While Risk isn’t really my game, it was my husband’s birthday and his brother and cousin were visiting, so we spent an evening playing StarCraft Risk. I’m not terribly good at strategy games like this. Something like checkers, no problem. There are only so many moves you and your opponent can make. In a game like Risk with four people… I don’t even want to think about the number of possible moves. I’m also not terribly good when it comes to rolling dice. I know that’s all about probability, but I really think sometimes the dice just hate me.
Mostly I just focused on staying alive and therefore in the game. I didn’t focus on the achievements (achievements = winning), and tried not to worry too much about what other people were doing. I also tried to limit my contact with the other players’ forces. I figured I could handle it if I only had to fight one person, maybe two, but I didn’t want to have to deal with all three of them. So I guess you could say that was my strategy.
The game itself isn’t too difficult to understand. You have get a certain number of fighters, and you fight other players for control of areas (in this case planets). It’s the deciding where to put those fighters and who to fight that gets tricky. There can be a lot of back and forth if you’re trying to control a highly desired area, and it can be easy to spread yourself too thin. You think, “I’m going to try just one more time,” and the other person wipes out your forces.
This almost happened to me. I was so busy fighting on one front, that I forgot about what could happen to all those territories with only one fighter. Surprisingly, the dice decided to pity me, and I managed to pull off a win. I do credit Professor with a part in that. His advice during the game was helpful (most of the time).
Fun side note: I was amused by the moons Pyramus and Thisbe, and only my husband’s brother knew why.