Castle Risk
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Castle Risk is a version of the board game Risk that is played on a map of Europe. It was first released as by Parker Brothers in 1986 and later appeared on the reverse side of the board in an early 1990s version of the standard Risk game.
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Map
The map is divided into six empires and three neutral areas. A player receives four troops per turn for each empire the player controls and six troops for controlling all the neutral areas. A common variation in play is to have each of the neutral regions worth two troops a turn.
Empires:
- France (Paris, Gascony, Netherlands, Brittany, Marseille, Burgundy)
- England (London, Wales, Ireland, Yorkshire, Scotland)
- Russia (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Livonia, Smolensk, Ukraine, Poland)
- Germany (Prussia, Berlin, Saxony, Rhine, Bavaria)
- Ottoman (Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece)
- Austro-Hungary (Trieste, Galicia, Vienna, Bohemia, Hungary)
Neutrals:
- Italy (Switzerland, Venice, Rome, Naples)
- Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Portugal)
- Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland)
Rules
The rules of Castle Risk differ from original Risk in several respects. Each empire has a capital (of the players chosing) and once the capital is lost that player is out of the game. A capital can only be attacked with two dice, rather than the standard three. This gives some added advantage to the defender.
Castle Risk also has very different cards. Rather than only the standard reinforcement cards there are a wide assortment:
- Generals - +1 to the top attacking dice
- Marshalls - +1 to top defending dice
- Admirals - may transport armies by sea
- Diplomats - impose a truce on another player for a turn
- Spy - look at and force the discard of one of an opponent's cards
- Reinforcements - gain more troops
Strategy
Players generally agree that the best empire to be is usually France. Its owner automatically dominates Spain and England (if it is empty). It is not usually bordered by many hostile empires. The worst empire is Austro-Hungary, which is very boxed in by other powers and has no territories that do not border other empires.
One strategy, that is, unfortunately, too effective in Castle Risk is to sit and build up in your capital for most of the game until you can launch an attack with an admiral against another player's capital. This, however, produces a very boring game.
Rule modifications
One method of preventing the above strategy is to create "quadrants" to reduce the power of the admiral cards. This is done by dividing the board along the folds and at Portugal and allowing a admiral to only travel two quadrants a turn. Thus one can no longer attack from St. Petersburg to Turkey by sea, but St. Petersburg to Yorkshire, or Rome to Turkey are still permissible.
External links
- Castle Risk review by BoardGameGeek.com (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2557)
- Castle Risk collector information (http://www.de-leau.com/startpagina/risk/risk/1980riskcastle/) with photos
- More Castle Risk collector information (http://www.de-leau.com/startpagina/risk/risk/1986castle/) with close up photos
- Official rules of Castle Risk (http://www.gamingcorner.nl/rules/boardgames/castle%20risk_uk.pdf) (PDF file)
- In-depth analysis of the strategy of Castle Risk (http://www.riskprobabilities.com/Castle%20RISK/Castle_Risk.htm)