austraila vs s.america

[detlef]

Forget about what 'FEELS' Right... here's a FACT,,,

in EVERY singles game (100% of the time, except assasin) the winner held NORTH AMERICA!

So NORTH AMERICA is where it's at!!!!




Well actually, by the final round they held ALL the continents... but for now lets just ignore that little detail...

Well, I understand where you're going with this but it's still not true. 1v1 games often end with out the winner holding all the continents because of neutrals.

*sigh* ... you really took the wind out of this sail...

and i wouldn't know anything about those neutrals .... never played 1v1 ...

Sorry, but there's neutrals on classic in all game settings but 3 and 6. Actually, I'm not sure about 3 even. They technically don't need them because 3 goes into 42 evenly, but they still might deploy them for some other reason.

Damn, it's getting pretty still out here. Better fire up that motor

[MeDeFe]

Remember that you can win from any continent. If you start to obsessively go for one continent in every game you're bound to lose a lot, just take the one that's easiest for you to get and plan your game from there.
The problem with Aussie is that once the situation has stabilized you're stuck with your bonus of 2 and have no chance of getting Asia against as many as 3 other players with continents bordering it. All it takes is a NAP between Iceland and Greenland and you'll be really lucky to reach 12 territories because everyone will be going into Asia since it's the only place left to go.
In FOW games taking Asia might work though.

LOL. You're the reason why I bothered to look up which was the first continent the resulting winner of classic games held. Because you implied that holding Europe wasn't as tough or as bad an idea as people made it out to be. So, I actually looked up all the classic, flat rate games that you'd played in. The guy who went for Europe almost never won at all and the guy who started with Aussie won an overwhelming amount of times.

I also recall, that you were rather steadfast back then despite this rather overwhelming evidence and I see now that, given enough time, you can again convince yourself to ignore the facts.

Mind you, I understand that you're not going out on to too thin a branch by merely saying it's "possible". Further, only one guy can take Aussie and if you're not the guy who got dropped at least 2 of 4 plus perhaps a China and Siam or something, then it's not worth beating your head over. However, if that's the case, I think that you'd be much better off just roaming around and staying out of everyone's way rather than undertake some Quixotic mission to take and hold one of the big boys.

Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that the first person to take Aussie wins all the time. In my study, I looked at the eventual winner and checked out the first continent they ever held for at least a few turns. Mind you, often times the winner also happened to be the first person to hold Aussie. However, some of the times it was a player who seemingly employed the tactic I'm suggesting and took Aussie with their first major move of the game. Even if that move was well into it.

So you completely agree with me, why the long post then?

[detlef]

Remember that you can win from any continent. If you start to obsessively go for one continent in every game you're bound to lose a lot, just take the one that's easiest for you to get and plan your game from there.
The problem with Aussie is that once the situation has stabilized you're stuck with your bonus of 2 and have no chance of getting Asia against as many as 3 other players with continents bordering it. All it takes is a NAP between Iceland and Greenland and you'll be really lucky to reach 12 territories because everyone will be going into Asia since it's the only place left to go.
In FOW games taking Asia might work though.

LOL. You're the reason why I bothered to look up which was the first continent the resulting winner of classic games held. Because you implied that holding Europe wasn't as tough or as bad an idea as people made it out to be. So, I actually looked up all the classic, flat rate games that you'd played in. The guy who went for Europe almost never won at all and the guy who started with Aussie won an overwhelming amount of times.

I also recall, that you were rather steadfast back then despite this rather overwhelming evidence and I see now that, given enough time, you can again convince yourself to ignore the facts.

Mind you, I understand that you're not going out on to too thin a branch by merely saying it's "possible". Further, only one guy can take Aussie and if you're not the guy who got dropped at least 2 of 4 plus perhaps a China and Siam or something, then it's not worth beating your head over. However, if that's the case, I think that you'd be much better off just roaming around and staying out of everyone's way rather than undertake some Quixotic mission to take and hold one of the big boys.

Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that the first person to take Aussie wins all the time. In my study, I looked at the eventual winner and checked out the first continent they ever held for at least a few turns. Mind you, often times the winner also happened to be the first person to hold Aussie. However, some of the times it was a player who seemingly employed the tactic I'm suggesting and took Aussie with their first major move of the game. Even if that move was well into it.

So you completely agree with me, why the long post then?

