 players, vast map in front of you. You can get a third of the world to start with. Why would you start from Australia? Why? what's the rational. Why do you want to be isolated, there are only two other players in the game anyway. You can have 14 countries, but you are going for a continent that has only 4! Am I missing something here, or are the majority of players conservative?

Meanwhile those who start from NA are winning anyway ...

Tell me, how many times out of 10 in a 3 way do you keep NA?

Maybe once... While you can keep SA with it's small amount of terits like 5-6 times out of 10.

And from there, you can expand, using the extra troops to dominate NA or africa, and move on.

[spline]

Tell me, how many times out of 10 in a 3 way do you keep NA?

Maybe once... While you can keep SA with it's small amount of terits like 5-6 times out of 10.

And from there, you can expand, using the extra troops to dominate NA or africa, and move on.

The question is not if you keep NA, but if you use it to grow quickly in the beginning stages of the game. A larger continent will help you to become stronger quickly. Initially you have less threat of an invasion than you will later, because everyone is involved in getting their own continent.

How about Africa. If you are conservative, this is a better choice since it is slightly smaller but gives you more bonus.

For me, out of 10 games, probably in all of them I start from Africa or NA depending on other players' abilities, history,etc.

Lets put it another way, if you think big continents are difficult to get, how can the player in Australian get Asia. He cant, so he will have only OZ for the rest of the game while others can have a similar or better continent. Which one do you think is more likely to win?

[Ditocoaf]

Tell me, how many times out of 10 in a 3 way do you keep NA?

Maybe once... While you can keep SA with it's small amount of terits like 5-6 times out of 10.

And from there, you can expand, using the extra troops to dominate NA or africa, and move on.

The question is not if you keep NA, but if you use it to grow quickly in the beginning stages of the game. A larger continent will help you to become stronger quickly. Initially you have less threat of an invasion than you will later, because everyone is involved in getting their own continent.

How about Africa. If you are conservative, this is a better choice since it is slightly smaller but gives you more bonus.

For me, out of 10 games, probably in all of them I start from Africa or NA depending on other players' abilities, history,etc.

Lets put it another way, if you think big continents are difficult to get, how can the player in Australian get Asia. He cant, so he will have only OZ for the rest of the game while others can have a similar or better continent. Which one do you think is more likely to win?

Initially, people are also busy preventing others from holding continents. I don't know who you're playing with, but I'm not going to just let someone take and hold Europe or NA, just because they 'get' 14 countries. Its one thing to have 14 countries, its another to hold an entire continent without losing a single one of those territories. We're talking about which continents are easiest to defend, so that you actually hold every territory in the continent long enough to receive the bonus.

[spline]

Initially, people are also busy preventing others from holding continents. I don't know who you're playing with, but I'm not going to just let someone take and hold Europe or NA, just because they 'get' 14 countries. Its one thing to have 14 countries, its another to hold an entire continent without losing a single one of those territories. We're talking about which continents are easiest to defend, so that you actually hold every territory in the continent long enough to receive the bonus.

I understand your concern. Look at it another way. Once someone get NA, how can a player in OZ stop him. You don't get as much armies as he gets. Would you sacrifice your own continent to make sure he doesn't get his bonus. Risk is a game about balance and probability. You just want to increase the likelihood of getting more armies, and getting less attacked. Granted if you are in NA, you might be more likely to attack, but you are also likely to gain. Its a high stake game. That's all. It is not wrong to go for NA, and I will argue that it better than OZ, because you cant expand from OZ to anywhere and the continent is too small support your invasion of the rest of the world.

Lets look at it this way, if a player starting in OZ wins a three player game, the other two players aren't playing properly. How could they let it happen!? I can think of 20 different strategies that will beat the OZ player, easily. Can you not think of some?

[BaldAdonis]

You guys are all nuts. The right answer is: "the one no one else is going for"; or if you're escalating: "something in the south, or nothing at all". No one traps themselves in NA or Europe and wins with escalating cards, because they're easy to take out and they can't reach anyone else; and battling another player for any continent at all just leaves the others stronger than both of you. I've won plenty of 3 player games (and a 4 player Great Lakes just the other day) by not taking any continent and waiting for the others to kill each other over something else.

[spline]

Of course it all depends on who you are playing against. Otherwise its just a tactical game.

The question is not what is the best strategy to win the game. That doesn't fit into two paragraphs or three posts. There is a lot more to it. The question is should you go for small or larger continents when, say, there are only three players in the game.

You seem to imply that you are better off, consistently, to go with no continent at all. I like to disagree, because if the other players are isolationist and don't invade each other and sit in their own continent, you will lose. No question. If you want to divide and conquer, its a whole different matter.

Not having a continent in a six player game can be a good (but risky) strategy, but in a three player game is suicide.

[BaldAdonis]

You seem to imply that you are better off, consistently, to go with no continent at all. I like to disagree, because if the other players are isolationist and don't invade each other and sit in their own continent, you will lose. No question.

Not if you have escalating cards. It only takes one straggler each and a bit of planning to block them from completely killing each other, so when card values are high enough, you can kill one and incapacitate the other. They can sit on any one, it won't help.

If you don't have those cards, then take something, but there's no point deciding which place you want to take before the game starts. You're better off waiting to see which players will kill each other.

Why not apply some of these ideas of yours to actual games? It's a lot more fun than hanging out in ivory towers.

[spline]

You seem to imply that you are better off, consistently, to go with no continent at all. I like to disagree, because if the other players are isolationist and don't invade each other and sit in their own continent, you will lose. No question.

Not if you have escalating cards. It only takes one straggler each and a bit of planning to block them from completely killing each other, so when card values are high enough, you can kill one and incapacitate the other. They can sit on any one, it won't help.

