Difference between Risk and Domination?

[kasio]

I am an avid fan of the java Risk clone (http://risk.sf.net/). I recently discovered Domination (http://domination.sourceforge.net/).

They are both made by the same developer, and are exactly the same game, but just different names.

Why?

[germanix]

Risk is a commercial strategic board game, produced by Parker Brothers (now a division of Hasbro). It was invented by French movie director Albert Lamorisse, and originally released in 1957, as La Conquête du Monde (The Conquest of the World), in France.

Risk is a turn-based game for two to six players, and is played on a board depicting a stylized Napoleonic-era political map of the Earth, divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents. Players control armies, with which they attempt to capture territories from other players. The goal of the game is to control all the territories—or "conquer the world"—through the elimination of the other players. Using area movement, Risk ignores realistic limitations, such as the vast size of the world, and the logistics of long campaigns.

Over the years, Parker Brothers and Hasbro have published many different editions of rules for the game. In the most recent rulebook, three variations are given. Since playing Risk with two players is not always as engaging as games with more players, "World Domination Risk for 2 Players" recommends occupying some territories with neutral armies, to come close to the strategic value and fun of an actual three-way game. "Capital Risk" is recommended for a shorter world domination game in which each player has their "capital" in one of their initial territories, and the player to capture all capitals wins.[9]

The "Secret Mission Risk" variant, which has been the standard game in European editions for some decades,[2] gives each player four specific missions short of complete world domination. Missions include various tasks such as conquering two specific continents, e.g. Asia and South America, eliminating one specific other player, e.g. all the blue troops, conquering any twenty-four territories, or conquering any 18 territories, but maintaining at least 2 troops in each. Players do not reveal their missions to each other until the end of the game, which is after the first player to fulfil the condition of their missions displays his Secret Mission Cards and wins the game.

The two-player game differs in that the players use Risk cards to determine where armies are placed. Similarly, in Lamorisse's original version, all players claimed territories based on the Risk cards they were dealt. For example, if a player were to receive the Peru card, then that player would occupy Peru.

The official rulebook suggests variations to the gameplay mechanics for "Risk experts," any or all of which can be used depending on player preference. These suggestions include:

* Reducing the rate at which Risk card sets increase in value so that they only go up by 1 each time
* Allowing for faster redeployment of armies at the end of a turn
* Disallowing more than twelve armies per territory, which can cause a loss of armies due to having nowhere to put them
* Granting an attack advantage when attacking from or to a territory for which the attacker holds a Risk card
* Simulating a "commander" in a battle by changing an attacking die to a 6 once per turn

In addition to these official variations, many computer and Internet versions have different rules, and gaming clubs often use house rules or competition-adjusted rules

[kasio]

i was talking about the computer game ones, using java.

[yabbadabbadont]

i was talking about the computer game ones, using java.

Maybe the developer changed the name in order to try to avoid being sued out of existence? ;)

Edit: but it appears that the web sites are identical, even down to the changelog... weird.

[corney91]

As it is known by different names, maybe the developer thought it would broaden the audience by releasing it under both names...

[kasio]

According to the sourceforge page for domination, it is a "friendly fork".