[HN Gopher] Win at Risk by using systems thinking
___________________________________________________________________
Win at Risk by using systems thinking
Author : AndyMPatton
Score : 325 points
Date : 2021-06-12 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thesystemisdown.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thesystemisdown.substack.com)
| avereveard wrote:
| there's about 3 levels of strategic play:
|
| a player can follow the rules
|
| a player can find the optimal strategy within the rules
|
| a player can use the rules to find plays that negate easy access
| to the optimal strategy to the enemy
|
| this whole article is mostly stuck at level 2, it identifies a
| workable strategy analyzing a player own options, missing all the
| more advanced plays that a risk player should know and will need
| to do to win.
|
| moreover, there's one critical flaw in the analysis, the goal is
| not to reach your objective, the goal is to reach your objective
| _before_ other players do, and the time limit influences the risk
| taking; turtling, as suggested here, rarely wins games.
|
| anyway, risk itself is a insanely complex games, so I'll skip
| mechanics, which are kind of covered in the article (except
| combination optimization, which is weird since mechanically
| speaking it is one major factor driving gameplay) and go at the
| jugular of the issue:
|
| you win at risk guessing other people goals and making moves that
| confound your own or even let player think your goal is one of
| those of your adversaries. mechanically suboptimal moves, like a
| push into a continent you don't have to conquer but one of your
| enemy does, will trigger player response, and strategically
| turning player against each other will both buy you time and
| reduce the enemy placing too many reinforcements against your
| actual goal path.
| cbsmith wrote:
| There's a fourth level: a player who can use the rules to find
| plays that negate easy access to the optimal strategy to a
| player who can use the rules to find plays that negate easy
| access to the optimal strategy to the enemy. ;-)
| I-Robot wrote:
| Title: "How To Win At Risk Every Time By Using Systems Thinking"
|
| Last paragraph: "The above strategy works "on paper," but that
| doesn't mean that it will work in your next game of Risk."
|
| Too funny. Totally discounts the title... smh
| skmurphy wrote:
| I think the analysis is deeply flawed because classic Risk 3:2
| odds favor the attacker see http://diceroll.stritar.net/risk.html
|
| Attacker wins: 2890 (37.17%)
|
| Tie: 2611 (33.58%)
|
| Defender wins: 2275 (29.26%)
|
| out of a total of 7776 for 5 dice rolled (3 on 2)
|
| On average defender loses 1.08 armies and attacker loses .92 for
| a 0.16 defender deficit per attack. When two large groups face
| each other (e.g. 20 on 20 or more) it's much better to be the
| attacker.
| radley wrote:
| Win at Risk simply by going first. The first player always wins
| through attrition.
| rdubs333 wrote:
| That is kinda like MTREES.io
| j4yav wrote:
| It feels like there is a really big, unexplained jump from the
| principles provided to the strategies that are shared.
| oever wrote:
| AlphaZero could not beat humans at Risk half a year ago:
|
| http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1514096/FULLTEXT0...
| notjustanymike wrote:
| Pretty long article to advocate for turtling
| flixic wrote:
| Or, just play Diplomacy. No dice rolling at all! And stories of
| backstabbing I can remember for years.
| riantogo wrote:
| For Risk a better way is to apply Strategic Thinking. The
| difference bring, while you might fully control all parts of your
| system (bathtub) you can't fully control the market
| (competitors).
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| In our gaming group, we decided Risk just isn't that good of a
| game. It's old and clunky and extremely long, there are 100 other
| better board games now. Our main plays have been Dominion, DnD,
| Gloomhaven, Wingspan, and Crokinole, all of which we greatly
| prefer.
| distances wrote:
| > It's old and clunky and extremely long, there are 100 other
| better board games now.
|
| And to just put this into numbers, BGG ranks Risk on position
| 19,955. By this ranking there are just shy of twenty thousand
| games better than Risk. And I agree, I will never play Risk
| again as it's not worth the time with the competition today.
| j1elo wrote:
| _Risk Legacy_ (2011) is ranked in position 368. So if that
| list is of any use, then this variation of the classic Risk
| must be immensely better!
|
| To be honest I'm curious. The description of the game seems
| to imply that the game itself changes every time you play it,
| because some of the cards used should then be destroyed and
| thrown away from the game box, never to be used again. That,
| and the game concept covers complete campaigns, not only
| discrete games that you play once and then forget about it:
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/105134/risk-legacy
| deadbunny wrote:
| Basically the game has packets with instructions like "open
| on game 3" or "open the first time an army is defeated".
| These packets then have things like extra cards, new rules,
| new marks for the board.
|
| Speaking of which there are marks you put in the board for
| different victory conditions, like you can "own" a
| continent whicheans in future games if you own that
| continent you and only you get a bonus. Same with naming a
| country or buffing a country so it has a permanent +1 army.
|
| If you have enjoyed Risk previously and have a group of
| friends that you can continually play with I'd highly
| recommend it. It can still work with mixing in new people
| but half the fun is the shared history and friendly
| rivalries between game sessions.
|
| Also there is a certain feeling when you tear up game
| pieces (or burn them as the winner in our case).
| gowld wrote:
| Do people actual follow those Legacy game rules that try to
| trick you into destroying the game?
| deadbunny wrote:
| You're not destroying the game, your changing future
| playthroughs. Sure you tear up cards but those get
| replaced with new ones. You change the gameboard, rules,
| factions every time you play meaning every subsequent
| game is different.
|
| If you play with the same people it makes those
| (hopefully friendly) rivalries across play sessions have
| weight and maybe even consequences.
|
| Sure you might only get 2 dozen games out of it before
| you've "completed" it and need a new copy but this isn't
| the 80s where people have a choice of Risk, Monopoly, and
| Cludeo. 2 dozen games can last years, if not decades.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| Not a good board game, but actually very decent on mobile. Me
| and my friends have played many rounds in the train or car.
| x3iv130f wrote:
| Smallworld is a great Risk alternative. It polishes all the
| best points while avoiding the pitfalls.
|
| DnD 5E is like the Risk of tabletop RPGs. Just sort of long and
| meandering without much going on.
|
| Shadow of the Demon Lord, Torchbearer, and Mythras Classic
| Fantasy are better alternatives depending on what level of
| crunch you enjoy.
| simonh wrote:
| Dungeon World scratches the itch for me, if I'm going to play
| anything that looks at all like D&D. There's been a huge
| renaissance in TTRPGs for over a decade now though, powered
| by cheap DTP and PDF publishing.
| qznc wrote:
| The creator of Dungeon World is a big fan of Burning Wheel.
| He has a video where he explains why it is great:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E79DDGdX62I
|
| His point is that game mechanics reveal what a game is
| really about. Using this classification: DnD is about
| fighting monsters. Dungeon World is about worldbuilding.
| Burning Wheel is about character development.
|
| Since people are different, this might help to find the
| right one.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > DnD 5E is like the Risk of tabletop RPGs. Just sort of long
| and meandering without much going on.
|
| That's...highly table dependent, even assuming the same set
| of rules options are in place. And I'm not just saying that
| whether it feels that way is a matter of subjective taste
| (which is also true), but that the objective qualities of
| play depend very much on the particular group at the table.
