Total Diplomacy

How to Maintain the Balance of Power (Part 1 of 4)

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:22:00 GMT

Risk is all about balance. If you become too weak you will be attacked and eliminated. If you become too strong, you will be ganged up on until you become a weak player and we know what happens to weak players. However, balancing the game is an art. It requires full understanding of the rules, the map, the psychology of other players to some extent and of course impeccable timing. Players who get this right and go on to win, usually feel that they won not because of one crucial clever move or a sound strategy. Instead, they feel more like indirectly guiding a set of people towards the path of their choice without others realising what is happening to them. It is this feeling that makes Risk so enjoyable and so rewarding, not to mention so addictive. In this series of articles, we are going to examine a complete game and look at the critical moments and various options you have in these situations. Each part of the series raises a number of questions asking you to suggest what happens next. Please provide your inputs and discuss it with the fans. A few days later the next part will be published and you can see the progress of the game and provide your comments. Suppose you are playing Risk on a non-Earth map. The bigger the continent, the more bonus you get and cards are set as escalating (the cashing sequence is 4,6,8,10,...). The following is your random starting point playing as Red. What is your strategy? What would you do?

Critical Starting Moves in Risk (Part 2 of 2)

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:55:00 GMT

As you saw in Part 1, the initial start in Risk is quite critical and if you don t get it right you can fail spectacularly. Opening moves in Risk are much like Chess. They set the pace of the game, define the strategic positions which would come to define the rest of the game. It is always possible to get away with a single mistake, but a series of mistakes is lethal. If you realise you have already made a mistake, beware that you can t afford to risk anymore and need to play conservatively thinking about all possible consequences before you make your decision. Let s analyse the game further to see what happened and what went wrong.

What can You Learn from the Mongol Invasion? (Part 2 of 2)

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:56:00 GMT

On the outset, Genghis Khan had the fastest army on the planet. His genius was to take full advantage of his fast moving armies against well-established disciplined armies many times their armies. These armies were also backed by resources of an empire which made the task even more profound. Genghis Khan used the ancient Chinese Strategy of Slow Slow Quick Quick as his grand strategy. Let s see how this worked in practice.

The Psychology of Decision Making in Risk (Part 1 of 2)

Ehsan Honary — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:40:00 GMT

Sometimes choosing between options is not easy, especially when you have to deal with probabilities. You may think each option has its own pros and cons. The situation gets even more complicated when you realise someone else has these options and are wondering which one they are going to choose. In Risk, decision making plays a significant role and it is ideal to have a deeper look at this topic. To start this investigation, let s do an experiment. To get good results, please follow these instructions carefully. Below, you can see two links. Each of these links leads you to a simple question. Please answer the first question, then come back to this page and then answer the second question. Note: Please answer both questions one after the other, so we can get consistent results. Risk Decision Making Question 1 Risk Decision Making Question 2 Shortly, an article will be followed along with the collected results that expands on these surveys, and their results and tells you what the story is all about. Stay tuned

Critical Starting Moves in Risk (Part 1 of 2)

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:46:00 GMT

Risk can be surprising and in the course of a game, you may always have a heart sinking feeling of imminent danger and fall. In fact, this is what makes Risk so exciting. Anyone can win which means even experienced players must be on guard all the time otherwise can easily lose. The opening stages of a game are quite critical. If you start badly or make mistakes, you are very likely to get kicked out and the game and lose. You must pay constant attention to your opponents as well as your own position in comparison with others. The best way to learn opening moves is by example. Let s consider the following game. This game is played on a non-Earth map. The card sequence is escalating which means that the rate goes up by 2 every time someone cashes a set. We are going to analyse this game in an abstract way, so don t worry too much about the details. Assume that similar to the Earth map, the bigger the continent or the higher the number of its borders, the more bonuses you get. Assume you are Red and the map above was the starting position. What would you do?

What can You Learn from the Mongol Invasion? (Part 1 of 2)

Ehsan Honary — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:42:00 GMT

History has many lessons to teach us and when it comes to strategy and you can get a lot of insight from it. In 1218, Khwarezm was a prosperous empire covering modern day Iran and Afghanistan. Shah Mohammad II ruled from his wealthy capital of Samarkand. At this time, the Mongols on his East approached him to make a deal on reopening the Silk Road. This would bring even more wealth, to the empire so Shah agreed to it. Later, Mongols sent an envoy to buy expensive gifts for their court from the empire. Shah suspected the convoy as spies and killed them all. Genghis Khan, leader of Mongols responded by sending their ambassador to the Shah requesting an apology. Shah did not consider the Mongols as an equal power, so he was outraged by a request to apologise. He had the ambassador killed as a symbolic move to show that he was in charge of a superior empire. Naturally, this meant war.

