Total Diplomacy

Learn to Control Your Opponent so You can Control the Game

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 08:47:00 GMT

Your aim in Risk is winning but it is important to know this is not an abstract idealistic view like winning when you are playing chess. In chess you can think of perfect moves against your opponent’s moves. So long as you are making an ideal move, it doesn’t matter who you are playing against; you are more likely to win. Risk, and similarly life, is different. You are playing against humans with minds; minds that can have weaknesses which you can exploit. Unlike chess, in Risk you are not searching for a perfect move; instead you are searching for a way to control your opponent’s mind. The sooner you can do that, and the more successful you are in doing it, the more likely that you win the game. This is exactly the same in everyday life when you deal with your colleagues, the team that works for you, the stakeholders that you report to and the market at large.

How to Counteract Indecision

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:44:00 GMT

You are playing Risk. You have acquired a good size continent for this stage of the game and are busy strengthening your position. You tend to be cautious. You like to have a solid base before expanding to the rest of the map. You also don’t want to invade other Risk players for no reason. You are afraid that they will immediately retaliate and you don’t like to provoke them. The desire not to expand contradicts your overall objective which is to expand and conquer the whole world. These two opposite aims will create indecision in you. Each turn you tell yourself that if all goes well you may start expanding in the next turn. When the turn comes, you feel even more vulnerable than the last turn and decide to stay put and buy time. The indecision starts to bother you but what can you do about it? You don’t see a way out.

Forget About the Last Game

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 08:01:00 GMT

Scenario 1:

You still clearly remember your last Risk game. It is still fresh in your mind. You won, and won spectacularly. There was a tight moment in the game, but you made a calculated decision to counteract an invasion and turned it on its head. You made a player stretch too far and then attacked his home continent. After that, there was no stopping you.

You think that this was a fantastic strategy and are now about to play another game. Your success in that game makes you think that you can do it again. Your plan is to play the same strategy. It worked so well last time, so why not try again.

How to Respond to Intimidation

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 07:38:00 GMT

You have played Risk for a long time. You think of yourself as a good player. You decide to join a new Risk game site to play Risk online. You join a game and in this game you find yourself playing against a number of players who have a fairly high overall score. You still think nothing of this. After all, you are fairly good.

Strategy is Not a Recipe; You Need a New Solution Every Time

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 07:32:00 GMT

There are tons of people that constantly think there is one magical way to succeed. Once they learn the way, they follow it and will become successful. Then, they can happily live ever after. The only problem with this mentality is that it is only a dream that will never come true. Sure enough, people become successful every day, Risk players win every day, people become rich every day; but not because of following a magical strategy. It’s a bit more involved than following a simple recipe.

Do Not Attack Everything; Choose Wisely or Perish

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:55:00 GMT

In the sixteen’s century, Spain was at its peak. It had the largest naval power and having found the New World, it was extremely busy with various conquests, exercising its military and colonial power. Philip II, the Spanish king, disliked Protestantism and was determined to restore Catholicism to England. Meanwhile, England was in deep financial trouble. When Elizabeth I became the Queen, she decided that the only way to bring stability was get rich. A rich country could counteract the threat of its rivals such as France and Spain. Without money it was doomed. Step by step, Elizabeth worked to increase the wealth of the country through economic reforms. In particular she was very wary of a standing army’s expenses and was determined to stay out of costly wars. After all she wanted the country to get rich and there was no way to get rich if she was constantly at war or preparing for one.

What can You Learn from the Mongol Invasion? (Part 2 of 2)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:56:00 GMT

On the outset, Genghis Khan had the fastest army on the planet. His genius was to take full advantage of his fast moving armies against well-established disciplined armies many times their armies. These armies were also backed by resources of an empire which made the task even more profound. Genghis Khan used the ancient Chinese Strategy of “Slow Slow Quick Quick” as his grand strategy. Let’s see how this worked in practice.

