When I was 18 or 19 I was kind of friends with this guy and one day he tells me that he bought a second hand Risk board game at this market thing they used to have at a park on weekends where I was living at the time. I had never heard of the game and he described it by saying that rich guys like Donald Trump play it. Which is funny. I think I had seen the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman are playing it but I had never seen the game or played it and didnt remember it was called Risk. So we used to play it pretty regularly for a while and he beat me a couple of times but mostly I would kick the %$%$ out of him. I was pretty good at Risk right away. And I really liked the game.
So years later I bought the Risk video game on Steam and I played it a bit but the computer AI on expert is an idiot so its really not worth playing because its too easy. Years after that I found the online Risk game on Google Play and that was when I really enjoyed Risk the most because I could play against worthy opponents. It wasnt until I played Risk online that I got to know how much strategy a game can involve and how important every turn can be. Its easy to throw a game away on one stupid mistake if you are playing against good competition. And you can feel like a real idiot if you make a stupid mistake - especially if you make that stupid mistake late in a very long game.
So I got myself to the rank of Grandmaster on the Google Play Risk which is actually not that hard. But at the same time I would say that I am a pretty good Risk player at this point.
You can get a lot of interesting storylines play out in a game of Risk online. For example you often get a scenario where one player is in a dominant position and there are two other players left - and if you have or form an alliance with that player you could work together to defeat the dominant player but to do so you may have to leave yourself open to an attack by your ally. And your ally may choose to attack you due to the fact that the top two players get rank points from the game so your ally may decide to double cross you and go for second place. You should never trust an ally in Risk - especially at expert and grandmaster level - double crossing your ally at the right point is all part of the game after all - but at the same time scenarios do arise where a player can choose between making a move that one could consider to be honourable or dishonourable in my opinion. The way I see it there isnt a lot of honour in double crossing an ally to secure second place.
I prefer fixed cards rather than progressive and I like to play the classic map the most. And I really like to play with blizzard mode on and fog of war with no alliances if I host a game. I also really like to play Capital Risk.
Anyway - any of you guys play Risk? How do you like to play? Progressive or fixed? What maps do you like? Fog or war fans?
If you are wanting to get into Risk or even if you play it already this guy ChampionEver has a good Risk channel on youtube and he has videos worth watching. He is good. He is pretty funny too -