Help My Game - RISK

calebb writes "RISK is a classic board game that's been around since 1959. This week, Science News posted an article titled 'Improving the Odds in RISK.' They mention that '...the chances of winning a battle are considerably more favorable for the attacker than was originally suspected.' Amazing! Risk is over 40 years old & nobody ever calculated the odds of winning a 5 vs. 5 battle!"

Interesting

[Taral]

So for equal battles, break-even is at 5 vs. 5, whereas one extra army always gets you 50%.

But there's no link to the actual paper. Anyone?

Re:Interesting

[theNote]

This article is bull.

Its says:

For instance, even when the number of attacking and defending armies is equal, the probability that the attacker ends up winning the territory is actually greater than 50 percent, provided that both sides have at least five armies each. The attacker also suffers fewer losses on average than the defender.

This means means you would be rolling 2 attacking and 2 defending dice, but ties go to the defender.
How could that possibly give the attacker an advantage?

The arti

Re:Interesting

[Andy_R]

Also, depending on which version of the rules you have (there are many), the defender can be allowed to roll just 1 die if they choose to, so if the attacker rolls double 6 you can roll just 1 defence die, and only lose 1 army (unless you get a 6). This skews things even further in favour of the defender.

Re:Interesting

[theNote]

Yep.
Another one that I finally looked up last time I played:
The book says you can roll 2 defending di (assuming you have at least 2) even if the attacker is only rolling 1 di.

Re:Interesting

[PK_ERTW]

so if the attacker rolls double 6 you can roll just 1 defence die, and only lose 1 army (unless you get a 6).

Read the rules again. Both players must determine how many dice they are going to roll before either player rolls. You can't pick after you have seen your opponents outcome.

The reason they say attacker rolls first is only to end the "you roll first", "No, you roll first" argument.

pk

Re:Interesting

[Andy_R]

Read the rules again.

Let's see what the Risk FAQ [nott.ac.uk] has to say about this:

The old U.K. rules are quite clear that the attacker rolls the dice first, then the defender rolls. Though it isn't explicit, this suggests that the defender can choose how many to roll based on the attacker's dice, since this would seem to be the only point of rolling later.

This sometimes causes the defender to use only 1 die when he was entitled to use 2. If faced by 2 sixes you only roll 1, whereas faced with the second highest

Re:Interesting

[Lionel Hutts]

Are you sure about that? We always played that the defender could decide based on the attacker's rolls. Of course, our Risk set lost the rules, along with a few colors of armies, sometime in the 1970's.

If you are correct, the attacker's advantage seems much easier to understand.

Re:Interesting

[HTH NE1]

Are you sure about that? We always played that the defender could decide based on the attacker's rolls. Of course, our Risk set lost the rules, along with a few colors of armies, sometime in the 1970's.

Was that the set with your armies represented as colored blocks of wood, plastic roman numerals (I, III, V, and X), or plastic figures of foot soldiers, horsemen, and cannons? (How many other varieties of game pieces were there?)

Re:Interesting

[Lionel Hutts]

Wood blocks for me, including the funny-shaped ones. To me, all that plastic stuff isn't real Risk, especially Roman numerals. I mean, attacking somebody with a number is too Sesame Street for me.

Re:Interesting

[Saige]

While IANAMathmatician, I would believe that the defender rolling only 1 die would actually be detrimental to their defense as opposed to rolling two.

By only rolling one die, whatever the result is on that die, it is guaranteed to be matched against the highest roll on the attacker's dice - and if they're rolling three dice to your one die, then that essentially gives them three chances to beat your roll. For example, if you roll a 5, then they have to get a 6 on one die to beat you - the odds of that are 91/216, or 42%

By rolling two defense dice, you decrease their chances of beating you, since they now have to win two matchups with the same three dice - they don't get three whole dice to beat each single die of yours. If you were to roll 2 fives, for example, they still have the 42% chance of winning one die roll, but what about the second? With your second five, they only have two chances to beat it with a six. The odds of that? 11/36, or 31% - a 11% improvement in the odds for you.

