You look at the map. Your current position looks good (you are playing as Red, A). You decide to go for Africa. You have lots of hope. You think in a few turns you get yourself established in the continent and will be ready to make a challenge for others. All is going according to plan. Excellent! Later, just by accident, you bump into a fortune teller who wants to predict your future. She looks at your hand (and probably the map) and says, “My son, I am afraid I have some bad news for you. I see darkness ahead. The more distant I look, the more darkness I see. You ought to be careful with who you deal with. Look around, never lose site of the distant world and try not to get carried away by your own strength.”
The fortune teller leaves you in deep thought. What did she really mean? Not to get carried away!? Distant world? All too confusing. You consider her comments for a moment, but you need to move on. The game is waiting for you. Maybe later you will realise what she meant. Hopefully …
You start with this map and make your move. [These maps are illustrated in BOMS Graphs].
And then decide to go for Africa, naturally. Blue and Green also manage to establish themselves in Australia and South America. At this point Brown gets eliminated by Yellow. You feel quite comfortable in Africa. In fact, you think all is going according to plan. No one bothers you and others don’t seem to be interested to expand through you. Perfect!
Green, having secured Australia, is looking to expand. He decides to conquer South America and fight Blue. You feel even luckier. This is so good. Everyone is fighting each other, while you are spared, completely. You think of your encounter with the fortune teller. Ah! What was she on about?
You notice that Yellow is becoming more powerful, but he doesn’t have any continents. You should be able to handle him. Your intention is to stop him from getting Europe, but that’s not necessary at this point. You decide to expand to South America as it has minimal resistance and doesn’t add to your number of borders. Again, perfect. You think that you really had it good in this game so far. Don’t you just love Risk!
At this point, Green made a fantastic move. He went all the way from Australia to Europe to eliminate Blue and got his cards. With the newly cashed cards he went all the way to South America to get back the continent he just lost to you. Wow! You think, first move was fantastic, second move was just silly. That was way too much expansion. Good for you. The more they weaken themselves, the better.
Before your turn comes, Yellow decided to take the opportunity. He doesn’t have any continents, so it’s now or never. He rubs you of your bonus in Africa and also invades Green’s South American continent, weakening everyone as he goes.
Suddenly you don’t feel comfortable anymore. You try to stay out of trouble, so that you can go back to your original strength.
You recapture Africa and reinforce your borders waiting for the next moves. You think you've survived.
You now have to make a decision. You are able to cash in your cards. The problem is that if you cash in, both Black and Green will cash after you and that means a lot of armies will be floating around potentially killing you in the process. So you decide that you better stay put and out of trouble. You just want to stay strong and not to fight your neighbours. In the background, the fortune teller’s words hang in the air …
This is what happened next!
You were eliminated along with Yellow, and Green will soon be gone too! Suddenly, the fortune teller’s words start to pop back to your mind. "I see darkness ahead ..." Slowly you start to understand what she meant. She warned you not to get carried away with yourself. She warned you of the distant powers. Now it slowly starts to make sense... Black!! Yes, Black. He was never involved in any of the fights. He was just there. Out of the way and isolated. No one cared about him. "We just fought each other and he simply came and took it all. Ahhhh, I should have listened to the fortune teller. Or better still, if I have only thought about the big picture. Now I know. I felt too confident. I selfishly wanted to stay out of trouble not realising that I am just as responsible to get every player involved in the campaigns. Only now I understand. Too late. But at least I learnt my lesson ..."
