What should you do if you are targetted?

[Woodruff]

I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS

I actually came here thinking about starting this exact same topic. In over half of my games I have the most troops out of 4-8 players, and I am constantly teamed up upon because of an "unspoken agreement" among the other players to not break each other's bonuses and suicide on me. I regard this as only a small step above illegal secret alliances. I'm seriously considering only playing fog games from now on because my actual skill at the game is being punished and I have to play the fucking diplomacy game with everyone else to stand a chance at winning. And it seems like when I "lay low" and let others gain a lead, nobody does anything about it and they end up winning. I realize the "diplomacy game" is part of actual Risk, but I'm sick of playing it with random people over the Internet. Now I know why most high-rankers only play other high-rankers.

DAMN I am pissed. You guys have no idea.

Are you saying that you are so good that you can't beat bad players?

yes, in a way it is harder to beat bad players because you don't know what they are going to do
if you disagree you have obviously never played public multiplayer flat rate/no spoils sunny, or you are one of the bad players with those settings

That's almost all I play outside of one-on-one tournament games (which I'm AWFUL at). I agree with treph...if you can only do well when someone plays the way you expect them to, then you really aren't very skilled at the game. The whole idea of "strategy" is to be able to foresee the sum of someone else's potential moves and be prepared to counter them all (to the degree that you can).

And before you laugh at me for my rank, I suggest you look at my RELATIVE RANK instead...

[Mr Changsha]

I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS

I actually came here thinking about starting this exact same topic. In over half of my games I have the most troops out of 4-8 players, and I am constantly teamed up upon because of an "unspoken agreement" among the other players to not break each other's bonuses and suicide on me. I regard this as only a small step above illegal secret alliances. I'm seriously considering only playing fog games from now on because my actual skill at the game is being punished and I have to play the fucking diplomacy game with everyone else to stand a chance at winning. And it seems like when I "lay low" and let others gain a lead, nobody does anything about it and they end up winning. I realize the "diplomacy game" is part of actual Risk, but I'm sick of playing it with random people over the Internet. Now I know why most high-rankers only play other high-rankers.

DAMN I am pissed. You guys have no idea.

Are you saying that you are so good that you can't beat bad players?

yes, in a way it is harder to beat bad players because you don't know what they are going to do
if you disagree you have obviously never played public multiplayer flat rate/no spoils sunny, or you are one of the bad players with those settings

That's almost all I play outside of one-on-one tournament games (which I'm AWFUL at). I agree with treph...if you can only do well when someone plays the way you expect them to, then you really aren't very skilled at the game. The whole idea of "strategy" is to be able to foresee the sum of someone else's potential moves and be prepared to counter them all (to the degree that you can).

And before you laugh at me for my rank, I suggest you look at my RELATIVE RANK instead...

The bolded part is very true. It is certainly harder for me to play a public large multiplayer than a private one simply due to the fact that it is much, much harder to predict the moves of players you've never seen before. This is especially true of low-ranked players...high ranks (for good or ill) tend to make the 'right' move. The fun of the public games is, as they are full of low-ranked players I've never seen before, that absolutely anything can happen. Yet winning consistantly is based on being able to predict the moves of the opposition. This is one of the most important skills required to play large multiplayer games. I would only play public multiplayer if I was at woodruff's rank (as they are a huge amount of fun), but playing them from a colonel rank (when they are so hard to predict) is a touch nuts as I would be looking at +40 for a loss and about +60 for an 8 man win...even after shedding 400 points recently in an attempt to get back into some kind of position to play standard again. When I was at 2900 I felt it was just impossible to even make the kind of game woodruff and I are currently playing in (and a very good game it is too!!!) yet if I could get my rank under 2,000 I would only play public 8 man no cards standard...easily CC's best game.

[Army of GOD]

I just try to manipulate people, even if I'm clearly the strongest on the board.

I mostly play Classic, and I could be holding Africa, and someone else could be holding Australia..."Yo, guys, we gotta attack Green. We're gonna have a hard time breaking that bonus if we don't attack it now."

Which usually results in Green and I getting into a "No, yuo!" match.

[Archetype OMEGA]

I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS

I actually came here thinking about starting this exact same topic. In over half of my games I have the most troops out of 4-8 players, and I am constantly teamed up upon because of an "unspoken agreement" among the other players to not break each other's bonuses and suicide on me. I regard this as only a small step above illegal secret alliances. I'm seriously considering only playing fog games from now on because my actual skill at the game is being punished and I have to play the fucking diplomacy game with everyone else to stand a chance at winning. And it seems like when I "lay low" and let others gain a lead, nobody does anything about it and they end up winning. I realize the "diplomacy game" is part of actual Risk, but I'm sick of playing it with random people over the Internet. Now I know why most high-rankers only play other high-rankers.

DAMN I am pissed. You guys have no idea.

Tell us how you really feel.

Seriously though, you have to anticipate these unspoken truces when you become the board power. Its just part of Risk. The trick is to plan ahead and break them before you become the board power. When you can do this, you actually become the board power long before anyone realizes it.

[xiangwang]

Lol, risk is more of a game of diplomacy with a LOT of luck. The dice rolling you can't control (we all lost games because of stupid dice rolling ), so what you can control is diplomacy, use it lol. If you look through more of my recent games, you can tell that diplomacy is more useful than actual armies. You can also try games with objectives since global domination wins are hard to pull off without REALLY good diplomacy AND dice especially in flatrate and no spoils. Carefully watch the balance of power in the game, don't make enemies unless you have to and above all, be polite and friendly because your enemy last turn will be your ally next turn the power of balance shifts throughout the game which you will try to use to your advantage until you get a chance for the win yourself (usually there are only 3 players left at this point).

P.S. public games are more fun than private since freestyle is my choice (can't stand waiting too long for my turn b/c i'm a freebie) and get to play anyone despite my poor point win/loss ratio (+50 win and -30 loss on average) and i'm almost a General

[Kiron]

Lol, risk is more of a game of diplomacy with a LOT of luck. The dice rolling you can't control (we all lost games because of stupid dice rolling ), so what you can control is diplomacy, use it lol. If you look through more of my recent games, you can tell that diplomacy is more useful than actual armies. You can also try games with objectives since global domination wins are hard to pull off without REALLY good diplomacy AND dice especially in flatrate and no spoils. Carefully watch the balance of power in the game, don't make enemies unless you have to and above all, be polite and friendly because your enemy last turn will be your ally next turn the power of balance shifts throughout the game which you will try to use to your advantage until you get a chance for the win yourself (usually there are only 3 players left at this point).

P.S. public games are more fun than private since freestyle is my choice (can't stand waiting too long for my turn b/c i'm a freebie) and get to play anyone despite my poor point win/loss ratio (+50 win and -30 loss on average) and i'm almost a General

Yeah, I would probably agree with what xiangwang said. However, the dynamic of freestyle games are much different from sequential games since you can abuse the turn system greatly increasing the chances of victory especially in objective winning games *cough* third crusade *cough*. But even with that, diplomacy is the key to victory since dices can still F*** you over despite attacking 20 against 10, at least with diplomacy you have some sort of control. Knowing when to break and create alliances/truces is probably the MOST important part of the game too