You've got a very creative interpretation of "completely agree"

[MeDeFe]

Remember that you can win from any continent. If you start to obsessively go for one continent in every game you're bound to lose a lot, just take the one that's easiest for you to get and plan your game from there.
The problem with Aussie is that once the situation has stabilized you're stuck with your bonus of 2 and have no chance of getting Asia against as many as 3 other players with continents bordering it. All it takes is a NAP between Iceland and Greenland and you'll be really lucky to reach 12 territories because everyone will be going into Asia since it's the only place left to go.
In FOW games taking Asia might work though.

LOL. You're the reason why I bothered to look up which was the first continent the resulting winner of classic games held. Because you implied that holding Europe wasn't as tough or as bad an idea as people made it out to be. So, I actually looked up all the classic, flat rate games that you'd played in. The guy who went for Europe almost never won at all and the guy who started with Aussie won an overwhelming amount of times.

I also recall, that you were rather steadfast back then despite this rather overwhelming evidence and I see now that, given enough time, you can again convince yourself to ignore the facts.

Mind you, I understand that you're not going out on to too thin a branch by merely saying it's "possible". Further, only one guy can take Aussie and if you're not the guy who got dropped at least 2 of 4 plus perhaps a China and Siam or something, then it's not worth beating your head over. However, if that's the case, I think that you'd be much better off just roaming around and staying out of everyone's way rather than undertake some Quixotic mission to take and hold one of the big boys.

Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that the first person to take Aussie wins all the time. In my study, I looked at the eventual winner and checked out the first continent they ever held for at least a few turns. Mind you, often times the winner also happened to be the first person to hold Aussie. However, some of the times it was a player who seemingly employed the tactic I'm suggesting and took Aussie with their first major move of the game. Even if that move was well into it.

So you completely agree with me, why the long post then?

You've got a very creative interpretation of "completely agree"

Well, about half of your post was not at all relevant to what I had posted and what you seemed to be wanting to reply to, so I ignored that part. Why pay attention to something that's not relevant?

[detlef]

Remember that you can win from any continent. If you start to obsessively go for one continent in every game you're bound to lose a lot, just take the one that's easiest for you to get and plan your game from there.
The problem with Aussie is that once the situation has stabilized you're stuck with your bonus of 2 and have no chance of getting Asia against as many as 3 other players with continents bordering it. All it takes is a NAP between Iceland and Greenland and you'll be really lucky to reach 12 territories because everyone will be going into Asia since it's the only place left to go.
In FOW games taking Asia might work though.

LOL. You're the reason why I bothered to look up which was the first continent the resulting winner of classic games held. Because you implied that holding Europe wasn't as tough or as bad an idea as people made it out to be. So, I actually looked up all the classic, flat rate games that you'd played in. The guy who went for Europe almost never won at all and the guy who started with Aussie won an overwhelming amount of times.

I also recall, that you were rather steadfast back then despite this rather overwhelming evidence and I see now that, given enough time, you can again convince yourself to ignore the facts.

Mind you, I understand that you're not going out on to too thin a branch by merely saying it's "possible". Further, only one guy can take Aussie and if you're not the guy who got dropped at least 2 of 4 plus perhaps a China and Siam or something, then it's not worth beating your head over. However, if that's the case, I think that you'd be much better off just roaming around and staying out of everyone's way rather than undertake some Quixotic mission to take and hold one of the big boys.

Keep in mind, this doesn't mean that the first person to take Aussie wins all the time. In my study, I looked at the eventual winner and checked out the first continent they ever held for at least a few turns. Mind you, often times the winner also happened to be the first person to hold Aussie. However, some of the times it was a player who seemingly employed the tactic I'm suggesting and took Aussie with their first major move of the game. Even if that move was well into it.

So you completely agree with me, why the long post then?

You've got a very creative interpretation of "completely agree"

Well, about half of your post was not at all relevant to what I had posted and what you seemed to be wanting to reply to, so I ignored that part. Why pay attention to something that's not relevant?

Well, truth be told, here's the breakdown:
You said you shouldn't go after any continent that you can't easily get. That's pretty much where our agreement ends.

You went on to say, "take the one that's easiest for you to get and hold on to it". I don't agree with that and said as much when I said, if you don't get dropped one of the easy ones, it's likely better to just stay out of the way than try in vain to take a bigger continent. That, sir, is not the same thing.

You also made a point of illustrating the problems with holding Aussie. That would imply that it's not as good as people claim. Thing is, it is as good as people claim as illustrated by how often the eventual winner's first continent held is Aussie.

Sorry.

