A MAJOR FLAW

[siestraphone]

I always have played Risk and Risk 2210 AD with my own little house rule. Instead of choosing your terriroties for yourself, which i feel is quite ridiculous, we divide up the territory cards, and those are the territories that we get, none of this o i go first and out my guys in north america.... anyways, i would like if i could hear the other side of the story, maybe why my way is a bad one or possibly a good one. Thanks alot,
siestraphone

[jadedaemon]

You're taking away the fun of setup.

I've tried it both the random method (ie the way you've specified) and the standard placement method specified in the rules. With the std placement, the players start negotiations and bickering a lot sooner (which is part of the fun), and all players have to think a lot harder as to whether to stop another player gaining a startup advantage or trying to grab a continent asap.

The random method has the advantage of being faster to set up, but it loses quite a lot of fun in doing so.

[Y2UAsk]

I generally use the random method as well, only because it speeds things up. Some people will cogitate endlessly over where to place that next army, and that sort of dithering drives me insane.

I believe the random setup is a standard feature of LOTR Risk.

Steve

[jadedaemon]

Yeah, it can be a pain sometimes. We usually impose a 1-minute time limit during setup.

[The Rat King]

Good old analysis paralysis !! I once played a game of HOTW where one player took 20 minutes to decide where to put his last guy in epoch 7.

[RuHurt]

The rules for two player games in the original Risk game, were that each player picked up a card to show where to place one of his pieces, and this continued till all the territories were taken.

[Craig Van Ness]

Major Flaw...
(That seems a bit harsh)
The random placement for set-up is the way we initially played Risk 2210. One of our goals was to make the game faster. We felt in random placement, you spent to much time establishing your base of command, sometimes several turns.
Also, there is an added element of luck with random placement. Most games have both luck and strategy. When designing 2210 we wanted to, if at all possible, lean torwards the game mechanics that would increase the level of strategy, not the level of luck.
Having said that, feel free to play any variant or version you come up with. I just wanted to give you a little background as to why we went with selecting the starting territories.
Craig

[jadedaemon]

Originally posted by Craig Van Ness:
Major Flaw...
... Having said that, feel free to play any variant or version you come up with. I just wanted to give you a little background as to why we went with selecting the starting territories.
CraigOn that note, would you consider writing a "Risk 2210 Designer Notes" article for the board to read? That'd be a cool read!

[Iceman]

One of our goals was to make the game faster. We felt in random placement, you spent too much time establishing your base of command, sometimes several turns.
Craig
Very interesting, and in many ways, very true.

One group I play with suffers a bit from, as one poster said, "analysis paralysis" - they can't be ready with a pick before their turn and take forever sometimes to decide.
So we came up with a compromise house-rule.
We divy out the territories evenly (leaving 2 or 3 out so everyone gets the same number) then each player looks at their "hand" and picks three to pass to the player to the left (like Hearts).
Quick start but higher chances of a decent one.

Oh - and the unclaimed territories remain that way - unoccupied until the start.

The other group - much more traditional. :)

-VIC

[wavex]

our group also played the random ways a few times but never liked it. The picking of territories is one of the key strategy elements in this RISK 2210. The picking of the territories in the beginning is a very big part of strategy. You have to decide where to begin (depending on if you can choose first or last). Do you decide to counter (in which an opponent has 3 Australian territories) and do you take the 4th or do you leave that to another opponent ? Do you take territories which are connected to water or do you play very central (Middle east, Europe) ?
Depending on the taking of the territories you can see if someone is an "experienced" player or a newbie.
I really think it's an underrated part of the game.
It's also an unwritten rule in our group that nobody "thinks" longer than 1 minute (you can think when your opponent is deciding :-) )

Have fun,
Glenn
www.belgium2210.be

[Brewcity_Warmasterz]

Bah. We play with a devious method we call "Hidden Set Up". I have posted it before, but will try to summarize it here. We actually used an idea (I forget who to credit, very sorry but perhaps I will look up the old post and give the proper credit) that was posted as an add on to "randomize" it more and this is what we got:

Roll for Factions. Keep faction choice secret.

Roll for picking territories. Winner of roll deals out 4 cards plus one card for each player of the game randomly. This prevents player one from knowing what the 4 devastated lands are just by knowing what's missing from the deck.

Player 1 picks a territory, keeps it secret, passes the deck to player two, who picks a card, passes to player three and so on untill all the cards are gone.

Each person places their territory cards FACE DOWN and deploys the MODS that will go into that territory on the card itself. (NEW RULE WE ADDED) To keep factions "secret", we place one space station and one land commander and one diplomat, per normal rules on the card they will go on.

At this point, BEFORE THE DEVASTATED LANDS ARE REVEALED, the Survivalist must reveal himself (but all have already placed and locked their forces) and place his second space station).

Devastated Lands are revealed. (Much groaning or glares of amazement result).

Players reveal their cards and place the troops on the cards. It's VERY interesting to see where people "end up".

We HAD to do something like this: We have two players in our group who we refer to as bulldogs. If they WANT something, they will ignore everything else in the game to get it. And if they are NEXT to each other, then the whole game revolves around them depleting each other and no one is willing to back down and it becomes two seperate games, one between them and one between the rest of the players, whereas if there is only a third, the third always wins because he takes advantage of the bulldogs not letting the other go.