| That's true of TRPGs in general, but its true of some TRPGs
| more tha others, and D&D5E is relatively unopinionated
| (though not so much as, say, GURPS) while some more focussed
| games zero-in on a more-specific playstyle.
| meristohm wrote:
| Luke Crane helped make The Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, and
| Mouse Guard, in descending order of complexity. The latter
| uses David Petersen's (Peterson's?) comix-IP as setting and
| focuses on "what do you fight for?" Despite that phrasing it
| doesn't hinge on bloodshed, since challenges are weather,
| nature, other mice, and ? (it's been awhile), and can be a
| game for young kids as well as teens and adults.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| To be fair, we're in a golden age of table top games. I really
| love Dominion and Inn Fighting. If you can find a copy of Inn
| Fighting, you'll learn to love its shortcomings because of its
| rapid pace, dynamic battles, and comic theme.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| OK someone explain the downvotes?
| whiddershins wrote:
| Risk takes forever because setting up and rolling dice takes
| forever. Same with Axis and Allies.
|
| The moment you put it on a computer it becomes fairly fast and
| ... actually most of the gravitas goes away.
|
| One person's opinion.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Similarly with digital Monopoly. It also defaults to having
| no "house rules" that do nothing but make the game take
| longer. You can finish a game of electronic monopoly in 20
| min. Since the games are shorter the stakes aren't as high
| and it doesn't feel bad to lose.
| wiz21c wrote:
| Are wargames (simulation of real battles) still a thing ?
| smogcutter wrote:
| Absolutely! Command and Colors for example is a popular
| contemporary system (for some definition of popular that
| includes wargaming).
|
| The old school Avalon hill style hex and counter wargames
| have mostly been replaced by computer games, though. For
| obvious reasons.
|
| Tabletop miniature wargames are also still going strong,
| probably more so than board wargaming. Although the
| historical side of the hobby is definitely aging compared to
| fantasy/sci-fi themed gaming.
| msg wrote:
| Definitely, although the quality of life goes way up with a
| computer doing admin.
|
| There was a weekly column at Rock Paper Shotgun that covered
| them (and adjacent stuff like simulation), and lately the
| writer has taken up residence at a new URL.
|
| https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/the-flare-path
|
| https://tallyhocorner.com/
| qznc wrote:
| Yes there are better games than Risk. That holds for
| practically all old games. For example, I don't consider chess
| a good game. With good players, it usually ends in a draw which
| is unsatisfying.
| epr wrote:
| The draw rate for the vast majority of players is less than
| 10%. Only at the highest level do you see most games ending
| in a draw. If anything the draws make it a less exciting
| spectator sport, especially for the average person.
| iratewizard wrote:
| With grand masters games are more likely to end in a draw.
| Partially because they need to maintain their sponsorships,
| partially because of how most tournaments are setup.
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| Chess no longer allows draws, and the rules have been updated
| earlier this year.
|
| https://www.chess.com/news/view/breaking-official-rules-
| of-c...
| someperson wrote:
| That was an April Fools joke.
| davedx wrote:
| Gloomhaven scenarios take _way_ longer than one game of Risk
| IME. Actually one of its weak points...
| jader201 wrote:
| Game length and fun are not directly correlated.
|
| I can spend 4-5 hours playing a good board game, and enjoy it
| immensely and go back to it anytime.
|
| Risk is not a great game regardless of length of play. Sure
| it's enjoyable playing on PC, but there are still many more
| enjoyable games tabletop or PC.
|
| This is true, for me at least, due to the fact that it's
| fairly shallow plus it involves too much luck. I enjoy deeper
| games that are less reliant on luck (though I still enjoy
| games with some luck/randomization).
| slothtrop wrote:
| > Game length and fun are not directly correlated.
|
| Not everyone has time for 5 hours of "fun". Let alone when
| games like Gloomhaven are best played on a consistent basis
| until it's completed.
| emsy wrote:
| It's also highly dependent on Luck and gambling is dumb.
| Groxx wrote:
| I've found I actually enjoy Risk when played on the computer.
| Just speeding up army placements and automating the dice rolls,
| so you can say "attack until N remain", saves an _unbelievable_
| amount of time.
| grasshopperpurp wrote:
| Speaking of games that are much quicker in electronic format,
| the Star Realms app works great for me, and it's my GF's
| favorite game. She plays it every day.
| fridif wrote:
| oh believe me, i can believe it
| awillen wrote:
| oh believe me, I believe you
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| What does "old" matter to whether a game is good or not? And
| regardless, are you sure you're not expressing ubiquitous
| consumerism or ageism?
|
| ~50 BP - Othello
|
| ~50 BP - DnD
|
| ~60 BP - Risk
|
| ~60 BP - Diplomacy
|
| ~70 BP - Stratego
|
| ~100 BP - Contract bridge
|
| ~200 BP - Mahjong
|
| ~200 BP - Double twelve dominoes
|
| ~600 BP - Playing cards
|
| ~1300 BP - Chess
|
| ~2500 BP - Wei Qi (Go)
|
| ~5000 BP - Checkers / draughts
|
| ~5000 BP - Backgammon
| cableshaft wrote:
| There's a lot of obsession with 'new games are better'
| amongst modern board gamers that they overlook what's good
| about the classics and why they are still here today.
|
| I admit I was kind of the same way at first, plowing through
| hundreds of modern games and mostly ignoring older games, but
| if you take another look at the classics there's some real
| gems there. A few other excellent games you don't mention are
| Shogi (500 BP), Cribbage (420 BP), Fanorona (340 BP),
| Crokinole (150 BP), and Acquire (60 BP).
|
| Although IMO, Double 6 dominoes is where it's at, not double
| 12. "All Fives" Dominoes and Partnership Dominoes are highly
| underrated amongst modern gamers, imo.
| jlc wrote:
| I love domino games. I used to play a lot of two-hand sniff
| (or muggins -- lots of variants). For me there's something
| aesthetically pleasing about games that use generic gaming
| equipment -- dominoes, cards, pawns, etc.
| [deleted]
| neogodless wrote:
| One of my favorite games of social deduction is Skull. I
| got the $10 version but it's based on a very old Skull &
| Roses game. The simplicity is deceiving, which you quickly
| realize as you have to make meaningful, difficult choices
| about your bluffs and bets.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Skull has more going on for it than it seems like it
| should for its super simple components, but at the same
| time I only ever seem to play it with 6 players, and the
| game feels to me like it outstays its welcome after about
| 20-30 minutes and those 6 player games always seem to
| take 45 minutes to an hour to play out, at least with the
| various groups I've played it with. I'm usually pretty
| bored by the end of it.
|
| Coup, while more complicated, is a similar game that
| never seems to last that long, even with 6 players
| (usually closer to 10-15 minutes for that).
| neogodless wrote:
| Skull, unlike modern European-influenced games, doesn't
| keep everyone in it until the end. But I think I prefer
| 4-5 players.
| meowster wrote:
| What is "BP"? I tried searching the Inernet but couldn't find
| it.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It normally refers to a timescale called "Before Present"
| where Present is defined as = Jan 1, 1950. You see it a lot
| in radio- dating. GP has invented their own dating system
| with the same name based around ~2021.
