RISKS v. 2.0

By
William Lee Deniston


REGISTRATION:

This program was written through the hard work of one person, and is
NOT released under the title of "Freeware". It is a valued game (at least to
me) and I would appreciate your cooperation in registering it. However, if
your conscience can handle it, there is no change in the software that will
make the program run differently (maybe, try and find out). I am relying on
your personal honesty. However, a registered user can receive the game on a
disk of their choosing.
Should you conscience catch up with you, the registration fee
is...$30...no...$20...um... maybe I'll go with $15. Of course if you would
like to spend more on it, you're more then welcome to. Just send a check or
money order to:

William Lee Deniston
522 Delsol Lane
Lewiston, ID 83501

Make any checks payable to William Lee Deniston. Also, send any comments or
other notes about the game to the same address. Also, tell me what size of
diskette you desire, and what density. If you don't tell me what size and
density, you will receive a 3.5" DD version.
Please feel free to pass the game around, but please try to keep all
the files in the same form, and together, as the program is very touchy when
it can't find a file.

ABOUT THE GAME:

This is NOT, nor will it ever be a result of the hard working
individuals that created the original Risk computer game based on the Milton
Bradley board game of the same name. This was a project I took on for fun
one day, and grew into something I thought other people might like. I did
not create it exactly like the professional computer game, because I have
never played it. This was created through my (and some close friends) ideas
by saying "wouldn't it be neat if we did...". Any similarities to the
professional computer game is coincidental. The most I know of it, is what
I have read off the box in the store, and what people have told me.
This game is designed to run best on a VGA compatible IBM PC/AT or
better. I have ran it on everything from an IBM 80286 to a
CompuClassic 80486DX-50mhz. I have not had any problems with it. However,
if you seem to have problems just drop me a line above, and I'll see what I
can do.

GRAPHICS:

This game should run on any system using an EGA, VGA, Super VGA, or
Extended VGA graphics board. I have used it with my VGA card, and had no
problems. If you don't have one of the graphics types above, try the game
and see if it works anyway, it might pop up on the screen without any
problems, I don't know. My testing abilities were limited to the above
graphics. However, I did try the game on an old IBM 8088 (Tobby Turtle) XT
with a hercules card and it did screwy things to the monitor, so it wont run
with hercules.

WINDOWS:

The game should run in Windows 3.x. I used Borland Pascal 7.0 for
Windows to create this program (it is not a Windows program though), and
didn't have any problems. The only possible problem might arise in the
graphics settings. The game uses 640x480 graphics, and since Windows doesn't
appear to like other modes of graphics when it is running something specific,
you might have problems. If this occurs, just run it from DOS when you are
out of Windows. I don't know how to fix this problem. If someone can tell
me, please feel free to write me. If you do run it in Windows there is a
file called RISKS.ICO included with the game that is an icon for Windows.

THE GAME CONTROLS:

If you have a mouse, it should work with the program. Risks is pretty
easy going as far as mice are concerned. However, you must load your mouse
software at some point before using the game. If you are not using a mouse
driver but are using Windows 3.x you will have the mouse in windows, but not
in Risks, because Windows loads the mouse driver in long enough to use it and
dumps it from memory when running a non-windows application.
Don't worry. If you don't have a mouse you can still use the game,
you just won't be able to do things the easy way. I will suggest that you
think about buying a mouse, as the move to graphically based environments is
just getting started. However, there is a hotkey for EVERY command you see
on the board. The arrow keys on the keyboard will allow you to move through
the different territories. Some of these movements are a little strange,
just bare with it and think about buying a mouse. The hotkeys for the
buttons are all highlighted on the screen, so look for these when trying to
make a selection on the screen.

OTHER STUFF:

There is an on-line help file that you can pull up whenever...almost
whenever you want. It will give a list of the commands, and provide for some
of the more complicated internal help. I tried to be as thorough with the
help file as possible, but if there is something you don't understand, please
feel free to write me and ask.

MATH COPROCESSORS:

Risks is set up to use the numeric coprocessor on a machine, however,
it is not dependent on it. If one does not exist, don't worry about it. The
numeric coprocessor doesn't make drastic changes.

