Total Diplomacy

What to Do When You are Outnumbered

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 08:51:00 GMT

You are playing Risk. Due to your starting position, bad luck with dice or bad luck with other players picking on you, you find yourself in a position where you are one of the weakest players in the game. What would you do now? Should you stay put where you are and hope that your luck turns? Should you concentrate on fortifying your continent so then you can have a stronger foothold in the game? Would you try to use diplomacy? What should be your main strategy?

To answers these questions, let’s have a look at an interesting battle that took place recently, in World War II.

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.

The Psychology of Decision Making in Risk (Part 2 of 2)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 08:49:00 GMT

This article is followed from Part 1. Ideally you should read the first part and answer the two questions proposed before reading this part which explores the concepts and analyses the results.

We are confronted with decision making every day. When making decisions, we usually use what is known as a heuristic approach, we simply use our instincts to respond to situations. Are we always right? Is it always easy to decide? How does this relate to decision making in Risk?

Let’s look at the results obtained in Part 1.

How to Maintain the Balance of Power (Part 4 of 4)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:09:00 GMT

In the previous part, you timed the elimination of another player really well and collected his cards. This got you the critical momentum which you needed to deal with the next set of challenges.

Because of your balance management, you made Purple stronger until eventually Purple became too strong even for you. Now you had to confront it. The situation looked like the above.

How to Maintain the Balance of Power (Part 3 of 4)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:01:00 GMT

In the last part you saw how you managed the balance of power by weakening the strong players and letting weaker players to become strong. You found yourself in the position shown above and were wondering what to do next.

How to Maintain the Balance of Power (Part 2 of 4)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:50:00 GMT

In Part 1 you saw the initial distribution of armies and despite a good start discovered that you had a competitor who was even in a better position than you. Let’s examine this state and evaluate the move.

How to Maintain the Balance of Power (Part 1 of 4)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:22:00 GMT

Risk is all about balance. If you become too weak you will be attacked and eliminated. If you become too strong, you will be ganged up on until you become a weak player and we know what happens to weak players.

However, balancing the game is an art. It requires full understanding of the rules, the map, the psychology of other players to some extent and of course impeccable timing. Players who get this right and go on to win, usually feel that they won not because of one crucial clever move or a sound strategy. Instead, they feel more like indirectly guiding a set of people towards the path of their choice without others realising what is happening to them. It is this feeling that makes Risk so enjoyable and so rewarding, not to mention so addictive.

In this series of articles, we are going to examine a complete game and look at the critical moments and various options you have in these situations. Each part of the series raises a number of questions asking you to suggest what happens next. Please provide your inputs and discuss it with the fans. A few days later the next part will be published and you can see the progress of the game and provide your comments.

Suppose you are playing Risk on a non-Earth map. The bigger the continent, the more bonus you get and cards are set as escalating (the cashing sequence is 4,6,8,10,...). The map shown above is your random starting point playing as Red.

What is your strategy? What would you do?

Critical Starting Moves in Risk (Part 2 of 2)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:55:00 GMT

As you saw in Part 1, the initial start in Risk is quite critical and if you don’t get it right you can fail spectacularly. Opening moves in Risk are much like Chess. They set the pace of the game, define the strategic positions which would come to define the rest of the game. It is always possible to get away with a single mistake, but a series of mistakes is lethal. If you realise you have already made a mistake, beware that you can’t afford to risk anymore and need to play conservatively thinking about all possible consequences before you make your decision. Let’s analyse the game further to see what happened and what went wrong.

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.

The Psychology of Decision Making in Risk (Part 1 of 2)

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:40:00 GMT

Sometimes choosing between options is not easy, especially when you have to deal with probabilities. You may think each option has its own pros and cons. The situation gets even more complicated when you realise someone else has these options and are wondering which one they are going to choose. In Risk, decision making plays a significant role and it is ideal to have a deeper look at this topic.

To start this investigation, let’s do an experiment. To get good results, please follow these instructions carefully.

Below, you can see two links. Each of these links leads you to a simple question. Please answer the first question, then come back to this page and then answer the second question.

Note: Please answer both questions one after the other, so we can get consistent results.

Risk Decision Making Question 1

Risk Decision Making Question 2

Once you have voted, you can read the next part of article in Part 2.