(For comparison, if you had a third defense die, the chances of a third five being beaten are only 16%, much better odds than the first and the second)

If you roll only one die at a time, the attacker gets the benefits - they get to focus more resources per defender, without any worries of greater loss.

Re:Interesting

[Andy_R]

Your analysis is correct if the defender rolls first, but that never happens in Risk. The throws are either simultanious, or attacker first, depending on which set of rules you got in your set. I the attacker rols first it can be better for the defender to only roll 1 die.

Consider what happens if the attacker rolls first and gets 2 or 3 sixes. The defender then only has a 1 in 6 chance of matching the 2nd 6 and therfore successfully defending with his second die.

He is better off not throwing it this time,

Re:Interesting

[Saige]

My analysis still holds if the throws are simeltaneous - whether the attacker and defender throw their dice at the same time, or the defender throws first, it won't really have an effect on what the attacker rolls. It's not like the attacker will see two fives on the defender's dice, and then be more likely or less likely to throw two sixes. (Unless he's cheating, but in that case, probability is irrelevant)

But I have never been aware of Risk rules which allow the defender or attacker to choose the numbe

Re:Interesting

[fehlschlag]

Back in the 80's, my cousin and I played Risk all the time, and with the newly acquired knowledge from Statistics class, calculated all the odds for attacking/defending by German rules (allowing up to 3 defender dice, whereas (I think) the US rules anly allowed 2 defenders max).

We found that even 2 defenders vs. 3 attackers gives a small greater than 50% advantage to the defender (mainly due to a tie being won by the defender). 3 defenders vs. 3 attackers was a significant advantage for the defender, sta

Re:Interesting

[pezpunk]

another thing the article fails to consider is that, in a game with more than two players, what the attacker is doing is strengthening everyone in the game besides himself and the defender by removing armies from both sides from the board. in large games isolationism is the best strategy, not aggression.

the advice that it's better to be more aggressive (than what?) is only relevant to a two player game, and is wrong anyway. in reading the article, i noticed it appears they got a basic fundament of the ru

Re:Interesting

[Golias]

In all my years of playing Risk, I've never seen an "isolationist" strategy win the game, except in those cases where they first conquer North America, and then somehow manage to hold it while Africa and South America are locked in dispute and everybody else is in a futile struggle to hold Europe or Asia.

If you don't have a major continent to yourself, the isolationist strategy will never win you the game. Europe and Asia have too many open borders to hold defensively without expanding. By the time you s

Re:Interesting

[HTH NE1]

another thing the article fails to consider is that, in a game with more than two players, what the attacker is doing is strengthening everyone in the game besides himself and the defender by removing armies from both sides from the board.

Even in a two-player game, you need to have at least three sets of armies on the playfield, with the extra sets being pacifist neutral armies. Technically, Risk is a three-player-minimum game, with the neutrals being controlled by a player that never attacks. (IIRC, th

Re:Interesting

[PK_ERTW]

This means means you would be rolling 2 attacking and 2 defending dice

No it doesn't. It means you would be rolling three attacking dice and 2 defending dice. The extra attacker die is what gives the attacker an advantage.

PK

Wrong

[(trb001)]

An attacker with three or more attacking armies rolls three dice, one with two armies rolls two dice, and one with only one army rolls one die. A defender with two or more armies rolls two dice, and one with one army rolls one die.

Already, they're wrong...as an attacker, you have to have more armies than dice, i.e. you have to have 4 armies to roll 3 dice [about.com]. The article already lost my confidence, every true Risk player knows this.

--trb

Another bogus game article

[AtariAmarok]

"Already, they're wrong...as an attacker, you have to have more armies than dice,"

Indeed! Chalk this one up with the chess article that refers in passing to pawns moving in an "L" pattern, or the video game history article that talks about Pac-Man breaking bigger asteroids into little asteroids.

Next, Science News will publish an article about "Improving the Odds in Clue" that will tell us about good ol Colonel Ketchup in the mud room with the mastadon-leg as the weapon.

Re:Wrong

[ApharmdB]

Sounds to me like a misread statement. I take three or more attacking armies as three or more armies that are involved in the attack. The 4th army you refer to is not involved and is not considered an attacker. Begun, The Semantic War has.

