by KieronGillen
My game's just reached the end, in a similar situation, oddly enough, but from completely the opposite position. I was a game ahead the other person, and everyone else was lagging behind. We actually did check the rules, so were aware that in the case of a draw, it was a roll off.The situation became "If anyone but the second player wins, I win". So my move should have just been to do everything I could to ruin the second-position player. Hell, even throwing starting armies at him would probably be enough, as you're generally able to hobble an opposing player if you're willing to give up your own chance of winning.
But no. It was the last game we were almost certainly going to play. I wasn't going to waste everyone's time like that and sour what had been a great year of gaming.
He won, and won a roll off. I admit, there's part of me that growls at that, but if I went back, I'd do the same again. C'est la vie.
That said, there is one important rule we're all overlooking here. I certainly was.
Winning the most battles doesn't mean you win the game.
You get to name the world. The game explicitly never calls the person who wins the most games the winner. It's described as a reward for the person who won most. These are fundamentally different things - and the main reason why something as random as a roll off is a perfectly acceptable way to wrap things off.
Recognising this, and sensing the epic gaming we'd all come through, the guy who came on top of the roll-off named the world in a tribute to everyone who played it.
Risk Legacy surprised me all the way through, in terms of how it upended convention. It was only really then I got that it wasn't a campaign in the commonly accepted sense, but in fact something completely different.
(Heh. All of this is bunk, of course, if I've missed a place where it says the world-namer is the winner.)
