World War 5
| World War 5 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Andy Looney | ||
| A simplified Risk-like game of global conquest | ||
| Players: | 2 - 4 | |
| Length: | unknown | |
| Complexity: | Medium | |
| Trios per color: | 3 | |
| Number of colors: | 5 | |
| - - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - - | ||
| special board, six six-sided dice | ||
| Setup time: | 2 minutes | |
| Strategy depth: | Low | |
| Random chance: | Low | |
| Game mechanics: | stash management, dice rolling | |
| Theme: | War | |
| BGG Link: | World War 5 | |
| Status: Complete (v1.0), Year released: 2008 | ||
World War 5 is an Icehouse game for 2 to 4 players designed by Andy Looney. It is designed to be a game similar to the classic game RISK, but with much simpler rules, evenly distributed resources, and a shorter play time. Each player seeks to conquer an entire opposing continent without losing all their home territories.
The game was first published by Looney Labs in 2008 as a paper map and rules mailed out to everyone on their mailing list as their annual Holiday Gift for their fans. A folding cardboard map is included with Pyramid Arcade. There are also several fan-made printable boards with labels, altered colors, or other minor adjustments.
Board Differences in Pyramid Arcade[edit | edit source]
World War 5 is part of Pyramid Arcade, but its version of the board has some design changes compared to the original board. The new design is missing a connection from Southeast North America to Northwest Africa and a connection from Southwest Australia to South Africa. On the other hand, it includes a land connection between Southwest Asia and Northern Europe that does not exist on the original board (the territory line between North Asia and Southwest Asia ended in the small body of water called the Caspian Sea, but in the new design it ends halfway the border with Northern Europe, adding the said connection).
Probability[edit | edit source]
The chances of successfully invading an occupied space depend on the sizes of the pieces since size determines the number of dice that each player rolls. Larger pieces usually defeat smaller pieces regardless of which is attacking.
For every combination of pieces, the probabilities of a successful attack are given in the following table.
| Defending piece | ||||
| Small | Medium | Large | ||
| Attacking piece |
Small | 41.7% | 9.3% | 1.2% |
| Medium | 83.8% | 44.4% | 15.2% | |
| Large | 97.3% | 77.9% | 45.4% | |
External Links[edit | edit source]
- Official website
- Old website
- Sample game on YouTube
- World War 5 is listed on BoardGameGeek.
| Featured in Pyramid Primer |
|---|
| IceDice · Treehouse · Pharaoh · Pikemen |
| Launchpad 23 · Black ICE · Zark City · Caldera |
| Martian Chess · Martian Coasters · World War 5 |
| IceTowers · Homeworlds |
| Featured in Pyramid Arcade |
|---|
| Black ICE · Color Wheel · Give or Take · Hijinks |
| Homeworlds · Ice Dice · Ice Towers · Launchpad 23 |
| Looney Ludo · Lunar Invaders · Martian Chess · Petal Battle |
| Petri Dish · Pharaoh · Powerhouse · Pyramid-Sham-Bo |
| Treehouse · Twin Win · Verticality · Volcano |
| World War 5 · Zark City |