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Where do you like to start off, my personal favorite is Africa-South America, as it offers a very defensive start, but yields little building power.

What do YOU do?, is there one amongst you that can start in Asia and not get raped?

I ALWAYS start in Asia, butting pressure on whom ever wants to have North America, and slowly driving into parts of europe, Africa, fighting with who ever wants to have Australia for Saim, generally I AM Temunjin.

I try to start in Central and South America with a few African and European assets. Gives you a good base of operations and a decent chance at expansion.

I consider myself a fairly good player. I can win from just about any where. Though my least favorite continent is asia. My favorite place it S America for it provides the most options fo expantion and leaves me only two area to initially defend. Australia is the eaisest place to hold because it has only 1 avenue. North america is ok but the worse are europe and Asia. There are just too many fronts.

I prefer to start in Asia or Australia. I haven't played in a while, though, although I'd like to.

weemadando wrote:I try to start in Central and South America with a few African and European assets. Gives you a good base of operations and a decent chance at expansion.

i do that as well, and i ususally push up into North America first, so i can attack Europe from two fronts.

I usually start in the Northwestern Oil Emirate, with major assets on the Asian front, so I can push into Asia and Europe and later down into North America while keeping at least one extremely defensible front open.

I make sure that I have the Mongolia Kamchatka/Siberia triad, then push down into china. Like I said I play as Temunjin (Or since it's a later period I guess Kubla's grandson)

I try to dominate Australia. It's a lousy starting position, but I can a) control the continent quickly and b) sit at my quiet little choke-point and amass a sizable blockade force while I gradually take over Asia.

I know the whole 'whoever has NA wins' strategy, and I say the hell with it. Anyone can take over NA and stomp the board. It takes balls and luck in big, manly helpings to start by trying to take and hold Asia.

LAND WAR IN ASIA OR BUST, BABY!

Australia and South America are the best starting places, having good forces in each at the start practically guarentee's victory.

Uh...would now be a good time to say that I never played Risk before??

I usually end up starting in Australia. It's easy to take over, and there's only one way in. Unfortunately, that really doesn't seem to help, as my forces get slaughtered anyway.

I generally go for southern Asia and Australia.

I start off in North America and push in three directions on my first turn, if possible: into Kamchatka, Iceland, and South America. I use Iceland and Kamchatka as my chokepoints rather than Greenland and Alaska because it denies Europe and Asia's bonus armies to my opponents and gives me space to retreat without losing NA's bonus. Also, having significant forces there ties up lots of enemy units because each of those territories has access to multiple neighbors. COntrolling North America gives me more bonus armies than starting in South America, and saves me the trouble of fighting for it later (it's really hard to mount an advance through it if it's being contested by two other powers, and not easy even if only one other player wants it). Once I control the Americas, there's only 3 access points to a territory that gives me seven bonus armies (compared to Asia, which is practically indefensible until you're so dominant you're going to win the game anyway). Then invade Africa, swinging through the south first to secure a power base, then rolling north. As that point, I can afford a multi-front invasion of Europe with a reconnaisance in force into Asia to keep any remaining players off-balance. Europe should be conquered in a turn or two ideally to prevent players based in Asia from moving in a force that can threaten the advance. Then it's just a matter of rolling through Asia to the border with Australia. If Australia is occupied by somebody who's been doing nothing but building up a defensive army in Indo-China (the best place from which to defend the continent), just wait until the 23 or 25 bonus armies per turn you're recieving builds up to the point you can crush their force. Move the armies, roll the dice, win the game, gloat. Repeat as necessary.

Stravo wrote:Uh...would now be a good time to say that I never played Risk before??

BLASPHEMER! STRIKE DOWN THE HEATHEN!

Actually, just givin' ya crap. Risk is a fine game and all, but real men play Diplomacy.

Depends on what house rules are and who the opponents are.

If it is increasing cards and 3:2 dice I like a huge pile somewhere around the Ukraine marching in circles. Then make a run to kill some poor schmuck with many cards.

If it is fixed cards (4,6,8,10) and 3:2 then we need to talk about player skill and number of players. 4 or less players ... SA in a heart beat, Africa being next choice. With 5 or more GOOD players (and with computerized dice) I like Europe, avoid SA like the plague.

If it is increasing and dice are 2:3 or 3:3 ... Aus. If the other players are exceptionally good, anywhere but Aus (Ukraine being a nice shot).