|
| Fun fact, there's no corresponding After Present system for
| dates after 1950. Instead you subtract negative years. E.g.
| 1957 AD = -7 BP.
| kens wrote:
| That's interesting. The creation date for Dungeons and
| Dragons (1974) would be -24 BP then.
| augustk wrote:
| Talking about abbreviations:
|
| https://blog.mitchjlee.com/2020/your-writing-style-is-
| costly
| AQXt wrote:
| Before Present? (Just guessing)
| beaconstudios wrote:
| My guess is "before present", not sure why you wouldn't use
| BCE/CE though.
| ysavir wrote:
| BP (when properly explained) emphasizes that the
| important aspect of the timeline is its relativity to the
| current time.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| BP conventionally being relative to an epoch date of 1
| Jan 1950, which is at an ever increasing distance from
| the actual present, is something of an issue (and while
| "before actual present" is useful, using BP for it, given
| the conventional use, is problematic.)
|
| "ya" (years ago) as a suffix is better, in that it
| doesn't have a conventional use with a particular epoch
| date.
| mLuby wrote:
| So it saves 2 characters compared to ###y ago but
| requires an explanation. 2500 BP
| 2500y ago
| ysavir wrote:
| Agreed, I was explaining a contrast to using BC/BCE.
| rjknight wrote:
| "ya" is an equally short abbreviation for "years ago".
| mLuby wrote:
| I've never see that before so I'd have to look it up just
| like BP.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I can see why it makes sense in archaeology, but using it
| here without any explanation just led to confusion.
| Everybody knows BC/AD (or BCE/CE if you're wanting to be
| cross cultural) so using it is just poor communication in
| this case.
| gowld wrote:
| It's trivial to Google and then we are part of today's
| 10,000.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Yes we can easily Google "BP".
| aflag wrote:
| What does BP mean in this context?
| TchoBeer wrote:
| Newer games are made with the knowledge of older games, so
| theoretically they should be better. I'd argue they are on
| average, but there's also the survivorship bias in play with
| very old games that only the good ones are still commonly
| known and played.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > theoretically they should be better
|
| Lol anything newer is theoretically better?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea I did a double take at that one. The software
| industry laughs uncontrollably at that statement.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| New things are made with the knowledge of old things, and
| old things aren't. Unless more knowledge about what
| you're making could lead to a worse product, then newer
| things will on average be better than older things.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Does this theory hold in practice when you look around
| you in the real world?
|
| Was the best work of all fields - cinema, art, music,
| architecture, literature, all from the last year?
| lanstin wrote:
| I find the production of bad movies to be such an
| interesting issue. Lot of money, lots of highly skilled
| people, long time, it still some how you get really bad
| results fairly often. It is a lesson in humility for any
| ambitious endeavor I think.
| mLuby wrote:
| Yes it does, but not from "last year" because art has to
| age. The best art from 11700 is leagues better than the
| best art from 10700, or 5000 (we're in 12021 BTW).
| Obvious caveat that dark and golden ages interrupt this
| trend.
| [deleted]
| wearywanderer wrote:
| If Risk isn't a great game, then why do people playing it get
| so angry when they start to lose? There is something about Risk
| that makes players get emotionally invested in a way I just
| haven't seen in other board games.
|
| In most other games I don't care if I win or lose. This is
| doubly true in the sort of board games my board game
| 'aficionado' friends play. In those, there are often multiple
| different ways to win and everybody might have their own unique
| win condition, that may not be known to other players. I guess
| this sort of design is meant to minimize conflict. But the way
| these games minimize conflict seems to be by making people care
| less about winning.
| cableshaft wrote:
| To people who like area control games like Risk, I highly
| recommend checking out Inis or Kemet. Tammany Hall, and El
| Grande are other favorites as well, but are less about dudes on
| a map than the first two.
|
| Shut Up & Sit Down do a very good job selling Inis:
| https://youtu.be/ElcG-_-gfxo
| smogcutter wrote:
| Tammany hall is great for the first three elections, and then
| falls apart in the final round when it's just about counting
| votes on the board.
| lou1306 wrote:
| We similarly ditched Risk, or actually, its Italian variant
| RisiKo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RisiKo!). This variant
| gives differentiated goals for each player (e.g., "conquer 3
| continents", or "defeat the Blue army"), which in principle
| should make the game shorter. But it also allows the defender
| to throw 3 dice (if they have at least 3 armies), making
| battles _much_ harder for the attacker. In our group we
| theorized that using d10s or d20s instead of d6s should speed
| up the game, but honestly we never tried.
|
| Edit: sadly you will have to copy and paste the Wikipedia URL,
| as HN wrongly believes that the trailing "!" is not part of it.
| canadianfella wrote:
| For?
| simonh wrote:
| Up to 3 dice for defence is the standard rule. I think the
| standard game has several different types of victory, but the
| one you describe is in there in the British version.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Up to 3 dice for defence is the standard rule.
|
| The standard rule is up to 3 for attack, up to 2 for
| defence.
|
| https://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/risk.pdf
| simonh wrote:
| Doh! Thanks.
| em-bee wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RisiKo%21
|
| the url works if you % encode the !
| slothtrop wrote:
| Well Gloomhaven is new, but also clunky. Friends aren't too
| enthused about playing it because the setup is intricate, and
| the game takes time if you aren't used to it. It's ideal if you
| can commit to a weekly game (much like DnD I guess).
| myth2018 wrote:
| > and you can't really know anything without first giving it a
| name
|
| Just a side note for the sake of curiosity: there is at least one
| African language (I don't know its name, unfortunately), which
| doesn't give a name to the natural environment, since, by their
| perspective, it is not a separate entity in itself. However, they
| probably "know" the environment way more deeply than most of us.
| qznc wrote:
| This basic strategy ,,get a card each turn and avoid losing
| armies" gets you from beginner to intermediate. Once every player
| understood this it once again is a question of who controls the
| southern continents. The additional two or three armies each turn
| add up.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The winning strategy is doing whatever the other players are
| overlooking.
|
| If everyone decides to follow the advice about the southern
| continents, the winning strategy is to get all over Asia.
| qznc wrote:
| Some years ago I regularly played Risk with three friends. It
| always started with a fight about the three southern
| continents. Of course, only three can get one. The left over
| player tried this strategy to stretch across Asia, Europe,
| and maybe even North America. Always careful to not cover a
| whole continent and raise attention. South America and Africa
| are in constant conflict with each other so they are busy
| with themselves. The problem is Australia. That player also
| needs a card every card and will constantly tear into Asia.
|
| At some point the balance between South America and Africa
| will break and the northern player needs to intervene there
| as well. So it is impossible to not be dragged into fights
| and some armies need to be spent.
|
| With four players there is always someone who will point out
| to your neighbors what they are overlooking. That makes the
| game drag on because whenever one is about to overpower
| another player, two others will intervene. Apart from the
| cards on your hand there is no hidden information in Risk. So
| if you play for world domination everything is very obvious
| all the time.
|
| What ends the game is that the card bonus armies become so
| huge that every turn there is some crusade across the whole
| board until some is the lucky winner.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| If you try to get all over Asia you'll be eaten by the player
| who took Australia.