Re:Wrong

[fred_sanford]

and for my salvo in this war, though I can not comment of the syntax of the referring article, paws in chess can move in a "L" pattern when executing an en passé (but it's rarely used and is considered to weaken your defenses). It's more of a diagonal move but a "L" nonetheless.

Paws in chess

[AtariAmarok]

" and for my salvo in this war, though I can not comment of the syntax of the referring article, paws in chess can move in a "L" pattern"

You got me there! Please see this link [lycos.co.uk] for more "paws in chess". The move (more of an up-one over-one than a "L") is called "en passant" by the way.

I should have referred to castling bishops instead.

Re:Paws in chess

[fred_sanford]

Computer Science graduates speak no English well. nor wright [sic].

Re:Wrong

[Tom7]

It's "en passant," and it's exactly the same motion for the capturing piece as when it captures in the standard manner.

NOT Wrong, just oddly worded

[Anonymous Coward]

The author is not counting the 'army that has to stay behind' as an attacking army - So, to roll three dice you need 4 armies, but only three of them are 'attacking'

Yep, the author is NOT wrong!

[calebb]

The author is not counting the 'army that has to stay behind' as an attacking army - So, to roll three dice you need 4 armies, but only three of them are 'attacking'

Absolutely correct. Grab a calculator if you don't believe him. The author of this article definitely factored this in. He even linked to the RISK FAQ in the article.

Re:NOT Wrong, just oddly worded

[Lars T.]

Right you are. The author also mentions "attacking with one army".

Enhancing RISK

[AtariAmarok]

If you have multiple boards, you can add to the fun by trying "multiple world" Risk. Either place them side by side (so the Alaska connects to the Kamchata of the other board, and vice versa), or play such that the boards are "stacked" (one Egypt can attack another).

Re:Enhancing RISK

[person46]

We always player nuclear RISK. Instead of just being able to cash in your cards, you could elect to use them to nuke the country they represented. It's even better when the players aren't sober; one broken treaty and Armageddon ensues...

Re:Enhancing RISK

[dschuetz]

We always player nuclear RISK

The only game of Risk I've ever won (I'm lousy at these sorts of games) was a Nuclear variety. Rolling three sixes would slag a country such that nobody could go in, ever again. Rolling three threes killed everyone, and you had to wait six turns before you could go back in. Rolling three ones was a neutron bomb -- kills *all* of your opponent's armies in the war zone, but none of yours, and you can move right in.

We'd slagged right down through Eurasia, as well as Alaska, so we had a full-out east-vs-west battle in the one remaining non-slagged country: The middle east. We threw some "normal" nukes, built up and moved armies on both sides for six turns, threw another normal nuke, built up some more, etc., etc., until someone (me, luckily) threw a neutron bomb, and marched through the rest of the countries with little effort (since, naturally, all my opponent's armies were clustered conveniently nearby).

The craziest game of Risk I ever watched was a three-board, multi-day marathon session. I'm not sure any of the players went to class for at least three days.

Re:Enhancing RISK

[realdpk]

How about WMD-enabled RISK. Have a new card that forces another player to begin the search for WMD. Every country they have a single army in becomes immobilized - they're busy defending themselves against the citizens of that country. Any time you have more than one army, at least one is under attack by the citizens, while the remainder are paralyzed by their search for WMD. This lasts for 20 turns, or until a reelection.

Re:Enhancing RISK

[realdpk]

'course, your link just goes to the CNN home page, which has nothing about WMD. Maybe I've been trolled.

Re:Enhancing RISK

[theNote]

We've recently begun playing with the mission risk cards instead of doing world domination.

It makes for an interesting and shorter game.
Most of the time all players are in to the end, which you never have in a classic world domination game.

Greetings Professor Falken

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the WPOR told Professor Falken that "the only way to win was not to play". Now we are learning that the way to win is to attack, attack, attack.

Re:Greetings Professor Falken

[mcp33p4n75]

The game that had no winning move was "Global Thermonuclear War," not RISK. You should watch WarGames again :)

Risk with WMD

[bob_jordan]

What if the defender has nuclear weapons?

http://www.geocities.com/justaguy93/Nuke.html

Bob.