DISKS:

Risks is best to run from a hard drive. It loads the picture file
much faster, and the additional files will run quicker. If you want to, you
can run it from a disk. The files will fit on a Double Density diskette, and
if it doesn't fit, you can remove files like the PIF and, the ICO and the
other graphics (*.BGI) files other than the one you need (most likely the
file labelled EGAVGA.BGI).

MEMORY:

Risks is set up to you EMS (Expanded Memory). If there is no EMS
found on the system it will use the overlay file to swap the most used pieces
of the program in and out of memory. If EMS is found it is used to control
the overlaying of the files in memory.
If you experience a drastic lag in the graphics, try freeing up some
memory. This occurs most often in Windows 3.x when running the Risks
program.
Even though I have created a PIF file to give some EMS memory to the
game it still occasionally slows down. When this happens, just don't run it
through Windows, or try closing some applications.
I have experienced some situations where Windows 3.x has reported that
there was not enough memory to display the graphics. At that time it will
minimize the Risks program, you can then double click on it, and it will run.
I don't know how to stop this, especially since it only happens occasionally,
but if you know how, just let me know.

FILES:

The files which are used by Risks are listed below with a brief
description of what each is:

RISKS.EXE - The main program, the one to be run.
RISKS.PIF - The PIF file for windows. When in windows run this.
RISKS20.ICO - Windows icon.
RISKS.DAT - Data file containing the information on the territories.
RISKS.OVR - Overlay file for RISKS.
RISKS.PCT - Risks picture of the world.
RISKS.HLP - Main text file for the help.
RCREDITS.HLP - Risks credits. Thanks to everyone.
RISKSA.HLP - Help file for the attacks.
RISKSF.HLP - Help file for the fortifications.
RISKSP.HLP - Help file for the placement of armies.
GRAPH.TPU - Borland Pascal 7.0 graphics unit file.
TRIP.CHR - Triplex font for Borland Pascal 7.0.
EGAVGA.BGI - EGA/VGA graphics unit from Borland Pascal 7.0.
ATT.BGI - ATT graphics unit from Borland Pascal 7.0.
CGA.BGI - CGA graphics unit from Borland Pascal 7.0.
IBM8514.BGI - IBM 8514 graphics driver from Borland Pascal 7.0.
PC3270.BGI - PC 3270 graphics driver from Borland Pascal 7.0.
README.TXT - This file.

All these files are important except the README.TXT file you are reading now
and if you need space you can remove the PIF, ICO, and extra BGI files.

THANKS:

A special thanks has to go to all the people at my college for making
me feel like I was doing a good job, even when I was having a bad programming
day.
Thanks to the people who helped with the testing:

Randall Harvey Edward S. Miller Pat Murphy
Glory Deniston Greg Sledge Randy Sell
and many more...sorry I missed you

A special thanks needs to go to Edward Miller, my college instructor,
who helped to keep me straight on the rules of Risk by Milton Bradley. If it
weren't for him you would all be writing me complaining that it is nothing
like the program you are all used to.
The graphics took forever. Edward Miller helped with the code to
load and save it, and Randall Harvey and I spent a month drawing it. With
out the help they gave me, it wouldn't be very nice, because... I CAN'T DRAW!

I hope everyone enjoys this game, because I do. It has thoroughly
been a thrill to me. I had all the ideas for so long, and to see it running
the way I wanted it to, and programmed it is a total rush. Have fun, and
take lots of RISKS!

RULES:

The rules of Risks are exactly the same as those of the game Risk. Try
to take over the world by moving armies through other peoples territories.
In taking over the world employ strategy to wipe out your opponents armies,
and protect yourself at the same time. If your opponent is tougher, then
break him up, take his armies away.

The Controls -

The game controls are very easy. Every button has a hot key, so if you
don't have a mouse you can press the letter of the hot key for a choice. The
hot key is the letter labelled in red on any button. Sometimes (as in the
attacks) a button is not labelled with a hotkey, but there is a hot key
labelled above it. This is what you use.
When moving from territory to territory you can use the cursor control
keys on the keyboard. Since not all the territories are a direct direction
from each other, you may have to move from one to the next in order to get to
your location, but it will do it.