What can You Learn from the Mongol Invasion? (Part 1 of 2)

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:42:00 GMT

History has many lessons to teach us and when it comes to strategy and you can get a lot of insight from it. In 1218, Khwarezm was a prosperous empire covering modern day Iran and Afghanistan. Shah Mohammad II ruled from his wealthy capital of Samarkand. At this time, the Mongols on his East approached him to make a deal on reopening the Silk Road. This would bring even more wealth, to the empire so Shah agreed to it.

Later, Mongols sent an envoy to buy expensive gifts for their court from the empire. Shah suspected the convoy as spies and killed them all. Genghis Khan, leader of Mongols responded by sending their ambassador to the Shah requesting an apology. Shah did not consider the Mongols as an equal power, so he was outraged by a request to apologise. He had the ambassador killed as a symbolic move to show that he was in charge of a superior empire. Naturally, this meant war.

Grand Startegy: Lose Battles But Win the War

Total Diplomacy — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:34:00 GMT

The classic definition of grand strategy is “purposeful employment of all instruments of power available to secure a community”. In other words, it is your ultimate plan to win. In Risk, this can boil down to the following:

“What is it you want to do and how do you want to do it?”

The ultimate goal in a classic Risk game is always very clear; conquer the whole world. This makes it relatively easy at first look, but is it that simple? Remember, in real life if you ever come to conquer the whole known world, you may not be too bothered about what happens the next time the world in conquered. You will not live to see it because these events happen so rarely (if at all) and last for a long time when they do that the question may not matter. However, your ultimate goal in Risk is not just to win one game, but to win repeatedly. This is your ultimate goal which you must consider when you are formulating your grand strategy.

Grand strategy has been discussed extensively in history by the likes of Clausewitz and followed meticulously in major recent events such as World War II and the Cold War.

Grand strategy has the following main five principles. You must implement as many as you can in your grand strategy to be successful and get best results.

How to Get the Most from Your Negotiations

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:04:00 GMT

While playing Risk, quite often you may find yourself negotiating with other players. Negotiation is a skill that can prove extremely useful when you want to avoid direct conflicts and save your armies and resources for better use later in the game. However, negotiations can be tough. Some people ignore them altogether. Others actively argue that there is no need to negotiate or make deals with other players because these deals can be broken. These player find negotiation difficult and as such either avoid it or to try to justify their negativity philosophically. Remember, negotiation is just another tool. You are not forced to use, nor do you have to avoid it exclusively. Just be good at it and when the right circumstances arise, use the tool to get ahead of others.

Most people learn how to negotiate in the field without much systematic training. There are many established guidelines to follow for better results, though many still fall to the trap of old ineffective approaches. Consider the following example negotiation…

Assertive Risk Play

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 23 May 2009 07:36:00 GMT

When playing Risk, you can generally adopt three kinds of strategies; passive, aggressive or assertive. Each of these has its own style of play and has certain consequences. It is well known that in order to successfully communicate with others, you need to be assertive and this also applies to Risk as well. However, what does it mean to be assertive? How can you optimise your strategy to take advantage of the benefits of assertiveness?

In this article you will be introduced to the APA model (Assertive, Passive & Aggressive) and explore various issues and parameters that you must be aware of when you are dealing with other Risk players.

Reverse Intimidation

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:44:00 GMT

Risk is all about attacking and that’s what you do most of the time in this game. However, as you know, direct attacks are costly and over time come to erode your armies. Some players are naturally more aggressive than others and usually pick on the weak and vulnerable intending to eliminate them. What should you do if you find yourself in a position where you are threatened by a stronger player? Should you keep a low profile and hope for the best? Should you go for a direct attack and hope you get lucky? What is the best strategy to contain a stronger player and extend your life in the game?

If Obama Played Risk...

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:20:00 GMT

Imagine, one afternoon, by some magical coincidence you find yourself in a room where a number of ‘players’ are gathered around a world map, playing Risk. What’s unusual about this game is that the players are not ordinary people like me and you. They are in fact the heads of states of some of the most influential countries in the world and they have gathered together in the UN to ‘play it out’, over a Risk game.

Imagine the new president of USA, Barak Obama, is in charge of the US player while other corresponding heads of states are present as shown below.