Confimation

[Henry V .009]

I can confirm this. I recall one game with a friend years ago when we were both young teenagers. Early in the game we found that we were rather balanced as far as the map went. Since my friend had a triple set of armies, we simply built up our armies until we had used up all of the spare pieces. Both sides were perfectly balanced, but I attacked first.

It took a lot of dice rolling, but I wiped out his entire force in one turn suffering only 1/3 losses or thereabouts.

I was interested, so I did a calculation of the odds. Yeah, they're stacked for the attacker.

Re:Confimation

[Andy_R]

This is because of a flaw in the rules. Nowhere in the rules (at least in any version I have seen) does it actually define when a player's turn ends!

If you assume that a player can attack as many times as they like before the, the first player in a 2 player game can always gain an overwhelming advantage before the other player gets to make a move.

Risk is only close to being a balanced game if you put some limit on the length of each turn.

An idea

[Lady Jazzica]

How about if the number of attacks per turn is theoretically unlimited, but for each additional attack you make per turn, you must remove 1 army from the attacking country?

For instance, if I were to attack three countries in a particular turn, the first attack would be carried out as normal; for the second attack, I'd have to remove one army from the attacking country before the attack can begin; and for the third attack, I'd have to remove two armies from the attacker.

This rule, or something like it, wou

Re:Confimation

[il_diablo]

Interesting, but not necessarily correct.

When this happens, we can assume that the attacking armies are not always successful, and that the remaining armies the attacker possesses are not sufficient to take ALL the opposing player's land.

At this point, any reinforcements the defending player (a minimum of 5, IIRC, but don't quote me) can be piled into one of the second player's countries to spread mass destruction against the (now) lightly defended first player's territories.

Re:Confimation

[Andy_R]

The imbalance occurs because the first player gets quite a large bonus at the start of his turn, as they occupy many countries. If they capture more than 1 or 2 of the opponent's countries, the opponent gets a smaller bonus when their turn starts.

In addition, If the first player conquers 3-5 of the opponent's countries in the first go (and it's very unlikely that they would not be able to do this) they get an immediate bonus which goes a long way towards offseting their losses so far. They can then lather,

Re:Confimation

[almiki]

That's why I usually play with a little different set of rules... When you win a battle, you can only move as many armies into the new territory as the number you attacked with. That is, if you attack with 3 armies (which is the maximum), you can only move 3 armies into the territory. This prevents hopping from country to country with one huge force. (Of course, at the end of your turn, you get one free 'shift' of as many armies as you want from one territory to an adjacent one)

Most amusing RISK memory

[AtariAmarok]

It was in 1988, shortly after an event involving a certain famous hockey player switching teams.

The guy who had Western US and Alberta moved one army down from Alberta into Western US as a troop transfer.

Someone commented "There goes Wayne Gretsky".

Lord Of The Rings Risk

[iainl]

So far, I've been really enjoying the Tolkien Risk that came out last year, but I've not really given it enough play yet. The new board is really interesting, as you can't do the same old strategies, and the heroes and fortresses make strategy pretty different too.

Best of all is the Fellowship movement, which keeps game length down and means that even in a four player game you're likely to all still be alive at the end.

Has anyone played this enough to get some more detailed opinions yet? Strategy-wise Roh

Re:Lord Of The Rings Risk

[Papineau]

I played that version last weekend, and I enjoyed it also. The adventure cards give it a different twist, much different than the missions now bundled in the classical game.

The Fellowship adds another random twist also: you're not sure if this turn will be the last of the game, or the next player will be able to play one after you.

No one calculated this?

[epine]

The analysis of Risk is a trivial problem. I once wrote a small program to do exactly the same analysis for Axis und Alies, a vastly superior game IMHO. Sometimes I played A&A for 24 hours straight and then couldn't sleep because of a pivotal scenario developing, usually a land grab in Indonesia by one side or another before a fateful invasion of Tokyo by the Americans.

Then I would get up and it would take another 24 hour day, several pots of coffee, and two trips to the beer store to play it out.

Axis and Alies has more degrees of freedom than Risk. The person losing units has the choice about which units to sacrifice. Not all units can attack other units. Submarines can't attack airplanes. (They laughed at me the first time I played for thinking I could do this, no one told me I couldn't, they let me buy four subs to defend against a fighter plane outpost. Later I was reading about submarine technology in WWII and I discovered that submarines often carried surface to air mortar shells--not terribly effective though).

Because of the problem of the exact order in which each player chooses to remove their own casualties, the complete tree explodes exponentially. However, in practice, the order of removal is automatic 90% of the time, and the cases where the removal order is debated tends to come at the end of a close battle where you are more concerned about what is left behind when the roles reverse than who actually wins.

In my program, the attack and the defense both submit their roster in a predetermined removal order. You could try different removal orders, but you couldn't make the removal contingent on battle outcomes.

My program calculated the exact probability of every terminal outcome. You don't even need Markov models, that's just a view of what the final math represents. The actual algorithm is like a fertilizer spreader that tosses little chunks of probability from one bucket to another until all the probability is sorted into buckets representating terminal outcomes.

It worked out to perhaps three pages of code. Memory requirements go up roughly on the cube of the number of armies involved IIRC.

I learned an incredible amount about the strategy of A&A from this program. Moral of the story: you can never have too many grunts. The strategic problem with grunts is they move so slowly. I learned to invest in waves of grunts (esp. for Germany) at the beginning of the game, get the waves moving outward, and once the fronts were established, replenish a fixed supply of tanks as these were consumed in battle, and grunts grunts grunts with the leftovers.

For my money, A&A is the best game I've ever played at pressuring the strategists to set up confrontations with the potential to break symmetry and channeling the game down unpredictable paths, forcing everyone to adapt their goals. Except for the Eastern front, where the game was a little too close to being historically accurate. For a five person game, being stuck with Russia was a chore in the early going.

No one has calculated Risk in 50 years? Phffff.

More likely, no one interested in that kind of analysis considers Risk much worth the bother.

The Markov analysis of Monopoly I saw a few years ago in SciAm was far more interesting to me. Verdict: Never underestimate "go directly to jail" as a form of rent control.

I had to laugh when I saw the comment that "go directly to Australia" was a fundamental Risk strategy.

Re:No one calculated this?

[pocopoco]

replenish a fixed supply of tanks as these were consumed in battle, and grunts grunts grunts with the leftovers.

A fun thing to do with Germany is called strafe attacks. You attack with all your tanks and what not but retreat before taking the territory to keep them out of harm's way. Maybe you know already but it seemed relevant to your analysis so I thought I'd mention. ^^

Re:No one calculated this?

[Luk Fugl]

No one has calculated Risk in 50 years? Phffff.

More likely, no one interested in that kind of analysis considers Risk much worth the bother.

Agreed.

A couple years ago I had a stats class and out of curiousity and with hopes of practicing the material I'd just learned, I set about to calculate a begninning table of odds for Risk. I got up to a 6x6 chart (so yes, I had calculated 5 vs. 5!) before losing interest, and it only took me 2 periods of physics (which was so insanely simple as to be boring) t

Re:No one calculated this?

[jfruhlinger]

I used to love Axis and Allies so much as a kid ... it seems that it would be relatively easy to translate to a computer game (w/out all the bells and whistles of a "real" simulation). Anyone know if anyone's done this?

jf

Hasbro made a PC version

[Wee]

In 1998, Hasbro Interactive made a version for the PC. I only played it a couple times, but it was a fairly decent game. The box says you can play online at zone.com. Oddly enough, there are 32 players online right now [msn.com], so you might be able to find a match.

Looks like you can buy a copy on ebay [ebay.com] for about US$10.

-B

Re:Hasbro made a PC version

[mszeto]

You *have* to play online... the AI is terrible (and considering what the AI has to consider, I didn't think it would be very good anyways). If I have to play against the AI, I usually give them a few turns head start!

Re:Hasbro made a PC version

[leviramsey]

I while back, I was going to write an Open-Source clone called GNAA (GNAA's Not Axis & Allies)... unfortunately, that banner's been taken over by a variety of crapflooders here...