Active Territory -

On the screen will be a cross during the game play. This cross sets on
top of the active territory. The active territory is the one that will have
its information displayed when the [Info] button is pressed. It is also the
territory in the "From" information box in the attack and fortify screens.
The active territory also has its armies displayed in the bottom left hand
corner of the screen at all times.
Changing the active territory can be done with the cursor control keys
or the mouse. It is easier to have the active territory marked when entering
fortify or attack so it is right when you get in there. This will speed
things up.

The Main Menu -

The main menu is the first thing you see when the game starts up. From
this menu you can make a few options for the upcoming game.

[Start] - Using this button starts the game. It will then ask you
to give each player a name, and then it will go on to assign
players territories.
[Load] - The load and save functions have not yet been designed
for the game. I will have this in a future release, but right
know I just wanted it usable.
[Players] - This button allows the change in the amount of players on
the screen. The number will always increase. There is a
maximum of six (6) players at a time, and a minimum of two
(2). Therefore, when the players reaches six it will then
go to 2 if you press the [Players] button again.
[Fortify ?] - This button will change its name each time it is
pressed. If it says "Fortify Enabled" then it will become
"Fortify Disabled". And vice versa. This allows you to turn
off the fortification. Turning off the fortification makes
the game much harder, as any trapped armies are totally lost.
[Cards ?] - This button will change its name also. If the button is
labelled "Cards Enabled", then the cards in the game can be
used. If the button is pressed it will change to "Cards
Disabled" and then there will be no cards given throughout
the course of the game. This too increases the difficulty
of the game.
[Place Own Armies] - This button determines whether every player starts
with one (1) army on each territory or gets to start
with some armies to fortify at the beginning. If the
block is slid to the No side, then the computer will
select a territory for each player and place one army
on each location. You can then choose to
redistribute these territories (reassign them) so one
person doesn't start off with an advantage at the
beginning of the game. If the block is on the Yes
side, the computer will deal out (because each player
gets a card saying a certain territory is theirs) all
the world, assign one (1) army to each, and then give
each player an opportunity to place additional
armies. Additional armies to place depends on how
many players are playing the game. For more
information on placing armies see below. Once a
player is done placing their armies it becomes the
next persons turn to do so. After all the armies
have been placed the game begins, and each player
gets their standard armies.
[Defense Armies] - This button determines how many armies the defensive
player rolls. The attacker can always roll one, two,
or three dice, but the defensive player can only roll
one, or two dice. If this is set to two (2) then two
armies will be lost on each roll (except when the
attacker rolls one). If this is set to one (1), then
the looser of a dice roll can only loose one, even if
the attacker rolls three. The reason is this is the
amount of armies in jeopardy at a time, and one army
can only take out one army.
[Quit] - Use this button if you want to leave the game. It will
restore the CRT mode and return control to DOS.


Armies -

The armies are the key to the whole game. Without armies you can not do
anything. Armies in Risks are given the same as the armies are given in the
Milton Bradley board game Risk. First, all the territories a player owns are
counted, and divided by three (3). If that gives a fraction it is truncated
to leave a whole integer. This is the amount of armies received for holding
territories.
Second the continents are counted. If a player holds a complete
continent at the beginning of their turn, they get armies for them. The
armies work as follows:

Asia = 7 armies
Europe = 5 armies
North America = 5 armies
Africa = 3 armies
South America = 2 armies
Australia = 2 armies

As you can see some are worth more armies than others and this is due to the
difficulty in holding these continents.
Thirdly the cards are checked to see if more armies are due. A player
can receive one card a turn, but only if they take at least one territory
from an opponent. As cards add up, there are increasing odds that you will
be able to turn them in. Card points work on a steadily increasing scale.
Therefore, the more cards you have later in the game, the more armies you
will get on your turn. You can not get cards before you have a total of
three (3), and you will always have cards before you get six (6). Anywhere
in between those values has increasingly better odds of receiving cards.
Through the game, if a player is eliminated, that is, if another player
takes him/her over, the conquering player will receive all the opponents
cards. If the loosing player has enough cards, and the attacker has enough
cards, it is possible to get more armies on the spot. The game will tell you
if you have received armies from taking over an opponent when you exit the
final attack on their territories.

