The Look on Oghosa Cosmopolitan’s Face Still Haunts Me
When the third day of Risk started, I was worried that I waited too long to use my special power which was to declare civil war on the Red Team on board 2, take with me one member on their team, all the money I have, and half of all their territories rounded down. I quickly learned I acted right on time because during the first World Council meeting all the teams decided to declare war on the Red Team, and the Brown Team decided to censure the Red Team for two rounds. Needless to say, the “public” was quite surprised, worried, shook, and mad. It was a perfect opportunity to declare civil war.
However, the look on Oghosa Cosmopolitan’s face when I declared civil war literally made my heart stop. It was expected that other teams would betray the Red Team, but no one expected the Red Team to betray the Red Team. I love being spontaneous and defying expectations, but whoahhh this was an event for the Risk history books since I felt like I was the final nail in the coffin for the Red Team. After all, the Red Team went from being the hegemon with the most territories and money to being the least powerful team on the board. I felt like a double agent—but a really bad one. I was freaking out over my decision even though I knew that the decision was a pragmatic one. Now, everyone was gunning for the Red Team, including me!
Because I took from the hegemon, my team—the Yellow Team—started the round in a great position. We had a resource, easily defensible territories, and a good number of troops. I hoped to ease the tension that occurred during my split by reassuring everyone that the Yellow Team was just a chill, money-loving team that wanted zero drama. We didn’t even do anything when it was our turn to play. But, of course, that did not work because the Brown Team decided to declare war on us! All I wanted to do was sit back and finish my drink from the Dav. Fortunately, there wasn’t enough time for another round.
Additionally, I’m happy to say that I did learn one major thing during the course of this game. Post-Cold War, it was hard to imagine anyone going up against the US—the hegemon, but though Risk, I simulated first hand how the hegemon could fall and am now able to draw vaguely accurate parallels between the real world and Risk. The Red Team lost its status because the second in line team was power hungry and the other two teams allied with each other against the Red Team. If the US is the Red Team, and China is the Brown Team, then the alliance against the Red Team can be perceived as China’s Belt and Road initiative. As a believer in multilateral institutions (even those not under Western control), I finally understand why the US was so worried about the Belt and Road initiative. The potential diplomatic alliances that Chinese economic and infrastructure investment may create can develop to be akined to the alliances of the other teams against the Red Team. The hegemon can collapse if the rest of the world order wants it to.
Comments
Post a Comment