I think there have been many valid points made, but there are also many factors that haven't been addressed at all.
In a singles game especially, there is a heavy amount of luck in who your opponents are and what their agendas happen to be. I'm sure you can all recount a myriad of times when a suicider has taken out your chances of winning a game. I once put a bunch of my troops in one spot on a manual game. Before I got a turn, another player destroyed my whole stack. We were both wiped out within a few turns. Sometimes its the guy at the end of a game, in a three-player stand-off who suicides against one or another opponent for no reason other than boredom. Those are more obvious examples, but there are many more. Is it bad strategy when you're trying to build up in a big game and a player decides you're in his way? Many of the human aspects of the game are not usually attributed to luck, but the fact remains that they're often outside of our control. Kind of like poker, your chances of winning any game against more than one person are very low. But for those with good strategy, your chances might be somewhat higher. So the game is far more luck than skill. That's why the payoff has to be significantly bigger than the risk (in terms of points).
Part of the strategy is taking luck factors into account, just as poker players do. People talk about the long run for many games, but there's a long-run within a game as well. Poker players make calculated risks, and over the course of many hands, which make up just one game, their strategy is really just increasing their odds to win. Similarly, though the strategy is completely different, long-term game strategy should increase the odds in your favor, especially where the human element is concerned. People sometimes forget that, just as in poker, Conquer Club is about playing the person, not the dice. Look at your opponents' game history. Different strategy choices have different effects. Being on good terms with opponents can go a long way, whereas bullying tends to fail, though it may have its uses. You counteract your lack of control by talking to your opponents a certain way. Even being silent is a form in and of itself. But there's enough strategy and diplomacy involved to make it more likely for the skilled and perceptive players to win.
Especially this conclusion:
