How do you beat people at Risk, is there a strategy?

Question

How do you beat people at Risk, is there a strategy?

Answer 1

A great way to win Risk is to try to control a specific continent. You receive troop reinforcement bonuses for controlling a certain continent. A good place to control is Africa because you have access to three other Continents (Asia, Europe, and South America).  Also make sure nobody else gains control of an entire continent. The most important thing in Risk is balance. You need to make sure you have a balanced attack from angle. Leaving a portion of the board completely weak or unoccupied will probably end up bad. You want to maintain some sort of power in every continent. Also look for your opponents weak spots. If he lacking troops in a certain area, concentrate your attack there and try to drive him out of the area. RISK is a great game and with some practice can become truly intense.

Answer 2

yes. I usually start in South america and push my way in through North America. I will usually leave the minimum required forces in argentina and peru and move all my forces to brazil and venezuela. My #1 goal after taking South Ameirca is to take North Africa and Central America, that way noone can get reinforcments for those continents. I always take Asia last. South America, Africa, North America, Europe is my order of conquering. That's the best strategy i can tell ya bud.

Answer 3

Risk is all strategy.

The basis behind most of the ones I use is this;

Get a big area, borders a lot of other places, and just gradually go out from there.

I think the best areas to do that with are Greenland, Ukraine, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Answer 4

It's easier to defend areas where it has only 1 neighbor, so shore up your forces there.

Use forces to defend the outer perimeter.  No point in wasting forces to defend an area that's surrounded by area that you already own.

Make friends to help you and then when your friend is weak, betray and attack.

Answer 5

Here is my Risk strategy guide (no particular order of priority):

1: Conquer (at least) one territory each turn. You'll need the cards. Note that you don't need to hold it until your next turn--indeed, it's often a good idea to retreat all but one of your armies out of your token conquest to give an easy conquest to the person you took it from (who is also trying to take at least one territory per turn), so they won't invade more seriously.

2: Don't overextend yourself. This is probably the most important rule of all. Sure, you can take a few more territories, but what does it matter if you'll have lost them all and more by your next turn? Only take territories you can garrison adequately, unless there's some other incentive like...

3: ...eliminating another player and thus getting his/her cards. Always do this if you can (except if the player has few or no cards--in that case you can wait until they have cards and _then_ wipe them out). Though you may have to overextend yourself, if the cards you capture are numerous enough, you can play some of them at the _end_ of your turn and reinforce your conquests.

4: If you're in a bad position, don't wait to turn in cards, hoping that someone else will and you can get more troops. If you wait, your cards are a tempting target for people to eliminate you before your next turn.

5: Get continents--the extra troops are invaluable. However, don't try for Asia, it's almost impossible. Europe and North America are also pretty hard to hold, so try for Australia, South America, or Africa--they don't give as many troops, but it's better than nothing. Also, try to start with a continent.

6: Related to #5--take little bites out of other players' continents. If they have all of Asia except one little territory, they don't get the 7 bonus armies (or however many it is) per turn. The effective counter-tactic to this is to try to hold buffer territories by the approach to your continent, so even if your enemies make inroads on you, they won't break your monopoly. For example, if your base is South America, try to garrison Central America and Western Africa _as well as_ your border territories within S. America.

7: Don't leave little bitty islands of enemy troops inside your space. For example, if you control all of Africa except Madagascar, and there are 2 or 3 guys of another player on it, DON'T assume you can just take it out next turn. Wipe it out now, or the other player could put all his reinforcements there and give you a lot of grief. It would become a whole other front that you'd have to garrison against, drawing your armies away from the real front.

8: Don't play using the weird rules, especially the kind where you draw cards to decide starting positions and the Secret Mission variant. The first is frustratingly random and the second is just frustrating--you're in a great position, your two opponents are about to die, you wipe out one and bingo! The other one wins! Destroying the other opponent was his objective all along! Blech. If you want a shorter game, just play "Pre-1500 Risk" (i.e. don't use the Americas or Australia).

9: Alliances! Make the best use of them you can. Play dirty--break your alliances without warning when it's to your advantage--but not so often that no one will ever ally with you. Basically, alliances last until one player is no longer useful to the other, and you're each trying to be the "other" player. As long as you aren't erratic, breaking alliances at random times, other players should be willing to enter alliances with you *even knowing* that you will break them eventually if given the chance.

10: While charging in and blowing up everyone sometimes works, it also can be deadly just to grab a continent, fortify it, and keep building up your armies while the other players kill each other. When your army is big enough, you can unleash it on the world. Keep in mind that people will not always leave you alone while you do this, especially if--as is advisable--you're following Rule #1 at the same time.

11: It's usually a good idea to use as many dice as you can (especially loaded ones--lol jk), especially if your opponent isn't rolling many dice.

12: Don't forget Japan during setup. Seriously, I can't remember how many times I've said: "Whoops! We all forgot to take Japan again!" No offense to Japan, but it's small and easy to miss.

Good luck and happy Risking!