There Are at Least Eight Types of RISK Players

One of the joys of fatherhood is that you can return to those childhood activities you love, but can't do as an adult . . . because doing them as an adult-- alone, unaccompanied by your own children-- would be weird and creepy. Things like going to the zoo. Sledding. Snow ball fighting. Riding a Ripstik. Hanging around elementary school playgrounds in a windowless van. And playing RISK.

I played a lot of RISK as a kid, and I played a lot of RISK in college. As a kid I played the traditional board game, but in college I was lucky enough to have a fraternity brother who possessed  a super-computer. Which looked like this:

It was 1991.

And this fraternity brother was willing to lend out his super-computer just to get it out of his room, because where ever the computer was, the RISK players would soon congregate. And why not? This was so much better than the board game. This was the future. The screen was nine inches on the diagonal; the colors were black, white, and gray; and you often had to squint, BUT you didn't have to worry about sloppy dice, lost pieces, klutzy players, or a sore loser knocking over the board. It looked like this:

Notice the heart pattern in North Africa and the swastika pattern in Venezuela.

I am always looking for holes in the Internet that need filling (insert mom joke here), but when I searched "types of RISK players" I was disappointed to actually find a post on this topic. Once I read the post, I realized that this particular gap in the internet still needs serious filling. 

Andy Brownlow -- and that's very unfortunate if that's your real name -- you may know some things about politics, but I don't think you've played much RISK. 

Brownlow, in his post "The Politics of RISK," lamely divides RISK players into the following categories:

America represents this player. If the Diplomat proves timid and refuses to retaliate after individual opponents attack, they will soon be the feasting ground upon which all other players seek to expand their territories.

America is currently being tested by the four other types of Risk players. I call them:

• Eurasia Dominator (Russia)
• The Behemoth (China)
• The Vassal (Venezuela)
• Australasian Death Marcher (Iran)

Then, after he lauds the merits of being "The Diplomat," Brownlow denigrates all these other methods of Global Domination. I'm not sure he realizes the object of the game of RISK. The object is not diplomacy. It's global domination.

I am on vacation with my family in Chatham, which is a town on the elbow of Cape Cod, and we are having some genuine Cape weather. Foggy and rainy. So I am mired in a game of RISK with my family (though my mother nearly overturned the board last night and we nearly bit her head off).

Despite Mr. Brownlow's hard work on this topic, I'd like to take a shot at categorizing the different kinds of RISK players, but I promise not to be condescending towards the different strategies, as I realize that everyone is trying to win the game. 

The Lucky Roller: this is my wife's role in the current game, and she is controlling Europe simply on the merits of her hot dice. She doesn't even like RISK, and rarely plays. She barely knows the rules. She doesn't know that no one controls Europe this early in the game! The rest of us are a bit sore about this. My eight year old son, a grizzled veteran of exactly two RISK games, said to me: "I think mommy is having first timer's luck." I have to agree with him, but this is a surefire way to win the game, because it all comes down to the dice.

Some pundits say America succeeded for similar reasons; Tyler Cowen calls America's good luck "low-hanging fruit" and I highly recommend his e-pamphlet The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better if you are interested in politics (Mr. Brownlow!) but if you are interested in RISK, then you can skip it. All you need to know is: hot dice defeat all the strategy in the world.

The Juggernaut: this guy keeps his armies very close together and tries not to bother anyone -- he simply wins one battle a round, and collects a RISK card. Once he has enough cards, he finally turns them in and forms one massive army, which he uses for a one-shot attempt to knock someone out of the game for good, thus stealing the defeated players RISK cards. I have used this strategy, which looks a little like a suicide-rampage, and it makes people who are biding their time -- playing diplomatically -- very very angry when you destroy all their handiwork with one death march -- because whether or not you are victorious and wipe out the other player and capture their cards, you have weakened them entirely and set them up for defeat by someone in the next round. It is an all-or-nothing strategy, but it can work. More on this later.

