there's about 3 levels of strategic play: a player can follow the rules a player can find the optimal strategy within the rules a player can use the rules to

there's about 3 levels of strategic play: a player can follow the rules a player can find the optimal strategy within the rules a player can use the rules to find plays that negate easy access to the optimal strategy to the enemy this whole article is mostly stuck at level 2, it identifies a workable strategy analyzing a player own options, missing all the more advanced plays that a risk player should know and will need to do to win. moreover, there's one critical flaw in the analysis, the goal is not to reach your objective, the goal is to reach your objective before other players do, and the time limit influences the risk taking; turtling, as suggested here, rarely wins games. anyway, risk itself is a insanely complex games, so I'll skip mechanics, which are kind of covered in the article (except combination optimization, which is weird since mechanically speaking it is one major factor driving gameplay) and go at the jugular of the issue: you win at risk guessing other people goals and making moves that confound your own or even let player think your goal is one of those of your adversaries. mechanically suboptimal moves, like a push into a continent you don't have to conquer but one of your enemy does, will trigger player response, and strategically turning player against each other will both buy you time and reduce the enemy placing too many reinforcements against your actual goal path.