i would argue that risk is a terrible game; and that diplomacy offers a hugely different, and superior experience.

Risk is a far shallower game, but I would argue against "terrible" especially if you don't want to end up hating whoever you are playing with.

Risk and stratego are great games to start young kids out on learning strategy

The luck in Risk can sometimes tip the balance in favor of worse players. There's something to be said for that.

i end up hating the game because it tends to be slow, finely balanced with three players so there can be no winner for many hours - and i see that as a waste of time, your skill is not really being tested, just your patients. I would get as much enjoyment out of one game of, lets say, monopoly as one game of risk - but the game of risk taking longer would make it inferior.

I think Risk involves a lot more decision making than Monopoly.

risk involves more risk

If you heavily involve leveraging the banker/cash, Monopoly has a lot of decision making. It's just not as fun to do when using actual paper money to count out.

If you want to teach youngish children how to strategize, I recommend Forbidden Island. It's a collaborative game, and gives every player a chance to strategize by competing against the forces of nature.

And it's a ton of fun.

Monopoly is a far superior game to risk. People vastly underestimate the amount of strategy in Monopoly

I agree with ucla.

A Diplomacy player's age divided by 2 is the age at which he was a Risk player.

So true. Risk was the game I grew up with. I have only played it once since I've discovered Diplomacy. (And that was with younger guys.)
I can't say I enjoy the game monopoly. I don't see any strategy in it. Although I've only played it a couple times.

I like playing Risk with my kids. There is a strategy to mitigating the luck aspect. There doesn't appear to be the underlying complex strategy of chess or Diplomacy though. Monopoly is fun but we rarely play it (the kids won't sit still for it).

Another game that I enjoyed a lot & has the luck aspect of Risk is Supremacy. It is out of print, but I loved that game.

I own Risk, Axis and Allies, Axis and Allies D-Day, War at Sea and a few others all so that I can teach my sons strategy. They're all fun in their own right. I enjoy board games that aren't entirely luck.

I play luck-only games like Chutes and Ladders and other kids' games simply for the enjoyment of playing games with my kids, but I need a much higher game of strategy.

i play risk with my son as well and we just taught his friend the game this weekend....they had a ball.....the IOS app for risk is pretty good and the AI on hard will challenge kids quite well

Forbidden Island is good.

Also, Monopoly has a TON more decision making when you use real cash ;)

Forbidden Island was so confusing

risk 2210 is a far superior version of the game.

co-op games are a lot more fun at times.

you know what Orath, Diplomacy is fun lets play its been a while

Warlight.net is a great online Risk site.

I'm a huge Axis and Allies fan, but it's rare I find people who actually know how to play it well. I got the world 1940 edition for Christmas last year and it is amazing.

The problem I find with A&A is that you end up spending a lot of time setting up and cleaning up and looking up nuanced rules like landing a transport and much less time on actually playing the game. I don't like it when the game distracts from the gameplay, if that makes any sense.

" I don't like it when the game distracts from the gameplay, if that makes any sense."

Save for Mouse Trap, of course.

A&A is one of those games that just seems to be better played online.

Supremacy was a lot of fun. I discovered that it is back in a print and play version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_%28board_game%29

There are way too many versions of Axis and Allies now to talk about it as one game.

I don't like Risk. I had this to day about the game in a recent thread (threadID=1196781):
"Risk is little more than a game of chance, with whichever player allowed to control continents always winning and a ticking time bomb in the card reinforcements to make sure the game ends quickly and unceremoniously."

Risk ought to just be called Chance. Since it's played on a world map people think they're a regular Napoleon employing some grand strategy. In fact, the only real skill is knowing to start in South America and knowing when to end your turn.

Once you've played Diplomacy, Risk is only fun if booze is involved.


Axis and Allies is much better, but gets tedious very quickly. Since it's so hard for the Axis to win, they end up just stacking dozens and dozens of infantry in each board space for defense. I've only played the original version so this may have been fixed. It's also pretty hard to find five people who can understand the rules. I've only ever played it as a two player game with one of my cousins.

I always thought Monopoly would be more fun if the "auction" option was standard rather than "only if the guy who lands there doesn't want it." Perhaps the guy who lands there gets a modest discount, but all properties should be auctioned imo.

Oh, and you could go into debt, and have to pay interest when you pass go :P