| chapium wrote:
| I was thinking this as well. It assumes the other players are
| naiive to your strategy and will not counter it. If someone
| were gathering a collection of bonus cards I think this would
| tip off the other players and awaken the dragons.
| mod wrote:
| Especially since you get their unused bonus cards when you
| defeat an opponent.
| dhosek wrote:
| Ugh, Stems was the only engineering class I took as an undergrad
| and the whole thing felt like it was stuck in the uncanny valley
| between the abstract and the concrete. Maybe 33 years later I'd
| do better with it.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| This is an example of systems theory couched in Risk. You don't
| gain any special insights into Risk from systems theory as framed
| in this article.
|
| OP/TFA introduced systems theory, then introduced the usual
| winning risk strategy, and then introduced a lot of required
| steps like player management / table top diplomacy, selecting
| countries to attack, timing card cash-outs, boundary holding, and
| so on without systems theory.
| lupire wrote:
| Isn't that what systems thinking is? A fancy word for
| "strategy"?
| SN76477 wrote:
| It is better thought of as zooming out to see more entities
| and how they work together.
|
| This video was my introduction.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AKHjwvEufg
|
| Derek Cabrera https://blog.cabreraresearch.org/jf
|
| https://thesystemsthinker.com/introduction-to-systems-
| thinki...
|
| You can dig deep into this stuff, I find it fascinating to
| see what others may not see through an understanding of how
| to visualize the problem as a system within a system.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Kind of? I think you're supposed to be able to identify flow
| rates and limiting factors and back out numerical /
| quantitative advice.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Systems thinking is to strategy as reductionism is to
| tactics. It's about holism.
| jms703 wrote:
| Rolling sixes is how you win at Risk.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Poor me who doesn't know the board game "Risk" and thus believed
| I could win at any Risk by reading this article!
| Jabbles wrote:
| Risk seems like a game that an alpha-zero-like AI could be
| trained on. The major differences between Go and Risk seem to be
| an element of randomness, more than 2 players, and a small amount
| of hidden state (cards). Perhaps the hidden state would interfere
| with the ability to train too much?
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Coming from an economics background, every presentation I've seen
| of "systems thinking" (admittedly, not a large number) makes it
| look ill-defined, incomplete, and obvious.
| projektfu wrote:
| The basics are feedback and a holistic POV. From there anything
| can be said. But if your strategy doesn't incorporate feedback,
| it is not a systemic strategy.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| I think his point is that "applying systems thinking" in many
| cases when at least shared casually like this post,
| frequently seems like some hand-wave that is extremely porous
| in its reasoning.
|
| Ie that was a whole lot of formality to deduce and say "other
| people will gang up on you if you're seen as too strong".
|
| Honestly I'd love to see an example of systems thinking that
| provides a unique insight that someone wouldn't have
| otherwise come up with by looking at a problem from more than
| 2 mins.
|
| An approach for thinking only provides value if it produces
| something different and better than what an alternate
| approach would have come up with. Every instance of support
| for systems thinking has either been used as a justification
| for an otherwise trivial result, or has been a version of the
| argument of "this person I look up to uses it therfore it's
| good". Can noone find an example where it actually
| demonstrates value?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| If you want a more rigorous view of systems theory then you'll
| want to look into the mathematical side of cybernetics, chaos
| theory and nonlinear dynamics. Systems thinking is more of an
| approach than a rigourous discipline in the same way that
| reductionism is ("break a problem down into its constituent
| parts and solve them"), but it is backed by both rigourous
| disciplines and philosophy.
| jameshart wrote:
| There's certainly a big hand wave here between describing Risk
| in terms of stocks and flows, and the strategies that he then
| goes in to propose. Honestly the systems thinking analysis here
| is weak in that at no point does he characterize the opponents
| or their armies and countries as part of the system - where he
| actually then relies on their behavior as a component of
| strategy (getting them to fight among themselves, for example).
| There's discussion of how the strategy manages 'opponent fear',
| but he hasn't explained that as a stock.
| viburnum wrote:
| Are you kidding? My economics background taught me to assume
| away all the relevant facts and content myself with toy models
| of perfect competition.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| The most relevant economic model for this context would be
| Nash equilibrium.
| skybrian wrote:
| If you'd like a simpler Risk-like game that is over in a few
| minutes, give Compact Conflict a try. There are temples instead
| of continents so strategy is somewhat different, but it still
| pays to stay out of fights when you can, particularly with four
| players.
|
| https://wasyl.eu/games/compact-conflict/play.html
| AQXt wrote:
| The first part of the article can be summarized as:
|
| 1. Initiate as few attacks as possible
|
| 2. Let your enemies break up each other's continents;
|
| 3. Take only one country per turn
|
| The problem is that it doesn't explain which country to take, and
| how to attack without being attacked -- which is what makes the
| game difficult.
|
| But, then, the article suggests something new (at least for me):
|
| 1. Find a way to grow in strength by taking lots of countries
| (but not taking a whole continent)
|
| 2. Make sure you get lots of cards for bonus armies
|
| If this is a good strategy, I have always played it wrong --
| because I've _always_ tried to take whole continents.
| jcadam wrote:
| Taking the Americas was always the ideal way to win. Only three
| borders to defend. The Asia strategy hardly ever worked.
|
| Then there's my personal favorite once you know you can't win:
| "Turtle up" in Australia to drag the end game out for no reason
| other than spite.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If this is a good strategy, I have always played it wrong --
| because I've always tried to take whole continents.
|
| Its not a great strategy, because it doesn't work. If you are
| taking only one country a turn _and_ keeping only a small
| connected corr of reinforced countries with the rest weak, then
| anyone playing a "grab lots of countries quickly " strategy is
| going to steamroller your weakly defended territory, and if you
| are only taking one country per turn, you'll never recover from
| that.
|
| A thick shell/thin-core strategy can work (especially if it is
| "talr Australia, then expand a bubble out in Asia), and
| otherwise looks a lot like the strategy this recommends, but
| you just have to accept that if a strategy can work, people are
| likely to recognize it; you can't reliably avoid balancing
| feedback unless you are playing against inexperienced players
| or naive AI.
|
| (Also, contrary to the article, IME while Australia is
| frequently taken early on, its also a major balancing feedback
| trigger.)
| teawrecks wrote:
| I think it assumes you have more than 2 people playing, and
| the other people haven't read this article. Which...doesn't
| sound like a sound strategy to me.
| cbsmith wrote:
| "Also, contrary to the article, IME while Australia is
| frequently taken early on, its also a major balancing
| feedback trigger."
|
| It turns out that in any decent game with decent opponents,
| players learn what works and adapt. ;-)
|
| At least in my meta, the main reason why Australia tends to
| get left alone once consolidated is that defending it is
| comparatively easy that anyone who tries to take it out
| without _first_ consolidating an overwhelming advantage will
| be so crippled by the effort that they 'll invariably lose
| the game. So Australia devolves to being this game of
| "chicken" between the other players.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yeah and all that didn't require systems theory, wasn't even
| that useful with systems theory or as an example of systems
| theory.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Take a least one country each turn is the "get lots of cards
| for bonus armies" strategy.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| It's a good strategy against those that don't know it.
