by Keith Hook

Created on: April 15, 2009   Last Updated: June 12, 2010

They call RISK, the "Game of World Domination" and, as many of us would be Napoleon's have discovered, it ain't always that easy to takeover the planet. To win at RISK you need diplomacy skills, cunning, guile, foresightedness and not just a little bit of luck. You also need some fun friends so you can talk a lot of SMACK, without things getting out of hand

The first rule of RISK is never get greedy. The game could and should take a couple of hours to play, so trying to make a big score, before you are strong enough to exploit it, is nothing if not foolish. You are not going to take over Asia in the first turn, so bide your time. Slowly expand your conquests, and wait for the proper moment.

While playing RISK, you should keep your friends close, but your allies even closer. Alliances are a necessary evil of the game. It may be in your best interest for a couple of you to check another player's rapid expansion. That being said, alliances, like affairs, should be fleeting. The first chance you get, you need to take care of yourself and your own interests. If that means taking out the guy you've been allies with for the last hour, so be it. Remember, as they were fond of saying in Highlander, "In the end, there can be only one", and your job is to make sure that one is you.

Along the same vein of allies, is a certain level of "courtesy" as my friends and I call it. We have a sort of unspoken rule that you almost always leave another player a place to get a card when his turn is due. First off, it keeps the game going. It also keeps a weaker player on your side and may even provide you with a buffer from another, more stronger player. Additionally, you yourself may need such courtesy, so use it wisely. However, as in the previous paragraph, this courtesy only pertains when it is in your own best interests, so feel free to break this "unwritten rule" when it suits you.

After following these easy guidelines, you next want to get into the meat and potatoes of actually going on your "World Conquest Tour". Obviously you'll need to start taking over continents, so that you can get additional armies each turn. While taking over Asia may seem the best way to go, with its 7 additional armies per turn, it's also the hardest to defend, with lots of borders from which your opponents can attack from. Also, your friends may not take kindly to you becoming the biggest and baddest man on the board, so you may be up against everyone else.

Something else you should try your best

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