What’s Life without Risk, Da??

The last term at IIM Indore, is as expected – loads of free time, mind numbing boredom.
Sajeev has brainwaves sometimes. At one such instance, he decided to buy a board game called ‘Risk’. It wasn’t like any game I had played before.

The board is essentially the world map, split up into 42 nations. Players first roll the die to determine the highest number rolled, and choose territories to occupy in a clockwise fashion from the highest caster. To indicate occupation, they place a unit on that territory. Risk essentially has 3 army pieces.

1. Infantry – Worth 1 unit
2. Cavalry – Worth 5 units
3. Artillery – Worth 10 units

The pieces themselves only serve to reduce the ‘traffic’ on the map as the game progresses. Once the countries are chosen, the players have a set number of units (20 in the case of a 4 player game) to distribute across their territory. They may choose to concentrate forces at key locations, or chose to spread out and converge at a later point in time.
After the distribution, battle begins. Traditional die roll is used to determine outcomes, with each round consisting of a max of 3 invaders and 2 defenders. Each player uses one die per unit attacking/defending. The highest 2 dice for each are compared, and then the next 2, to determine the winner for each attacker/defender unit pair. The goal is global domination, baby.
Yeah, I felt bored while going thru the rule book too. Anyways, the computer version is much faster and a lot more fun, especially since others can join in over the LAN. As is with all new things, I got Addicted.
I realized when playing with the computer that some major connections on the world map had to be taken. With these junctions defended from atleast one side, there was no stopping me in long run. On the whole, an awesome game to play, and a big waste of time. I take about 20 mins per game, and play for about 4 hours before i'm bored.

Heres the link to the computer version (WARNING : Uber Addictive) :

http://www.janbuurstrasoftware.com/EmpireXP52.msi