Risk Game

Jonathan Sullivan
International Politics
Prof. Shirk
December 12, 2017

In our class game of risk I felt as though a few of the ideas of the game had realistic elements of international politics as well the game had some unrealistic elements. Two of the realistic parts of the game was the alliance making, the team objective ideas. I liked these parts of the game because I think that happen a lot in international politics. The alliance making is so critical in today's world. The United States has so many alliances with countries because smaller nations want the protection of our military. In turn we gain their support and become stronger together. The more countries you have on your side the stronger you are, and less likely you are to be attacked. The team objectives was also very compelling. This is because even though you may think you have an alliance with someone at the end of the day everyone has their own goals. I relate this to WWII and how the Americans and Soviets worked together. While they worked to rid Europe of the Nazis it is obvious the two nations had very different objectives.
Two unrealistic parts of the game I thought were the special powers and the way wars were won. I understand the whole point of the special powers is to make the game a bit more fun and entertaining which is fun but is unrealistic. Also, the team with the more blocks had an advantage with rolling the dice but I thought that it should be harder to win a territory. In particular I thought a team defending should have an advantage no matter what. It would make the game slower but I thought it should be harder to win a war if you are attacking with a smaller force.

Two things I would change about the game would be the world council and the amount of teams. I think the world council should be changed and countries with more territories and power should have their vote count a little more like 1.5 instead of 1. This relates to how larger countries in the world have more control over smaller countries in world politics. I believe the number of teams should be increased because I thought 5 people on a team were too many and 3 would be better. I think this could help people stay more engaged in the game because there was a lot of waiting and sitting around for the members of the team that were not the president or diplomat. This way everyone would have to pay attention which would make the game more enjoyable for all.