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Let's start by defining what a Meksiko is.

For the purpose of this game, a Meksiko is resources-rich country which fulfills all of the folowing criteria:

1) It is sparsely populated country, so there are very few citizens who would fight in a RW.

The enemies might fly-in their mobile troops to help in the RWs, but if we have over 1500 active players, in general we can defeat any RW. We usually aren't alone in RWs, some of the mobile forces of our allies and some mercenaries always come to the rescue.

There is a huge difference between the numbers listed by eRepublik as "population" and the number of active players.

The Admins would tolerate up to a certain point the clones/bots because it is good for keeping their jobs:

- On one hand they can show to their investors "the game is popular".

- On the other hand the players who spend money on gold will need more gold to fight against the clones/bots than if they would only have to fight against the real players.

So how can we get a better idea about the number of real players? By counting the total number of votes in the Presidential and Congress elections. Voting always requires a captcha, and it takes a lot of skill to go around it the hacker's way. So while clones/bots do vote, they mostly vote manually.

Therefore the number of voters is much closer to the actual number of people playing for one country or another than the size of the "population".

That being said, the countries which can realistically hope to have their own Meksikos need to have somewhere above 1500 votes in the elections, or they will be to weak too successfully defend their colonies.

2) A Meksiko has very few strong enemies as neighbors.

If the enemy neighbors are weak, then it takes a lot of coordination effort for the enemy alliance to remove us from there via MPP. Because we have MPPs of our own to counter that.

A strong enemy neighbor (like Spain was in the case of the Croatian Mexico), could pose more serious problems. Because a strong enemy is able to pull more strings in his own alliance, to make sure his attack is fully supported. A weak country cannot pull the line "if you fail to help me now I will ignore you when you need me" like a strong country can.

In the particular case of the Croatian Mexico, what really helped was Spain was allied with Hungary, Poland, Serbia and FYROM.

Those countries are notorious for their exacerbated egotism and narrow-minded strategies. It was enough to start some RWs in their colonies to guarantee Spain would be left alone.

And even when Poland and Serbia were in striking distance from Mexico, what did they do? They tried to wipe out the USA, in order to fulfill their wet dreams of "defeating Uncle Sam".

From that we can deduct another important rule:

3) A country can have her Meksiko as long as she has Spain, Poland, Serbia, Hungary and FYROM as enemies.

Now let's see which countries qualify (or don't qualify) as Meksikos:

1) The Baltics - they are indeed sparsely populated and there is only one dangerous neighbor, Poland. And since Spain, Hungary, Serbia and FYROM are Poland's allies, the situation looks promising.

But each of the Baltics is too small to have enough resources. Occupying all 3 of them means 3 simultaneous RWs plus the direct attack from Poland. Such a situation is manageable on short-term, and it was illustrated by Romania's campaign in the area.

But we need a Meksiko for the long-term economic bonuses, not just for the fun of wiping out the Junior country currently known as Poland (even though that has its own satisfactions);

2) Russia - Russia is also sparsely populated and has a good number of resources.

For the EDEN and Terra countries Russia as a Meksiko is out of question for the obvious reason Russia is a trusted ally.

But could Russia be a Meksiko for Poland, Serbia, Spain, FYROM or Hungary?

- Spain and FYROM are too far for ONE to bring them to Russia. ONE wasn't able to evict Croatia from Central America even when they were having both Poland and Serbia on the other side of the Atlantic. So it is quite hard to imagine ONE's clowns would be able to work together on long term, like EDEN and Terra did when they brought Croatia to Mexico;

- Poland is in a good position to do it and has the right amount of active players to pull it out. For now Russia's luck was Poland had an easier target right next to her borders - Germany. However given who are the allies of Poland (Serbia, Spain, FYROM and Hungary), it is quite unrealistic for Poland to hope she can hold on to Russia on long term, like Croatia is holding on to Mexico. There are too many strong allies of Russia nearby (Bulgaria, Romania, China, the USA) for a Polish occupation of Russia to be long-lasting;

- Serbia had no problem conquering Russia in spite of all the Orthodox and Slavic "brotherly love" the Serbs claim to have for the Russians. Serbia also has the right number of active players to be able to successfully counter the RWs. But given who is Serbia allied with (the selfish gang of Poland, Spain, Hungary and FYROM) and the presence of Bulgaria, Romania, China and the USA nearby, Russia can't be a Serbian Meksiko either;

- Hungary is within striking distance from Russia and has the right size of the active population (almost 3 times larger than Russia). Hungary also has a long tradition of milking the Russians for their gold in this game. However the same reasons why Russia can't be a Polish or Serbian Meksiko apply also for Hungary (worthless selfish allies plus Bulgaria, Romania, China and the USA nearby).

That pretty much rules out Russia as a potential Meksiko for anybody.

3) Iran - it is sparsely populated and pretty much ran by childish leaders.

Right now Iran is under Turkish occupation. Whoever would like a piece of Iran would need to have Turkey's agreement.

It doesn't really matter if Turkey is on the side of EDEN or ONE. Whatever side Turkey might be, it would be impossible for the enemy alliance to both control Turkey and help whoever else wants to control Iran on long term. Short term conquests are possible but they would last less than a week.

The best example comes from the recent history, when ONE was ruling supreme and even had Turkey on her side. Still that didn't prevent both Serbia and Hungary to be wiped out.

Why? Because Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Romania were too big to be all kept under control in the same time, no matter how strong the enemy alliance was. Serbia and Hungary, two major powers in the game, were unable to defend their own core regions so imagine how easy would have been for them to defend a remote colony while having the garbage allies they have.

Just like Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece or Romania, Turkey is also too big for anybody to have fun freely next door without Turkey agreeing to it. 2 - 3 days of occupation of Iran against Turkey's will are of course possible, but nothing longer than that.

The conclusion is Iran might be a promising Meksiko for anybody who manages to make a deal with Turkey.

4) Canada and India - I put them together because their situation is similar from the strategic point of view.

Of course we can only discuss about them being the Meksikos of ONE. But such a scenario is almost impossible due to the time zones involved. More precisely, two strong nearby countries, USA and China, are active during the time the majority of the ONE powers are asleep. Then to the aid of both can also come Brazil and Argentina, who even though aren't neighbors, are active during the same time as the USA and China.

We have seen how the time zones have prevented ONE from wiping out the USA or China, in spite of trying really hard. This is the reason why neither Canada nor India can risk becoming ONE's Meksikos any time soon.

5) Thailand and Malaysia - they are the Southern Hemisphere Baltics, but without any strong neighbor (Indonesia can barely survive and her number of active players is quickly decreasing to 1000).

While Indonesia managed some days ago to avoid an American invasion, the plans are still on the table and would materialize soon. Once that happens there won't be any Indonesian ability to mess with the "Southern Baltics".

Right now Malaysia was "liberated" by a Turkish team and therefore she is pro-EDEN while Thailand is "liberated" by the Serbs and sides with the other camp. However unless the Real Life Malaysians and Thai start playing the game, the power in those countries would change hands almost every month.

Their combined resources, low population and lack of any strong enemy neighbor in the near future make them an ideal candidate for Meksicanization.

All it takes is a European power with over 1500 active players and enough diplomatic influence to arrange the trip. It's quite likely somebody among the EDEN powers would get bored with the current ping-pong games of Central Europe and the Balkans and decide to take a long voyage to warmer places.

I wonder who would be the first to travel to either Iran or "Thailaysia"...