Help My Game - RISK

calebb writes "RISK is a classic board game that's been around since 1959. This week, Science News posted an article titled 'Improving the Odds in RISK.' They mention that '...the chances of winning a battle are considerably more favorable for the attacker than was originally suspected.' Amazing! Risk is over 40 years old & nobody ever calculated the odds of winning a 5 vs. 5 battle!"

Comments

Re:Confimation

[Andy_R]

This is because of a flaw in the rules. Nowhere in the rules (at least in any version I have seen) does it actually define when a player's turn ends!

If you assume that a player can attack as many times as they like before the, the first player in a 2 player game can always gain an overwhelming advantage before the other player gets to make a move.

Risk is only close to being a balanced game if you put some limit on the length of each turn.

Re:Interesting

[theNote]

This article is bull.

Its says:

For instance, even when the number of attacking and defending armies is equal, the probability that the attacker ends up winning the territory is actually greater than 50 percent, provided that both sides have at least five armies each. The attacker also suffers fewer losses on average than the defender.

This means means you would be rolling 2 attacking and 2 defending dice, but ties go to the defender.
How could that possibly give the attacker an advantage?

The article also flips flops every few paragraphs as to wether it calculates equalness as being the total number of armies in a territory or the number of attcking vs. defending dice.

(This, btw, would make the largest possible number of attacking di 2)

Re:Interesting

[fehlschlag]

Back in the 80's, my cousin and I played Risk all the time, and with the newly acquired knowledge from Statistics class, calculated all the odds for attacking/defending by German rules (allowing up to 3 defender dice, whereas (I think) the US rules anly allowed 2 defenders max).

We found that even 2 defenders vs. 3 attackers gives a small greater than 50% advantage to the defender (mainly due to a tie being won by the defender). 3 defenders vs. 3 attackers was a significant advantage for the defender, statistically (not taking into account sticky dice, or beer spills on the board...).

Of course, if there are more armies involved in the 'war', the statistic advantage has more chance to take effect, so the results of the article are not so surprising.

With this defensive advantage on the dice, and other rules we had to further analyze due to lack of clarification in the skimpy rule book (such as the 'move armies not involved in the fight to an adjacent country'), our strategies evolved into very defensive ones, that made our games last up to 5 hours.

Re:Interesting

[PK_ERTW]

This means means you would be rolling 2 attacking and 2 defending dice

No it doesn't. It means you would be rolling three attacking dice and 2 defending dice. The extra attacker die is what gives the attacker an advantage.

PK

Re:The explanation is in the culture

[Schezar]

"The fun for my friends and I as far as board games go also comes mostly from the social interaction, and almost not at all from the game."

Then why even play the game? Why not just hang out and socially interact? You don't need an excuse to get together with your friends.