| Basically, you are biasing towards consistent growth and
| avoiding spreading yourself too thin.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > If this is a good strategy, I have always played it wrong --
| because I've always tried to take whole continents.
|
| Continents are great, but only if you are in so strong a
| position that everyone thinks you are never going to lose it
| before next turn anyway.
| samus wrote:
| I often play against bots in yura.net Domination. These bots
| seem hardcoded to gang up on players (both bots and humans)
| whenever they manage to take a continent. It doesn't help that
| continents that are worth holding are usually difficult to
| defend. I learned quickly to never hold onto continents,
| especially with increasing cards. When you are strong enough to
| hold continents, you have pretty much already won the game.
| codeulike wrote:
| _Title: How To Win At Risk Every Time By Using Systems Thinking
|
| Disclaimer at bottom of page: The above strategy works "on
| paper," but that doesn't mean that it will work in your next game
| of Risk._
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Yeah this title is clickbait. No strategy wins every time,
| especially if everyone's cognizant of your one style.
| Aeolun wrote:
| If it doesn't work, flip the table and start again.
| kd0amg wrote:
| My sarcastic internal monologue while loading the article:
| "If multiple players use systems thinking, which one wins
| every time?"
| golemotron wrote:
| So this strategy is working for the author until we know the
| author's name and reputation.
| fb13 wrote:
| Completely. I erroneously assumed this was referring to
| startups, which would make a great article.
| dequor wrote:
| I believe it was meant to say - How to win at Risk by using
| Systems Thinking every time
| rkk3 wrote:
| The Risk equivalent of "how to win at chess every time in 4
| moves"...
| einpoklum wrote:
| tl;dr: Always get into a land war in Asia.
|
| Inconceivable!
| pharmakom wrote:
| Hmmm in my experience the benefit of a continent in Risk is too
| great to pass up. Either you take a continent, hold it and win or
| lose trying. This makes the game feel very random.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I find the same thing.
|
| I'm not sure what the term is but I find risk has too few
| mechanics/variables.
| prepend wrote:
| It seems like this only works against not very good players. Only
| getting a card per turn while slowly losing armies will not stack
| against 2-3 players holding continents, getting bonus armies and
| a card.
|
| Letting the other players fight each other imagined a game where
| no one notices you.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Ok, now how do we proceed if _every_ player is doing this? I
| don't think I've ever seen a risk game in which people didn't
| stick with mostly one country per turn.
| makach wrote:
| A great article, but isn't the strategy just <<if you want to win
| [in RISK] don't lose.>>
|
| I tend to play with the same people over and over and usually we
| balance who wins. It's a great game, should I over complicate it?
| ja3k wrote:
| Wow this is exactly the strategy I've played. I take it to the
| extreme and put literally all my soldiers on one territory.
|
| The ideal situation is when an opponent ends their turn in a weak
| spot (likely if everyone is trying to secure territory) with 3-5
| cards in hand and you have 5 in hand. Then you can cash in,
| eliminate them and end your turn with 6+ cards in hand in which
| case you get to cash in on the end of your turn (sort of a hack.
| I think the idea is the game designer didn't want it to be
| possible to start a turn by cashing in twice) and then you can
| actually secure your new territory.
|
| I think people who try to claim a continent outside if Australia
| haven't really done the math on how long they need to hold the
| continent for it to pay off.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| All of the info about how to play risk in the article came
| naturally to a few friends of mine and me, over many hours of
| playing the game with each other and crazy bots, which we all
| manipulated in helping us out, once a player tried to grab a
| little too much. The bots mostly acted predictably and we abused
| that to no end. It is observation of long term tactics and how
| games were won and all that.
|
| However, I needed something more to win games and so I took some
| time to write myself a risk calculator tool [1] I think I made
| more educated decisions about risking moves in the game by using
| the tool. Knowing your chances not only by gut, but also by
| mathematics can give you that little extra boost :D
|
| [1]: https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl/guile-risk-calculator
| stakkur wrote:
| Having played Risk on and off for almost 40 years, this article
| sounds...silly and wildly overthought.
|
| Oh and, my favorite strategy: capture Australia first, then creep
| outward, deny others full countries, and create opportunities for
| other players to attack each other.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Yeah. Risk is broken in the sense that Australia is too
| powerful if the rest of the world is properly contested so
| whoever manages it can patiently push upwards and win the game.
|
| I've played variations that have better balances.
| deepkerenl wrote:
| i love that Australia strategy, its my go-to
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| I always thought that the key to winning at Risk was to avoid
| getting caught up in a land war in Asia....
| Syzygies wrote:
| I always beat my sister at Risk as a kid. Then she was on a bus
| trip that waited out an epic snowstorm, three days holed up in a
| church. A Risk board was the only amusement, and the winner got
| to play again. She never left the board.
|
| "Start in Australia" is all I remember of my strategy. It's a
| great metaphor for so many problems. Certainly, for HN, as a
| startup strategy. What's the "Australia" for your imagined
| market?
| captn3m0 wrote:
| If you're interested in Risk, here's a list of research on Risk:
| https://github.com/captn3m0/boardgame-research#risk
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Not to beat a dead horse but the difference between "try to
| design society to produce positive outcomes for people in the
| aggregate" and "put the onus on every individual to succeed on
| their own and have no sympathy for the portion that inevitably
| fail in a moralistic or Calvinist fashion" is also a difference
| of systems thinking versus not systems thinking.
| paulluuk wrote:
| This article suggests that you should not play too aggressive and
| not take continents too early (maximizing Reinforcing Feedback),
| because other players will then unite against you (Balancing
| Feedback).
|
| However, this article fails to understand that in Risk, most
| players are not willing to unite. In fact, if player A and player
| B decide to unite against me and player A had his turn and
| stopped me, player B is highly likely to backstab player A and
| then emerge as the winner.
|
| I've found that playing very aggressively, and really get as many
| continents as possible within the first few turns, is the best
| way to win the game. I always win if I can get 2-3 continents in
| the first few turns, and if I fail then the game is usually won
| by whomever did manage to do just that.
|
| Being a turtle or "mongolian horde" as we call it can be
| interesting, but your only viable strategy is to wait for an
| opening while everyone else stockpiles their continental forces.
| If you wait too long, you're just an annoyance to the other
| players, but you don't actually have a good chance to win.
| alex_anglin wrote:
| My experience is that capturing and holding smaller continents
| early on is best. Capturing and keeping North America, Europe
| or Asia early on tends not to work well when I play.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah in my experience whoever starts in Australasia basically
| always wins because it's so easy to defend. Risk is a pretty
| terrible game by modern standards anyway.
| drited wrote:
| Agreed! There's often a little jostle during the starting
| land grab to get Australia: easy to defend and those extra
| reinforcements really matter in the early game.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| In my experience players are happy to unite against me. Usually
| I take Australia and move into Asia when I've amassed enough
| forces. Then my strategy moves to holding asia at 3 points,
| while I disrupt the continental bonuses of my opponents between
| turns. Africa, Europe and North America can be disrupted from
| this position.
