I believe it is up to 4 players and each player starts off with land and a certain amount of soldiers. the object is to conquer the most land and to do that you must attack other lands by rolling, the attacker gets 3 and the defender gets 2, however many die are higher than the others is how many soldiers die. different kinds of risk have slightly different rules and may add a thing or 2. it can be a very long and strategic game but always is a ton of fun.