Review of Risk

Caitlin Maloney

Professor Shirk

POL 143

12/13/2017

Review of Risk

I found the version we played of Risk to be both realistic and unrealistic. There were many parts of the game regarding war, negotiations, and resource control that I found to be realistic. However, I found other aspects of the game such as conducting war along with ending wars and creating alliances to be rather unrealistic.

Primarily, I found the game to be realistic and interesting in the sense that wars were largely based on resource control. Should a team had wanted to attack another team for a specific country, this was highly dependent on the military resources allotted to both teams in the nearby countries. For example, had Team Green wanted to attack Team Blue over the country of Afghanistan, this would only seem reasonable if Team Green had more military forces in the area than Team Blue. As this would better the odds of Team Green winning the war. I found this to be realistic as the United States wouldn’t attack a country, such as France if they didn’t believe that their military powers were greater than those of France. Having a great amount of resources would place America in a better position than France, in order to gain the territory of content. 

Additionally, I found the negotiations between countries to be realistic. As every country has a specific goal that they are working towards. In negations, every country has their goal in mind and will continue to push for it, despite what may be in the best interest of the whole. There were many times in the game where teams would bicker because they felt as though they were being betrayed because an ally would be speaking to one of their enemies. I found this to be interesting and possibly realistic, as it is likely that world leaders would feel threatened if secret talks were occurring. Especially, if there was potential for a new alliance, in which said country may be overthrown as a world leader, much like what occurred with Team Blue in our game.

However, I found the game to be unrealistic in the way war was actually conducted. I did not think throwing dice to decide who won the war was a realistic manner at all, as this is completely random and does not apply any sort of strategy or thinking. Yet, I did appreciate that the number of dye aligned with how many resources a team had in a specific country. Along with this, I didn’t think it was reasonable that teams had to switch from “at war” to “neutral” before entering into an alliance. As there are times in the real world when war can be ended by countries creating an alliance, yet was not allowed in the game.

If I could change anything about the game it would be the way teams have to switch to neutral before switching to an alliance. I think the game would be much for realistic if this extra step did not have to be taken. This adds time to the game along with making negations between extra complicated. There were times where a team would say that they couldn’t trust another team due to the fact that the second team could only switch to neutral from war, rather than creating an alliance. Overall I enjoyed the game and found it to be very interesting and helpful in seeing international relations in play.