Critical Starting Moves in Risk (Part 1 of 2)

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:46:00 GMT

Risk can be surprising and in the course of a game, you may always have a heart sinking feeling of imminent danger and fall. In fact, this is what makes Risk so exciting. Anyone can win which means even experienced players must be on guard all the time otherwise can easily lose.

The opening stages of a game are quite critical. If you start badly or make mistakes, you are very likely to get kicked out and the game and lose. You must pay constant attention to your opponents as well as your own position in comparison with others. The best way to learn opening moves is by example. Let’s consider the game shown above.

This game is played on a non-Earth map. The card sequence is escalating which means that the rate goes up by 2 every time someone cashes a set. We are going to analyse this game in an abstract way, so don’t worry too much about the details. Assume that similar to the Earth map, the bigger the continent or the higher the number of its borders, the more bonuses you get.

Assume you are Red and the map above was the starting position.

What would you do?

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.

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?

Is it Better to Attack or Defend?

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:54:00 GMT

Throughout history, various military strategists in different cultures have noticed an unusual phenomenon: in battle the side that was on the defensive won in the end. Why should this be the case? Does this apply to Risk as well? Based on history, is it truly better to defend rather than attack? How about the other famous aphorism that “Attack is the best defence”? Aren’t these contradictory?

To answer these questions we need to look at attack and defence in more detail and examine the human psychology that dictates certain behaviours that will eventually lead to one choice or the other.

Attack and defence are like two sides of a coin. They each have advantages and disadvantages. Like many questions examining two possible solutions, you may have to use one or the other in specific situations as the ultimate choice. However, the general question remains as to which method is the preferred default choice.

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.

When Should You Stop?

Total Diplomacy — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:34:00 GMT

As a Risk player you have to deal with many issues in your ongoing strategy. Just about any time in the game, you want to have more and more armies so you can invade more players and get what you have been planing to conquer so that at some point you can win the game. If you are playing with escalating cards (when their value increases over time), you may progressively receive more armies as more cards are cashed. This is the army you have been waiting for. You start invading, capturing and expanding. The question is; when should you stop? In other words, how far should you go before undoing all the advantage you got with the sudden rise in your power.

To find the answer we need to look deeper into the problem and what you are actually trying to do.

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.

7 Priorities You Need to Think of if You Want to Win Risk

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:32:00 GMT

New players sometimes think that to win Risk they need to work out a winning strategy and follow it every time. The problem with this approach is that it ignores what other players are going to do. You can’t say I will do these series of manoeuvres and I will do them no matter what. To win Risk, you need to know how to respond to different situations and to know this you need to know your priorities. Sounds very simple, but you will be amazed how many players don’t follow this simple rule. If you ever play online Risk, you are bound to come across many who simply follow a fixed strategy, like ‘Get continents’, ‘Go for cards’, ‘Just keep growing’ and so on. These strategies are good but they are too fixed to get you to win the game. You may get by very well in the early stages of the game and then get kicked out not knowing what hit you.

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.

It is Called Risk for a Reason

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:01:00 GMT

You have battled your way through the game. It wasn’t easy and you are glad that you have survived. You really want to win. You have now come to a really decisive point. You have an advantage and you don’t want to blow it up.

End-games in Risk are quite tricky. There is only one winner and when you get to a certain stage, a single mistake or a missed opportunity means you will lose the game and leave the trophy for someone else.

Consider the dilemma you may face in the following game where you are playing as Red. You have eliminated a player who was dominant in North America and have cashed in his cards. You have a choice to place armies on the map and carry on with your march. But you want to pause and think for a second. What are your options? How can you make sure that you will win by choosing the best move possible? You don’t want to leave it to chance. You want that trophy really badly!

Apply Stock Markets Strategy to Risk

Total Diplomacy — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:48:00 GMT

"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things

he predicted yesterday didn't happen today"

Laurence Peter

Risk is one of the most successful strategic games with clear abstract rules. It is amazing how you can relate Risk strategies to other fields, even those such as economy and investing.

Here, you will find a number of strategies that are applicable to both worlds and make Risk an incredibly useful tool to experiment with. If you are good at one, you can apply your strategy to the other field and expect to get good results.

So, master Risk players, this is your chance to become rich! Billionaires, it is your chance to conquer the whole world, literally!

How to Turn Your Weakness into Strength

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:46:00 GMT

While playing Risk with random initial positions, sometimes you may find yourself all over the place owning a country in just about every continent! You blame your luck and wonder how other players managed to get half of some continents already and seem to be way ahead of you.

