Risk without Dice?!?

Beginning
The players get the same amount of armies as they do in the regular risk rules. Then the territories are divided amongst the players. After the players have placed their armies on the designated countries board the players each get a mission which they need to fulfill to win the game. (We usually discard the mission "conquer 18 territories" because it is boring). One more alteration to the regular rules is that we have a sea link between East Australia and Argentina. This makes these continents less isolated and less easy to defend. 

General play
During a round a player may either attack or mobilize armies. Mobilizing is similar to the regular risk rules: You count your countries and divide it by three. By rounding this number downwards you know the number of armies you are allowed to mobilize. The minimum amount is always three armies even is you have fewer than 9 countries. If you manage to hold a continent for an entire round, you get to mobilize an extra amount of armies (yes all this sounds very familair). 

Territory Cards
The cards play an important role in these rules. You are given one after each successful attacking round (if you have conquered at least one country). You only get a maximum of 1 card though per round even if you conquer 20 countries. Anyway the cards can be used in a number of ways:
a) Combination of three. Just like in regular risk a combination of three gives you the right to add a number of armies according to the combination you have. These armies may be placed anywhere on the board.
b) Home Territory. If you have the territory card of one of your countries you are allowed to hand it in and receive a number of armies that must be placed on that country only. The number of armies depends on the symbol on the card and is equal to what you would normally get for a three card combination of that symbol.
c) Joker. The joker gives you the right to add 10 armies to your countries. 
Unlike regular risk there is no limit to the number of cards you are allowed to hold. 

Attacking/defending
The attacking rules are very different to the original Risk because no dice are involved. The rules are very simple: if you attack and you have more armies than the country you are attacking you win! For example Let us say you are attacking a country with 5 armies with your own country with 9 armies and you opt to attack with all 9 of them. Then the result is that 5 armies die on each side (and are taken off the board) and 3 armies move to the conquered territory and 1 remains on original country. (It is should be clear to mathematical geniuses that you always require at least 2 more armies than your opponent for a successful). This may not seem very exciting but there is more... 

It is very important that a player identify the number of armies that he wishes to use in the attack for reasons that will become apparent later. The number of armies in the attack is equal to the number that will be killed and the the number you wish to have on the new territory. (in the previous example we attacked with the entire force but the player could also have said that he was attacking with 8 armies (5 die, and 3 hold the territory). If a player does not specify the number of armies he is attacking with he is automatically assumed to use all his forces. 

An attacker only gets a single opportunity to attack a border crossing each round so to improve his chances an attacking player can mobilize some extra armies by handing in some of his cards (see above). The person he is attacking can also hand in cards to defend him/herself from the attack (except they are not allowed to hand in a combination of 3 cards). This is why it important that the attacker specify the number of armies he is attacking and is only allowed to attack a border once each round. This means that if an attacker underestimates the defenders cards (i.e. the territory card of that country or a joker) and decides not to use any of his own cards and attack with a relatively small army he will be thwarted and may not attack that border again. Note that I say border and not country. The player may still choose to attack the country via another country. 

You are also allowed to attack countries without the intention of conquering them (usually in situation where you want to weaken the defenses for an attack from another country). Again you have to specify the number of armies you wish to use in the attack and that is the number of armies that will die on both sides. You can only weaken the defender until he has only one army without taking the country. Obviously you can't weaken a country to 0 armies.

I think this is about it. If you find out, while playing, that I have forgotten something please let me know. 

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