Europe	USA	South America	Middle East	China	Japan	Africa

(Rules: using escalating cards and connected fortifications)

You are an excited observer and can’t wait to see what happens next and how it will all play out especially since a new person is now in charge of one of the most powerful continents.

Don't Fight the Last War! Part 3 of 3

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:05:00 GMT

This is the last part of the 3-part series. As you saw earlier, many players suddenly made bold moves and expanded in different directions. The cards meant that the game was unstable and anything could happen. The above shows how the world looked like.

Don't Fight the Last War! Part 2 of 3

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:58:00 GMT

As you saw in Part 1 of this example scenario, Brown had a dilemma and needed a compromise. This is how the world looked like. Follow with this example to see what happened next.

Don't Fight the Last War! Part 1 of 3

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Every now and then I come across Risk games that stand out in memory for a long time simply because of the way they unfolded and provided sheers entertainment. The following is the story of one of these games.

The game captures the essence of timely decision making. In Risk, players need to be robust and continuously recalculate their position in respect with others. Unfortunately not all do, and as you may imagine this will cost them the game. In effect, they fight their last war and get eliminated!

The following example will illustrates this beautifully. This is the first part of a 3-part series. You are encouraged to suggest solutions. A few days later, the next part will be published and you can all compare your potential solutions with what actually happened.

Looking Deeper: What Goes on in a Risk Game?

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:04:00 GMT

All of us have experienced Risk games that have gone smoothly. We also have experienced games that haven’t gone that smoothly at all despite our good initial positions or fortunes. What happened in these games that we ended up losing so badly, especially if we were still using the same strategy as in our other games? Is it just bad luck, or is something more sophisticated going on?

Risk is a game of politics. To win you need to be able to influence the opinion of others. Of course good players are good at this, so when you are playing against them, anything goes; manipulations, deception, vague remarks, fuzzy justifications, you name it, it’s all there. There is always more to see than just the map in front of you. If you only rely on the map and the armies placed on it, you are limiting yourself from all that you can use to make good strategic judgements. So, what more is there to see? The answer is motivation. It is other players’ desires, wants and needs. If you can work this out you will be much more prepared for what is to come. There is indeed an elegant phrase that captures the essence of this.

How can you Stop a Rumour?

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:09:00 GMT

You won! You just keep winning. You must be a great player if not the best. It wasn't easy. Some players in your view were just plain bad. You had some arguments with some other players in the game, but you don't think of it much. You think it's just part of the game.

Sometime later, you go back to the online forum only to discover that there is a whole amount of conversation going on about you from certain players who did not approve of what you did or said in the game. In effect they are spreading rumours about you and your character and trying to destroy your reputation. As you know, winning Risk repeatedly is all about reputation and any damage to that will have all sorts of serious consequences for you when you are online next time to play. So you need to be able to control the rumours. The question is, how?

The situation is the same if you were not playing the game online. Rumours can spread behind your back and when you get back to your friends next weekend to play with them, you realise (quite late of course) that they have already plotted to remove you from the game, perhaps to teach you a lesson.

All of this means that you need to be able to control your reputation and spread of any rumour. Here, you will learn a number of techniques to achieve this.

How to Change a Stubborn Player's Mind

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:00 GMT

Sometimes in the course of a Risk game you may come across a player that you need to make a deal with. After all, diplomacy is key and with that you need to engage with other players. Some players are inherently deal-makers and would be interested to listen to you. Others may not be willing at all thinking that deal-making is a waste of time. What can you do to convince them, so at least they give it a try?
Even when you negotiate with those who are receptive, you may end up in a dead end where you need to convince them about your idea. What if they are stubborn and unwilling to change? What can you do to move them from the position they have taken to accept yours.

It turns out that are indeed a number of techniques you can use to break a stubborn person's stance. They are as follows.

How to Become the Greatest Risk Player of All Time

Total Diplomacy — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:41:00 GMT

Winning Risk isn't really that difficult. You just have to play it a few times, pick on some newbie player and, hopefully, one day it would be your day. You conquer the whole map and feel invincible. Well, at least for a while.

