Total Diplomacy

RE: Diplomacy In Online Risk

Ehsan Honary — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 05:50:53 GMT

Hi Jamie. Well, I think not relying on diplomacy won't do you any good. The situation you describe is quite normal, in fact it is expected. No one wants to let another players become too strong and so the moment a player is pulling away, like getting North America and holding it, other players may feel inclined to attack. But, and there is a big but, you are not playing a two player game. There are others present in the game. Attacking a strong player can have significant costs. First there is the actual attack and then there is the repercussions and creating a foe out of it. For this reason players don't necessarily jump on the idea of attacking; what they want is for someone else to do their bidding. And this is when diplomacy can come in. If you are the strong player, you must make it look costly to all other players that attacking you can destroy them. This is why you may have treaties with others. It is not the treaty itself that matters. It is the complexity of decision making by other players when you have a treaty. You make them think hard and even hesitate. Who knows if your ally is going to come to your help when you need it. But because you have one, other players need to consider it in their calculations. This in turn can put them off the attack. They may hope others would do it instead. You may need only a couple of turns to get hold of a strategic position and strengthen your fortifications and so a simple hesitation is sometimes all you need to turn the game to your favour. Even back stabbing can be handled by diplomacy, by making it costly to get back stabbed. I leave it to you to imagine what you can do for that :-)

RE: World Domination: Ways to win Risk

JamieRogers — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 03:20:39 GMT

I agree, Alan. If you are playing with the dealt cards setup, then you should generally go for whichever continent you have the most troops in and add troops there. If you are playing with the manual setup, lots of players go for Australia so it is generally the hardest continent (apart from Asia and Europe) to go for, which is ironic since it only yields two points. Another disadvantage with Australia is that in 3-4 player games, there isn't as much contest for the continents that provide more points and opportunities to expand, so Australia isn't as good.

Not only that but as Alan said, you shouldn't have one strategy or plan, but instead must adapt to whatever start you get.

Diplomacy In Online Risk

JamieRogers — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 05:04:24 GMT

As most members of my family or my friends dislike playing risk or only play occasionally, I play most of my risk online, on a mobile app called RISK: Global Domination. In this version of risk, there is an option to make alliances. This is the only diplomacy component in this game apart from asking other playing to attack specific players, which isn't very useful.

Anyway, I find that generally, the easiest continents to go for online is South America or Africa, as most other players go for Australia or no continent at all and won't let you hold a continent bonus of one such as North America. However, these continents require alliances or treaties with other players so you don't get attacked from multiple places and can expand elsewhere. The biggest problem with this is that as soon as I put the smallest amount of trust in my ally, at least 60-70% of the time they back-stab me and force me into a much weaker position.

My question is: How should I deal with this problem?

Should I try not to rely on diplomacy as much, but risk having to attack multiple stronger opponents at once, or try to mitigate or prepare for these betrayals? If anyone has other suggestions please list them down below.

How can I win this match?

Pyrux — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 17:36:17 GMT

Hi, I'm an italian guy named Lorenzo.

Today, me and my housemates started a Risiko (Risk in italian) match but we interrupted it because we were just too tired.

Tomorrow we will go back playing it but I'm in big troubles with one of the player.

I'm the violet one and the other player is the blue one. His last move was to place more armies on the northern Asia so he could get power all over it and take more armies each turn. I responded to that move by placing more armies on that front line instead of trying to get control over Europe that I'm slowly gaining.

The next turn the black player, then the red player and lastly the blue player, will move before me.

So, now, what would be your best suggestions? Should I take the sure damage on Asia by the blue army and then reinforce that particular front line or should I try to conquer then Europe? And next?

RE: World Domination: Ways to win Risk

Great Alan — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 21:14:05 GMT

British & French : Once the German enter Belgium, we shall crush them!
Erich von Manstein : Sorry, we advance through the Ardennes instead.

Britih & French : *fell*

===============

Here comes the "supposed" situation in Risk game.

just4fun112 : Nobody is attacking me so long I turtle at Australia.
Great Alan : I keep attacking other opponents after securing North America, securing the powerful alliance and keep battering my opponents.

just4fun112 : Damn! Great Alan got too powerful, I have no choice but abandon "turtle strategy" to launch the initiative offensive.
Great Alan : Come on, I still have 4 cards as my "tactical reserve", counter-attack!

just4fun112 : No way....this is not what I expected!

