How many territories in risk

You will always have at least 3 armies even if you currently occupy less than 9 territories. Ex: if you occupy 14 territories, you get 4 armies.

Continents: At the start of each turn, you will also receive armies for each continent you control. In order to control a continent you must occupy all the territories within it. There is a chart in the lower left hand corner of the game board which defines the number of armies you receive per continent. Earning: At the end of a turn which resulted in gaining at least one new territory, you will earn at least one Risk card.

The goal of Risk cards is to collect a set of 3 cards: 3 cards of same design 3 infantry, 3 calvary, 3 artillery , one of each of the 3 designs, or any 2 plus a wild card.

Full sets may be turned in at the beginning of your turn or you may wait. But, if you have 5 or 6 cards, you must trade in one set and the second one if it is full. Trading in Cards for Armies: Matched sets may be traded in for more armies based on the total number of matches traded in. Keep matches face up under the board for quick reference. Following the sixth set, each additional match traded in is worth an extra 5 armies. For example, the eighth set traded in gives you 25 armies.

If any of the territories you occupy are depicted on one of the three cards you will receive an extra 2 armies. Both armies must be placed in the respective territory. After positioning your armies you can choose to attack.

The objective of attacking is to capture a territory by defeating all its occupying armies. Battles are fought by rolling the dice. If you do not wish to attack, pass the dice to the player on your left. You may, however, still fortify your position. You may end an attack or attacks at any time. If you have succeeded in capturing at least one territory, draw a Risk card from the draw pile.

You amass territory by attacking your adversaries' armies. When you attack enemies, you roll dice. Since attacking and defending with dice define every interaction on the Risk board, knowing the ways to use the statistics of battle to your advantage give you a distinct advantage when playing. Here, we look at Risk as mathematically as possible, drawing from some excellent scholarship on the subject. By far the most important thing to understand is the map.

Controlling the continents gives you an added bonus depending on the size of the continent. That's somewhat misleading though.

The size of the territories can be misleading, making it seem like certain areas are more difficult to hold than others. Plus, you can't really get a sense of how truly vulnerable some individual territories are. This also gives us a look at which continents have the highest return on holding territories. This list shows you territories divided by armies. As you'll see, Europe gives you the highest return on holding the continent, as for every 1.

Australia is the least lucrative, as it takes holding 2 territories to win each army. It's not just about ensuring that you get the maximum value per territory, it's also about minimizing the probability that your opponents can take one territory and strip you of your continent bonus.

This is to say that continents with only one or two sources of invasion are easier to defend than continents with five or six routes of invasion. So let's look at how many ways there are to invade each continent, and how many territories lie on borders.

If you're looking to defend on home turf, you've got to fortify every border territory that can serve as a means of invasion. Walter Hickey. Since a bunch of your continent's bonus armies are going to go into fortifying your border countries, let's look at the ratio of armies awarded for holding the continent to border territories that have to be held:. So we can see that Australia is obviously the easiest to defend, with 2 bonus armies allocated each turn to aid in the defense of the continent on the border.

Subtract 5 troops from each player's starting army for each additional player. Once each player has received their starting troops, everyone rolls a die. The player with the highest roll gets to place 1 of their troops on the board first on one of the unoccupied spaces.

Then, players take turns clockwise placing 1 troop at a time. Players can't place more than 1 troop in a space until every space on the board is occupied with at least 1 troop. Once everyone has placed all of their troops, shuffle the Risk cards and place them in a pile on the side of the board. Then, each player rolls a die and the player that rolls the highest number goes first. On a player's turn, they count the number of occupied territories they control and divide that number by 3.

This is the number of troops the players can place on the board. They may place them in any space they occupy to make their army bigger. Once the new troops are added, the active player can either pass, move, or choose a territory to attack.

To move, the player moves any number of troops from one territory to an adjacent territory they already occupy. You can only move once a turn and can do it before or after you attack. You can only attack territories that border a space you occupy, and you can only use the army in the bordering space to attack. The attacking player can attack with 2, 3, or greater than 4 troops, and can receive up to 3 attacking dice.

The defending player can defend with any number of troops, but can only receive up to 2 defending dice. The attacking player rolls dice equal to the number of attacking troops minus 1, and the defending player rolls dice equal to the number of defending troops. Repeat this process with the next highest set of die if the attacker is using 2 attacking die.

Ignore the lowest die if the attacker is using 3 attacking die. If the defender runs out of troops in a territory, the attacking player then moves into the territory. Then, they can move any remaining troops from the space they attacked from into that new territory.

At the end of the turn, if an attacking player successfully occupies a new territory, they draw a card from the Risk pile. If you get 3 Risk cards with the same troop on it, 3 Risk cards with 1 of each troop type, or 2 Risk cards with a wildcard, you can trade them in for additional armies.

You get 4 troops for your first set, and 2 additional troops for every subsequent set until you get to 6 sets, at which point you get 15 troops. Play continues counterclockwise until one player remains and they successfully occupy the entire world.

To learn about Risk cards, alternate rules, and game strategies, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue.

No account yet? Create an account. Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article parts. Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. Understand the basic objective of the game. The objective of the game is to conquer the world by controlling all of the countries on the board. You do this by attacking other players and taking over new territories on the board.

All the while, you need to make sure that your own territories are well-defended. Before you start your game, make sure that you have all of the game components. The game of Risk comes with a foldable game board, a set of 72 cards, and various army tokens. The Risk armies come in six basic colors, along with different kinds of tokens, denoting size of the army.

A pack of 56 Risk cards should be included. There should be five dice three red and two white. Determine how many people are going to be playing.

Before you get started, figure out how many people will be playing the game. The total amount of armies you start the game with depends on how many players there are: [3] X Research source 6 players - 20 armies each 5 players - 25 armies each 4 players - 30 armies each 3 players - 35 armies each 2 players - 40 armies each this varies between editions.

Set up your initial territories. This will determine the starting points for all players. There are two ways to determine the initial territories: [4] X Research source Have each player roll a die Standard Rules. The player that rolled the highest value will choose an open territory and place one soldier in it. Moving clock-wise, each player will select an open territory until all territories are occupied. Once players have claimed all the 42 territories on the board, players place their remaining armies onto territories they already claim in any order they choose.

Deal out the deck of cards Alternate Rules. Deal out the entire deck of cards, minus the two Wild cards. Have each player place one of their army pieces in each territory according to the cards they are holding. Take turns doing this. Roll the dice to determine who goes first. The player who rolls the highest number starts the game. Then the play order goes clockwise from the starting player.

The game starts after the order of play has been determined. Part 2. Select army units. So if a player gets seven armies at the beginning of his turn, he can redeem them by getting either seven infantry pieces or by getting one cavalry piece and two infantry pieces which add up to seven.

Get your new armies at the beginning of each turn. At the beginning of each turn, players receive more armies. The number of armies is determined by: [7] X Research source The number of territories you own. For every three countries, the player gets one army. For example, if you had 11 countries, you would receive 3 armies; if you had 22 countries, you would receive 7 armies. Turning in cards. Cards can be turned in when you have a three of a kind e. For the first set of cards you turn in, you receive 4 armies; 6 for the second; 8 for the third; 10 for the fourth; 12 for the fifth; 15 for the sixth; and for every additional set thereafter, 5 more armies than the previous set turned in.

If you have 5 or more Risk cards at the beginning of a turn, you must turn at least one set of them in. Owning all the territories of a continent.