Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

RISK The Game On Google Maps

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Nov 09, 2005 11:00 PM
from the feeling-lucky dept.
Businesses Google The Internet Entertainment Games
axonis writes "ZenChi has created a Google Maps API project based on the popular board game RISK on Google Maps. While Zen is developing a multi-player version, you can play a game right now with others huddled around your computer."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

RISK The Game On Google Maps 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Can Google maps get more geeky? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trigun (685027) <`xc.hta.eripmelive' `ta' `live'> on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:02PM (#13995191)
    Call Newman and Kramer. And can someone program an API to find my keys?

  • There goes my life... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DogDude (805747) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:03PM (#13995194) Homepage
    As soon as this thing gets into online leagues, I'm afraid that my social life will be finished. This rocks.

  • In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Funny)

    by countchoc12 (789688) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:03PM (#13995195)
    Google API Project maps Risk on YOU!

  • Want to play a game, Professor Falken? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Argonne (913222) * on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:04PM (#13995197) Journal
    With all the news about Google's great power these days, I know that when I play this I'll turn on CNN when I sent Alaskan forces against Kamchatka. On second thought, maybe not. I really don't want to have to hear George W. Bush try to pronounce "Irkutsk".

  • That's Friggin Brilliant... (Score:4, Funny)

    by CptTripps (196901) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:04PM (#13995199) Homepage
    ...now does anyone remember how to play Risk?

    • Re:That's Friggin Brilliant... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by YrWrstNtmr (564987) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:13PM (#13995261)
      ...now does anyone remember how to play Risk?

      Yes, courtesy of Lux [sillysoft.net].

    • Of course I remember how to play; I used to play Risk with my friends all the time when I was younger. First you pick what country happens to be the most "totally awsome." (I happen to prefer "the Russkies" because those guys from down the street always say that they're "retarded" and "gay," and that makes me empathize with the Soviet bloc.) Then, you make up some crazy rules (such as "No, you can't move there, because Australia is stupid,") spend about 30 minutes looking at all the weird cards, and fina

    • Re:That's Friggin Brilliant... (Score:5, Funny)

      by patio11 (857072) on Thursday November 10 2005, @12:40AM (#13995634)
      All I remember is owning Australia is key to world domination. You get to deploy your hordes of Crockodile Dundee, Jeff Corwin, and Mel Gibson in his before-he-got-religion period (well, OK, Passion is probably more violent than Thunderdome, but in a different way). And the beatdown commences.

    • Re:That's Friggin Brilliant... (Score:4, Funny)

      by raoul666 (870362) <[pi.rocks] [at] [gmail.com]> on Thursday November 10 2005, @01:06AM (#13995715)
      Basically, you just wait until everyone gets tired of it, then you knock down their pieces with yours. Some helpful hints:
      1. Take as long as possible deciding troop placement, using obscure algorithms
      2. To decide where to attack, make a large probability diagram with all possible outcomes
      3. Roll all dice one at a time, saying a short prayer over each one of them. In Elvish, if possible

      Using these, and other patent-pending ideas, World Domination(tm) can be yours!
  • Now all we need to do is combine this with giant Internet-guided robots and we'll be all set for World War

  • School (Score:5, Interesting)

    by saskboy (600063) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:11PM (#13995239) Homepage Journal
    I wonder if this would be a good way to encourage students to learn the geography they are so sorely lacking? What better way to learn where Uzbekistan is, than to invade Iran from it?

  • Shall we play a game? (Score:5, Funny)

    by oskard (715652) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:13PM (#13995258)
    Apparently the server was located in Quebec because as soon as I defeated the troops stationed there, the web site crashed.

    Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess?
  • always start in australia ;-)

    • Re:remember old school risk players (Score:4)

      by Malc (1751) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:34PM (#13995378)
      Nah, it gets boring always winning. Much more fun to try to win from Ukraine or Mongolia.

    • Re:remember old school risk players (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hackstraw (262471) * on Thursday November 10 2005, @12:47AM (#13995665) Homepage
      australia

      Yeah, that was an easy way. However, you had to get a decent number of armies to shield yourself in Australia and grow that number at a constant rate to defend against attacks and store up for the charge across the World (or just be very patient).

      That is definitely the most conservative way to play, but there are many ways of defeating it.

      • Re:remember old school risk players (Score:5, Interesting)

        by fishbowl (7759) <nethack.cox@net> on Thursday November 10 2005, @03:22AM (#13996125)
        I'm trying to write an AI player for Risk. For placing armies and reinforcing borders, I've started with a heuristic approach that weighs the least number of fronts, the least continental fronts, the continent value, and maybe a continental affinity in the event of a tie. Depending on how you weigh the continent value against the number of continental borders, this always picks Japan or Argentina first, assuming the theatre is the original map.

        I'm thinking there must be a "one true" next correct territory to put a unit, regardless of how many ready units there are, what the current state of the map is, etc. Likewise for attacking. Right now my AIPlayer attacks anywhere he has 3 or mor troop strength regardless of the opposition (very stupid, I know :-)

        Trying to figure out this troop placement thing made me realize I don't actually have a working strategy as a human player. I've always basically just tried to get a connected map wherever my opponents weren't, or else just placed units randomly. But the more I look at it, the more I think the best early strategy is to take and hold South America. Trying to generalize the reasons for that strategy into something that would work for any map.