Re:Hasbro made a PC version

[leviramsey]

That is true... but I'll never write anything for Qt, even if given the choice between being electrocuted by my testicles and writing a fucking Qt app. ;o)

Re:No one calculated this?

[Quill_28]

Yes, Hasbro has done this game, the 2nd one called Iron Blitz is better than the first but they both still suck badly.

A better but not as pretty version is
Dogs of War, not currently legal(Hasbro stopped them), and more primative but a much better gmae overall. You might be able to find one on the net somewhere.

Re:No one calculated this?

[mszeto]

hey epine, I havn't played in years, but i'd be interested in knowing other things you've learned through playing. I've played A+A hundreds of times and have lost twice.

email me at mszeto at scompton.ca

Risk

[Redbw6]

I can't believe Risk has been around for about 50 years and I've never heard of it. The study that they conducted seems like it would make sense though.

RISK 2210 AD

[trevorrowe]

I liked risk, but it was to much of the same. Castle risk tried to fix this, but IMHO Risk 2210 AD takes the cake.

I don't know how many of you have played this game, its a refreshing approach to risk.

New Features include:

-New pieces, mech-like units.
-5 new units (generals) that add attacking and defense bonuses (namely they roll 8-sided)
-No more changing in cards for the 'next big bonus'. Extra units awarded for how many territories you control, plus complete continent bonuses. Very well balanced, the bonus scales, so it remains very fair.
-Territories are chosen round robin style at the beginning of the game, so you wont get shafted with bad luck.
-Sea colonies and moon colonies to expand into, these are vaccant at game start.
-general cards (strategy cards that enchance generals' powers).
-Random territories nuked at the beginning of the game (significantly alters the map every game, new choke points, battle strategies, etc).
-Energy is gained through combat and territories that allows you to hire generals, purchase general cards, and more.
-Turn order is bid for each round, with a 5 round limit (faster games). Energy is used for bidding, so strategies exist around the saving of energy for turn order (imaging going last one round and then first the next!)
-more, more more, and much more!

No, I don't work for Hasbro(current game owner?), but I do really like this game. There are options for playing classic risk too. I have found a few copies at WoTC, but have heard rumors that they are out of print know, don't know. Expect a 30+ price tag, there are a lot of pieces.

Re:RISK 2210 AD

[person46]

I don't know about the States, but in Canada Toys R Us has them in stock with a price of about $65 CAN. Can't say for sure right now, but I know they've resotcked since last Christmas when they were all out, so there are either a lot of games in the warehouses or it's still being made.

Re:RISK 2210 AD

[pezpunk]

i've got this game also, it's really great in it's flexibility. you can play "classic" risk with all the old rules, or you can play with all the new rules, the moonbase, the sea colonies, etc, or any combination thereof. we usually leave the moon alone (it complicates things a little too much for casual play) but many other features are fun.

all the territories are the same location and size, but they have new names, some of them very amusing (like "the amazon desert"). also, New York and Neo Tokyo are n

Re:RISK 2210 AD

[Sargondai]

I love this version. Some friends and I were playing when a 6th showed up. Since 2210 is a 5-player game only, we created a new rule for the 'mooooon-people'.

Basically, we set it up so that once the moon people got to the earth, they would spread rapidly (territories count double, etc). So, it was up to the rest of us to stop them (at the same time stabbing each other in the back).

It was BY FAR the most fun I've ever had playing a board game.

Risk is Terrible

[Apreche]

The game of risk is not that terrible, but it does suck in comparison to real board games [boardgamegeek.com]. If you've ever played the likes of Puerto Rico or El Grande you will realize the lack of strategy in risk. American board games are too much based on luck. Sure, you can calculate the odds and make better decisions, but european board games have almost no luck involved in deciding the winner.

After a game of risk the winner can not safely say they are strategically superior to the losers. In a game of Puerto Rico there is no doubt who is a better person.

So true

[Schezar]

American board games are generally garbage. I was always amazed my how my friends could enjoy a game like LIFE, where the outcome is 100% random, or Trouble, where the outcome is also 100% random (yea, you can make decisions, but there is always an obvious "best" decision, so unless you're a complete moron the game is random). Why even play the games, when you could just flip a coin and declare a winner?

