Reality Check

Day 846, 22:37 • Published in Canada Canada • by Saya Innsbruck

Somehow the gem in the middle becomes the ring itself in V2

Canada does not exist in a bubble. We will have literally half the world eying our fabulous high titanium, and have the other half defending us because they simply don't want to see the former half getting the advantage. Sure, some of them do like us genuinely because we have done pretty good things in the past, but let's face it: EDEN will only defend us because of our resources and our moderate military contribution. The current world position doesn't show how powerful Phoenix actually is. Is any of the major components of Phoenix under occupation? I see Serbia, Hungary, Russia, Brazil, and various medium powers still existing with all their territories and with a few extras (including China's high irons to boot). France isn't even in Phoenix, and Germany's a low tier Phoenix member in terms of damage. On the other hand, EDEN is losing everywhere against PTO teams, slowly losing their grip on Germany and France, and failed to form the "epic Croatian bridge". I won't be surprised if Phoenix will gain the advantage again in a few months, especially considering Phoenix processes a lot more ~10k+ pop powers that will mature in a few months. V2 will give Phoenix not only high iron advantage but also high titanium advantage. Do I also need to point out that South Africa is under occupation as well? China has no high iron to speak off, despite the fact they supposedly have 2 native regions that have them. EDEN's only high iron is in powerful Spain, somewhat powerful Greece, Polish-controlled Peru, and rent-from-an-ally high iron USA. Oh, and India, Sweden, Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and various other EDEN or pro-EDEN countries are always under threat of PTO. EDEN advantage in the world arena is an illusion.

The last thing we need is a comparatively weaker EDEN that won't be able to defend Canada even if we go all out. Last time I am pretty sure EDEN went all out in Ontario, but that didn't stop PEACE from wiping us out, no? And this time Phoenix won't make the mistake of having UK as the occupier. No, if they drum up some devious plans that allows a mass invasion to occur again, they'll make sure one of the top Phoenix powers is doing the occupation. Remember how long it took to dislodge Hungary from Nunavut/Manitoba? EMC no longer has the significant mobile advantage that it once enjoyed seeing as Serbia's forces have matured. We can have the unholy trio of Hungary-Serbia-Russia sitting on Canada. It'll be just as difficult as it is for France to take back the land from Spain. Sure, I can foresee we can retake a region or 2 pretty quickly via mass resistance or something. Nunavut and NWT on the other hand? Please look at HLJ. Last I checked, Hungary held it since "WWIII"/"Great War of 2009"/"Operation Pig Mac". That's more than half a year. At this rate, they are probably going to hold it for another half a year.

The "rent high grain to Finland" comparison is nonsensical. First of all, high grain is everywhere and is not highly sought after. Finland only wanted it because they wanted to bring down the cost of their food by a few cents. There's little threat of food shortages, seeing as how more than half the congressmen agreed to raise the taxes of that particular sector a while ago (I voted "no", mind you). Secondly, whether or not Finland has access to high grain doesn't affect the well being of our allies. EDEN can function equally well whether or not Finland is buying their grain from foreign companies or their own companies. EDEN does not need Finland to provide their grain. However, if we keep both regions, EDEN needs us to provide most of their titanium, which our rather meager population isn't like to keep up. Thirdly, Canada's bigger than Finland. There's no reason for us to give Finland a high grain region other than a gesture of friendship and the fact we want to help them a bit (and maybe a bit of gold). In this case, however, we are getting nations several times more numerous than us (in Poland's case, 10x) to mine the region, while still getting a bunch of foreign workers from other EDEN countries because the 4/5 of the "big 5" of EDEN still do not process any high titanium. Let US/Poland/Spain (realistically the only potential renters) produce titanium domestically, and then have half of the rest of EDEN come to Canada to invest. If we had our way we could theoretically have half of Poland fly here to produce titanium - except it doesn't work that way. Most people stay within their own country, thus foreign workers wouldn't be able to satisfy EDEN demands.

Of course I still think we should wait until V2 is physically out to finalize/dismiss any plans.

Again, I cannot understate how important it is for Canada to work within the system, rather then upholding some gun-ho "we don't take orders from others" kind of mind set. Frankly, we have only less than 6k pop in an alliance of more than 150k pop. We have plenty of influence alright.

I rather have 1 region for ourselves and 1 region for a trusted ally than both region in the hands of Serbia and Hungary.