| hpoe wrote:
| So take it from a young man who spent way too much of one
| summer playing Risk on the computer, you don't want to take
| Australia, the problem with Australia is that there is no
| good way to go from Aussie to anywhere else because the only
| thing next to you is Asia so someone else can solidify gains
| somewhere else, and Aussie only gives you 2 more
| reinforcements, not enough to get you a decisive enough edge
| to move out of Asia.
|
| The trick is to always capture SA, it is close enough to
| other things to keep you involved, also you can capture
| Centeral America and North Africa without having to hold any
| more territories than you would need to. Then choose NA or
| Africa and work on seizing the rest of that, when you
| complete that if it is late enough in the game you'll win
| almost every time because Asia, and Europe are impossible to
| hold, North America is to big to capture in the early game
| and Austraila as noted before doesn't bring a big enough
| advantage because it puts you in a poor tactical situation.
|
| EDIT: A good point was made below, this applies only to the
| standard classic Risk map, in standard Classic Risk.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| Yes, but if you expand to Africa from SA you have to defend
| all three northern provinces. That's 4 points you have to
| equally reinforce. Asia + Aus is only three. SA + NA is 3
| too.
|
| Asia usually lacks a strong player while players focus on
| their relative home continents, often being sabotaged by
| competitors or me. That said, I rarely get a chance to play
| people with Risk experience these days.
|
| We played extensively at school, with lots of politics - so
| games often lasted weeks (played in-between certain
| classes) as naturally the weak team up against the strong,
| ad infinitum.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| I think this depends on the map. If you're playing with
| Antarctica, Australia has a good route to South America and
| Africa
| ummwhat wrote:
| Asia can be held if you can also take (or start from)
| Australia and take Ukraine iirc. It works out to 3
| territories defending the entire space. That's literally
| the same as defending the whole of the Americas.
| Europe+Africa can also make a sustainable combination, but
| neither works on its own.
|
| Every other pair has too many connections and no way to
| reduce to a chokepoint.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| My experience is that people overvalue Australia heavily. I
| think South America is the strongest start the way people
| typically play the game. You just keep taking potshots into
| Africa and expand into North America and end up with +7
| armies a turn and 3 borders.
|
| I think if Australia wasn't overvalued it wouldn't be bad
| because there is no real non-suicidal way to stop the
| Aussie snowball once it gets going.
| drited wrote:
| Australia plus something else is good though as it both
| gives you easy to protect reinforcements in Australia plus
| the ability to influence the board elsewhere. For example
| Australia plus South America.
| hinkley wrote:
| In Civ I'm always trying to balance my attacks so that I get
| the killing blow on an enemy. If I don't the AI gets the credit
| and possibly the city (if it's a city state they raze it).
|
| Seems like in risk you should let your ally "win" so that they
| feel more satiated. Like playing the long game in poker.
| cletus wrote:
| When I read stories like this I always wonder how much of this
| is groupthink. Speaking as someone who has played a ton of
| different, complex games over many years, groupthink can be
| really pervasive and often explains why someone swears a
| particular strategy is dominant.
|
| I don't play Risk so can't speak this specific example. I
| suspect if you took your strategy elsewhere your get far more
| boxed results however.
| paulluuk wrote:
| Well I've played hundreds of games of Risk, against many
| different people IRL and also a lot online.
|
| IRL you'll see that people tend to be "nice", don't want to
| push you too far. And they're also willing to accept deals
| like "hey, you want to agree that neither of us ever crosses
| this border here?" rules, because there's a good chance that
| you'll play again together, so being trustworthy pays off.
|
| Online, the game is played very differently, and it's all
| about maximizing the results of every single turn, and
| completely ignoring any metagame or personalities. You might
| as well be playing against bots.
|
| I tend to do a bit better offline, because I'm a bit of a
| charmer and people want to make deals with me. But online, I
| feel like I can try many more strategies without worrying
| about people thinking I'm "mean" afterwards.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| In the ever evolving online game world (eg, hearthstone),
| group think is basically 'the meta.' Lots of people get the
| same common advice, or learn a new trick, so suddenly it
| becomes advantageous to use strategies which defend against
| the trick or take advantage of some weakness which opens up
| due to a trade-off... And then repeat.
|
| Afaict, being really good at these games requires a good
| grasp of the fundamentals, knowing the game itself inside and
| out, and also having really up to date knowledge of the
| current meta.
|
| The same phenomenon happens with Diplomacy (board game) as
| well... Probably any sufficiently complex game with a
| community ends up with a meta.
| tialaramex wrote:
| When a game is "evolving" in the sense that the rules (or
| some element of the game which in effect alters the rules,
| such as player classes or unit compositions and their
| statistics) are changed periodically, the meta can
| influence that, mostly in an unfortunate way.
|
| If the general perception is that Bears are too powerful
| while Geese aren't powerful enough, developers may
| subsequently alter the game to reduce the power of a Bear's
| attack, or allow Geese to fly further. These are often
| called "balance tweaks" but it's almost unavoidable that
| they'll focus on the meta, rather than addressing a proven
| flaw in the game itself because most of these games aren't
| subject to any theoretical underpinning. As a result the
| meta may change even as the game itself is being changed as
| a result of influence from the meta. If you announce on
| Tuesday that from next weekend the overpowered Bear gets
| reduced damage, and then on Wednesday a renowned player
| demonstrates that (with the existing damage) Bears are
| easily overcome by a previously unseen strategy using
| Geese, the developers look foolish. Cue outcry when the
| damage reduction takes effect on schedule while at the same
| time players who favour Bears are now being swarmed by
| Goose players who've learned the new strategy.
|
| If they _stop_ balance patching the game obviously there 's
| a risk that a degenerate strategy is discovered. Perhaps
| Bears are in fact just so good that Geese always lose
| against equally skilled players, and people lose interest
| in the game. But it's also possible that the meta continues
| to evolve, Bears dominate Geese, then with a new style of
| play Geese are destroying Bears, and later the Bears are
| back on top, even though the rules never changed. This is
| the case with Chess for example, styles wax and wave in
| popularity as top players show off one way or another way
| to play the game and win.
|
| StarCraft: Brood War (by now a very old game) is still
| played competitively although its meta doesn't evolve as
| quickly as it did twenty years ago.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| > If the general perception is that Bears are too
| powerful while Geese aren't powerful enough, developers
| may subsequently alter the game to reduce the power of a
| Bear's attack, or allow Geese to fly further. These are
| often called "balance tweaks" but it's almost unavoidable
| that they'll focus on the meta, rather than addressing a
| proven flaw in the game itself because most of these
| games aren't subject to any theoretical underpinning.
|
| This is easily solved with data analysis of actual games.
|
| The only problem is if there are strategies and play
| styles that weren't discovered by players.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| Might just be a friend group thing but I will also add on that
| very few games of risk I ever played didn't involve some level
| of 'meta' strategy like a husband/wife not attacking each other
| or that guy that doesn't like you refusing an obviously
| mutually beneficial alliance.
| 0xRCA wrote:
| I hate hate HATE that behavior. Games are games. Obviously
| you can be unnecessarily rude or cruel in a way that will
| sour someone's taste for playing with you or playing the game
| again. But the point of games is to win. When people refuse
| to act in their best interest or are "nice" its so
| frustrating because it makes the entire game pointless.
