I love two-handed risk where one includes a set of neutrals, it adds another interesting aspect to the game. But, in my view, it is not as good a game as Diplomacy.

Plenty of luck to be found in a game of Diplomacy.

@Oct

There's a difference between random chance and how humans act. Yes, human action can appear random, but you can train yourself to better predict how they will act. You'll never be able to better predict what number you'll roll, or what card you'll get, other than having a trivial understanding of probability.

With that being said, I love RISK! It was my first board game and my friends and I played it a lot like Global Press Diplomacy, in that we'd spend the whole game yelling at each other. I was surprised when I realized most people played RISK like a gunboat, just casually chatting about their day while making moves. In fact, on board than one occasion I've made people cry/leave the game and not talk to me for a few days because I play RISK so intensely. Now I just play with that original group of friends who know how the game is supposed to be played.

I don't think that Risk is entirely a matter of luck, but I do think that there is more of it involved than in Diplomacy. You can form alliance in Risk and tactical decisions do have more involved than the luck of the dice

abgemacht +1

risk sux. i remember before i knew about diplo i loved risk and always tried to form alliances which was apparently "against the rules" so i said bullshit and stopped playing. then i heard about diplomacy, and it was love at first sight.

Fulhamish:

The fact of the matter is, there is a chance that my lone army in Japan standing between you and world domination may never, ever, be defeated. That's bullshit.

also there are no fleets, nuff said

Thucy I agree that Diplomacy contains more skill than Risk, I just say that there is an element of skill in Risk and that it is not all a matter of luck, that's all.

"The fact of the matter is, there is a chance that my lone army in Japan standing between you and world domination may never, ever, be defeated. That's bullshit."

REMEMBER THE ALAMO!

VICTORY OR DEATH

It is fair to say that in both games you can play a pretty faultless game and still lose. To abge I will confess to taking to tossing a coin to decide some of my moves (to give me that unpredicatble element) so anyone who plays me will most likely encounter a few cases of pure random chance.

The greatest difference, of course, is that it is far easier to place new Diplomacy armies and fleets on the board than it is to fiddle about with the scores of new Risk units you end up getting. Diplomacy also avoids the tedious half hour spent looking for the commando Risk unit that was dropped under the table and vanished without a trace. As such, Diplomacy wins every time :)

Davy Crockett looked out from the peak of Mt. Fuji at the hordes of rabid Fulhamites on the plain far below.

abg: you know what i mean man!!
Thusy: make your own rules!!

everybody talking bullshit about luck (only the ones who actually talk bullshit, nto teh smart posters...): no luck is unrealistic, and when you have few things left you will probably lose; probably, that's realistic...

I tell my students that Diplomacy is the adult version of Risk.
Most people can play Risk adequately, but it requires a heck of a lot more to play Diplomacy, full press or gunboat, adequately.

that's the cool thing: everybody thinks you don't need much for it, but then you won't win, same with diplomacy...
you need powerbases and alliances, even in "gunboats"...

'no luck is unrealistic' - perhaps, but if we wanted real life we wouldn't be playing games now would we?

and if we wanted to paly a game of luck we'd flip a coin and award points to the winner.

it's just that games which use 'luck' as a crutch are not necessarily any fun.

now risk does involve some skill, but that's too much randomness in it for me, i much prefer a good diplomacy. Even FvA makes a better game than most 2 player risk variants...

yeah the situation at japan i described is a caricature of what i hate about risk

you can do the strategically smart thing, roll up to say siam and try to bust into australia:

you have, say 40 troops. siam has 10.

and then you get wasted.

i mean come on.

that's extremely rare, i think it would weirder if that wasn't possible...
and you need to hold in mind you can lose much or get much for almost nothing, i like the fact you haven't won untill you've actually won...

and how about a variant i made by myself: everybody draws a card and gets an SC on the place drawn, then you build 3 SCs around it, every SC generates one army per turn and it's the only way to get armies so you fight for the SCs...
is it a good one??
any ideas??

I've lost 70 vs 20 before in risk. I was promptly defeated.

Oh, and the opponant still had 10 left after my entire army suicided in.

ruck fisk

dD that's really bad luck but still possible...
and you should've stopped by 20 or something like that...

in Risk you learn to deal with unexpected losses...

or at least you need to... :)

Did anyone else here used to play live risk games on Facebook? Attack! was the name of the app. There was definitely skill in the game - but the fruits of that skill tended to be realized over numerous games (some players had much better stats than others). The good thing about Attack! was you could play an entire game in 30 minutes.

"and you should've stopped by 20 or something like that.."

What does it matter? You could win with 50, you could win with 30. Previous losses does not indicate towards future losses. And also, if he had 20 guys on a spot, and i even considered attacking it, it should be assumed that it was vital to take it that turn, and the odds of me taking it later would decrease over time. The more guys i lost on it, the more important it was to take it...