Placement of Armies -

When you get to your turn, place your armies. This is done by moving to
one of your territories that you want to have more armies on, and pressing
the [Armies] button. There will then be a prompt on the screen asking for
the amount of armies to place on that territory. If you try to place armies
on a different territory, one owned by your opponents, the game will flash a
message telling you that you can't do it.
Be extremely careful. Attacking before you have placed all of your
armies will result in an immediate forfeiture of all the remaining armies to
be placed. It will tell you if it happens, and then you just have to cancel
the attack.

Information -

If at any point during the game you are curious as to which territory
belongs to what player, how many cards a player has, or what continent a
territory is part of, you can press the [Info] button and it will tell you.
The name of the currently active territory will be displayed in the color of
the person that owns it at the top. Just underneath that is the name of the
continent it belongs to.
The name of the possessive player is listed next to the "Owner:"
message. Also that territories total armies are shown, and the amount of
cards the player owning that territory holds. This information can come in
handy for checking to see who a player is, incase you forget which color you
are.
The information screen will move to various locations on the screen,
depending on which territory is active. It tries to stay off the top of the
territory it is informing of, so players can see the surrounding areas for
developing strategies. This screen can be eliminated by pressing the [Done]
button, or pressing .

Help -

More help is available in the game. At almost any point you can call up
the help window. Use the [Page Up], and [Page Down] buttons to look through
the text. When you are done press the [Quit] button.

Credits -

The game credits are available in the game. To see them click once on
the word "RISKS" at the top of the screen. The credits screen works just
like the help screen.

Attacking -

When it comes time to attack your opponents, press the [Attack] button
in the top right hand side of the map. At this time press [Yes] and it will
take you into the attack dialog screen.
At the bottom of the screen you will see a block labelled "Attacking".
This is the Attack Information Block. If you read each line of the block one
at a time it constructs a sentence which states your intentions. When you
start it should say:

Attacking From To Unattackable
or
Attacking From To None

This is telling you that you have not selected an opponent to attack from the
territory listed in the section labelled .
By clicking on a territory, you will change it to a sentence structure
like:

Attacking From To

If this is a valid attack the button labelled [Attack] can be used to start
rolling the dice. If it is not a valid attack, then the [Attack] button will
be dehighlighted, and you will have to choose a different territory to
attack.
If for some chance you don't want to attack from the territory in the
"From" box, you can change this. At the current time a blue box is around on
of the two territory names. If you click on the box you want to change, in
this case the "From" box, the blue square will "highlight" that one. Then
choosing a territory will change that square to the name of the territory
chosen. When you are done, you should rechoose the "To" box by clicking on
it.
Once a valid attack has been chosen, and the [Attack] button has been
pressed, the dice roll screen will appear. This is where the attacking will
occur. In the top left of the dice roll screen is a number. This is the
amount of armies you can attack with from the territory chosen. This number
is one less than the total armies on the territory, as one (1) has to stay
behind to protect your property.
In the top right of the dice roll screen is the opponents total armies
on the territory being attacked. If all these are killed the attacker will
win the territory, and move armies in.
Fighting is done by dice rolls. The attacker can roll up to three dice,
as long as he/she has three or more armies. If the attacker doesn't the dice
are dehighlighted to indicate this. The attacker can use the [1], [2], [3],
or [Roll Max Till Dead] buttons to attack. If [1] is pressed the attacker
will roll one die, if [2], the attacker rolls two dice, and so on. If the
[Roll Max Till Dead] button is pressed, the rolls will go automatically.
They will roll the maximum number of dice, until one of the two players is
out of armies. This can not be cancelled, once it is pressed you better hope
you win.
The defender always rolls one or two dice. This number is determined at
the beginning of the game on the main menu.
Once the battle is over, if the attacker wins there will be a dialog
screen pop up asking how many of the attacking armies will advance into the
conquered territory. The attacker MUST move at least the same amount as what
was attacking when the territory was taken. For example: if you rolled three
(3) dice and won, then you must move at least three (3). The dialog box
tells you this. In case you forgot where you were moving them to, the attack
information block is still on the bottom of the screen.