|
| edit: In a way, it feels like people who wave you on when
| they have the right of way at a stop sign. It's not nice,
| just follow the rules and drive predictably. /rant
| pessimizer wrote:
| The kind of "nice" in board games that is bad is when a
| player is willing to lose in order for another player to
| win. When you play a game, everyone has to play to win for
| the rules to make sense (I'd argue almost definitionally
| for a competitive game.) Playing a board game with someone
| who is not playing to win is like playing tag with somebody
| who refuses to run away and won't chase you. You should be
| working on a puzzle together or writing a song instead.
| Maybe make up new rules every turn and pantomime playing
| the game, that's fun.
|
| The kind of "nice" that is good in multiplayer board games
| is strategic. Being "nice" isn't necessarily being nice. If
| a subset of players collaborate, they eliminate the other
| players from the game. It's one of the ways most
| multiplayer games naturally handicap based on the
| reputations of good players - other players assume that
| they will get the short end of any deal with a good player,
| so refuse to collaborate with them.
| cortesoft wrote:
| If you can't beat people who are "nice", doesn't that mean
| your strategy is bad?
|
| Whoever wins the game is the person who played the right
| strategy.... you have to account for other people not
| playing optimally when designing your strategy, whatever
| the reason for their suboptimal strategy (whether it is
| them trying to be nice or just not knowing the best
| strategy)
|
| If you know a player is always nice during a game and won't
| attack anyone, incorporate that info into your strategy.
| Part of game strategy is knowing your opponents.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > But the point of games is to win
|
| Different people, or groups, play games for different
| reasons:
|
| * Sublimate conflicts (it's probably better than physical
| fighting)
|
| * Learn / hone skills
|
| * Feel personal challenge, tension, suspense
|
| * Passing the time.
|
| * Experience other players' "game-table-side banter"
|
| * Attention diverter from munching snacks.
|
| * Making a romantic pass at another player (it's been known
| to happen!)
|
| etc. For some of these, winning is part of how you achieve
| your objective; for others it doesn't matter; and for
| others still it's detrimental!
| th389200001 wrote:
| See also the investigation of So Long Sucker in The Trap.
| Quoting Wikipedia:
|
| >The programme traces the development of game theory,
| with particular reference to the work of John Nash [...]
| He invented system games that reflected his beliefs about
| human behaviour, including one he called 'Fuck You Buddy'
| (later published as "So Long Sucker"), in which the only
| way to win was to betray your playing partner, and it is
| from this game that the episode's title is taken. These
| games were internally coherent and worked correctly as
| long as the players obeyed the ground rules that they
| should behave selfishly and try to outwit their
| opponents, but when RAND's analysts tried the games on
| their own secretaries, they were surprised to find that
| instead of betraying each other, the secretaries
| cooperated every time.
| hinkley wrote:
| Nobody wants to ally with the guy who always wins. The game
| group I'm in has one of those, and so for some games I'm
| the one who wins the most. They expect him to win, so they
| drag him down, and I win by default.
|
| It's important in this dynamic that you pick games with a
| high wildcard factor, so that other people win
| occasionally, otherwise nobody wants to play after a while.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > But the point of games is to win
|
| games in themselves have no point. The act of playing games
| may have a point: it is generally to have fun, not to win.
|
| > edit: In a way, it feels like people who wave you on when
| they have the right of way at a stop sign. It's not nice,
| just follow the rules and drive predictably. /rant
|
| you're not nice.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I wouldn't have said anything if you concluded "you're
| not nice" from the first part. But you conclude it
| because they don't like when someone messes up traffic?
| That's wrong.
| jcelerier wrote:
| how is waving to the other drivers messing up traffic ?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Because it's their turn to move and they're not moving.
| jcelerier wrote:
| ... waving just mean thanking by a move of the hand no ?
| How is that related to moving or not.
|
| Hell, doing it is even an official recommendation in my
| country:
| https://mobile.interieur.gouv.fr/Archives/Archives-
| publicati... ("faites un petit signe de la main" = to
| wave)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Are you familiar with the term "right of way"?
|
| The complaint isn't about a friendly wave. The complaint
| is that it's someone's turn to go, and instead of going
| they wave at someone else to insist the other person go
| out of turn.
|
| The wave is an insistence of "you go first", not a
| greeting or a thanks.
| aflag wrote:
| True, people find different things fun. I sympathize with
| the idea that playing a game not following the rules and
| not making the best logic choices make the game less fun,
| because it becomes more about luck than skill. I, for
| one, have no joy winning or playing something entirely
| random, whereas beating other people on a skill based
| game is fun.
| IncRnd wrote:
| It's not a question of being nice or mean but a question
| of being competent and predictable to other drivers.
|
| We have roundabouts where I live, and some people will
| always stop before entering. This is done even to the
| point of waiting for people to arrive and enter from the
| other roads, despite the law being to yield. This causes
| more problems than it solves.
| smeej wrote:
| I like the ones who stop to wave you out into traffic, not
| realizing they're only one lane on a 4-lane road, so you
| can't go without getting hit by at least one of three other
| cars, and the backup they've now caused behind themselves
| has closed the entry window you were about to have if
| they'd just picked "smart" over "nice."
|
| I'm as skeptical about the appropriateness of rules as it
| comes, but a surprising number of the ones around driving
| actually do work to make the traffic flow efficiently!
| kqr wrote:
| Wait, I must be missing something here. If people are nice
| to each other and that's a bad strategy, surely you get to
| wipe the floor win them (i.e. fulfill your objective of
| winning) and if people are nice to each other in a way that
| makes them hard for you to beat, surely it is you who are
| playing the worse strategy by not doing the same?
|
| In my group of friends, whether it is Risk or Monopoly,
| being nice makes it much easier to win. People are happier
| to enter into mutually beneficial agreements with nice
| people who they know are honest and keep their word.
| gerdesj wrote:
| You have just described international diplomacy. For a
| slightly dumbed down version with working shown: Eurovision
| Song Contest.
|
| Actually, when I say dumbed down, I'm not too sure! If I was
| you, I'd embrace the added dimensions that go outside the
| official rules. Get your Machiavelli on. Get him so pissed he
| can't see and his alliance with the missus might break down.
|
| Be careful and get some lines that shall not be crossed
| worked out first if you are going to play Extreme Risk.
| pasabagi wrote:
| International diplomacy is like that, but every now and
| then some random soldiers in one of your backwater armies
| get drunk in some podunk border posting, murder some of the
| other side's soldiers, then suddenly you have to explain to
| your nutso nationalist press why a great power war is a bad
| idea.
|
| (The india-china border clashes are a good example of this.
| Or that one where a NK soldier killed somebody with an axe.
| Or that time japanese soldiers bribed a triad gang to
| attack japanese priests so they had could convince their
| officers to invade more of Manchuria.)
| wearywanderer wrote:
| > _In fact, if player A and player B decide to unite against me
| and player A had his turn and stopped me, player B is highly
| likely to backstab player A and then emerge as the winner._
|
| The fun in Risk is the other player _knows_ they will be
| backstabbed, but can 't resist the temptation to team up
| anyway, hoping that they might be the one to do the
| backstabbing. Everbody knows that backstabbing will occur, and
| yet, invariably, some players are still willing to team up.
