i think you reversed what i was trying to say. you are correct that a well defended country can take more risks (hence why you buy defense for). having lower defense implies lower risk. i'm not sure what you are trying to imply here... a bottomfeeder carries more defense than a all-x because an all-x just has to worry about random suiciders, while the grabber has to worry about the guys they just grabbed not retaliating (hence more risk more reward).

i did not say landtrading was no cost. last reset i actually exchanged 2 hits with PDM back and forth just to see what build costs + land created comes from it, so i have first hand experience. the cost is you can't afford military if you rapidly landtrade which is correct, but it's not like your landtrading parter is going to suicide you anways (unlike what a bottomfed target would do), hence that's the part which i think carries lower risk and hence needs to be balanced. at least rapid landtrading should be discouraged by game mechanics to balance things...

or am i still confusing you? :P

P.S. as an addendum if the admins really want to continue it so landtrading is much better than any other forms of grabbing/exploring then yes more and more people would end up landtrading (which is what some of you guys might want). however i just think it's bad for business to limit the ways you can successfully play this game, because that will cause less players, which is something this game does not need. more balanced ways to play = more fun for all = better for this game. right now LaF is warring so it isn't an issue, but i know that if we were netgaining (by looking at the avg land between evo who are normally the fattest in avg land vs rd this reset) the only way to compete in land with the landtrading going on this reset is to landtrade.. hence effectively without a game mechanic fix we essentially narrowed down the available means to gain land in this game and hence would potentially alienate and cause some members of our community to leave...