Saturday, August 9, 2008
Sometimes you have to roll the hard 6
The coming war between Russia and Georgia is futile. I mean, sure, 7 armies per turn sounds great, but Asia's impossible to hold...
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The author:
- David Morris
- San Francisco, CA
- Your friend in time.
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2 comments:
Hah. Nicely parallelled.
That cannot be spelled correctly.
Oh, good. It wasn't. Paralleled.
Dude, you know you didn't even have to reference that Izzard video. Isn't the "Asia cannot be held" theory in the Mega Risk rules?
Actually, I just went and searched the Mega Risk rules, and the funny thing is, the idea that "holding Asia is untenable" is so ingrained that the theory is not explicitly outlined, only referenced as fact in other more contentious theories:
Australia strategy This refers to the strategy of securing Australia as one's "home territory". Australia is the most geographically protected continent, with only one front (Siam) that acts as a bottle-neck and is easily defended. Moreover, the continent it borders, Asia, is virtually never held by any player, and so the Australia-Asia border is seldom in contention. Asia also acts as a buffer: if a player holding some continent besides Asia wants to attack, the player must make the long journey through Asia to do it. And players seldom have the time and resources to do that. On another note, the more players that are in the game, the more valuable Australia becomes. This is because 1) the player holding Australia does not, as the other players do, have constant and intense jockeying over borders, and 2) the two armies that Australia receives become more significant, because the more players there are, the smaller is the size of each player's forces. It is a fairly uncontroversial truism that, in any RISK game, Australia will be taken by a player, and this player will hold Australia until the end (that is, until he/she either wins or surrenders). This fact might be referred to as the Australia constant. It is not known what percentage of the time the player with Australia wins, but some conjecture that it is a crucial element to victory, especially in games with more than three players.
...
Summer strategy This is a strategy, conceived by Carlos in the summer at Ambassador, in which the main goal is not to hold a continent but to hold a large number of territories, usually in Asia. This method of producing armies allows the player to be more flexible and to avoid costly border wars. If done correctly, it can yield very good results, because it tends to use armies more efficiently and it is difficult for an enemy to interfere with army production. Instead of "breaking" a continent with a single battle, an enemy must keep up a sustained attack against the player, making sure to take more territories than the player accumulates. All the while, the enemy's force is taken further and further away from its home base, and the army spreads thinner as it leaves behind armies to hold territories it has taken. Moreover, these territories that the enemy takes can be easily taken back. It ends up being a costly, time consuming attack that few attempt. It is in a player's best interest, if he/she employs summer strategy, to keep from being shut out of various regions in the beginning of the game--the player must rely on the option of 'relocating'--suddenly shifting to a remote location and loading it with armies to 'explode' like a virus somewhere else. Conversely, if fighting someone using the summer strategy, it is wise to eliminate any random territories the enemy might have lingering in a region that is important to you. However, even a good player employing summer strategy cannot stand up to a player who has secured enough continents to outproduce him. Therefore it is imperative for the player to closely monitor the political situation and to put him/herself in a position to break the continents of players who threaten to flex balls and take over for good. On a slightly different note: summer strategy is often used as a strategy of last resort, when a player's continent is broken and in flight. On more than one occasion such a player has managed to survive and reemerge as a world power once again. Also, it is worth noting that summer strategy acts as a viable substitute for the problem of holding Asia. It is almost impossible to hold Asia and get all seven armies; but if one were to employ summer strategy and hold just the Asian Column and its adjacent territories, the army production from the number of territories alone is equal to the army bonus from holding Africa. NOTE: Summer strategy is sometimes opposed to Classical or Continental strategy, in which the player aims to produce armies by securing continents.
I really like how a high-brow pop culture reference that people like to make is, "Well, he obviously didn't play enough Risk as a child... Hahaha!"
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