The Risk of Risk

The game Risk says on the box for players 10 and up. The age limit is not merely a suggestion, it is a warning. Here's why:

Today my 8 yr. old begged me to play Risk with him. His older brothers, who he usually plays with, were busy watching a movie so I decided I should try. Now, I kind of learned the rules a few days before when I was suckered into a previous game with the same kid and the 10 yr. old. I learned the basic game play (or so I thought, since we lost the instructions years ago) and I even learned a rule that is definitely the creative genius of one of my own children: if you sacrifice one of your foot soldiers, you can tele-port any of your armies to anywhere else on the board. (This earlier game ended prematurely due to a fight and help from the baby grabbing at the pieces). So I thought, sitting down at the dining room table, I had a pretty good handle on the game as we embarked on the mission of "Total World Domination." And it would count for Social Studies too, right? Little did I know that soon I'd be feeling more like Alice slipping down the rabbit hole, wondering what game I was really playing and getting a lesson in the values of common sense and logic, or at least what happens when it all goes out the window.

We started the game off rather peacefully. He was blue, I was red. We each put down a guy (foot soldier) on our turn, trying to claim all the countries in a continent so we could get extra guys. Then my deceivingly docile opponent suddenly started gathering enough guys to get horses and cannons. I followed suit and tried combining my guys to trade for the more valuable pieces (I have no idea if this is part of the real game but it made sense to me so I went along with it). Eventually he put two cannons together and traded for the single golden horse. Then he started grouping his armies together into Asia, clapping with glee and hopping with anticipation. My competitive nature was sparked into mild action. Maybe I should start pooling my resources too.

Up to that point we had only faced-off in small battles, losing a guy or two. I learned quickly that his objective wasn't to gain territory, but to get the Risk cards that give you extra stuff if you can get your guy onto a specific country. Then the tele-portation began. He started killing off his foot soldiers for the privilege of air-lifting his giant army around the board, swooping up countries on his cards and gaining more, and creaming me in battles because my armies were more spread out and no match for his mammoth collection. I tried to start moving my troops to converge together but I refused to take advantage of the tele-portation option and moving an army from country was very slow. Eventually he settled in Australia, setting up a guard post in southern Asia. Most of my cards were for the Australian countries so I knew I had to battle him to gain access to them. But he had the golden horse and enough cannons to fill the small island continent to it's beaches, it wouldn't be easy.

Then, disaster hit. I ran out of cannons from my supply pile. I asked, "What do I do if I run out of cannons?" He replied by pulling out all the yellow pieces for me, placing a yellow cannon arbitrarily on Greenland and saying, "Now you have to get to this cannon and then you have to wait two turns before they become your allies. Then you can get them all you want." Wow, this was news to me! Allies, huh. "You also can't kill your allies," he added. O.K. so now I had twice the troops...well, in a few turns I will.

Just then, my 3 yr. old decided she wanted to play too. "You can be yellow," I said, hoping she would be happy with that. "I want a horse!" she demanded. I gave her one of the yellow horses. I was sure I wouldn't need it. How long could this game go on anyway? "No, a blue horse!"

Luckily my 8 yr. old accommodated and handed her a blue horse from his infantry. I guess he was pretty confident in his defense system. Next, he ran out of cannons so he pulled out the gray pieces and added them to his supply. He placed a gray cannon near his other pieces and I had to remind him that he couldn't use it until he jumped through the same hoops I did to get my allies. Soon we had a very colorful game board but my armies were still too spread out. I kept trudging along, trying to collect a mass of soldiers to invade Australia. The 3 yr. old was irritably taking pieces from both sides, making her own army, not on the board. The baby had joined us too and is now old enough that she can reach things on the table. She kept stealing my cards.

I began trying to figure out how we could end this game as quickly as possible, no matter who won. Then, suddenly, without warning, my son sacrificed another soldier, moved his empire-sized army out of Australia and plunked them down in front of the largest mass of my armies I had at the time, in China. "It's time for the final battle," he declared.

Oh, O.K. I thought. Good we can end this once and for all.

"But my armies are all over the place," I said.
"Just sacrifice one guy and you can move all your armies to battle me," he replied. Well, that would have been helpful to know earlier on.

I obliged and piled all my people, horses, and cannons together in a final face-off. All that was left was to count the cannons and see who had more points (at least that's how I decided we'd judge the winner...why not, if anyone can make up new rules, right?). I counted by 10s (cannons), 5s (horses), and 1s (foot soldiers) and even including his golden horse (20 points), I came out ahead.

"You won!" I announced. Yeah, we're done. That was a ride I'll have to think twice about before I get on it again.