Ukraine

[DeLima]

They're having a hard time these days.

[tommymtcom]

Ukraine is game to you?

[zeb]

[BurtReynolds]

The Ukraine is not weak!

[Simple Torture]

I am from Ukraine!

[BurtReynolds]

I am from Ukraine!

What Ukrainian stereotypes do you conform to?

[simple schoolboy]

I wonder what the consensus will be next winter with limited natural gas and heating oil.

[Simple Torture]

I am from Ukraine!

What Ukrainian stereotypes do you conform to?

I ruin people's games of Risk.

[Whitey McTeeth]

My heart goes out to the people of Kiev, and their buttered filled chickens.

[BurtReynolds]

Their priests look kinda badass.

[malice]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/201 ... _weak.html

The Ukraine Really Is Weak

Until breaking into the news recently, the country of Ukraine was probably best known to most Americans from its role as a territory on the Risk board. In particular, Ukraine-From-Risk is central to a very memorable Seinfeld scene

This naturally raises the question—is the Ukraine weak? The answer, I believe, is yes.

Key to analyzing this question is Garrett Robinson's paper performing mathematical analysis of Risk (ht to Walt Hickey whose summer 2013 writeup of the paper I recalled when looking into the issue). To understand the weakness of Ukraine, we need to start with the map. Here's Robinson's version, slightly annotated by me to make an important point:


One issue that arises here is that many Risk boards out there don't have a Ukraine territory. That's because the territory traditionally labeled "Ukraine" on Ukraine-having Risk boards is not even close to replicating Ukraine's location in the geography of the planet earth. The same territory is sometimes called "Russia" (and it does, roughly, correspond to European Russia's location) or "Eastern Europe." You can consider this ambiguity over Ukraine vs Russia to be somewhat emblematic of the current political crisis over there. But for our purposes, that's Ukraine all the way up to the Arctic Sea.
To analyze the situation correctly you want a schematic. Here's Robinson's:


Now you see two things here. One is that there are only two territories on the board that are capable of being attacked from six different territories. One is Ukraine and the other is Ontario. But there's a big difference between Ukraine and Ontario—all of Ontario's borders are with other provinces in North America. So while Ontario is a hard space to defend, it's also frequently not a territory that will require defense, since a savvy player will concentrate forces in Mexico, Greenland, and Alaska to control the whole continent. By contrast, Ukraine is both crucial to the defense of Europe and unusually vulnerable to attack.
Which is to say that Kramer was right: The Ukraine is weak (in Risk, at least).

[Green Habit]

Matt Yglesias really is a good writer, even if I don't agree with him all the time.

[Citizen Dick]

I've never played Risk before, so I may just be misunderstanding something, but, if I'm reading that schematic correctly, there are at least 5 territories that are located in such a way that they could be attacked by 6 neighboring territories.

/killthejoke

[malice]

Matt Yglesias really is a good writer, even if I don't agree with him all the time.

i wasn't entirely sure if he was talking about the game of risk or not :/

[@SkitchP]

So when ellis and I make jokes about a mass murder in Norway, we're forever branded as assholes, but it's okay about the Ukraine because the name was also a Seinfeld soundbyte?


gotcha.

[Self]

You were forever branded as an asshole long before that, weren't you?

[McParadigm]

Are we letting people onto RM who aren't assholes, now? When did that start? I don't care for it.

At least none of them are posting in this thread.

[malice]

So when ellis and I make jokes about a mass murder in Norway, we're forever branded as assholes, but it's okay about the Ukraine because the name was also a Seinfeld soundbyte?


gotcha.

i don't remember this at all, link?

[McParadigm]

here

[malice]

here

it was the the willie gault line, right?
totally agree with skitch then.

hey, @skitchp - could you explain please? I don't think you're an asshole. I mean, I do think you're an asshole, but just in general, which I appreciate in people, but I'm pretty baffled by your comment.