The best aggressive players wait for the right moment when they can go from minor threat to unquestionably dominant in the span of 1–2 turns, by toppling one opponent after another. The tricky part is the timing (and there is some luck involved with dice rolls and card matches). If you get it wrong and don’t quite take out one of the card-rich opponents along the chain, then (a) that extremely weakened player will be open to easy attack from the other players, and (b) you’ll be completely exposed having used all of your armies on at least one side of your territory in the attempt.
edit: In a way, it feels like people who wave you on when they have the right of way at a stop sign. It's not nice, just follow the rules and drive predictably. /rant
In my group of friends, whether it is Risk or Monopoly, being nice makes it much easier to win. People are happier to enter into mutually beneficial agreements with nice people who they know are honest and keep their word.
If the arguments that underly the strategy decisions taken during the game purely happen during the game, that's perfectly fine. The issue arises when you absolutely cannot do anything to influence those. Rules of games are designed not designed to account for external behaviours that might favour
Eg: If Alice, Bobo and Charlie are playing a game of Risk and Alice is in love with Bob in real life and won't do anything in the game to hurt him. What can Charlie really do ? The rules of Risk have been designed to give each player with equal skill roughly 33% chance of winning - as they should. But in this case, Bob is almost sure to win and Charlie has very little things he can do to change that. How is that fun for Charlie ?
I'm as skeptical about the appropriateness of rules as it comes, but a surprising number of the ones around driving actually do work to make the traffic flow efficiently!
It’s important in this dynamic that you pick games with a high wildcard factor, so that other people win occasionally, otherwise nobody wants to play after a while.
games in themselves have no point. The act of playing games may have a point: it is generally to have fun, not to win.
> edit: In a way, it feels like people who wave you on when they have the right of way at a stop sign. It's not nice, just follow the rules and drive predictably. /rant
you're not nice.
We have roundabouts where I live, and some people will always stop before entering. This is done even to the point of waiting for people to arrive and enter from the other roads, despite the law being to yield. This causes more problems than it solves.
Hell, doing it is even an official recommendation in my country: https://mobile.interieur.gouv.fr/Archives/Archives-publicati... ("faites un petit signe de la main" = to wave)
The complaint isn't about a friendly wave. The complaint is that it's someone's turn to go, and instead of going they wave at someone else to insist the other person go out of turn.
The wave is an insistence of "you go first", not a greeting or a thanks.
Traffic isn't just 'other cars'.
> The driver has the following responsibilities: (...) to do his utmost to ensure that other road users are not endangered, especially the most vulnerable (pedestrians, cyclists and electric scooter riders)
There are definitely places where letting someone go is appropriate, especially if it's leaving a gap so they can make a turn. But if you're on a road and you have to wave them through then most of the time you're not actually helping, and fake-helping is an annoying thing.
Unpredictable traffic is dangerous, that's like, driving 101. It's nicer to let everyone follow the rules and stay safer.
The kind of "nice" that is good in multiplayer board games is strategic. Being "nice" isn't necessarily being nice. If a subset of players collaborate, they eliminate the other players from the game. It's one of the ways most multiplayer games naturally handicap based on the reputations of good players - other players assume that they will get the short end of any deal with a good player, so refuse to collaborate with them.
Different people, or groups, play games for different reasons:
* Sublimate conflicts (it's probably better than physical fighting)
* Learn / hone skills
* Feel personal challenge, tension, suspense
* Passing the time.
* Experience other players' "game-table-side banter"
* Attention diverter from munching snacks.
* Making a romantic pass at another player (it's been known to happen!)
etc. For some of these, winning is part of how you achieve your objective; for others it doesn't matter; and for others still it's detrimental!
>The programme traces the development of game theory, with particular reference to the work of John Nash [...] He invented system games that reflected his beliefs about human behaviour, including one he called 'Fuck You Buddy' (later published as "So Long Sucker"), in which the only way to win was to betray your playing partner, and it is from this game that the episode's title is taken. These games were internally coherent and worked correctly as long as the players obeyed the ground rules that they should behave selfishly and try to outwit their opponents, but when RAND's analysts tried the games on their own secretaries, they were surprised to find that instead of betraying each other, the secretaries cooperated every time.
Such a beautiful mind :-(
Whoever wins the game is the person who played the right strategy.... you have to account for other people not playing optimally when designing your strategy, whatever the reason for their suboptimal strategy (whether it is them trying to be nice or just not knowing the best strategy)
If you know a player is always nice during a game and won't attack anyone, incorporate that info into your strategy. Part of game strategy is knowing your opponents.
If you want a fair game, play strangers or a computer
Games never exist in a vacuum of their own mechanics. That's what makes them interesting. Learn the meta of your opponents, not just the game's if you're focused on winning.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site to heart, we'd be grateful.
Actually, when I say dumbed down, I'm not too sure! If I was you, I'd embrace the added dimensions that go outside the official rules. Get your Machiavelli on. Get him so pissed he can't see and his alliance with the missus might break down.
Be careful and get some lines that shall not be crossed worked out first if you are going to play Extreme Risk.
(The india-china border clashes are a good example of this. Or that one where a NK soldier killed somebody with an axe. Or that time japanese soldiers bribed a triad gang to attack japanese priests so they had could convince their officers to invade more of Manchuria.)
I don’t play Risk so can’t speak this specific example. I suspect if you took your strategy elsewhere your get far more boxed results however.