Fortifying Armies -

Fortification of armies is used to move trapped armies from remote
locations to the front lines for exposure to battle, and more force. Armies
become trapped when moving through opponents territories all the time, it
can't be helped. Also, some fortifications are just to reinforce your
borders.
In order to fortify your armies from one location to the next you must
end your turn. At that time it will ask if you want to fortify armies, or
not. Pressing the [No] button will automatically turn control over to the
next player. Pressing [Yes] lets you make one last ditch effort to save your
trapped armies.
The process for fortification is the same as that of the attacks. There
is an information box which you can construct the exact sentence of what you
want to do. When you have made the fortification a valid one, the [Fortify]
button will be active, and you can press it. It will then give you a prompt
as to how many armies to move from the location to another. Once your armies
have been moved, the next player is up. If at any time during the
fortification process you press the [Cancel] button, the game will
automatically turn control over to the next player and your fortification is
over.

STRATEGIES:

When playing Risks there are several strategies that work. By all
means, develop your own strategies. These are just the basic ones I use.

"Hog Wild" - This is the use of all armies possible to take as much
as I can, as quickly as possible. This can be disastrous
if another player hits you too hard, because you end up
spreading out your armies, giving an opponent a chance to

walk through you like water.
"Power House" - This is the use of all your armies to protect your
front door. That is, you place armies evenly on the
front lines to keep opponents at bay, and advance slowly,
one territory at a time.
"The Scrooge" - This is the strategy which when implemented shows how
stingy a player is. In this form a player protects his
front lines like in Power House, however, when he
advances he leaves three (3) or more armies behind on
every territory. This can be safer, but you loose a lot
of armies.
"Wimp" - This is the strategy where a player outnumbers an
opponent and then steps through long enough to hold a
continent. They then continue to build armies up on the
borders (all sides), and use other territories (which
aren't part of their continent) to attack one territory
just for a card and quit. This person sits in one spot,
takes a single territory at a turn with minimal armies in
hopes of getting the cards to take over another continent
at once.
"Terminator" - This is the strategy employed by meaner players. In
this they use there armies to wipe out a single player as
quick as possible, in hopes of getting more cards to wipe
out another player, in hopes of getting more cards to
wipe out another player, in hopes...get the idea. These
players usually are found in five (5) to six (6) player
games, as there strategy doesn't work with fewer players.
These are easy to spot, they build up armies around a
certain color player on a single turn, not a continent.
"Traditional" - The traditional strategy is to obtain control over a
certain continent for extra armies as quickly as
possible. Build up some armies along the war front, and
slowly advance without letting your armies get two low.
This person sometimes employs the Stingy ideals of
leaving armies behind to make it harder for other players
to come through.


In general the best way to play is to combine all these into one
strategy, which I call the "Heinz 57 Mix". This is the way I generally play.
It allows you to adapt the circumstance to whatever is happening at the
current time. While one player might be overwhelmed by the Stingy player,
the next might be annoyed. And we all know an annoyed player can be very
dangerous, of course, they can also make some rather dumb mistakes.
In general, protect your butt, and keep up a good barrier in front of
you. Don't rely on cards, because they don't always come at the right times.
Count on having as few armies as possible, so when you get more you can have
some added pleasure. Don't rely on a player leaving you alone, unless you
can talk your way out of it. Forming a pact can be dangerous, just when you
think your on somebodies side they can turn around and hit you, saying you
got in the way. If an opponent is getting too strong, find a weak spot in
there borders to break up a continent so they don't get those armies.
Risks is a game of war, and like war, you can't trust anyone. Have fun,
good luck, and buy all means keep looking behind you, because you let down
your guard just once, and your a grease stain on the ground.

William "WiLD" Deniston


NOTE - I am interested in how far this game travels. If you have time, let
me know by sending a postcard and telling me what type of machine you
use it on. Thanks. Don't worry if you haven't registered yet.