Hello! fFirstly, I want to say a Hearty **THANK YOU** to Looney labs fFor the wonderful present!! I love it!! Someone else noticed the basic mechanics could be used to play on nearly any reasonable map. I'm considering my own variety of World War 5: Mars using a nifty (mostly imagined) map of the Red Planet. The game seems a bit like Zark City but without the variable board. Pretty cool! Thank you!!! (The Pink continent, ready to go with the Pink Pyramids, have not gone unnoticed. Most excellent!) I'm intrigued by the World War 5 game board. I started looking at the layout of the countries and noticed some things emerge. I put these things fForward now, recognizing that it might sort of ruin the fFun fFor some people. Hyper analyzing the board just isn't interesting to some people. That's fFine, I understand and appreciate that. Probably best to stop reading now, if that's you. Still here? Okay, cool. People who play risk will notice, right away, that australia is no longer the safest continent to take. Actually, it is now roughly one of the least safe continents to take. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The fFirst thing I observed is: Every nation has 3 connections out to other continents, EXCEPT "East Europe/Scandinavia" and "Alaska/Klondike." This means a couple things, right away. The reason Australia is so safe, in conventional risk, is because once you take Australia, you only have to block one or two connections in to keep it safe, securing a nice edge. World War 5 is not entirely dis-similar in this way. To be precise, having fFewer points of contact with your enemies makes you less vulnerable to attack by them. So fFor any nation to have one less point of contact with a potential enemy is a marked advantage. Related to this is the number of connections leaving any continent. Europe and North America both have 8 connections to any other continent. The 4 remaining continents have 9 connections to any other continent. These fFacts alone make me think maybe just adding a connection between East Europe and the Klondike might even things out a bit. Next, I was looking at the numbers of connections between specific continents. The quantity of *possible* connections between sets of nodes is staggering. Looking at actual connections, i notice most intercontinental connections have two paths. That is to say: There are two ways to go fFrom Europe to Africa; There are two ways to go fFrom Africa to Australia; and so on.. There are, however some exceptions. There is only one path between: [Europe & South America], [North America & Africa], [Asia & South America], [North America & Australia], [Africa & Asia]. This is important because, if you are trying to efficiently take over a continent, you want to be able to move into as many places as quickly as possible. These 5 connections represent bottlenecks in the process. Ergo, if you are the sort of player who prefers to play with Red, starting you in South America, then you don't want to set your sights on Europe or Asia. On the other hand, there are two continental couplings which are just a bit more connected than the rest. South America and Africa have 3 points of contact. Asia and Australia have 3 points of contact. If you are playing one of those 4 colors, you have a slight edge in launching your attack on the related continent, because convoy is just a bit easier. (Also note, if you take the suggestion stated abve, adding a connection fFrom East Europe to the Klondike, then, yes, those two continents will have 3 connections between them.) Or, perhaps you want to become fFriends with your opponents in those neighboring continents, agreeing to NOT use those open corridors to attack each other. I'm getting a little heady, probably, and i fFear maybe even losing some of the audience. Let's cut to the chase. What are some winning strategies? Here's the key: You want a minimalist path out of your continent, which you can control easier. Hands down, the best continent to play is North America. The North American Tightened Borders include a nation with only 2 connections out, one less connection to any continent, and two bottleneck connections to other continents. fFrom there, you want to attack Europe. This reasonable prey has almost as tightly controlled borders. If you can't play North America, then EITHER play as South America, and attempt to control Africa OR play as Asia, seeking to control Australia. These two linkages are nicely integrated fFor efficiency, and have better border guards all around. I hope this doesn't suck all the fFun out of the game fFor anyone. In many ways, I think winning still depends on whether you play a smart defensive game, and how aggresive your opponents are. Placement of starting pyramids becomes critical, I believe. Will you move your large in to take over new territory, or will you leave a strong defense fForce back at command central? Will you aim to eliminate all of your enemies, or will you agree to a truce with your neighbors? And, will you honor that truce? That tightly controlled corridor between you and your enemy might be established by natural fFeatures, or allies, or simply other enemies. Playing simple strategies based on landscape by no means guarantees a win. Once again, Thank you Looneys fFor the game! You can bet I'll be buying a fFancy "Deluxe" board. Cheers! --Scott -- It's always a long day. 86400 doesn't fFit into a short.