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Win at Risk by using systems thinking

thesystemisdown.substack.com

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Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#91

Post by callamdelaney »

paulluuk wrote: post #56

This article suggests that you should not play too aggressive and not take continents too early (maximizing Reinforcing Feedback), because other players will then unite against you (Balancing Feedback). 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…

In my experience players are happy to unite against me. Usually I take Australia and move into Asia when I’ve amassed enough forces. Then my strategy moves to holding asia at 3 points, while I disrupt the continental bonuses of my opponents between turns. Africa, Europe and North America can be disrupted from this position.

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#92

Post by simonh »

x3iv130f wrote: post #47
Dumblydorr wrote: post #17

In our gaming group, we decided Risk just isn't that good of a game. It's old and clunky and extremely long, there are 100 other better board games now. Our main plays have been Dominion, DnD, Gloomhaven, Wingspan, and Crokinole, all of which we greatly prefer.

Smallworld is a great Risk alternative. It polishes all the best points while avoiding the pitfalls. DnD 5E is like the Risk of tabletop RPGs. Just sort of long and meandering without much going on. Shadow of the Demon Lord, Torchbearer, and Mythras Classic Fantasy are better alternatives depending on what level of crunch you enjoy.

Dungeon World scratches the itch for me, if I'm going to play anything that looks at all like D&D. There's been a huge renaissance in TTRPGs for over a decade now though, powered by cheap DTP and PDF publishing.

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#94

Post by TchoBeer »

chrisseaton wrote: post #75
TchoBeer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer games are made with the knowledge of older games, so theoretically they should be better. I'd argue they are on average, but there's also the survivorship bias in play with very old games that only the good ones are still commonly known and played.

> theoretically they should be better Lol anything newer is theoretically better?

New things are made with the knowledge of old things, and old things aren't. Unless more knowledge about what you're making could lead to a worse product, then newer things will on average be better than older things.

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#95

Post by beaconstudios »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #21

Coming from an economics background, every presentation I've seen of "systems thinking" (admittedly, not a large number) makes it look ill-defined, incomplete, and obvious.

If you want a more rigorous view of systems theory then you'll want to look into the mathematical side of cybernetics, chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics. Systems thinking is more of an approach than a rigourous discipline in the same way that reductionism is ("break a problem down into its constituent parts and solve them"), but it is backed by both rigourous disciplines and philosophy.

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#96

Post by chrisseaton »

TchoBeer wrote: post #94
chrisseaton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> theoretically they should be better Lol anything newer is theoretically better?

New things are made with the knowledge of old things, and old things aren't. Unless more knowledge about what you're making could lead to a worse product, then newer things will on average be better than older things.

Does this theory hold in practice when you look around you in the real world?

Was the best work of all fields - cinema, art, music, architecture, literature, all from the last year?

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#97

Post by ja3k »

Wow this is exactly the strategy I've played. I take it to the extreme and put literally all my soldiers on one territory.

The ideal situation is when an opponent ends their turn in a weak spot (likely if everyone is trying to secure territory) with 3-5 cards in hand and you have 5 in hand. Then you can cash in, eliminate them and end your turn with 6+ cards in hand in which case you get to cash in on the end of your turn (sort of a hack. I think the idea is the game designer didn't want it to be possible to start a turn by cashing in twice) and then you can actually secure your new territory.

I think people who try to claim a continent outside if Australia haven't really done the math on how long they need to hold the continent for it to pay off.

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#98

Post by hpoe »

callamdelaney wrote: post #91
paulluuk wrote: post #56

This article suggests that you should not play too aggressive and not take continents too early (maximizing Reinforcing Feedback), because other players will then unite against you (Balancing Feedback). 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…

In my experience players are happy to unite against me. Usually I take Australia and move into Asia when I’ve amassed enough forces. Then my strategy moves to holding asia at 3 points, while I disrupt the continental bonuses of my opponents between turns. Africa, Europe and North America can be disrupted from this position.

So take it from a young man who spent way too much of one summer playing Risk on the computer, you don't want to take Australia, the problem with Australia is that there is no good way to go from Aussie to anywhere else because the only thing next to you is Asia so someone else can solidify gains somewhere else, and Aussie only gives you 2 more reinforcements, not enough to get you a decisive enough edge to move out of Asia.

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.

Re: Win at Risk by using systems thinking

#99

Post by mod »

chapium wrote: post #10
qznc wrote: post #6

This basic strategy „get a card each turn and avoid losing armies“ gets you from beginner to intermediate. Once every player understood this it once again is a question of who controls the southern continents. The additional two or three armies each turn add up.

I was thinking this as well. It assumes the other players are naiive to your strategy and will not counter it. If someone were gathering a collection of bonus cards I think this would tip off the other players and awaken the dragons.

Especially since you get their unused bonus cards when you defeat an opponent.
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