another lone space station

[Aaron Fisher]

Here goes. Upon playing risk the other day my friends and I came across this dilemma. A nuclear command card was played wiping out all armies and leaving a lone station. The person playing the card was adjacent this territory and wanted to invade. The question is, without actually eliminating the last unit by rolling can he move into that territory and also replace that station with his own station. We couldnt come to an agreement, has anyone else encountered this?

[jadedaemon]

This happens all the time. And yes, the attacker can just roll in and replace the existing space station with his own (provided he hasn't already maxed out).

[RulesMonger]

The rules cleary answer this question.

A space station is not a "unit". Therefore it cannot be eliminated.

Per the rules, it does convey ownership in the case there are no other "units" in the province, for whatever reason.

Not being a "unit", it has no defensive value in and of itself.

[Beowulf]

the attacker can just roll in and replace the existing space station with his own (provided he hasn't already maxed out).This comment brings up a sticking point: it's obvious that the limitation of four space stations is driven by the number of pieces in the game. I can't think of a different reason that would exist to support such a limitation, for example your civilization doesn't have enough raw resources to support a fifth. We just have to accept this arbitrary limitation.

The sticking point arrives when I attack and capture a fifth space station. The rules state that it is destroyed. However, most of the time a captured space station is on the edge of an assault (the only exception being if an "Invade Earth" card were played and the subsequent land card that was drawn corresponded to a territory with a space station). There are times that I would rather have that space station on my periphery to use as a bastion of defense, and sacrifice one on my interior. The official rules do not give me that choice, so any departure from them would be under the auspices of a house rule.

Do any of you use this house rule?

[zooooma]

Hi Beowulf.

"it's obvious that the limitation of four space stations is driven by the number of pieces in the game."

I don't think this is the case. The game came with extra commander pieces despite the rule that you can only use one of each. The one commander per commander type rule is motivated by game play factors such as limiting the amount of eight sided dice available as well as ensuring the vulnerability of everybodies card playing capacity.

I suspect that the four space station limit is similar. Only four stations makes it harder to defend larger continents, and also puts a acp on the number of spaces each player can defend with D8s. As it is fairly simple to make an extra couple space station units, I susspect the number four was the result of consideration.

Your house rule sounds interesting, but I don't know if I think someone that large needs any help from house rules. This situation comes up less than once per game, so I don't imagine it would change the game much.

Happy gaming.
-Luke