Consider the following configuration. You are playing as Red and you are indeed scattered everywhere. Is there anything you can do to get out of this dilemma? How can you turn your weakness into strength?

7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Make Your Move

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:54:00 GMT

Over time, experienced players develop a recipe of actions that they go through in every turn of every game. They perform a number of evaluations to get a feel for how the game is developing and if the timing is getting right for their plans. These evaluations are more like questions that you need to ask yourself. I have drawn up a number of standard questions that you must answer to yourself and in doing so, plan your next moves.

Introducing Risk Map Editor

Total Diplomacy — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 09:13:00 GMT

I am glad to announce the release of Risk Map Editor. You can now use this tool, to make Risk maps to illustrate your games for other players. The tool lets you create a map, place armies, arrows and notes and generate an image which you can later attach to your forum posts.

Find out more about Risk Map Editor by starting from the Guide

Your views on this tool are welcome and much needed. Please share it with us and other users.

When Red Met The Fortune Teller

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:40:00 GMT

You look at the map. Your current position looks good (you are playing as Red, A). You decide to go for Africa. You have lots of hope. You think in a few turns you get yourself established in the continent and will be ready to make a challenge for others. All is going according to plan. Excellent! Later, just by accident, you bump into a fortune teller who wants to predict your future. She looks at your hand (and probably the map) and says, “My son, I am afraid I have some bad news for you. I see darkness ahead. The more distant I look, the more darkness I see. You ought to be careful with who you deal with. Look around, never lose site of the distant world and try not to get carried away by your own strength.”

The fortune teller leaves you in deep thought. What did she really mean? Not to get carried away!? Distant world? All too confusing. You consider her comments for a moment, but you need to move on. The game is waiting for you. Maybe later you will realise what she meant. Hopefully …

You start with this map and make your move. [These maps are illustrated in BOMS Graphs].

How to Recover From Poor Starting Positions

Total Diplomacy — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:31:00 GMT

Have you ever started a game from really poor random starting positions not knowing what to do and where to go? If you use random initial positions in online games or even the normal board game, you may find yourself in every continent on the planet. What you hoped for was to have a concentration of your armies in a particular area so you could focus on it. Imagine the position illustrated below. You, playing as Red, have no presence in either Australia or South America which are good small continents to start from. For the rest, you are scattered all over the map. What should you do to survive and go on all the way to win the game? What would you do if your initial plan backfired and you found yourself competing intensely with another player over a continent. Should you carry on with the corrosive war or pull out and look for somewhere else?

Don’t Focus on Continents, Focus on Players

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:10:00 GMT

You made all the right moves in a Risk game. You set yourself next to the most ideal continents. You created conflicts between other players and watched them as they fought each other. You thought only in a few turns you will collect enough armies for your large continent that you will emerge as a new world power. Suddenly, out of no where, a new player started to invade one player after another and got more and more powerful every turn. He conquered one player a turn until your turn was up. He eliminated you and went on to win the game! Sound familiar? This is commonly known as ‘the chain effect’.

A series of elimination moves by a Risk player can lead him to victory much easier than collecting armies for continents or staying in isolation for a long period of time. You need to make sure that you are not caught up in this, while at the same time, know when to take advantage of it when the opportunity comes.

As you may know, learning by example is perhaps one of the best ways to learn new techniques. This walkthrough shows you ' the chain effect’. The Risk game presented here was played between 6 players starting from random locations.

36 Strategies > Part 6: Defeat Strategies

Total Diplomacy — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:53:00 GMT

In this article you will be introduced to the Defeat Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 31: The beauty trap. (The tender trap, use a woman to ensnare a man.)

Strategy 32: The empty fort strategy. (Mental trap; empty a fort to make the enemy think it is filled with traps.)

Strategy 33: Let the enemy’s own spy sow discord in the enemy camp. (Use enemy’s own spy to spread false information.)

Strategy 34: Inflict injury on one’s self to win the enemy’s trust. (Fall into a trap; become baited.)

Strategy 35: Chain together the enemy’s ships. (Never rely on but a single strategy.)

Strategy 36: If all else fails, retreat.

36 Strategies > Part 5: Proximate Strategies

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:44:00 GMT

In this article you will be introduced to the Proximate Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 25: Replace the beams with rotten timbers.

