50 Fun Facts About Risk

In a famous Seinfeld scene, which Risk territory does Kramer call weak, provoking a furious subway passenger?

Ukraine: Kramer, playing Newman on the subway, calls it weak and feeble, and a Ukrainian passenger sends the board flying. The clip went viral all over again in 2022.

Risk's inventor, Albert Lamorisse, won an Oscar for which French film?

The Red Balloon follows a boy, played by Lamorisse's own son, who is trailed everywhere by a balloon with a mind of its own. It won him the Oscar for best original screenplay.

Which game is older than Risk, which dates from 1957?

Monopoly had been in the shops since the mid-1930s and entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998, the hall's first year. Risk missed out as a finalist more than once before joining it in 2021.

Under what French title was Risk first released?

La Conquête du Monde means The Conquest of the World. When the game crossed the Atlantic two years later, its American buyer changed a few rules and swapped the title for a single word.

Which American company bought the rights to Risk and released it in 1959?

Parker Brothers altered a few of the French rules and coined the one-word name, selling the game at first as Risk: The Continental Game.

The standard Risk board divides the world into how many territories?

42 territories, each with its own card in the deck. In some versions of the setup those cards are simply dealt out to decide who starts where.

What does holding a Risk continent earn?

Extra armies every turn, on a scale printed in a corner of the board, as long as the whole continent is still yours when the turn begins. Hence the rulebook's first tip: conquer whole continents.

How does a Risk player earn a card?

Capture a territory and you draw one card, never more, however many places fell that turn. Wipe out a rival, though, and you inherit every card in their hand.

What is the goal of the standard game of Risk?

Occupy every territory on the board, which means knocking out every rival along the way. That is why a single game can last anywhere from a few hours to several days.

In classic Risk, what colour are the attacker's three dice?

Red: the attacker may roll up to three of them, and more dice mean better odds. The catch is that at least as many armies as dice rolled must then move into a captured territory.

In Risk, three dice against two favours whom?

The attacker, slightly: the third die is just enough to tip the odds its way. That is why it almost always pays to roll as many dice as the rules allow.

In a Risk battle, who wins when both sides roll the same number?

The defending side wins every tie. In a fight of one die against one, that is enough to make the defender the favourite.

Which Risk continent can be defended by heavily fortifying a single territory?

Australia has a single way in, so one strong army on its doorstep seals it off, and players often grab it early. The catch is that it has only one way out, and a player who holes up there can end up trapped.

Which Risk continent can be invaded through five of its territories, more than any other?

Asia has five territories that touch other continents and twelve to garrison in all. Lose your grip on the Middle East and it becomes nearly impossible to hold.

What do Risk's two wild cards show?

Every symbol appears on each wild card, all three army pictures and no territory. That is what lets it stand in for whichever card a player lacks when cashing in a set.

Each Risk territory card shows one of three symbols: infantry, cavalry and what?

Artillery, drawn as a cannon. The 1993 edition turned the three card symbols into the playing pieces themselves, replacing the abstract counters of earlier sets.

Which Asian territory can attack Alaska across the edges of the Risk board?

Kamchatka sits on the board's eastern edge and Alaska on its western edge, and the rules treat them as neighbours. That back door is one of three borders a North American empire must guard.

In recent Risk sets, what does the Golden Cavalry piece track?

The card trade-in value starts at four armies and climbs with every set cashed in, by anyone, so the golden horseman rides up its chart all game long.

Which combination of Risk cards can be traded in for reinforcements?

Three with the same symbol make a set, and so does one of each. Each set cashed in brings more armies than the one before, so holding out can pay.

A Risk player left with six or more cards after eliminating an opponent must do what?

Trade in sets immediately, and keep going until fewer than five cards are left. The new armies arrive mid-turn, so the conqueror can press straight on with the attack.

Complete the subtitle long printed on Risk boxes: 'The Game of Global' what?

Domination: 'The Game of Global Domination' replaced 'The Continental Game', the subtitle on the first American sets, and it lives on in the official video game, Risk: Global Domination.

Which toy giant has owned Risk since buying its American publisher in 1991?

Hasbro paid about $516 million for the debt-laden Tonka Corporation, which had owned Risk's publisher since 1987, and so gained a shelf of famous board games in one stroke.

The first Risk spin-off, Castle Risk (1986), was played on a map of what?

Europe alone made up the board, with each player guarding a castle. The game flopped, but ideas it introduced, such as generals, came back in later editions.

Which European rules were added to American Risk sets in 1993?

Secret missions give each player a private goal, such as conquering set continents or wiping out one colour, so a game can end much sooner.

Which Avalon Hill edition of Risk added Moon and undersea territories?

Risk: 2210 A.D. also lays waste to four territories at random before every game, closing them to everyone, so no two wars are fought over quite the same map.

What wins the Risk edition that ends after five 'years'?

The highest score wins when the fifth year ends, so the war has a fixed finish and nobody has to be wiped out first.