        • Having played way more games of risk online on the web than Id care to admit I have rationalized the following principles as the usual strategy for playing with/against humans in the "conquer the world" usual rules. I think it describes very well the plot in most games among experienced risk players, and unfortunately for the sake of the fun it also means these games draag until someone loses their patience and either abandons the game right away or does it by breaking principle number 4 below.

          1) Pick a co

  • Uh-oh (Score:4, Funny)

    by kramthegram (918152) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:14PM (#13995267)
    If Bush finds this game he'll be calling for an all out assult on the green guys attacking from Mexico, America needs that continental bonus for our troops in Iraq!

  • Diplomacy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lamasquerade (172547) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:40PM (#13995404)
    I'd love to see a version of Diplomacy [wikipedia.org] made to work the same way - that is my favourite boardgame of all time and I believe Risk is based on it. Diplomacy's major strength though is the lack of die - it's all strategy and negotiation, chance plays just about no role (the allocation of countries at the beginning being the only exception).

  • Hello Professor (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kortec (449574) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:42PM (#13995412) Homepage
    Hello Professor; would you like to play a game of Search Engine War?
  • If I had any friends to actually play with :(

    Isn't the purpose of the computer to replace them?! Then why are there no bots!

  • GoogleEarth (Score:3, Funny)

    by emjoi_gently (812227) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:59PM (#13995492)
    I'd love a more dynamic api for GoogleEarth. At the moment it's fairly static. You can place things on the Earth, but you can't make them move. Too be able to have ICBMs flying between the US and the USSR, with little mushroom clouds....

  • That's nice, but I'll stick with warfish.net (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Futaba-chan (541818) on Thursday November 10 2005, @12:14AM (#13995549)
    Well, it's pretty, and all... but warfish.net [warfish.net] has a perfectly functional multiplayer play-over-the-web Risk implementation, using a stylized map, including several variants. The picture on the map doesn't matter nearly so much as the gameplay does....

  • Crap. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Timewinder (467583) on Thursday November 10 2005, @12:24AM (#13995586)
    C'mon now, I haven't even managed to finish the last game of RISK I started...

    It's been 3 weeks, dear god someone help me...

  • Great Free Online Risk like game (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mikapc (664262) on Thursday November 10 2005, @12:53AM (#13995680)
    Check out globalcombat.com , it is an excellent improved upon version of risk that I've played for years on and off. It is web based and allows multiplayer games of anywhere between 2 and 32 players. Turn rates can be anywhere from 1 minute to 72 hours. Check it out.

  • Perfect (Score:5, Funny)

    by oncebitten (893231) on Thursday November 10 2005, @01:07AM (#13995723)
    So now Rimmer can blog his Risk campaign book *and* play at the same time.

    Then again, he's too much of a smeg head to multitask like that.

  • Hear that? (Score:3, Funny)

    by aspjunkie (265714) on Thursday November 10 2005, @01:47AM (#13995852) Homepage
    What's that awful sound?
    The collective squeal of thousands of nerds in excitement of a Google/Risk mashup.

  • Gratuitous (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CowboyRobot (671517) on Thursday November 10 2005, @04:37AM (#13996287) Homepage
    Using Google Maps is totally gratuitous here. Zooming in to get more detailed terrain actually inhibits gameplay rather than enhances it. A really good free, online, multiplayer game of this sort is Conqueror! [conquerorgame.com] - which is not Risk, but takes some of the ideas of Risk and Axis & Allies and uses them in the context of Medieval Europe.

    • Re:Talk about google infatuation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by YrWrstNtmr (564987) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:24PM (#13995329)
      Talk about a 0.1 alpha version. Give it time.

      GoogleRisk - 2010
      Played in realtime, lifesize, via mobile phone, in one or more major cities in each 'territory'.

      Risk is quite possibly the classic 'world war' game. A few hundred years of seasoning, and it may be equivalent to chess.

    • Re:Talk about google infatuation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lamasquerade (172547) on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:48PM (#13995442)
      You know I really wonder about comments like these. Is there some sort of negative Slashdot commenter's club that you join or are you guys just a bunch of unhappy people? I mean, someone goes out and creates something pretty cool, he/she announces it on a mailinglist for some feedback, and you just give this incredibly negative why-even-bother type comment. Not criticism either, no real points are raised, just a bashing of the effort. I just don't get it - why, in fact, do you bother?

      For the record I think it looks pretty cool and no doubt will only get better. Oh and as for making it on an API that 'clearly isn't meant to support such a game' - isn't that the hacking mentality? Go out and create something that wasn't even envisioned... just for fun!

    • Re:Talk about google infatuation (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Not only is it single terminal only, but your forced to play..."

      Me fail English? That's unpossible.

    • Re:Talk about google infatuation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2005, @11:54PM (#13995465)
      ...made on an api that clearly isnt meant to support such a game.

      That's exactly why it's cool! Don't you understand hack-value?

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.