Axis and Allies was a decent game, except that it's unbalanced. All players being of equal competance, the Allies WILL win. Period. If they don't, then the Axis made a fatal and/or stupid decision early on. It's not a game of strategy or skill, it's just a game of avoiding obvious errors until America lands in Normandy.

Puerto Rico, El Grande, Settlers of Catan, Entdecker, Tikal, Mexica, Java, Carcassone... Those are real games. Tactics and strategy, deterministic outcomes, and real competition. You're comparing brain power instead of comparing dice rolls.

Re:So true

[Quill_28]

Auction my friend auction.

Yes, the games is tipped to the Allies.

You simply auction off the Axis, whoever bids the lowest get the Axis the that much extra money.

Also, Russia can't attack first turn.

Game is much more even when this happens.

Re:So true

[pmz]

American board games are generally garbage.

Many Americans would also think that a 9-11 holy miracle occurred if they pulled three socks out of their dryer in a red-white-blue order.

I'm not sure why, but humans (not just Americans, to be fair) somehow place importance in chance that isn't warranted. Take gambling, for example. Why the importance of "lucky numbers" or a "lucky streak"? Regardless, an addiction to rushes of brain chemicals or persistant religious deformity keeps people coming back for mo

The explanation is in the culture

[metalhed77]

From what I can gather, from speaking with my parents, American Board games used to be social things. Social events are better where there is a level playing field, luck does this. The fun for my friends and I as far as board games go also comes mostly from the social interaction, and almost not at all from the game.

Re:The explanation is in the culture

[Schezar]

"The fun for my friends and I as far as board games go also comes mostly from the social interaction, and almost not at all from the game."

Then why even play the game? Why not just hang out and socially interact? You don't need an excuse to get together with your friends.

Re:The explanation is in the culture

[Mike Hawk]

I wouldn't expect too many Slashdotters to understand different types of social interaction. Sorry had to say it...

The board game provides a different context fot the hanging out. Like drinking and hanging out. Or watching TV and hanging out. Or chopping wood and hanging out. Its not an excuse to hang out, its just a different framework for interaction.

Maybe /. would be more comfortable with the example of: its like socially interacting while testing a new linux distro vs socially interacting out at

Re:The explanation is in the culture

[mandalayx]

Then why even play the game? Why not just hang out and socially interact? You don't need an excuse to get together with your friends.

I'll drink to that.

Re:The explanation is in the culture

[I am Emmitt Smith]

You're absolutely right. When I get together with my friends and we decide to play a board game its not about proving who is the best at whatever. Its about having fun and giving us something to do when those natural dead spaces in conversation occur.

Shameless plug

[jensend]

Speaking of Settlers of Catan, check out the gnome version: gnocatan [sf.net]. Major improvements (incl GTK/GNOME 2 move) are slated for RSN, and the next release should be great.

Re:So true

[Omestes]

Ah, but we have Monopoly, the greatest board game ever (barring Chess, Go, and Pente of course). And if anybody cracks that Monopoly is based on randomness, I dare you to play me a game, I'm undefeated.

I'll agree that the "family" board games are all random chance, but those are for playing with your family, not being a ruthless cuthroat. Who expects Candyland to have strategy?

Also RISK isn't just all random chance, strategy does play a sizable role. I used to slaughter my ex-girlfreind (when not letti

Re:So true

[Omestes]

Er, not to whine, but how was that flamebait? Since when is disagreeing with someone, politely, considered a flamebait?

Re:So true

[zeus_tfc]

Axis and Allies was a decent game, except that it's unbalanced. All players being of equal competance, the Allies WILL win. Period. If they don't, then the Axis made a fatal and/or stupid decision early on. It's not a game of strategy or skill, it's just a game of avoiding obvious errors until America lands in Normandy

You miss the point. The game is SUPPOSED to be unbalanced. The allies won in the end, remember? This is not to say that the Axis powers cannot win, they just need to do it quickly (hense

Re:So true

[BTWR]

American board games are generally garbage

I may be wrong, but isn't Stratego American? (Maybe it's British). That game is totally strategy-based. At my sleepaway camp, our division leader was the world champion of Stratego and he used to set up a tournament every year. I got in 4th place that year, and to this day I still remember my fatal flaw that I made in that game. Had I done one move differently, I woulda been camp champion :)

Oh, and I agree with others who say that American Board games are mo

Re:Risk is Terrible

[foxtrot]

After a game of risk the winner can not safely say they are strategically superior to the losers. In a game of Puerto Rico there is no doubt who is a better person.