Which 2011 edition of Risk began the genre in which each game permanently changes the board?

Risk: Legacy has players write on the board and rip up cards for good. Its designer got the idea after joking that Clue's guests keep being invited back to dinner though one of them is always a murderer.

Risk: Factions (2010) let players fight as humans, zombies, robots, yetis and what?

Cats march in a quicker kind of Risk, where the first army to complete three objectives wins. Purists can still switch to a classic mode.

Which noted designer created the dice game Risk Express (2006)?

Reiner Knizia turned Risk into a quick dice game: players roll for the right mix of troops to capture territory cards, with no armies to push around a map.

Which of these ancient cultures is one of the five that go to war in Risk Godstorm?

The Norse take on the Celts, Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians, each backed by its own gods. Death is not the end here: slain armies descend to the Underworld and fight on for a chance to return.

In Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition, which faction wins by seizing 10 of the 13 resource planets?

The Hutts win the moment their tenth resource planet falls. Each side has a goal of its own: the Empire must wipe out every Rebel, while the Rebels must find the Emperor, hidden at one of the Imperial bases.

The 2015 Star Wars edition of Risk recreates the battle fought at which location?

Endor: instead of a map to conquer, the game restages the end of Return of the Jedi as three battles fought at once, among them Luke's duel with Darth Vader, on a board shaped like a TIE fighter.

Risk Junior: Narnia (2006) pits the forces of Aslan against whose?

The White Witch leads the other army in this children's edition, made as a tie-in with the film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so that players could restage the story's climactic battle.

Which film franchise got the first movie-themed edition of Risk?

The Lord of the Rings came first, with a map of Middle-earth in place of the world. The Fellowship's journey across it works as a clock that brings the game to an end.

RisiKo!, the edition of Risk that lets the defender roll three dice, is sold in which country?

Italy plays by its own rule: the defender may answer with up to three dice, which shifts big battles firmly in the defender's favour.

In the 1980s, army pieces were shaped like what?

I, III, V and X replaced the earlier wooden cubes and prisms before the 1993 soldiers arrived.

Which European territory on the Risk board has a sea route to Greenland?

Iceland is Europe's one bridge to North America, because the board counts Greenland as North American. That makes the crossing a border between two continents, one that both sides have to guard.

Risk's 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition (1999) came with army pieces made of what?

Metal pieces filled the deluxe set. Its redrawn map has a flaw, though: one of the usual routes into Africa is missing from the board.

Risk's territory of Siam carries the old name of which modern country?

Thailand was long known as Siam. The board is full of such vintage names: the rulebook explains that many look unfamiliar because the map shows the world as it was some 200 years ago.

In Risk, what must always be left behind in a territory when its armies move out?

One army, at least, must hold every territory at all times. That is why an invader needs two armies in a territory before it can attack from there at all.

What sets the basic number of new armies a Risk player receives each turn?

The territories they hold are counted and divided by three. Nobody ever gets fewer than three new armies, though, so even a player clinging to one corner of the map can rebuild.

On the Risk board, which South American territory has a sea route to North Africa?

Brazil faces North Africa across the Atlantic. Together with Venezuela it is one of only two ways into South America, so a player who holds the continent has to keep a strong army in both.

Which of these islands was left off the standard Risk board altogether?

New Zealand has no territory, and neither do the Philippines, the Caribbean or Antarctica. Risk is in good company: so many world maps leave the country off that New Zealanders treat it as a running joke.

Risk joined the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2021 alongside which plaything?

Sand entered the hall in the same class as Risk. It was hardly a shock: the stick and the cardboard box were members already, and the museum calls sand perhaps the most universal toy in the world.

In 2021 the creator of which political drama signed on to turn Risk into a TV series?

House of Cards creator Beau Willimon agreed to write and oversee the series, the first project of a deal between his company and eOne, the studio owned by the game's maker.

In two-player Risk, what does the third set of armies become?

A neutral buffer: the third army only defends, standing between the two players so that a duel keeps some of the feel of a crowded board. Neither player has to wipe it out to win.

Which rulebook variant of Risk, usually much shorter, is won by capturing every rival's home base?

Capital Risk has each player pick one territory as a headquarters. In the 1993 rulebook, losing yours does not knock you out: you hand over its card and fight on.

In Risk, what is the strategy of becoming too costly to eliminate while staying a threat called?

Turtling means pulling back behind a shell of heavily defended territory. The turtle hopes to sit out the early bloodshed, then pick off the weakest survivor and start a chain of eliminations.

Risk is credited with inspiring Axis & Allies and which other famous game?

Settlers of Catan and the modern strategy games around it owe Risk a debt: for a great many players, conquering its map was their first taste of strategy gaming.

Risk reached home computers in 1988 with an official version for which machine?

Commodore 64 owners could at last play Risk alone: the computer would run up to five rival armies. A Macintosh edition followed a year later.