ekblaw@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU (10/31/85)
Since we worked so hard to get this notesfile and are now hardly using it,
I figured I'd start up a discussion. Discourses may be sent as responses or
as new notes, but they are to be sent to the notesfile, not to me. Let's
get everybody in on this!
RISK Variants
-------------
Many of us have enjoyed that militaristic game called RISK. I'm sure
that many of us have created our own variations of the game. Mine is known
as 'Militaristic might'. The only provision is that this variant is done over
a period of games instead of just one and it is done among players who know
each other and play the game often as a group.
The basic idea of this variant is to award players who play well with
extra armies at the start of each new game. Within a group of players that
play the game together often, start keeping track of who wins how how many
games. Start awarding one additional army at the start of a new game for each
two victories a player has had in previous games that this group has played.
Also, award a die roll at the conclusion of a player's turn to add one army on
some presently-occupied country of his. This die roll must match the player's
guess ("I want a 5" and a 5 comes up, for instance) and the player may only
roll once a turn for only one country (which is also picked prior to the roll).
Rolls do not accumulate within a game, so if a player doesn't take this option
in the previous turn, he or she may not take two the next turn. This extra
roll is awarded after five victories in previous games.
A group of friends and myself have experimented with this idea for a
few years now and it has been very successful. You might think that one player,after receiving the extra army bonus, would start to win nearly every game, but
that has not the case with us. Of course, we are all fairly evenly matched in
skill, so we can offset this unbalance. What do some of you people feel about
this idea? What are some variants that you use (we've already heard from the
Nuke's out there)?
Robert A. Ekblaw