Back on that great satisfaction, you want to play again, sometimes with the same people. Of course this time you are marked, and you literally have no chance. Wining Risk once is one thing, winning it over and over again is a whole different issue. The ultimate challenge for a Risk player is to win consistently against the same set of people. Anyone achieving this monumental task should appropriately be called "The God of Risk".

For the rest of us mortals, we need to focus on our skills to get by. The question is what are the ultimate skills or habits of a highly successful Risk player who can win consistently.

How to Respond to a Rude Player

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:02:00 GMT

Suppose you are playing online Risk and a player starts to behave rudely in the game. For example, in the chatbox he states that: “You moron, why the hell did you do that?”, or, “%^$ newbies! They haven't got a clue how to play. %%%^&^ get rid of them!” and similar aggressive remarks. If you say “I don't like the way you chat”, or “I am not happy with your tone” or similar statements, it is likely that you start a long argument that will only make you more upset and the game less enjoyable.

It turns out that there is a simple technique you can use to completely turn the table around and put the ball in your opponent's court. An angry player is likely to make mistakes and you should avoid to become angry yourself. The solution is as follows.

When Words Can Make All The Difference

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:16:00 GMT

Words can be quite powerful and have profound effect on the audience. The correct use of words can make your life a lot easier. Usually, it comes down to the tone of your argument and the incentives it provides.

To illustrate this point further, a series of scenarios are provided in this article. In each scenario a concept is stated in two different ways. One way is much more efficient than the other. The difference between the statements can show you the subtlety of choosing words and the consequences of using the wrong ones at the wrong time.

How to Know if Someone is Going to Break a Deal

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:12:00 GMT

Have you ever wondered how can you protect yourself against a new player who may choose to break a deal with you in the current game? If you have never played with this player before, how can you discover what type of a player he is? What if you agree over something with him, and he comes back denying it later on? You could end up in trouble. Is there a technique that you can use to know if he has a tendency to stab you in the back? It turns out that there is indeed an effective method.

How to Say No and Stay Friends

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:15:00 GMT

Sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to say ‘no’. It is a simple word, but it just feels wrong to say ‘no’ when someone asks for a favour. Of course saying ‘no’ is easy if you don’t care about the person. What if you did care about the person, but you still wanted to say ‘no’ without hurting his feelings.

An example of a Risk game may clarify this. Suppose you are playing Risk online and your strategy is to conquer a continent such as South America. You also have some armies in Europe. A player approaches you and asks you to move your armies out of Europe. You want to say ‘no’. However, you want to say it in such a way that your opponent doesn't become hostile to you. There is no point in making enemies in the process. How do you do this?

8 Qualities of a Great Strategy

Total Diplomacy — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:28:00 GMT

Everyone must have a strategy. Even though everyone agrees on this, knowing exactly what this means has never been clear. There have been many attempts in examining this concept in more detail and various researchers and philosophers such as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz have contributed significantly.

There seems to be a need for a Theory of Strategy that identifies the most important elements and concepts related to a strategy. At the end of the day, the intention is to know what you may do given a set of circumstances. A good system is a system that asks you interesting questions. By attempting to answer those questions, you will construct and understand your strategy in a better way.

Recently, there has been some attempt in this regard. An article by Gregory D. Foster under the title of Towards a Theory of Strategy attempts to provide the building blocks of this theory. Foster aims to define a theory that capture the essence of strategic decision making. The core of his theory is summarised in this article along with examples for Risk board game.

How to Win in Risk or Any Competition - Part 2

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:20:00 GMT

This article is part of a series of articles that show you how to win in any competition, including Risk. In the previous article you were shown how to be in command of your own mind. Control the mind and you can control everything. Here, the focus is on your opponent's mind. You will learn how to control it or even break it.

How to Win in Risk or Any Competition - Part 1

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 31 May 2007 04:54:00 GMT

When it comes to competitions, everyone wants to win. The problem is that there can be only one winner. If you want to win, you have to stand out from the competition. Is there a secret behind this? It turns out that there is. After all, not everyone can win.

This series of articles provide a number of techniques that enable you to compete effectively in any competitive environment. Winning in Risk is no exception and examples are provided to demonstrate the key concepts.

How to Make Sure Your Opponent will Follow Through with the Deal

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 19 May 2007 08:11:00 GMT

My father said: "You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won't have many deals."

Jean Paul Getty

After a lot of diplomacy and propaganda, you manage to get your opponent to the negotiation table. You make fantastic moves in the negotiation and manage to convince him to make a deal with you. So far you are very happy with the results. However, there is one issue left. How do you make sure that your Risk opponent will commit to what he just promised? Surely, after all the hard work, you don't want to see all your efforts going to waste. What should you say or do to put him under pressure, so that even the thought of quitting on you does not occur to him?

How to Influence Others and Get Them to do What you Want

Total Diplomacy — Wed, 16 May 2007 05:00:00 GMT

There always comes a time when you want to influence others. You may need to use a variety of psychological tactics depending on the situation and the person you are dealing with. In this article, a number of scenarios are presented and for each a course of action is suggested. Remember, what matters is always the end game. If you want someone to do something for you, you need to keep focusing on the outcome. You need to make it easier for the other person to make the right choice, the choice that you desire. Here are a number of scenarios and solutions to help you get what you want.

You are Only as Strong as Your Alternatives

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 13 May 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Negotiation is one of the most important skills that one may need to use to resolve different types of conflicts. Negotiation is applicable to everyone as you should know the tricks of the trade if you want to succeed. The ability to negitiate effectivly in Risk game is also critical.

What I have found, as probably the most important element, is the concept of BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement). Basically, you always need to have something, so that you can walk away from a deal. By having an alternative, you will feel stronger psychologically. People can see this confidence and will act accordingly in a negotiation. In contrast, if you think you don't have an alternative, you may portray yourself as a desperate negotiator which the other party may easily spot and exploit.

Are Tactics Really That Relevant?

Total Diplomacy — Wed, 09 May 2007 06:26:00 GMT

When you are involved in a competition such as a game, would you focus on tactics or strategy? Or would you focus on diplomacy instead? Or maybe a combination of them all. How would you improve your game while playing Risk? Which one do you think is more effective?

In my book, I emphasized greatly on the importance of diplomacy. In fact, it seems that a lot is driven by this concept. In this article, I provide an example in the space industry and show you how far diplomacy can take you.

How to Spot an Ally?

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 06 May 2007 06:19:00 GMT

It is sometimes desired to have allies in Risk. Having an ally has many benefits. You will have one less enemy to deal with. In addition, your ally is likely to fight with your enemies reducing their power even further. You may also get him to help you on strategies and initiate a campaign together as part of a global plan.

All in all this sounds great. However, as always there is a catch. The most fundamental problem is that there can only be one winner. As a result, you and your ally will inevitably need to face each other at some point in the game. Therefore, alliances are short term solutions. An alliance is there to benefit the two parties for a while and when the circumstances have changed, the alliance is terminated, expired or broken.

How to Know if Someone is Bluffing?

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:57:00 GMT

There are many times that you may be confronted with a situation that you like to instantly discover if someone is trying to deceive you. Is there a way to know for certain? Well, it turns out that there is indeed a technique you can use to know if someone is bluffing.

Divide and Conquer

Total Diplomacy — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:44:00 GMT

Divide and Conquer is perhaps one of the most famous strategies to gain power. On the outset everyone seems to understand it. Numerous examples in history show that this strategy is indeed effective.

Robert Greene described this strategy beautifully:

"Never be intimidated by enemy's appearance. Instead, look at the parts that make up the whole. By separating the parts sowing dissension and division, you can bring down even the most formidable foe. When you have troubles or enemies, turn a large problem into small eminently defeatable parts."

This strategy can be applied to many different situations.

How to Get People to Like You?

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 07:17:00 GMT

Ever wondered how can you get people to like you. If they like you, the chances are that they will be on your side. There are a number of techniques you can use such as being with positive people, not trying to be too perfect, getting them to do favours and so on. Here, I will explore these and provide a number of examples in the context of Risk.