| paulluuk wrote:
| Absolutely. Even if they don't end up backstabbing you, at
| the very least they'll be like: "Oh, you already dealt with
| the threat? Well then I think I'll just reinforce this turn."
| IncRnd wrote:
| Notably, I've played Risk with two people, one who taught the
| other. They appear to make the same sorts of moves in similar
| positions, and they speak the same strategies. Yet, one
| consistently wins compared to the other. I believe the missing
| component is that one plays the game against people and wins,
| while the other plays against the board and wins less.
| AncientPC wrote:
| As they say in poker, "Play the person, not the cards. But
| also sometimes play the cards."
| IncRnd wrote:
| I was taught early on (in a paraphrased form), "if you
| can't tell who the loser is at the table, it is going to be
| you."
| jacobolus wrote:
| Continents are overrated; they are a big source of armies in
| the early game, but the primary goal of the early game is mere
| survival, and a skilled player can win without ever owning a
| continent until the last couple turns. After the early game,
| cards are where the real threat is in Risk - in particular, the
| way someone can eliminate an opponent and capture their cards
| (and when they end up with >5 cards, immediately turn some in
| in for armies) makes risk a very unstable game when played
| aggressively.
|
| The best aggressive players wait for the right moment when they
| can go from minor threat to unquestionably dominant in the span
| of 1-2 turns, by toppling one opponent after another. The
| tricky part is the timing (and there is some luck involved with
| dice rolls and card matches). If you get it wrong and don't
| _quite_ take out one of the card-rich opponents along the
| chain, then (a) that extremely weakened player will be open to
| easy attack from the other players, and (b) you'll be
| completely exposed having used all of your armies on at least
| one side of your territory in the attempt.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| This must be how my aunt always wins against, well, everyone.
| Honestly, she's not the sharpest tool in the drawer, but she
| plays Risk like the Muzychuk's play chess. She's a damn Risk
| savant. :D
|
| I wonder how she would fare at Diplomacy. hmm.
| ineedasername wrote:
| In my experience the key to winning is endurance: just be the
| last person willing to play past 2:00 a.m. Then it doesn't matter
| if you have entire continents or one piece in Greenland: you win.
| aphextron wrote:
| Or just take Australia
| protomyth wrote:
| I like History of the World these days. A bit more structure but
| a fun area conquest game.
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224/history-world
| suzzer99 wrote:
| The whole key to early Risk is goading your opponents into
| attacking each other. It's an art.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Every time I've played Risk, two things happened. First, a
| massive bloodbath over Australia. Second, a long slow slog to a
| dissatisfying end, where multiple players wind up pissed off,
| because the Australian ends up winning somehow.
|
| The AU continent is just so easy to hold. With only one country
| to go through, you can amass a huge army in Siam and no one
| touches your continent all game.
| kochikame wrote:
| Sounds like you're playing with sloppy players
| [deleted]
| 1123581321 wrote:
| AU is an easy way to get second place, not to necessarily win.
| Focus on getting cards elsewhere. Card bonuses build up to
| where the Siam bottleneck won't matter.
| Aeolun wrote:
| While everyone else is fighting over Australia, I generally
| managed to get a win by completely ignoring it (and uh, making
| use of the people that were so irrationally focused on it).
| prpl wrote:
| This is why it's great to focus on Siam if you play with that
| one person who always focuses on AU.
| dcow wrote:
| What a clickbait article. I'm really disappointed. The premise is
| interesting: win every time using a new strategy. Then,
| discussion about the concept and preview of the "systems
| thinking" mentality. Not too bad (although the bathtub example
| was a pretty weak way to advocate for systems thinking, maybe
| that's just me but it seems even in that example to be an overly
| reductive and not terribly insightful method of thought, but it
| was enough to entertain the next section). However, during the
| discussion of the strategy everything falls apart. "Let the other
| players fight each other. Win the game _every time_ by not
| participating and hoping to inconspicuously amass an incredible
| army such that you can take over half the board and then turn the
| tide in your favor in one fell swoop." If this fails the
| suggestion is then to play the meta game and beg for pity. Not a
| single piece of data to back up the claim that this strategy wins
| every time. In my experience it doesn't. It also happens to be
| the strategy that most every player headquartered around Russia-
| Asia ends up playing because you simply cant control that part of
| the board early on. No "systems thinking required". The author
| also claims hoarding cards is "safe" and wont trigger other
| players to consider you a threat to the balance of the system.
| Well, that's just naive either on part of the author or requires
| other players to be pretty green to not account for the risk card
| factor. In reality, another player also using systems thinking
| would immediately identify you as a threat because they would be
| tracking unit quantity flow in and out for the players on the
| board and using that to inform their understanding of what
| constitutes a threat. I think that's the disappointment kinda
| summed up: this strategy doesn 't work in a game where everyone
| uses it because it depends on your opponents not paying attention
| rather than you making strategic moves to win the game. The
| author does not sufficiently incorporate all the complexities of
| the game and people to yield a solved game.
| cbsmith wrote:
| 'The author also claims hoarding cards is "safe" and wont
| trigger other players to consider you a threat to the balance
| of the system.'
|
| Unlike continents, cards additionally represent an incentive
| for other players, so it's even crazier to think it is "safe".
|
| In general I share the same sentiments as you. I'm disappointed
| this article got voted up, presumably because it uses the
| phrase "systems thinking" in the title.
|
| In defense of the author, if you actually believe it is
| possible for you to win any player-vs-player game _every time_
| by applying a certain strategy, you clearly aren 't doing
| systems thinking. :-)
| yetanotherjosh wrote:
| Even if the execution was flawed in that it did not deliver a
| successful gaming strategy or sufficiently complex model of the
| game, I still appreciated the nature of the exercise. I would
| love to read an article that takes it to a more accurate and
| effective system model.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Cybernetics is a much cooler word anyway. Deals with functions,
| while systems theory deals with objects.
|
| IM!HO, object-oriented thinking doesn't work in complex
| environments. - You tell a duck by its quack.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Anyhow, if there's a system or strategy that enables you to win
| every time.... what happens once everyone knows and uses it?
| GoodJokes wrote:
| I dislike games where it's just a system to win. Kinda defeats
| the purpose. No actual gamesmanship.
| laurent123456 wrote:
| I avoid these games too but mostly because it feels like work.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I like those games I think. The alternative is chance, and
| that's very dissatisfying.
| __s wrote:
| Systematic play is often the first step for beginners to gather
| experience from multiple similar situations. Nuance comes after
| that
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I feel similar about this, although I have to say, that it
| disqualifies so many board games, that sometimes I wish, I
| would enjoy other games more. It is a bit sad. Sometimes
| friends want to play something and I allow them to convince me,
| just to not seem like the boring person, who "only wants to
| play their games".
| corpMaverick wrote:
| I have never played risk. But I have always been curious of the
| joke where Malcom (in the middle) used to always beat the whole
| family. Is it about strategy, complexity, random luck?
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