Grand Startegy: Lose Battles But Win the War

Ehsan Honary — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:34:00 GMT

The classic definition of grand strategy is purposeful employment of all instruments of power available to secure a community . In other words, it is your ultimate plan to win. In Risk, this can boil down to the following: What is it you want to do and how do you want to do it? The ultimate goal in a classic Risk game is always very clear; conquer the whole world. This makes it relatively easy at first look, but is it that simple? Remember, in real life if you ever come to conquer the whole known world, you may not be too bothered about what happens the next time the world in conquered. You will not live to see it because these events happen so rarely (if at all) and last for a long time when they do that the question may not matter. However, your ultimate goal in Risk is not just to win one game, but to win repeatedly . This is your ultimate goal which you must consider when you are formulating your grand strategy. Grand strategy has been discussed extensively in history by the likes of Clausewitz and followed meticulously in major recent events such as World War II and the Cold War. Grand strategy has the following main five principles. You must implement as many as you can in your grand strategy to be successful and get best results.

How to Get the Most from Your Negotiations

Ehsan Honary — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:04:00 GMT

While playing Risk, quite often you may find yourself negotiating with other players. Negotiation is a skill that can prove extremely useful when you want to avoid direct conflicts and save your armies and resources for better use later in the game. However, negotiations can be tough. Some people ignore them altogether. Others actively argue that there is no need to negotiate or make deals with other players because these deals can be broken. These player find negotiation difficult and as such either avoid it or to try to justify their negativity philosophically. Remember, negotiation is just another tool. You are not forced to use, nor do you have to avoid it exclusively. Just be good at it and when the right circumstances arise, use the tool to get ahead of others. Most people learn how to negotiate in the field without much systematic training. There are many established guidelines to follow for better results, though many still fall to the trap of old ineffective approaches. Consider the following example negotiation

Assertive Risk Play

Ehsan Honary — Sat, 23 May 2009 07:36:00 GMT

When playing Risk, you can generally adopt three kinds of strategies; passive, aggressive or assertive . Each of these has its own style of play and has certain consequences. It is well known that in order to successfully communicate with others, you need to be assertive and this also applies to Risk as well. However, what does it mean to be assertive? How can you optimise your strategy to take advantage of the benefits of assertiveness? In this article you will be introduced to the APA model ( Assertive, Passive Aggressive ) and explore various issues and parameters that you must be aware of when you are dealing with other Risk players.

Reverse Intimidation

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:44:00 GMT

Risk is all about attacking and that s what you do most of the time in this game. However, as you know, direct attacks are costly and over time come to erode your armies. Some players are naturally more aggressive than others and usually pick on the weak and vulnerable intending to eliminate them. What should you do if you find yourself in a position where you are threatened by a stronger player? Should you keep a low profile and hope for the best? Should you go for a direct attack and hope you get lucky? What is the best strategy to contain a stronger player and extend your life in the game?

Is it Better to Attack or Defend?

Ehsan Honary — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:54:00 GMT

Throughout history, various military strategists in different cultures have noticed an unusual phenomenon: in battle the side that was on the defensive won in the end. Why should this be the case? Does this apply to Risk as well? Based on history, is it truly better to defend rather than attack? How about the other famous aphorism that Attack is the best defence ? Aren t these contradictory? To answer these questions we need to look at attack and defence in more detail and examine the human psychology that dictates certain behaviours that will eventually lead to one choice or the other. Attack and defence are like two sides of a coin. They each have advantages and disadvantages. Like many questions examining two possible solutions, you may have to use one or the other in specific situations as the ultimate choice. However, the general question remains as to which method is the preferred default choice.

If Obama Played Risk...

