The Falkland Islands
A part of South America (with apologies to any British imperialists who may be reading), the Falklands connect Argentina to South Africa, thereby making the defence of South America a slightly more taxing proposition than before.

Svalbard
A part of Europe, Svalbard connects Scandinavia to Greenland, thereby offering an extra point from which to attack North America. In the early stages of development, Svalbard connected to Ukraine, but this gave Ukraine too many borders and was eventually dropped.

The Philippines
Part of the continent of Australia, The Philippines connects Japan to Indonesia. This makes Australia slightly less of a fortress than in the Classic game, especially when you consider...

New Zealand
Like Hawaii, New Zealand is an entirely new territory to RISK. It connects Eastern Australia to Argentina, allowing attacks from the other side of the world and vice versa. The introduction of New Zealand to the board should also stop every New Zealander that I meet from giving me a Kiwi head twist over the absence of their homeland from the original board, even after I explain that it wasn't my fault.

The new structures which these territories give to the game's continents mean that we've had to tweak the number of battalions awarded to players who hold a continent at the start of each turn, as shown below. That said, the new reinforcement rules mean that, though still important, continent ownership doesn't necessarily determine the game's winner.

The new continent values for Same-Time Risk:

North America: 6
South America: 4
Europe: 6
Africa: 5
Asia: 8
Australasia: 4

Whether playing Classic or Same-Time, players can override the game's default settings for continent values, setting any continent to a value of their choosing from a minimum of two to a maximum of 10.

Continued next week...