Afaict, being really good at these games requires a good grasp of the fundamentals, knowing the game itself inside and out, and also having really up to date knowledge of the current meta.
The same phenomenon happens with Diplomacy (board game) as well... Probably any sufficiently complex game with a community ends up with a meta.
If the general perception is that Bears are too powerful while Geese aren't powerful enough, developers may subsequently alter the game to reduce the power of a Bear's attack, or allow Geese to fly further. These are often called "balance tweaks" but it's almost unavoidable that they'll focus on the meta, rather than addressing a proven flaw in the game itself because most of these games aren't subject to any theoretical underpinning. As a result the meta may change even as the game itself is being changed as a result of influence from the meta. If you announce on Tuesday that from next weekend the overpowered Bear gets reduced damage, and then on Wednesday a renowned player demonstrates that (with the existing damage) Bears are easily overcome by a previously unseen strategy using Geese, the developers look foolish. Cue outcry when the damage reduction takes effect on schedule while at the same time players who favour Bears are now being swarmed by Goose players who've learned the new strategy.
If they stop balance patching the game obviously there's a risk that a degenerate strategy is discovered. Perhaps Bears are in fact just so good that Geese always lose against equally skilled players, and people lose interest in the game. But it's also possible that the meta continues to evolve, Bears dominate Geese, then with a new style of play Geese are destroying Bears, and later the Bears are back on top, even though the rules never changed. This is the case with Chess for example, styles wax and wave in popularity as top players show off one way or another way to play the game and win.
StarCraft: Brood War (by now a very old game) is still played competitively although its meta doesn't evolve as quickly as it did twenty years ago.
This is easily solved with data analysis of actual games.
The only problem is if there are strategies and play styles that weren’t discovered by players.
IRL you'll see that people tend to be "nice", don't want to push you too far. And they're also willing to accept deals like "hey, you want to agree that neither of us ever crosses this border here?" rules, because there's a good chance that you'll play again together, so being trustworthy pays off.
Online, the game is played very differently, and it's all about maximizing the results of every single turn, and completely ignoring any metagame or personalities. You might as well be playing against bots.
I tend to do a bit better offline, because I'm a bit of a charmer and people want to make deals with me. But online, I feel like I can try many more strategies without worrying about people thinking I'm "mean" afterwards.
In South America, you can get lucky and take North America in 1 or 2 turns. Since North America shares a front with South America, you end up with the same number of fronts you would have if you possessed North America alone, and in a very defensible position. The fewer fronts you have, the more interior you have that doesn't need to be manned with troops.
No 1: Play very aggresively in the beginning and use your excellent micro management to make sure your opponent doesn't have enough time to stop your expansion. Sure you are going to lose one or two bases but then you have a full three bases to devastate your enemy.
No 2: Play conservatively, let the opponent expand but grow your available bases (usually only 2) to full potential quickly and devastate your enemy with your big army. The key is to grow your army quickly (you opponent meanwhile is busily expanding his new bases) and to use a lot of micromanangement to harass your opponent (e.g. dropping a squad of marines to kill all drones of a new base).
Ultimately it falls into micromanagement and how familiar you are with the map.
The trick is to always capture SA, it is close enough to other things to keep you involved, also you can capture Centeral America and North Africa without having to hold any more territories than you would need to. Then choose NA or Africa and work on seizing the rest of that, when you complete that if it is late enough in the game you'll win almost every time because Asia, and Europe are impossible to hold, North America is to big to capture in the early game and Austraila as noted before doesn't bring a big enough advantage because it puts you in a poor tactical situation.
EDIT: A good point was made below, this applies only to the standard classic Risk map, in standard Classic Risk.
I think if Australia wasn't overvalued it wouldn't be bad because there is no real non-suicidal way to stop the Aussie snowball once it gets going.
Asia usually lacks a strong player while players focus on their relative home continents, often being sabotaged by competitors or me. That said, I rarely get a chance to play people with Risk experience these days.
We played extensively at school, with lots of politics - so games often lasted weeks (played in-between certain classes) as naturally the weak team up against the strong, ad infinitum.
Every other pair has too many connections and no way to reduce to a chokepoint.
The fun in Risk is the other player knows they will be backstabbed, but can't resist the temptation to team up anyway, hoping that they might be the one to do the backstabbing. Everbody knows that backstabbing will occur, and yet, invariably, some players are still willing to team up.
My typical strategy depends on chosen race and other game configurations, but I tend to prefer a slower pace. Peacefully building my empire while focusing mainly on research and trying to build strong relations with other races.
However, on the hardest difficulty (called "Impossible") the only way I ever win is playing with extreme aggression and conquering everything in reach with force as quickly as possible.
Seems like in risk you should let your ally “win” so that they feel more satiated. Like playing the long game in poker.
However, this article fails to understand that in Risk, most players are not willing to unite. In fact, if player A and player B decide to unite against me and player A had his turn and stopped me, player B is highly likely to backstab player A and then emerge as the winner.
I've found that playing very aggressively, and really get as many continents as possible within the first few turns, is the best way to win the game. I always win if I can get 2-3 continents in the first few turns, and if I fail then the game is usually won by whomever did manage to do just that.
Being a turtle or "mongolian horde" as we call it can be interesting, but your only viable strategy is to wait for an opening while everyone else stockpiles their continental forces. If you wait too long, you're just an annoyance to the other players, but you don't actually have a good chance to win.