Great Alan : Oh, continue to fight against me, or retreat back to Australia until I "corner" you there?

===============

In Risk game, the most dangerous thing is the "solid" creed.
Utilize your imagination rather than what the "strategic doctrine" said instead.

Those who always think various plans conquer those who only follow one strategy in ease.

In other words, there're no "one way" to win Risk game.

RE: North America Strategy Help

Great Alan — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 02:16:03 GMT

You have 2 options, Shirokiba：

1. Transfer your strategic objective to other places.
2. Force your opponents to withdraw from North America

For the second option, one of the best method is negotiation.
However, you need a “bargain” to force your opponents accept your offer.

You may thwart their plan of capturing or securing a continent；
Afterward, utilize that to carry out the “bargain exchange”.

For example：

“If you stop hindering me to unify North America, I’ll withdraw from Europe.”

Then your opponent would seriously consider your offer.

North America Strategy Help

Shirokiba — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 14:00:43 GMT

So, I just started playing Risk and I try going for North America, it typically works out rather well. Lately, after my second game, my opponents seemed bent on trying to deny me North America, sometimes they'd claim a territory and when placing additional armies, at the start of the game, they'd amass 3 there and one other player would also do this. They managed to stall me long enough that I could not get the continent in a timely manner and they managed to get their continent bonuses quickly, which lost me that game.

I'm going to assume this is going to likely be a common thing I run into. Are there certain territories in North America I should be going for? I always grab Central America and the Western US first. After that, I try to claim Alaska and Greenland.

RE: Tell me if this strategey is good or bad

The General — Tue, 17 May 2016 11:58:43 GMT

Nailing is an excellent stratgy because it prevents your neighbor from receiving his bonus which makes expansion much easier for you.

RE: 3 player game: Me vs Husband and Wife team

Ehsan Honary — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 02:09:49 GMT

Kumo, this is a rather interesting scenario and let me just say it is tricky. In general a 3 player game is rather stable no matter who is involved. In other words no one should ever win. I have talked about this often, but basically the problem is that if all players play well, as soon as you have a strong player, the other two should gang up against him to the point where he is no longer strong. By this time two players will partner against the new emerging strong player and the cycle can go on indefinitely. This is of course if players are experienced and play a perfect game.

In your situation, you have a bit of a bias with your brother and his wife having a mutual agreement to support each other. So you will need to break this as you have suspected yourself. Here are a number of strategies you can consider:

1. Partner with your brother’s wife.

Try hard to make your brother’s wife win. You and his wife can then attack the brother. Don’t attack his wife or reduce her strength. Make this clear to your brother so he knows as soon as he starts a war of attrition with you, he would have no chance to win the game as you would want his wife to win rather than him. This will destabilise the current trend and maybe you can see an opportunity to take them both. If you play regularly, try hard to make sure his wife win as a result of your help, knowing that you are sacrificing yourself for her. You want to gain her trust so that she listens to you the next time.

2. Use the turtle strategy

Instead of being actively part of the game, just accumulate your resources into a corner of the map away from all the expansionist campaigns of the other two. In effect you want to become a threat to anyone that threatens you as you can suddenly attack him or her and take them out of the game. Because of this you are usually ignored so you can keep growing slowly. They may ignore you a bit too long at which point it can be too late. You can then attack and eliminate one, gain territories and cards and be ready to confront the other on an equal level.

3. Use diplomacy

Remember, words can also be very effective. Just say exactly how you feel to the wife. Say that it is unfair for them to gang up against you and that a bias observed is unacceptable. Repeat this often so they feel you are very sensitive to it. They will then aim to behave which can disrupt their strategies.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Let me know how you get on. I wish you all the luck.

3 player game: Me vs Husband and Wife team

kumo — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 23:38:26 GMT

So, every time I play against my buddy and his wife, it always turns out to be essentially me against one other player with two forces! He likes to talk a lot and tries to convince his wife to do what he wants to do and she uaully listens to his suggestions, which is understandable in that she is not that experienced of a player, but he still insists on helping his wife out; she is his proxy, more or less. In the short term it is detrimental to my forces to have to take on two players at one time with neither of them attacking the other until I am eliminated. In the short term it's good for my bro's wife because he directs her where and when to attack and defend, but it's my buddy that usually ends up winning because of it. Looking for suggestions on what to do with this strategic problem. How can I get them to fight eachother instead of me?