Castle Risk

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Castle Risk is a version of the board game Risk that is played on a map of Europe. It was first released as by Parker Brothers in 1986 and later appeared on the reverse side of the board in an early 1990s version of the standard Risk game.

Contents

[edit] Map

The map is divided into six empires and three neutral areas. A player receives four troops per turn for each empire the player controls and six troops for controlling all the neutral areas. A common variation in play is to have each of the neutral regions worth two troops a turn.

Empires:

Neutral/independents:

[edit] Rules

The rules of Castle Risk differ from original Risk in several respects. Each empire has a capital (of the players choosing) and once the capital is lost that player is out of the game.

Castle Risk also has very different cards. Rather than only the standard reinforcement cards there are a wide assortment:

  • Generals - +1 to the top attacking die
  • Marshals - +1 to top defending die
  • Admirals - may transport armies by sea
  • Diplomats - impose a truce on another player for a turn
  • Spy - look at and force the discard of one of an opponent's cards
  • Reinforcements - gain more troops

Another intruiging rule is the addition of "hidden armies", which are reinforcements that a player hides in a location of their choosing at the beginning of the game. They can be in any location, including an opponent's territory, which makes them very useful for launching a surprise attack.

[edit] Strategy

Players generally agree that the best empire to be is usually France. Its owner automatically dominates Spain and England (if it is empty). It is not usually bordered by many hostile empires. The worst empire is Austro-Hungary, which is very boxed in by other powers and has no territories that do not border other empires.

One possible strategy in Castle Risk is to place your capital in a region which borders the ocean. Then mass troops in the capital region until an attack can be made with an admiral card, against another player's capital. While this strategy is very effective, it may degrade the enjoyability of the game.

A significant difference from the original game is that while reinforcements from cards appear at the beginning of the turn (as in original Risk), reinforcements from empires and castle-flags-owned appear at the end of a player's turn. This changes the game-play to favor the bold player, as a freshly conquered empires will yield the resources to defend them (in normal Risk, the attacking force must contain enough armies to defend against counterattack). In general, the board position of a Castle Risk game is much more dynamic than that of an Original Risk game.

It is possible to conquer an opponents capital during your first turn by placing your hidden armies beside one opponent's castle. During the territory placement phase, mass your troops in a territory near the capitals you wish to attack. Upon your turn, produce your hidden army and attack the capital territory immediately. Capturing the capital territories enables you to place 8 more reinforcement armies at the end of your turn, so that your own capital territory is not left undefended.

[edit] Rule modifications

One method of preventing the above strategy is to create "quadrants" to reduce the power of the admiral cards. This is done by dividing the board along the folds and at Portugal and allowing an admiral to only travel two quadrants a turn. Thus one can no longer attack from St. Petersburg to Turkey by sea, but St. Petersburg to Yorkshire, or Rome to Turkey are still permissible.

[edit] External links

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