Games of Skill and Chance IV: "Much must be RISKed in war"

Possibly the most compelling overarching mechanism in modern board games is the modular or shifting board, in which the physical game board contains a different arrangement every single game.  This makes for a wonderfully unique game every time.  This is in great contrast to classic board games like Monopoly, Life, or RISK, where the game board is fixed and identical every single time.  While this can make for some excellent statistics and game theory, it often gets boring really fast.  As we discussed last time, RISK is a particularly egregious example, and not only is the map of the world fixed, it happens to be super boring for the way the game is played.

What can you do?  Stop playing?  Screw you and everybody who stops playing games like you!  The advantage RISK has over other classic games is that it is played on a literal map.  You may not have checked recently, but it turns out there are two or three other maps out there.  You can actually now find many RISK games (including computer games) that use smaller real-world maps, such as Europe and North America.  These are actually pretty fun, for exactly the reason that classic RISK gets boring.  They don't quite do enough, though--and they don't take advantage of the even better source of awesome maps our culture has given us: fantasy novels.

"Much must be RISKed in war"

You know where this is headed.  In fact, I'm not even going to say its name.  I'm just going to show you the map.  If you don't recognize it, I'll wait while you go watch and read.  Actually, I might watch with you, that's a worthwhile wait.

This map is beautiful and iconic (if probably not geographically reasonable).  The marketing wizards behind it turned it into this fantastic RISK variant:

Holy Zombie Savior who is 33% of the Almighty is that gorgeous!  Even if they hadn't changed another damn thing, this map would have reignited our passion for RISK for at least a few games.  The other things they added will give you years of new entertainment and family squabbles.  Let's dive right in to the things that make this game great.  If Google would've let me use swords instead of bullets, I would have here.

• The bland strategy of faceless, choiceless armies really drags regular RISK down.  LOTR: RISK spices this up by giving each player a Leader who joins one army and gives you +1 to your top roll on either attack or defense.  This benefit is a remarkable tilt to strategy and makes you really pay attention to where you want to expand--and where it looks like your opponents are going to expand.
• You see all those little city things on the map?  Those are Sites of Power, and the players have cards that direct them to bring a Leader to one of them in exchange for a bonus of cards or armies.  They're like little mini-missions that force you to engage with other players rather than hunkering down once you've secured the Shire's borders like so many Striders.
• You see that some of them are gold and shiny?  Those are Strongholds, which are just like Leaders that can't move.  This is also a wonderful idea.  Nothing is better than only having one Elf left in Helm's Deep and watching as ten thousand Orcs flail wildly against your walls, dying again and again as you roll just high enough for your +1 bonus to allow you to endure to roll again.  If only Saruman had sent one of those thinking Orcs along.  This is so realistic and was desperately missing from RISK, which gave only one bare advantage to defenders.
• This game has a time limit.  You can still win by conquering everyone, but I don't know if I've ever seen it happen.  Instead, the Fellowship (symbolized by a shiny gold ring) slowly moves across the map until it reaches Mount Doom and the game ends.  There are a few places where you have to roll to see if Frodo makes it past a giant spider or something, and a few cards that let you affect him, but otherwise his march is inexorable, and the point-counting system is straightforward and fair.
• The production on this game is amazing.  The map speaks for itself, and the card artwork is right out of one of the most aesthetic movies in modern cinema.  Plus, the game includes two complete sets of Elves/riders of Rohan/eagles and Orcs/black riders/Trolls, which are durable plastic and really add something to the activity of lining all your forces up ready to be deployed to the map.  These figures kick the balls out of the little infantry with guns, not to mention whatever the little Roman numeral things you got with really old editions.
• The map has mountains and rivers that you can't move across, which are a necessary addition given that everything happens on one continent rather than spread over the whole world.  If you think about it, they're a much more realistic barrier than the ocean, which if you already have the ships would kind of let you go wherever you want.  This game still has a few port-to-port attacks, so it doesn't really solve that problem, but it's also not really a problem that needs to be solved--area movement is what it is.
• The cards in regular RISK are an important, underlooked, and still boring part of the game.  This version still has those cards, but it also has an array of other cards (like the Site of Power missions) that let you do a potentially broad set of cool stuff.  Just like the normal cards, you have to actually do some attacking if you want to get these cards, which really provokes actual action.  Google won't let me do mini-bullets to describe what the cards do so it's number time:

1. You can get some extra armies or Leader bonuses, either on attack or defense
2. Remember those mountains that get in the way?  There's a couple cards that let you attack under them, which is absolutely perfect and frustrating.
3. There's rivers, right?  That means there's bridges.  Remember the famous bridge, the one that Gandalf smites?  Yeah, there's a card for that.  And yes, it's name is "You shall not pass."
4. Get an extra Leader!  Leaders are the best, and yes you have to name your Leaders no you shouldn't pick Legolas you monster.
5. Is it possible for random Ents to attack Isengard and kill everyone you thought was safely ensconced in Orthanc?  Does Treebeard poop in the woods?

Yes, this version of RISK still has some of the classic game's problems.  Namely, you can still go on the rampage of doom.  In fact, with a Leader and some good cards, you can rampage even more effectively--and sometimes you have to, because you really want to get Aragorn to Erech so he can summon the badass Army of the Dead.  Of course, other people have cards that can stop you, don't they?  The free move problem is pretty much the same (there's a few cards to help, but those are random and there's no systematic fix).  Honestly, though, that's about it.  The Regions are really well-calibrated, with the same spread as classic RISK but much more balance in terms of how easy different regions are to attack.  The Strongholds really help even things out.  There's also two versions of the game, one with an expanded map.  The extra regions, especially Mordor, can be a little min/max-y and give you back that Australia feel, but it's by no means the gamebreaker that the Outback is.  Yes, now I've given you haunting dreams of goblins with shrimp on the barbie.

Even with a few holdover problems, this game stayed fresh for like five years.  Next time, we'll talk about a round of modifications and additions we made to extend it even farther as we dive into the fun intricacies of game making you all came here for.

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