Personal likings

[Thantos]

When playing with tandard rules with anynumber of players on the classical risk map I like to try and take over austrailia and fortify my Positiobn there as it only has one way in all the while taking defending and gaining cards so as to sweep up and out to Kamchakta over to N. America then work my way from there I normally like to have about 30 troops in indonesia to start my movemnts is this a good stratagy

[hecter]

I just played a game (IRL) where I went and deployed the majority of my in Australia, but I also put some in SA. By the end of the third round, I had both, and a decent amount of guys on an upper territory (Ukraine or Middle East). I ended up slaughtering them.

In terms of your strategy, I don't like it. You sit there and build your guys in Australia before you go on your attack, but if somebody gets a half decent bonus and turn in, you'd get murdered. Not to mention you can't always get to Australia and if you do, there's no guarantee you'll keep it.

[Genghis Khan CA]

Whoa - use sentences man we can understand it better

To answer your question there is no one good strategy - the best strategy is contingent on the type of game played, the drop, the strategy of your opponents and a variety of other factors. To do well you need to be flexible.

Taking a continent like Australia is particularly good strategy in a flat rate game. Personally I hardly ever bother with continents in escalating, although it can be useful depending on the circumstances. Basically your best strategy in escalating is to conserve your armies until the later rounds when you can cash cards and sweep the board Having armies positioned in different parts of the board help to give you options about who to take out.

Anyway good luck - the more you play the more you will develop your strategies

[magneticgoop]

no offense but that is everyone's strategy when you play it for the first time when your ten. the problem is that there is 1 way out, asia. you can almost never hope to hold that. the next best option is africa or NA but you have to go some distance to get there, you had better get a massive bonus or everyone that you are playing with is a total noob to hope to get beyond austrailia

[sharrakor]

I only like to go for Australia if I have two territories in it to start the game. Either that, or at least have Siam and one place in Australia. Otherwise, I stay away from it as much as I can cuz I know that building up in Aussie territory is about the most common strategy there is.

If possible, I attempt to go for South America instead. While having two borders, the Venezuela one is often not important for the first half of the game or so. Usually at the beginning, everyone in North America tends to be very unhinting at what they plan to do, and either they have slight skirmishes that finally lead to full on battle, or they just sorta sit until finally there is nothing else much to do. So in that perspective, South America's much better to have than Australia, where the only exit is the chaotic Asia, which is suicidal to try and battle your way through. Plus, in South America, if you can keep the Brazil/North Africa border under your control, you have yourself access to virtually everywhere else in the map, except for Australia.

So all in all, I prefer South America over Australia. And if at all possible, you could even go for both like Hecter said.

[EdwinG]

magneticgoop has the right interpretation of the situation. It's virtually impossible to advance out of Australia. Personally, I don't make it a point of capturing Australia at any cost, but if I find that I can easily and quickly control Australia in the first couple of rounds then I go ahead and do so. However, once I control Australia, I split the bonus between Indonesia/Siam and another point on the board where I can begin building a second base of operations to expand from. After a few more rounds Indonesia/Siam should be well enough fortified that ALL of my additional armies will go towards this secondary base. Having a couple of bases of operation makes you harder to eliminate. Of course, this strategy needs to be modified depending on the type of game you're playing.

[MeDeFe]

I find Europe is severely underrated. If I hold 3 or 4 territories in Europe at the start of the game I usually go for it. Yes, it has 4 borders, but 3 of those connect, usually noone will go for Asia, so fortifying Ukraina is not so important immediately. Also it takes a while before anyone holds NA, so if you put another 1 or 2 armies on Iceland you're pretty much safe from attacks on that front. Africa and SA on the other hand border each other and both usually get taken early on. With your immediate neighbour distracted you can usually get away with staying 1 or 2 below what he has on North Africa and Egypt. As for Iceland once you hold Europe, build up a backup force on Great Britain or Scandinavia, that will keep anyone in NA from breaking your bonus, at the same time you appear unprovocative and will not become engaged in unnecessary conflicts.

[MeDeFe]

And btw, what do you mean by "standard rules"? Because it seems everyone means something different when they say that.

[Thantos]

In a classic game with escalating cards with adjacent fortifacations with the free-for-all rules

[MeDeFe]

"Free for all" is that freestyle or standard game for world domination?

[KennyC]

I find Europe is severely underrated. If I hold 3 or 4 territories in Europe at the start of the game I usually go for it. Yes, it has 4 borders, but 3 of those connect, usually noone will go for Asia, so fortifying Ukraina is not so important immediately. Also it takes a while before anyone holds NA, so if you put another 1 or 2 armies on Iceland you're pretty much safe from attacks on that front. Africa and SA on the other hand border each other and both usually get taken early on. With your immediate neighbour distracted you can usually get away with staying 1 or 2 below what he has on North Africa and Egypt. As for Iceland once you hold Europe, build up a backup force on Great Britain or Scandinavia, that will keep anyone in NA from breaking your bonus, at the same time you appear unprovocative and will not become engaged in unnecessary conflicts.

I think Europe is underrated as well, but for slightly different reasons. There is a very common school of thought that Europe is too difficult to win from, so very often the continent gets ignored all together especially by higher skilled players. If you go slow and don't overextend yourself, very often you can take the continent uncontended, and then hold it for a strong attack when the time is right. In an escalating game if you hold Europe you are almost always in the perfect position pounce on the weakest opponent to gain their cards from Europe, then keep rolling for the win.

[Molacole]

europe isn't that hard to hold, but it holds your offense back from being able to go on an attacking spree (retaliate from attacks). That is why many skilled players will ignore it and use their armies to supress the stronger players on the board instead. Usually you will see players leave an open lane for S america bonus holder to fight with oceana bonus holder which makes africa a very unappealiing piece of realestate...

That leaves asia and N america up for grabs!

Asia isn't happening so just forget about it.

N america is usally occupied with S america bonus holder using central america (along with north africa) to protect his bonus. I've pulled it off a couple of times, but only after I already knew I was going to win the game... People usually panic and throw everything at you once you pick up anything over a 3 point bonus so a 5 point bonus tends to raise some eye-brows more times than not.


The oceana strategy is a very solid one and I've never lost a game where I was the first person to hold a bonus and that was it.