Strategy 26: Point at the mulberry and curse the locust.

Strategy 27: Pretend to be a pig in order to eat the tiger. (Play dumb.)

Strategy 28: Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof. (Cross the river and destroy the bridge.)

Strategy 29: Deck the tree with bogus blossoms.

Strategy 30: Make the host and the guest exchange places.

Are You an Opportunist or a Moderate?

Total Diplomacy — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT

I came across an interesting article which discussed Iceberg Slim's writings. The world was divided between two types of people which I call, the opportunist and the moderate, defined as follows:

Opportunist. They approach every task with multiple potential solutions.

Moderate. They see the world in steps. They make one move at a time. They are to the point.

Using Risk as the pretext of examples, the following, which is loosely based on Iceberg Slim, makes this more clear.

36 Strategies > Part 4: Chaos Strategies

Total Diplomacy — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:24:00 GMT

In this article you will be introduced to the Chaos Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 19: Remove the firewood under the cooking pot. (Remove the stick from the axe.)

Strategy 20: Catch a fish in disturbed waters.

Strategy 21: Slough off the cicada’s shell. (False appearances mislead the enemy.)

Strategy 22: Shut the door to catch the thief.

Strategy 23: Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbour.

Strategy 24: Obtain safe passage to conquer the Kingdom of Guo.

36 Strategies > Part 3: Attacking Strategies

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:04:00 GMT

In this article you will be introduced to the Attacking Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 13: Startle the snake by hitting the grass around it.

Strategy 14: Borrow another’s corpse to resurrect the soul. (Raise a corpse from the dead.)

Strategy 15: Entice the tiger to leave its mountain lair.

Strategy 16: In order to capture, one must let loose.

Strategy 17: Tossing out a brick to get a jade.

Strategy 18:Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief.

36 Strategies > Part 2: Enemy Dealing Strategies

Total Diplomacy — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:25:00 GMT

In this article you will be introduced to the Enemy Dealing Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 7: Create something from nothing.

Strategy 8: Secretly utilize the Chen Chang passage. (Repair the highway to take the crude path.)

Strategy 9: Watch the fires burning across the river.

Strategy 10: Hide a knife behind a smile.

Strategy 11: Sacrifices the plum tree to preserve the peach tree. (Sacrifice the silver to keep the gold.)

Strategy 12: Stealing a goat along the way. (Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat.)

36 Strategies > Part 1: Winning Strategies

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:50:00 GMT

In this article you will be introduced to the Winning Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 1: Deceive the sky to cross the ocean.

Strategy 2: Surround Wei to rescue Zhao.

Strategy 3: Borrow one’s hand to kill. (Kill with a borrowed knife.)

Strategy 4: Make your enemy tire themselves out while conserving energy. (Substitute leisure for labour)

Strategy 5: Use the opportunity of fire to rob others. (Loot a burning house).

Strategy 6: Feign an attack in the east and attack in the west.

36 Strategies > Introduction

Total Diplomacy — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:38:00 GMT

Thirty-Six Strategies is basically a collection of strategies on battle scenarios in Chinese history and folklore, predominantly of the Warring States Period and the Three Kingdoms Period. The story goes back to Wáng.

Wáng was a Chinese general who lived around 500 A.D. in the time of Emperor Gao. At some point Emperor Ming came to power and decided to execute many members of the royal family. He was afraid that they would threaten his reign and target him directly. Wáng was worried that he will be on the black list and will be the next target and so he rebelled. The son of Emperor Ming became scared of the rebels and decided to escape. Wáng, upon receiving this news, famously said,

“of the thirty-six strategies of Lord Tán, retreat was his best, you father and son should run for sure".

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.

Ends, Ways and Means

Total Diplomacy — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:42:00 GMT

The primary nature of any strategy, whether it is military campaign, business, marketing or games, is the relationship between ends, ways, and means. Here, ‘ends’ is the objective, such as global conquest, maximising market share, neutralising a crisis, etc; ‘ways’ is the form through which a strategy is pursued, such as a military campaign, diplomacy, or economic sanctions; and ‘means’ is the resources available such as armies, weapons, international influence and money. It is critical to make sure that the relationship between ends, ways and means is fully understood and thought out. It must be logical, practical, and clearly established from the outset. If this relationship is vague, the entire campaign is seriously flawed and you might be at risk.