(no subject)

Matthew Isherwood
Tue, 06 Feb 1996 14:47:01 -0800

Hi! Matt from Melbourne here. My friends and I started playing Risk
about 6 or 7 months ago. We have have grown from just a couple of mates
playing fanatically to about 15 - 20 people across Melbourne playing
fanatically, some more so than others. Reading your mail it is clear
that they are varying degrees of Risk proficiency out there - comments
like "take a continent, you get bonuses" seem obvious and hardly worth
mentioning, however some stuff is interesting. I was reading one letter
which said something like a player must be able to win on his/her merits,
not by "negotiating" (intimidating) other players, otherwise the most
charismatic players have an advantage. I find this to be very true.
When we began playing players were encouraged to use diplomacy, even
going so far as declaring border treaties. This saw the game degenerate
into a talking match, with psyche-outs becoming more important than
decisive moves. After a while we decided to play a "can't talk strategy"
rule, where basically there is no diplomacy. Let your moves speak for
themselves. Ofcourse, on oc