If it is fixed and dice are 2:3 or 3:3 ... SA or bumming in Euro, untill I can make a strategic push to NA.

If you play with equally skilled opponents .... then any major deviation from parity will have the whole board unite to kick your ass down into parity. It is very hard to win a game of your own merit when everyone is good, it becomes almost a crapshoot.

I usually play the computer game, but I choose Europa often on the board game.

Captain_Cyran wrote:Best place to have is Australia with a big ass army in Siam, simple as that.

Yes right up until you trap yourself from being unable to attack in one direct with said pile. You get 4 cards and then your next shot means the only way to strike NA is to push your ass through Europe or S. Africa.

Good frikking luck.

With increasing cards mobility is more imporant than 2 armies a turn. Especially if the other players notice you are getting a material advantage and work somewhat cooperatively to strafe down your armies.

When Aus is a sure fire win, then good players recognize this and work somewhat cooperatively to screw Aus.

Ignorant twit wrote:

Captain_Cyran wrote:Best place to have is Australia with a big ass army in Siam, simple as that.

Yes right up until you trap yourself from being unable to attack in one direct with said pile. You get 4 cards and then your next shot means the only way to strike NA is to push your ass through Europe or S. Africa.

Good frikking luck.

With increasing cards mobility is more imporant than 2 armies a turn. Especially if the other players notice you are getting a material advantage and work somewhat cooperatively to strafe down your armies.

When Aus is a sure fire win, then good players recognize this and work somewhat cooperatively to screw Aus.

*Looks at landbridge from Asia to NA.* Really? I have to go through Europe...huh...

And I'm not talking about being THAT much of a moron, you leave an army of around, 7 or 8 units on Siam for defense and you take the rest out into either Africa or NA, probably NA because from there you can easity take on SA and from there you can drop Australia to whoever wants it.

You can't attack through yourself. Once you make a line of territories you hold your big ass army is trapped on the otherside of it (for at least one turn).

For instance if you have 100 in Siam, 1 in India, 1 in Afghan, and 1 in Ukraine you can't use that 100 anywhere west of the Middle east, you then have the joy of striking through NA to make it to Africa.

On the flip side you can push into China, Mongolia, Japan, and Ikurst (the one right above mongolia). Anything more and you can't attack through yourself, hence you must head into NA through Iceland or through Venz. Stockpiling Siam is a good shot to lose because of mobility. When playing risk with increasing cards it is far more important to be mobile than to get 2 armies per turn. Sure the armies add up, but but turning in sets in succession is much more lucrative. Killing the poor SOB who gets stuck with 5 cards late game is your main objective.

My best shot for dealing with an aus turtle is to ignore them until they block either their eastward or westward routes out. Then wall em in so they either blow armies breaking out - and that big pile is less effective - or don't take cards - normally not good for your health. Any colonies must be killed early for this to work, and defending colonies saps armies from that bigass pile in Siam. Of course they can move the pile out ... and risk people continiously dicking with their bonus.

Aus's biggest strength (that is has only one entry) is also its largest weakness if properly exploited.

Now Aus is very forgiving in inexperienced games, where everyone wastes ludicrious numbers of troops to stop people from getting cotinents. When people realize the cost/benifit return for dicking with an enemy cotinent it is not particularly strong, nor particularly weak.

blah sorry about the rant

At the end of your turn you can move armies from one province to an adjacent province. A variant house rule allows you to chain those moves at the end of your turn, so you can move a big army multiple times to get it where it needs to go.

Yes I know at the END of your turn. You are a full turn behind to exploit any advantages. I.e. somebody is weak in Africa holding 5 cards; you hold India, Ural, Afghan. By the time you make it to the guy you don't have the armies to safely kill. Next turn is too late to go in for the kill as they will have more armies and fewer cards in reward for wasting them.

In a good game you will not have multiple turns to reposition to strike an oppurtunity.

This by no means make holding Aus with a large pile a bad thing in and of itself, but that it isn't a panacea for all the things possible in the game.

Ever played LOTR Risk? Pretty cool game.

In RISK though I take after my dad and usually try to grab Australia first, since you're not wide open on all sides.

Ah, but in Risk 2210 Australia is open to attacks from the sea territories. A bonus of having the Northwestern Oil Emirate controlled is that you deny your opponent the NA bonus, and if you place a number of armies and a Space Station there, you have a virtually invincible fortress.

And if you play the Land Death Trap card, it only gets better...