If you don't have those cards, then take something, but there's no point deciding which place you want to take before the game starts. You're better off waiting to see which players will kill each other.

Why not apply some of these ideas of yours to actual games? It's a lot more fun than hanging out in ivory towers.

Ok, I see some misunderstanding are developing. The choice of continent, especially in escalating, is not applicable to end game or before the game starts. End game is dominated by cards, there is no point to think about getting to rubbing someone from continent bonus of 5 when your entire survival is under question.

Before the game starts, it is to wise to limiting to say I shall only do this strategy no matter who is playing. No one does that. So again that's not an issue.

The issue is, suppose you have the whole blank map in front of you, you can choose which continent you want to go and you know the other two players. What would you do. I can also put it in a different way. Suppose you dont know your opponents, but you have become luck, you have a choice to place your armies initially on the map (as opposed to random distribution) and are wondering, all things being equal, where should you place your first token. As you can see its a simple question, one that can be answered. There is no point to say "but you can win by starting from anywhere". Of course you can. In Risk you always want to make your life easy. It's a probability game. To win once is easy. To win every time no one can do. To win most of the time, is what we want to achieve.

So I would challenge you to answer this simple question. Every player should know the answer based on their style of play, much like initial moves in Chess.

And by the way, I do implement my ideas in practice, they work and I have fun (why should I talk about Risk strategies without playing it!). I like analysing Risk, as you might guess, hence why I am here talking about. Talking about it is just as fun, hence why you are here too, in the Ivory Tower, discussing Risk

[MeDeFe]

I see Europe is still highly underrated, 4 borders are frightening? Too hard to hold? Not defensible in the least? Think again, three of those borders are next to northern Europe, you can hold them with relatively small armies if you keep a backup force in nE as a threat of retaliation. I've even done it in 6 player games, it's especially easy if someone else is going for NA because with the help of a little diplomacy you can get away with being the balancing force.

And you NA lovers out there, remember that your 3 borders are completely unconnected to each other, in a game with 4 players or more you could easily become locked in between Europe, SA and Oceania with an asian expansion. Unless you cut a deal with someone you'll never be able to keep up in an arms race on three fronts.

And what's up with Africa getting so few votes? Africa is good, if you get it you have every possibility of expanding, Asia for cards, SA for a higher bonus, even Europe if you like. And see those three borders? They're all right next to each other if one is attacked you you have two stacks that can jump in and retake it. The cost of breaking Africa will often be higher for the attacker in the end. The best country for the large retaliatory stack is probably East Africa, it borders Asia which most people won't go for so you won't be perceived as a big threat to anyone if you build up there, and as with northern Europe you'll have a large army to retaliate with if anyone attacks you.

South America... if you get it quickly, and I mean REALLY quickly, you'll do fine. Then you can probably manage to take an other continent, either Africa of NA, both are good options. Otherwise you'll be locked in between them and the best you can hope for is a small outpost in Asia where you can still get cards. SA has potential, but if you can't make use of it it's a very weak continent.

Oceania, everybodys darling, sooo overrated. Unless you have a second continent (any of them) you can, for all practical purposes, only win from Oceania if the other players kill each other off while you hang back and collect cards. You can get as high as 15 countries if you take most of Asia, but there's a substantial risk is that the others will see you as a threat and attack preemptively if only one Asian country does not belong to you. If you don't get to Kamchatka you have 6 borders to defend with only 5 or 6 armies/turn.
Also, Asia is a major factor in the card trading business, if you block 11 out of 12 countries, someone will most probably not be getting cards, and for many players that's very dissatisfying. Chances are the NA player will break Kamchatka at some point since the middle east is the favoured zone for trading.
Oceania looks good because it has only one border, but getting out of there is hard, in most games you don't get farther than India/China before running into other players who want to get another army/turn.

As for Asia, not even on the poll, probably for good reasons, if you want it you'll first need Oceania. Then you'll have to manage to expand without losing too much battling those who want cards and territories. Then you'll need to break and hold Ukraine (and preferably Alaska as well), unless you have a deal with Europe, and barely any player would honour that deal once you're holding Asia. If you don't take Ukraine your border count is too high. When all that has been accomplished you're everybodys favourite target until you've been beaten back to Siam or conquered the map, yeah, good luck with that.

[Plutoman]

Initially, people are also busy preventing others from holding continents. I don't know who you're playing with, but I'm not going to just let someone take and hold Europe or NA, just because they 'get' 14 countries. Its one thing to have 14 countries, its another to hold an entire continent without losing a single one of those territories. We're talking about which continents are easiest to defend, so that you actually hold every territory in the continent long enough to receive the bonus.

I understand your concern. Look at it another way. Once someone get NA, how can a player in OZ stop him. You don't get as much armies as he gets. Would you sacrifice your own continent to make sure he doesn't get his bonus. Risk is a game about balance and probability. You just want to increase the likelihood of getting more armies, and getting less attacked. Granted if you are in NA, you might be more likely to attack, but you are also likely to gain. Its a high stake game. That's all. It is not wrong to go for NA, and I will argue that it better than OZ, because you cant expand from OZ to anywhere and the continent is too small support your invasion of the rest of the world.

Lets look at it this way, if a player starting in OZ wins a three player game, the other two players aren't playing properly. How could they let it happen!? I can think of 20 different strategies that will beat the OZ player, easily. Can you not think of some?

More like *if* someone gets NA

I'm sure as hell never going to let them get a bonus. And if I get two more men a turn, they can't do a thing in the world to stop me.

I don't really like Aussie that much myself. I'm talking about SA. SA, once taken, can expand easily into either Africa or NA, using the force of extra troops to grab a second continent.