Ehsan Honary — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:20:00 GMT

Imagine, one afternoon, by some magical coincidence you find yourself in a room where a number of players are gathered around a world map, playing Risk. What s unusual about this game is that the players are not ordinary people like me and you. They are in fact the heads of states of some of the most influential countries in the world and they have gathered together in the UN to play it out , over a Risk game. Imagine the new president of USA, Barak Obama, is in charge of the US player while other corresponding heads of states are present as shown below. Europe USA South America Middle East China Japan Africa (Rules: using escalating cards and connected fortifications) You are an excited observer and can t wait to see what happens next and how it will all play out especially since a new person is now in charge of one of the most powerful continents.

Don't Fight the Last War! Part 3 of 3

Ehsan Honary — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:05:00 GMT

This is the last part of the 3-part series. As you saw earlier, many players suddenly made bold moves and expanded in different directions. The cards meant that the game was unstable and anything could happen. Here is how the world looked like.

Don't Fight the Last War! Part 2 of 3

Ehsan Honary — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:58:00 GMT

As you saw in Part 1 of this example scenario, Brown had a dilemma and needed a compromise. This is how the world looked like. Follow with this example to see what happened next.

Don't Fight the Last War! Part 1 of 3

Ehsan Honary — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Every now and then I come across Risk games that stand out in memory for a long time simply because of the way they unfolded and provided sheers entertainment. The following is the story of one of these games. The game captures the essence of timely decision making. In Risk, players need to be robust and continuously recalculate their position in respect with others. Unfortunately not all do, and as you may imagine this will cost them the game. In effect, they fight their last war and get eliminated! The following example will illustrates this beautifully. This is the first part of a 3-part series. You are encouraged to suggest solutions. A few days later, the next part will be published and you can all compare your potential solutions with what actually happened.

Looking Deeper: What Goes on in a Risk Game?

Ehsan Honary — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:04:00 GMT

All of us have experienced Risk games that have gone smoothly. We also have experienced games that haven t gone that smoothly at all despite our good initial positions or fortunes. What happened in these games that we ended up losing so badly, especially if we were still using the same strategy as in our other games? Is it just bad luck, or is something more sophisticated going on? Risk is a game of politics. To win you need to be able to influence the opinion of others. Of course good players are good at this, so when you are playing against them, anything goes; manipulations, deception, vague remarks, fuzzy justifications, you name it, it s all there. There is always more to see than just the map in front of you. If you only rely on the map and the armies placed on it, you are limiting yourself from all that you can use to make good strategic judgements. So, what more is there to see? The answer is motivation . It is other players desires, wants and needs. If you can work this out you will be much more prepared for what is to come. There is indeed an elegant phrase that captures the essence of this.

How can you Stop a Rumour?

Ehsan Honary — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:09:00 GMT

You won! You just keep winning. You must be a great player if not the best. It wasn't easy. Some players in your view were just plain bad. You had some arguments with some other players in the game, but you don't think of it much. You think it's just part of the game. Sometime later, you go back to the online forum only to discover that there is a whole amount of conversation going on about you from certain players who did not approve of what you did or said in the game. In effect they are spreading rumours about you and your character and trying to destroy your reputation. As you know, winning Risk repeatedly is all about reputation and any damage to that will have all sorts of serious consequences for you when you are online next time to play. So you need to be able to control the rumours. The question is, how? The situation is the same if you were not playing the game online. Rumours can spread behind your back and when you get back to your friends next weekend to play with them, you realise (quite late of course) that they have already plotted to remove you from the game, perhaps to teach you a lesson. All of this means that you need to be able to control your reputation and spread of any rumour. Here, you will learn a number of techniques to achieve this.

When Should You Stop?

Ehsan Honary — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:34:00 GMT

As a Risk player you have to deal with many issues in your ongoing strategy. Just about any time in the game, you want to have more and more armies so you can invade more players and get what you have been planing to conquer so that at some point you can win the game. If you are playing with escalating cards (when their value increases over time), you may progressively receive more armies as more cards are cashed. This is the army you have been waiting for. You start invading, capturing and expanding. The question is; when should you stop? In other words, how far should you go before undoing all the advantage you got with the sudden rise in your power. To find the answer we need to look deeper into the problem and what you are actually trying to do.

Risk is Under Attack!