I'm not entirely convinced of that. I have played three games of Puerto Rico.

I have won three games of Puerto Rico.

I still have no bloody clue how strategy is supposed to work in that game. I can only guess I've been living by the "If I don't know what I'm doing, neither can you" rule. And it's not like I'm playing a bunch of noobs.

Admittedl

Diplomacy

[ggambett]

Doesn't anyone play Diplomacy [diplom.org]? It's much more interesting. No dice involved, no randomness at all.

Re:Diplomacy

[Roxton]

Igh...

The trick to diplomacy is to either play an on-line game [diplom.org] with strangers, or find gamers who are socially mature and aloof enough to separate role-play from personal ambitions. I've seen people get incredibly pissed over broken promises and bad faith in this game.

It's a lot worse in long, drawn out games. When you're finishing it in a matter of hours at a game table, it's not quite as bad, though I have seen good and friendly people leave in a huff after losing or prematurely resign, leaving dead

Hmm i just did something like this

[Quill_28]

I just did this with the chances in a 3 dice versus 2 dice, to see who would win. I then ran it like 1,000,000 times. It came something like this(I can't remember exactly except that attackers had the advantage):

Defender lose two men: 35%
Tie: 33%
Attacker loses two men: 31%

It was a simple perl script, but interesting.

But more importantly...

[Dsal]

... have they done any calculations on the accuracy of the Kramer Theory of Risk, namely that "the Ukraine is weak!"

Risk program

[fain0v]

I wrote a C++ program in college to calculate the odds. I am sure I am was not alone in doing this since I wrote the algorithm in about 5 minutes, and the program in about 20.

Source code for a simulator

[Sandmann]

At

http://www.daimi.au.dk/~sandmann/risk.cc

you can find C++ source that simulates battles between up 30 attackers and up to 30 defenders. Then it prints out LaTeX source code for a nice table that lists

a) the probability that the attacker wins
b) _given_ that the attacker won, how many
armies would survive

Risk Probability Calculator

[puusism]

I made a small web application to calculate battle odds for the board game Risk, because there were questions in our game group whether to attack or defend in certain situations. I thought I would share the address, if anyone is interested to see how various battle situations could turn up. The calculator is in the following web address:

http://db.cs.helsinki.fi/t/ipuustin/webrisk/webris k.jsp [helsinki.fi]

Use of the program should be pretty straightforward: user chooses the number of attackers and defenders, checks the rules version and presses the button. The result diagram shows horizontally all possible end-states (the remaining forces in the winner's army) and vertically their probabilities.

The algorithm is exact, meaning that the result is not an approximation and thus does not vary in several battles with the same parameters. The program works in time O(n*m), where n is the number of attackers and m is the number of defenders. The program is made with Java.

All comments are welcome!

OSX users check out Lux

[BortQ]

All the Risk fans out there who are running Mac OS X should check out the shareware game Lux [sillysoft.net]. It uses the same rules as Risk but you play on randomly generated boards. It comes with some HARD computer players and built-in network play. I may be a little biased, being the author of the program, but Lux is awesome.

The AI's that it ships with have been released under the GPL along with an AI SDK [sillysoft.net], so you can write your own if you want.

HAH!

[Guppy06]

"the chances of winning a battle are considerably more favorable for the attacker than was originally suspected."

Somebody's obviously never used my dice before!

Re:HAH!

[calebb]

Haha - I have a friend who swears by this one black die he has. Whether attacking or defending, he always uses it. It seems pretty random to me, but in his mind, it rolls 5's & 6's 90% of the time. OT: Cool journal article you wrote on June 27.