The Game of Risk

Some of my investment thinking comes from the game of Risk. I thought I'd share one strategy that I stumbled upon in college.

My strategy was simple. There was no grand scheme for total world domination. I simply did not wish to lose first and I meant it. That's all I was striving to do and those I played with believed me, mainly because it was absolutely true.

I'd therefore concentrate all my armies in one country in Asia, sacrifice all others, and make it clear that I could neither take nor hold Asia. In the early stages of the game, I was clearly not a threat. I was also someone not worthy of attacking. It would be very painful to extract me with nothing to be gained.

The game would start with me being completely ignored and left alone. The only combat I would do would be early in the game with a willing participant. I'd take a nearby country to gain a card, then retreat leaving one army to defend. Another person would generally be willing to attack that army so that they too could get a card easily. They would then leave one army for me to attack and the process could repeat. Once I reached four cards in my hand I would stop all hostilities and hibernate (having more than four cards forces you to spend them).

The game would continue and I would do nothing. Meanwhile, others would fight bloody wars in an attempt to acquire more land and power. Some would lose. Some would gain. The winners tended to be somewhat weakened in the wars, at least temporarily. Each turn my forces grew steadily through reinforcements and none were ever lost though.

As the end game approached, someone would notice that I had accumulated a vast number of armies on my one country. They would want to know just exactly how many were there. That's when things started to get very interesting. I had already achieved my stated goal. I was not the first to lose. The first time I played I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. I didn't have a secondary goal.

One of my smarter opponents thought up a strategy to deal with me and the rest really seemed to like the idea. They would take turns whittling me down to size and therefore level the playing field. It was in their collective best interests to gang up on me. As you can imagine, I was not fond of their plan to say the least, lol.

That really helped motivate me to come up with a secondary goal. My primary goal was not to be the first person to lose. My secondary goal would simply be an extension of that. I would not be the NEXT person to lose. Winning the game was still really not a part of my thought process. I was concentrating on not losing (which some might argue is the actually the same).

My new strategy was in the form of an ultimatum. There would be no whittling. The first person to attack me will be wiped out on my next turn using ALL of my remaining armies. I would not win the game, but I would not be the next to lose. I wasn't quite sure how that threat would be received, but believe it or not it did have the desired effect. Nobody wanted to be the next person to lose. They actually went back to ignoring me!

This brings me back to the idea of the prisoner's dilemma. It was in their collective best interests to remove me from the game, or at least reduce me as a threat (especially since I was now making threats). It was not in their individual best interests to do it though, so it never happened.

Ignoring me even though they knew I was a threat was a big mistake, although I'm not sure what they could have done to stop it without someone making the ultimate sacrifice. Sound familiar? At some point I was able to sweep the entire board of all opponents in just one turn.

The next time we played I used the same strategy and it worked again. This really surprised me. I did not expect to win twice, nor was I even attempting to do so. I simply did not wish to lose first again and they believed me again. They tried to deal with me earlier on though. That just meant that I had to offer the ultimatum earlier. It did not actually solve their problem. The problem was intractable.

The third time we played things went to hell in a hand basket. A friend of mine decided to use my strategy too. Now there were two of us being ignored. Towards the end of the game, he had boxes of armies on his country. I also had boxes of armies on my country. Here's the problem. Neither of us could sweep the board first. We were equally powerful. Neither of us had an advantage over the other. That means that if he swept the board first then he would be weakened in the process and then I could sweep him. We could not attack each other directly either, since that would weaken the victor to the point the remaining players could finish us off. We were protected by the concept of mutually assured destruction.

The remaining players were beyond frustrated, as you can imagine. They were somewhat safe from us, but only because of our gridlock, and not because they could ever actually win. There's just something wrong about seeing boxes of armies in Asia while you are trying to send a handful of armies to take back Australia from some other opponent for the umpteenth time. It can be very depressing, or so we were told, repeatedly.

I actually felt pretty bad. We never did finish that game and it was the last time we ever played. The game was ruined for all of us, and it was all due to me playing a game of risk but striving to avoid risk. That's kind of how I feel now. The more of us that avoid risk the worse this economy is going to be. Unfortunately, avoiding risk has been a winning strategy since at least 1997 and more and more people are finally stumbling upon it.

Further, we're doing everything in our power to amass boxes of working class armies in Asia. They aren't our armies though and I doubt very seriously that we can safely ignore them long-term. We're probably well past the point of being able to do anything about it. I certainly don't think we're the ones who are going to be in a position to hand out ultimatums in the end game. Let's just put it that way. Sigh.