Ehsan Honary — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 05:26:00 GMT

I recently came across an article about Risk with a very critical view of the game. The article attempts to convince the reader that Risk is not a game about strategy or negotiation and that there are better board games out there. The author of the article thinks that Risk is over-hyped and that its popularity should eventually wane and other games taker over it's position. I have listed the challenges here along with the corresponding responses. Do you think these challenges are valid? Please share your thoughts. I am sure if you are a Risk fan, you will have many reasons to believe that Risk is a great game.Where do you think is the true strength of the game? Why has Risk lasted for more than 50 years and is still popular despite the huge rise in more sophisticated computer games? How long do you think Risk will last? Is Risk's popularity declining in the face of increasing entertainment choices?

How to Change a Stubborn Player's Mind

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:03:00 GMT

Sometimes in the course of a Risk game you may come across a player that you need to make a deal with. After all, diplomacy is key and with that you need to engage with other players. Some players are inherently deal-makers and would be interested to listen to you. Others may not be willing at all thinking that deal-making is a waste of time. What can you do to convince them, so at least they give it a try? Even when you negotiate with those who are receptive, you may end up in a dead end where you need to convince them about your idea. What if they are stubborn and unwilling to change? What can you do to move them from the position they have taken to accept yours. It turns out that are indeed a number of techniques you can use to break a stubborn person's stance. They are as follows.

7 Priorities You Need to Think of if You Want to Win Risk

Ehsan Honary — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:32:00 GMT

New players sometimes think that to win Risk they need to work out a winning strategy and follow it every time. The problem with this approach is that it ignores what other players are going to do. You can t say I will do these series of manoeuvres and I will do them no matter what. To win Risk, you need to know how to respond to different situations and to know this you need to know your priorities. Sounds very simple, but you will be amazed how many players don t follow this simple rule. If you ever play online Risk, you are bound to come across many who simply follow a fixed strategy, like Get continents , Go for cards , Just keep growing and so on. These strategies are good but they are too fixed to get you to win the game. You may get by very well in the early stages of the game and then get kicked out not knowing what hit you.

How to Become the Greatest Risk Player of All Time

Ehsan Honary — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:41:00 GMT

Winning Risk isn't really that difficult. You just have to play it a few times, pick on some newbie player and, hopefully, one day it would be your day. You conquer the whole map and feel invincible. Well, at least for a while. Back on that great satisfaction, you want to play again, sometimes with the same people. Of course this time you are marked, and you literally have no chance. Wining Risk once is one thing, winning it over and over again is a whole different issue. The ultimate challenge for a Risk player is to win consistently against the same set of people. Anyone achieving this monumental task should appropriately be called The God of Risk . For the rest of us mortals, we need to focus on our skills to get by. The question is what are the ultimate skills or habits of a highly successful Risk player who can win consistently.

Risk as Portrayed by Risk Enthusiasts

Ehsan Honary — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:20:00 GMT

Risk fans continue to amaze me. They show so much love and dedication for the game and spend quite some time for their hobby. I guess Risk must have a special part in Risk fans psyche and that once you get it you will never let go of it. So I have collected some interesting artwork, videos, posts and articles I have come across for your pleasure. Enjoy ... Have you ever tried to play with your teenage kids. This might seem familiar to you. Hilarious!

Interview With Finanical Times

Ehsan Honary — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 04:04:00 GMT

I was recently interviewed by Financial Times Deutschland for an article they were writing for the Christmas holidays. The holidays are great opportunity for family members to get together and play games. There are many choices of classic board games such as monopoly, scrabble and so on, though between us I am sure we can all agree that there is nothing better than Risk! So naturally, I talked about Risk and gave various strategies on how to play the game in particular with family members. As you know some family members can be more competitive than others (you know who you are!), and playing with them may require a different strategy than playing with less competitive players. The end result was a well written article, Triumph zum Fest or Triumph for celebration . It is in German, so our German readers may like to read the original. For others, here is a translation.

It is Called Risk for a Reason

Ehsan Honary — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:01:00 GMT

You have battled your way through the game. It wasn t easy and you are glad that you have survived. You really want to win. You have now come to a really decisive point. You have an advantage and you don t want to blow it up. End-games in Risk are quite tricky. There is only one winner and when you get to a certain stage, a single mistake or a missed opportunity means you will lose the game and leave the trophy for someone else. Consider the dilemma you may face in the following game where you are playing as Red. You have eliminated a player who was dominant in North America and have cashed in his cards. You have a choice to place armies on the map and carry on with your march. But you want to pause and think for a second. What are your options? How can you make sure that you will win by choosing the best move possible? You don t want to leave it to chance. You want that trophy really badly!