As for how to "reveal" the factions... if you printed them out from the listing on the boards... five of the six already have Land commanders... so he stays where you put him. The other commander is replaced by your appropriate commander if necessary. The sixth faction, the Technologists replace their commanders in the "order of importance". I believe the space commander is listed first and the tech second... so the land commander is replaced by the space commander and the dip is replaced by the tech commander.

It makes every game a surprise. We tried the "Joe usually takes America.... Jack usually takes australia", etc... but that doesn't cut it. It makes us choose other territories, and actually try to be stealthy about what continent we are going for.

We also alternate between the "sustained attack" (meaning an army can march from territory to territory until depleted or you decide to stop) and the "single attack" (one territory to another territory as per Axis and Allies) so that we're current only sustained attack for playing other risk players... but we can also play the non-sustained, which makes for a more tactically challenging game. :)

And in either instance, we DO stick to the rules and only do ONE fortify from one territory to another. Otherwise yes, the redeployment cards from the dip deck are useless, and half as much so is the teleport card from the Tech deck.

Though what set up has to do with "A MAJOR FLAW" I don't know. :)

[Iceman]

Bah. We play with a devious method we call "Hidden Set Up". I have posted it before, but will try to summarize it here. We actually used an idea (I forget who to credit, very sorry but perhaps I will look up the old post and give the proper credit) that was posted as an add on to "randomize" it more and this is what we got:

Fog of War!
We've only played it that way once, but loved it and plan to do so again.
We did randomize the factions but did not keep it secret - will have to add that aspect as well.


Roll for picking territories. Winner of roll deals out 4 cards plus one card for each player of the game randomly. This prevents player one from knowing what the 4 devastated lands are just by knowing what's missing from the deck.

Hmm. The rules I downloaded had the devastated territories get pulled out one per go-around until all four were pulled.
Which meant player 1 (if tracking things) saw three territories leave the pile between his first and second pull. And he couldn't be sure which ones we took and which one got blown up.
Though one random starter territory to each player sounds cool.


Devastated Lands are revealed. (Much groaning or glares of amazement result).

I had lumped a number of guys and a leader in Exiled States (Greenland) and did groan a bit when Iceland GRC was toasted - Europe had almost no one in it.
:)


It makes every game a surprise. We tried the "Joe usually takes America.... Jack usually takes australia", etc... but that doesn't cut it. It makes us choose other territories, and actually try to be stealthy about what continent we are going for.

Very true.
I thought about going for Europe just because I normally don't.
But everyone kept pretty good track of the dwindling territories, without being annoying pricks about it.
To self, as I went thru the deck - "Are there still two South Americas? Yes, okay then I don't need to block there. Australia? Yup. Okay, then, what's next on my North America hit list - ah, Greenland."
I think we had the whole pile divided up in five minutes or so.

I started with all but one NA territory, though that guy had five mods there and played Cease Fire year one when I tried to hit him (Poor me - no Jams).
He and the third player had carved Africa in half rather nicely though - one had a station in Saharan Empire and the other in Egypt.

Later.
-VIC

[Brewcity_Warmasterz]

We usually play with at least four people. As Fox says, it's a constant challenge to "outthink" what everyone else is going to take. With the devastated lands unknown as well as a random starter card, you really don't know who has what, or what continents are actually viable.

We actually go through the deck pretty fast. ONCE. Only ONCE did someone manage to swipe through and start with Asia. But usually the greens are ignored until last. :)

We only give people a hard time a little bit, usually the deck gets passed pretty fast. Most people have a good idea of what they are looking for.

I don't think we'll ever change playing this way as it affords our group the most amount of fun. The game is a challenge (in out picking your opponents) before it even begins. We are competitive on so many levels and myself, while considered our group's beserker - I do it because I try to always do what they least expect me to do. LOL Which usually leaves me doing what they always expect me to do. Which is hurt someone at the worst possible time or help someone when they least expect it.

But that's just me.

Skinbox
Diabolical Dice Dispenser

[Brewcity_Warmasterz]

Yeah the random starter card was an idea that was outed here on the boards when I originally posted the "Fog of War" Hidden Set Up rules.

We gave it a try and liked it enough to keep it. Our rules sound kinda complicated but I can't stress enough that they make all of our games exciting and finally making even the factions "hidden" until the last moment really makes you think about putting what, where.

The hidden deployment (on the facedown cards) does take a few minutes... but with sharp players, it doesn't take too long and you're always guaranteed a few surprises when everyone reveals who took what and where they are fortified.

In some ways this method of set up is your threat, your taunt... your "come here" hand motion when the kung fu guy is about to dish some whoopass. The game itself is your way of making that threat real.

I SO wish more people were close by. I would enjoy making converts... and game slaves of you all. Heh. That is... if my dice would just behave. :p

In highest regards of you all,

Foxtrot One
The one and only thoroughly medicated dice maniac.

"Accidents happen. It just so happens that one happened to me. Without medication, my flying hamster of doom would rain coconuts on your pitiful city. Be thankful for the holy pharmacy."

[Bismarck]

I have sometimes played by distributing the starting territories randomly. Usually it has been to get the game started quicker or to get variety if playing with the same people a couple of games in a row. The game does play out differently with random starting locations, it usually takes a couple of turns for everyone to establish some fronts and the energy and MOD income is usually smaller throughout the game. I think it's a good alternative way of playing though since it doesn't really change any of the game rules, so all disputes can still be solved by the rule book.