Re: Simultaneous Risk Questions

["Bob Harris" <nitlion@mindspring.com>]

Some folks (I fergit who) previously said
>> > The only thing that I don't like about Richard's system is
>> > that there is no chance - no randomness.  I once saw one
>> > army defend against an attacking force of 42. Without that
>> > element of chance, it ceases to become Risk, and becomes
>> > calculation.
>>
>> I think this is the point of this Risk variant.  The "random" element comes
>> from the sinultaneous movement.  I realize that its not really random but
>> since you don't know what the other players are going to be doing, you won't
>> know what the board will look like after any given turn.

I, too like the random aspect of Risk.  And the fact that there is an
advantage to the attacker.  With 30 guys on each side of the border, it's
the one that attacks who has the best chance of a win.  Without this rule, I
think people would be too cautious, games would be boring stalemates, and
we'd probably never have heard of the game.

So, without thinking about it too much, just thinking out loud as I type,
here's my suggestion:  Resolve attacks by a roll off similar to real risk.

- If one territory by itself attacks another, use the same roll off as
regular risk.  For simplicity, assume 3 dice vs. 2 as long as a player has
enough.

- If there are attacks from several territories, attack 'in schedule'.  I
can't describe what I mean by that, so here's an example:  Territories X
(with 10 armies) and Y (with 5) attack Z (with 12).  Since we want three
attackers if we have 'em, we do this:

1) first roll:  XYX vs ZZ  (meaning, two from X, one from Y attack two from
Z).  If the attacker loses one, it's from X, if he loses two, it's one from
X one from Y.
2) second roll: YXY vs ZZ  The only real difference here is the first
attacker lost comes from Y
3) continue with this pattern until one of the three groups X, Y, or Z is
all gone.
4) If the remaining groups belong to different players, then keep going as
per the one on one rules.  If the original defender remains, he still gets
the defender's short stick.  If all that remains are attackers, then assign
the one with the fewest remaining armies as the defender, and continue.  Or,
perhaps you award the territory to the guy with the most left and stop.
Both of these suggestions have a problem with what to do in case of a tie.

Here's another way to look at it.  We start with the attackers lined up like
this:
   (front) XYXYXYXYXYXXXXX
After an attack, we either lose the front guy, the two front guys, or no  
guys.  In any case, the survivors among the three guys who were at the front
move to the back (keeping their order).

Generalizing to more than two players and more than two attacking
territories
- first determine the order (lineup) among all the attacking players
  o whichever player has the most is at the front of the line, second most
is second, and so on;  break ties by a coin flip
  o players alternate in line in that order until they have no more
attacking troups
- second, use the same process to determine the order a particular player's
attacker from multiple territories line up

Again, here's an example:

Player A attacks with 7 from S and 5 from T
Player B attacks with 9 from U
Player C attacks with 5 from W, 4 from X, and 1 from Y

Resolve inter-player first:
- A is attacking with 12, C with 10, B with 9, so the player order is
   ACB ACB ACB ACB ACB ACB ACB ACB ACB AC A A

Then resolve each player's intra-player territory order:
- A's attack order is ST ST ST ST ST S S
- B's is U U U U U U U U U
- C's is WXY WX WX WX W

Put it all together:

- (front) SWUTXUSYUTWUSXUTWUSXUTWUSXUTWSS

I know, it's sounds pretty complicated.  You'd certainly hate to sit down at
the board and figure this all out while the dice were getting cold.  But 
it's an easy algorithm for the computer.  It gives an advantage to the most 
agressive attacker (his 'excess' armies get to stay in back the longest),
but he also has a small disadvantage (the first guy lost in the first battle
is his).  The defender has the same overall chance of defending against N
attacking armies regardless of how they are spread out among opponents or
territories.

And it has the wonderful feel of luck that the board game has.

Take this all with a grain of salt.  The last suggestion I made was
Deadgammon.

Bob