RISKy Geography and the WORLD

Geography played a massive role in the balance of world domination in both our class game of RISK and the late 19th century. In the real world, every country had some sort of commodity to offer to the rest of the world, one that would be in demand because it was a luxury good. The goal of the more powerful countries was to try to get as many of these goods in their power. However, this need for more power over different territories was like a double edged sword. On one side, the country with the most colonized territories had the most resources and therefore the most power, but on the other side, the more the countries spread, the easier they became to attack. Its essentially an competition between imperialism and nationalism. A country has to decide whether it is more important to have to be unstable, but have more resources, or to be more stable in a smaller area. In our game of RISK, it was nationalism that won out. When armies were spread to thin, they because easier to defeat. The countries that won were the ones that stayed in one place and only spread outwards along their own boarders so that their views stayed in the same order. Of course, there is a time when countries become two prosperous for their own good and they have to spread, but there are certain ways of going about doing it, depending on how the government wants the country to succeed. As far as internal happiness goes, the government should vote in the way of nationalism and taking over closer countries, but of course, when people get greedy, its all about taking over the country with the best resources, regardless of whether or not they are across an ocean.