One of the most notable changes which this brings about is that players no longer tend to string their forces out in long thin lines as this can lead to their major groupings being divided by a single 'scissors snip' from an opponent. It also changes players' attack strategies, with offensives often taking place simply to break up an opponent's largest grouping or to join two groups of their own territories.

The second change that we've made to the reinforcement rules is subtler, but brings about equal changes in players' strategies. The new Limited Reinforcement rules limit the number of reinforcements that a player can place in any single territory to one, plus the number of occupied territories that it touches.

This, of course, can leave a player with more reinforcements than he or she can use, a situation that can be avoided with careful planning. This new rule has also spawned new tactics in that players now tend to create reinforcement 'hot spots' where they can dump numerous battalions in order to reallocate them during the Tactical Manoeuvre stage. China is a good example as it touches six other territories. This means that if a player holds China plus all of its neighbours, he or she can dump seven reinforcements into China and then manoeuvre them into the neighbouring territories at the end of the move.

These new reinforcement rules are certainly the most difficult to explain, at least in writing, but strangely enough they were the ones which needed the least tweaking during our six-month testing period. They're also the rule changes that have arguably had the most profound effect on the way the new game is played.

Next week, we'll finish things off with a look at the Risk II Tournament option.