The Dude Who Hangs Out in Australia Amassing Armies and Chastising the Other Players for Not Policing the World:  the master of this strategy was a dude named Bobby C. Once he'd conquered Australia -- and no one fights that hard for Australia -- he'd hole up there, win a quick battle in SouthEast Asia, get his two measly bonus armies, collect his RISK card, and pass his turn. Then he would say, "Hey, you guys better do something about Clarence in Africa. He's going to control the continent if someone doesn't do something." This is a brilliant strategy and I've adopted as my own. I have found it to be very effective, Mr. Andie Brownlow. In fact, I'm wondering if you were often defeated by a player using this tactic, because your tone is unnecessarily demeaning towards this style of play:

The Australasian Death Marcher is a weakened player, similar to the Vassal. He's the one who "kicks the board over" in defeat and ruins the plans of other players. Instead of doing the bidding of another player, he worms his way over to the smallest, easiest to defend, least rewarding territory on the board (Australasia) and builds his army.

Just as other players start to make their move, he combines his reinforcements into one big army and leaves a line of destruction across the board to disable players from earning troop bonuses for holding whole territories. He ensures his own defeat when doing so because he expends all troops in this last, vengeful act.

Brownlow, you confuse what you call "a vengeful act" with a valid tactic. I've never had to "kick the board over" when using this strategy, and I never saw Bobby C. kick over the Macintosh. In fact, he often dominated the globe and won the game. Which is the point, whether you like the method or not.

Yellow Fever: The seven bonus armies for controlling Asia is a tantalizing reward for a difficult task, but in all my years of playing, I've never seen anyone shore up the multiple borders of the largest continent early in the game. My college roommate Jason was close -- he was doing a phenomenal job of fighting off five other players, all encroaching on his empire, and he looked so happy and comfortable doing this -- he was set up in front of the little Apple monitor, wrapped in a heavy comforter, a plate of cheese-fries in his lap, settled in for what he thought would be three hours of tactical fun, and I just couldn't stand it -- plus, I wanted to go for a run -- and so I piled all my armies into North Africa, and ran a juggernaut suicide mission through his carefully placed troops. My self-immolation was well worth it, as his tirade towards me was prolonged and wonderful: he insulted my intelligence, my attention span, my upbringing, and my mother. 

My younger son Ian has a case of the yellow fever, and he's spreading his armies thin, desperately trying to control Asia . . . despite the fact that I flat-out told him: it leads to insanity. Think of the some of the rulers that have come out of that continent . . . Genghis Khan, Hideki Tojo, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, etc. 

Vizzini says it best:

No One Will Notice Me Over Here: this player attempts to "hide" across the Atlantic in North or South America, and the borders of these countries are fairly easy to shore up. My son Alex is taking this route, but these players often forget about Kamchtka (and who can blame them). To play RISK, you've got to remember the words of Sarah Palin: "I can see Russia from my house."

Out of Africa: Mitochondrial Eve came storming out of Africa, and in the ultimate underdog story, a tiny population of homo sapiens burst through this population bottleneck and globally dominated the world. Our species is the ultimate RISK player, and you can mimic our virally global success by hiding your own tribe down in Madagascar, and then bursting into Europe, Asia, or even South America. This strategy works especially well if you're black, because people will let you alone in Africa, for fear of being called prejudiced.

The Pact-Maker/Pact-Breaker (Betrayer/Backstabber) My son Ian approached me after dinner last night, out of earshot of my wife, and said, "Let's gang up on mommy." I agreed to this pact, but he's going to learn a valuable lesson once he's finished knocking her out of Europe.

Mr. Brownlow might not agree with my tactics, but they have been used in RISK games and realpolitik for time immemorial.

The Guilt-Ridden German: eighty years ago, Germans were great at RISK. They were naturals. Now they have trouble bringing the noise. Use this to your advantage. If you are playing someone of German descent, say things like: "Wow, you stormed right through Southern Europe. Do you want to put those conquered armies in the microwave and melt them?" They will fold up inside of themselves, pondering past national crimes, and no longer be a threat in the game.

That's enough of this for now, but if anyone knows any other RISK player types to add to the list, please feel free to describe them in the comments. Unlike Mr. Brownlow, I embrace all types of players, strategies, and tactics. And if you have a problem with this, Brownlow, then I challenge you to an on-line game of RISK, as Richard Loxely has resuscitated the Mac version with what he calls a "Mac Plus emulator."

We'll see how well your diplomacy works against my aboriginal juggernaut.