Special cards

[L M S]

So back in the day, when This Game was played on a board, at a table, against a person you could see, my friends and I had a variation that became quite popular amongst us as well as very frustrating, entertaining, nerve wracking, hilarious, et al at times. None the less it was interesting and different. We took the cards from and old risk set and modified some of them to be included in the current game. It was sort of "Unoesque" in a way.
They included things like:
skip a player,
reverse the sequence,
add a card,
lose a card,
+3 armies,
lose your turn,
take one attackers dice away for a turn,
defender gets 3 dice and attacker gets 2,
a catapult (actually played like a bombarding territory),
exchange a territory with anyone you want(very irritating) ,
Nuclear Bomb (was plus 25 armies, but only could attack ONE territory),
connect ANY two territories for the rest of the game,
There were some other fun ones as well, like a "Napoleon" card that could turn any stack on the board to YOUR ally for a turn and could attack its owner if you wanted (this was devastating),
a "Pearl Harbor" card that was in effect a 15 reinforcement navy to be used on any water adjoining territory,
etc, anyway you get the idea.
I know there were more but it has been a long time....... anyway the special cards were usable at any time during your turn and were not considered to be part of the sets you turned in for spoils. Sometimes they were even traded among players.
Any thought s on this home rules version?
It may add some new twists to game play for some and I just remember the fun we had with it.

[lozzini]

sounds like an amazing idea.... but i doubt it will happen

it will definatly never happen if you dont use the form

love the idea though

[L M S]

It is in the order of the form I just deleted all the extra stuff, was that bad?

[jakejakejakejake]

Haha, some of those sound hilarious. I'm going to have to tell some friends about this, and we're gonna have to try it out.

[L M S]

I'm remembering cards as I sit here...
there was a minefield card too, it was plus one on every territory you held.
the "Cuban Embargo" card initiated a disruption in the supply chain causing your opponent to lose its bonus reinforcements for that round. (but not the 1 per 3 territory bonus, only the continent bonus)
The "Berlin Wall" card split a territory in two, equalizing the armies for each player on a single territory and it was a real pain in the neck to get control of your territory back.
They weren't all good but depending on the situation and the point you were in the game it got heated at times, but always entertaining.
Ill post them as I remember them, or if you have any ideas to add feel free.

[L M S]

I forgot to mention..... the special cards could be used against each other.
For example:
Someone hits you with the Nuclear Bomb card, you can counter with the Napoleon card turning their armies into yours (for a turn) for instance, thus negating their card and helping you out......until the next round of course unless you could get rid of them, so evil......

[jakejakejakejake]

I forgot to mention..... the special cards could be used against each other.
For example:
Someone hits you with the Nuclear Bomb card, you can counter with the Napoleon card turning their armies into yours (for a turn) for instance, thus negating their card and helping you out......until the next round of course unless you could get rid of them, so evil......

hahahahahahahahahaha. oh yes, we are playing this way next time.

[Thezzaruz]

One of the things I've always liked about RISK is its simplicity (ruleswise) so for me this would be a no go. especially as many of those you mentioned is so horribly unbalanced.

[Mr_Adams]

The point is to be entertaining, not balanced. I would play if we could get the no points game idea to fly with the admin =P

[L M S]

I have had few thought s on this since the original post.....
and to answer your question, these are not the only ones we played with, the were about 40 different cards, as I recall and the were lots "checks and balances"(cards always had a way to negate or lessen the effects of another) so to speak... but I definitely see your point. Keep in mind that we evolved this system over a long period of time to even out the rules........ I wish I had the copy still. dang.

What if we as a community came up with a set of 40 or so specifically designed for this site and style of game play (some could be repeating I suppose), that didn't necessarily supplement the existing method of spoils, but rather REPLACED it if chosen as an option? IE, instead of turning in for extra armies your spoils would be these special cards.... there are lots of details that would need to be ironed out..... and it is likely that this idea would not work in anything other than an RT type game, but who knows.... I just put an idea out there for discussion really..... if nothing else maybe to add a twist to your home games.

[killmanic]

I have to say while this idea would be great for playing with friends and such, it would be a lot harder to implement on cc. First off the merging and splitting of the territories seems like it would be a massive amount of work and thus not practical. Also the accusations of cheating would grow a lot as constantly getting the better cards would make a player nearly unstoppable, and we all know there on occasion are cheating and abuse threads about luck.

[jakejakejakejake]

Yeah...I definitely don't ever see this ever happening in CC(at least not while points are involved...),however, if you do remember more of those, let me know, or start a topic somewhere or something. This sounds like a ton of fun.

[Mr_Adams]

yellow feaver. Imobilize armies on one territory for 1 turn.

[L M S]

Nice one! How about "The Great Wall of China" + 15 DEFENDERS (cant ever attack) split among three adjoining territories any way you want.....

Maybe we should see if this can be moved over to the General Discussion forum for further exploration of home game rules.......

[oVo]

Another simpler one is the Wild Card, which is any color you require to make a set
and adds 3 armies to the territory of your choice as well.

[4myGod]

lol nice idea. It would be fun.

As mentioned it is slightly unbalanced, but I think after playing 1000+ games people could possibly balance it out. The big thing I would see, from a web programming viewpoint, is all the extra code that would be needed.

Things like:
- Nuclear Bomb (was plus 25 armies, but only could attack ONE territory)
This will be very hard to do, keeping track of the troops and when they attack deleting them.

- Reversing the sequence could be tough
- take an attackers dice away
- give defender 1 more dice

The way I see it, this would be like coding 10+ new game types, because of all of the irregular options that must be coded.

[Mr_Adams]

"guerilla war" attack and kill say... 5 of your opponents armies without risking any of your aries, but it can't be used to conquer a territtory. only to weaken.

"The phoenix" have a big fort reapear after a failed attack (would be nice for those games where your dice decide they hate you)

[firsal901]

Great idea and how about Mustard Gas kill every unit in a territory then it becomes urs

[Rowney]

great idea, the picture it conjurs up is funny fun fun. id like the 'is there a boat to france card' and ' like hell your gonna win this game' card, a card so big i can smash my crappy laptop with. I wish id been there to play it sounds quite surreal and a lot of laughs

[L M S]

There needs to be the all important "get me a glass of whiskey" card too.