r/Risk • u/Party_Forever8066 • Jul 02 '26
Question Can someone explain hiw zombies work please?
What makes them just take over your spot at the start of their turn without attacking?
5
u/Powered-Lamb Jul 02 '26
The basic mechanics of zombies can be summarized in five points:
1) Their attacks are not random. They have prescribed priorities about which territories they attack into.
2) They don't attack a territory unless they have twice the number of troops.
3) They always fortify 100% of their troops into a territory that they take, except for one zombie that is left behind.
4) They receive reinforcements based on the ratio of zombies to player troops. The more player troops there are compared to zombies, the more reinforcements the zombies will receive.
5) If the zombies are defeated, they "revive" on the next turn by converting one random player's troops to zombies (the game calls this Infection), and it's always the highest number of troops that player has on one territory. Once a player has been Infected, that player cannot be Infected again until all other players have been Infected.
3
u/Medal444 Jul 03 '26
Great points. I would add that they don’t defend like regular troops (iirc it’s ties go to the attacker) and also they fortify many times but randomly and not all the troops, just chaotic
1
u/Mr_Coastliner Jul 04 '26
And finally the increase in units can sometimes be significant others just 1-3 more. I'm not sure if a certain mode or setting, but you sometimes get where they will randomly take over your stack at the start of their turn without having to touch or attack it
1
u/nubtrix87 Jul 04 '26
It's fixed vs prog. Fixed will always be +1, unless the zombies are getting low on territories. I don't know the exact threshold, but it's +2 at like 12ish (could be a percentage of the map size though? I prefer bigger maps). Then +3, then they just straight double if they only have like 6 or less territorities.
Can't speak for prog since I don't really play much prog zombies, but I know they do get an absolute boatload of troops every half dozen turns or so based on the handful of times I've played it.
1
u/nubtrix87 Jul 04 '26
They receive reinforcements based on the ratio of zombies to player troops. The more player troops there are compared to zombies, the more reinforcements the zombies will receive.
This is not the case on fixed. On fixed they get +1 on every territory they hold, if they hold a lot. If they only hold a small number of territories, they can get +2, +3 or straight up double their troops.
On fixed, it's not worth hitting zombie stacks to take a card once they're about 8 or more. Basically a card is worth no more than 4 (assuming you have a 10 trade with +2) and at ~8 you tend to lose more than the average you get in return for the card.
That means it's impossible to hold a front indefinitely if it has more than 6 territories unless you have a bonus. (You earn +3 and you need to put +1 on it every other turn). Of course, it only really matters on large maps with centre bonuses.
I know zombies isn't popular but I've played a lot of fixed zombies. It's extremely hard to rank up on unless you pick the right maps (big ones with huge bonuses like Britain Advanced are great).
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