Gold mines were terribly thought out

Day 1,949, 01:04 • Published in USA USA • by ligtreb

I'm sure you've all seen the news by now, but in case you haven't:

http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/latest-updates/0/38

If done right, gold mines could spice things up, but these new rules were not thought out appropriately, making this look like a terrible idea.

Problem #1:

Because one mine will be given to the damage leader in each continent, we can already predict with some certainty which countries will be getting the gold mine:

Look at http://www.egov4you.info/countries/overview

Damage leaders by continent in past week (using a week since that's how long the contest runs)

Europe:
1. Serbia 51,060,909,810
2. Poland 39,191,930,950
3. Greece 23,358,619,200

Serbia puts out 12 billion more damage than the next country and it's safe to say they'll be getting a gold mine.

Americas:
1. USA 30,827,157,190
2. Argentina 15,841,569,090
3. Brazil 12,991,711,210

The USA has an even bigger lead of 15 billion on its next closest competitor. The USA will be getting a gold mine.

Asia: -- Edited from original
1. Turkey 18,208,159,760
2. China 14,543,374,390
3. Russia 10,987,604,540

2nd edit: As you can see here, Turkey and Russia will be considered part of Asia for this competition: http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/rankings-citizenship-damage/3

This makes the race a little interesting, but 4 billion is still hard to make up. I'd expect to challenge Turkey, China will have to start giving out tons of citizenship requests. I'd make Turkey a favorite to get the gold mine, but it's possible China takes it.

Africa:
1. South Africa 1,169,894,870
2. Egypt 349,891,810

You'll notice there are only two African countries, both tiny compared to the major countries of the world. South Africa will be getting a gold mine.

Oceania:
1. Australia 1,390,242,850
2. New Zealand 1,386,748,770

This is likely to be the only close race, and I predict a lot of new citizens to "randomly" pop up in these countries in the next 10 days. Also you'll notice Oceania gets a gold mine despite having only two countries.

Problem #2:

This will only encourage PTOs (Political Take Overs). I'm biased of course, since I'm an American citizen living in a country under PTO threat. But look at how small some of the other countries that will be getting gold mines are, they will definitely be a target.

Problem #3:

Really, we're making Oceania and Africa each as powerful as Europe and the Americas?

There's two countries and only two countries in each of the smaller continents, one of which will get rewarded with a gold mine. There are many, many small countries (but bigger than South Africa and Australia) that have zero chance at a gold mine. Dozens of mid-level countries have no chance either.

Problem #4:

Warfare will get centralized among five areas in the world. Strategy will become even more obvious.

In summary

I'm not opposed to the concept of gold mines, but am opposed to how these are being done. There has to be a better way to determine which countries get gold mines than just total damage per country on each continent. Because that's predictable and unfair.

I'm sure there are plenty of other problems I haven't thought of, but it's 01:00 and I need to go to sleep. Just venting my frustrations at this game.

Thank you for reading,
-- ligtreb