World War 5

From Looney Pyramid Games Wiki
World War 5
Andrew Looney
A simplified Risk-like game of global conquest
:Players Players: 2 - 4
:Time Length: Medium
:Complexity Complexity: Medium
Trios per color: 3
Number of colors: 5
Pyramid trios:
Monochr. stashes:
Five-color sets: 3
- - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - -
special board, six six-sided dice
Setup time: 2 minutes
Playing time: 30 min
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]

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