[MeDeFe]

Do I understand you correctly? Unless you get a drop of 2 or better in Australia or SA you can forget about taking a continent at all, even if you have 6 territories in NA. No way, don't go for North America, it's by definition not an easy continent, don't even try to take it, much less hold it. Do you really want to make that claim?
I have been talking about flat rate and no cards games btw, I'm not much of an escalating person. If that wasn't clear and you were referring to escalating games that statement would make at least a little sense. Otherwise you're telling those who weren't lucky enough to get a good drop on a small continent that they might just as well deadbeat because they have next to no chance of winning anyway, and that, sir, makes no sense at all.

"plan your game from there" is hardly the same as "hold on to [the continent]", implicitly at all costs (oh yes, I can overinterpret what the other person writes as well as you). I've seen a few situations where it was more beneficial to give up the continent(s) you had held for a large part of the game and move elsewhere.

Me pointing out some problems with Australia means that I'm pointing out some problems with Australia, while some people seem to deny that there are any at all and that holding Australia guarantees victory. You're doing a lot of interpreting there, my dear.

Apology accepted.

[detlef]

Well, I'm just going to let this one go. Partially because we're at a bit of stalemate, and partially because you've proven before that you won't relent even when faced with undeniable facts.

Remember the referenced argument about holding Europe?

Where you claimed that holding Europe is easier than people think, and I said I almost never see it my games and you said...

It has happened practically every time I've played on the classic map.

Then I researched your games and found that, not only did people rarely win from that position, those who took it rarely managed to hold on to it because of the constant attacks I said were inevitable.

Of course, that's where the semantics came in...

Despite the fact that the discussion was in the strategy forum so, the implication was whether or not it was remotely strategic to undertake, you just argued that somebody did, in fact, take Europe (though even that wasn't really true) and the fact that they were rarely able to actually hold it and routinely got bludgeoned, thus losing the game had no bearing on the discussion.

So, whatever, I know you pride yourself on this kind of BS version of debating...

Here's the link in case you forget

[MeDeFe]

Fine, if you feel you need to dig up old threads instead of clarifying your less than lucid thesis in this one, be my guest.

[detlef]

Fine, if you feel you need to dig up old threads instead of clarifying your less than lucid thesis in this one, be my guest.

OK, what the hell, I'll clarify. See, rather than discuss things that almost never happen, like getting dropped 6 spots in NA, I prefer to discuss the topic in how it relates to how the game is typically played. I mean, what's the point of discussing how one should handle the amazingly good fortune of being dropped a profitable continent with only 3 borders?

So, I guess I should be mostly apologizing for giving you more credit than you seemingly deserved and trying to debate this within the realm of situations that actually occur more than once in a blue moon.

So, assuming that you don't get dropped one of these bigger continents, yes, I absolutely don't bother going for one. For all the same reasons why I don't assume that I'm going to get 6s all the time when I attack. See, I have this silly habit of forming strategy based on how best to handle situations that aren't completely lucky.

As for the Aussie thing. You're making the very common mistake that one must expand from Aussie to make it pay off. The reality is, if you look into the games won by players who held it, is that they were able to put a big enough number down there so that nobody messed with them and were then able to drop the 5 instead of 3 they were earning elsewhere and attack from other spots of the globe.

None the less, it didn't take much interpretation. You see, every time somebody shows the data about how successful players are from Aussie, somebody, usually you has to come along and contest it. Go ahead. Just understand that the best you're going to come up with are these once in a blue moon situations that you use like a crutch. Obviously we will concede that in those very rare and specific cases, you're correct and you'll get some pathetic satisfaction in this.

[MeDeFe]

So when is it profitable to go for an other continent then, oh great master of strategy? Should everyone hang back while the two who got Australia and SA battle it out?
You have done nothing to clarify, so far you have claimed that getting Aussie is almost tantamount to 100% chance of winning the game. "Get it and be done", seems to be what you're telling us inferior cretins. Please, I beg you, give us unworthy ones some details, how would you deal with the oh so hypothetical situation that never occurs of 3 or 4 other players holding continents on the classic map? Because surely they would never decide not to fight each other to the death if someone else is already holding a continent.

[detlef]

So when is it profitable to go for an other continent then, oh great master of strategy? Should everyone hang back while the two who got Australia and SA battle it out?
You have done nothing to clarify, so far you have claimed that getting Aussie is almost tantamount to 100% chance of winning the game. "Get it and be done", seems to be what you're telling us inferior cretins. Please, I beg you, give us unworthy ones some details, how would you deal with the oh so hypothetical situation that never occurs of 3 or 4 other players holding continents on the classic map? Because surely they would never decide not to fight each other to the death if someone else is already holding a continent.

Listen, all I'm saying, is that statistics (taken from your games, mind you) support that, despite what people might want to believe, the player who ultimately wins the game takes Aussie as his first continent more often than any other continent. I understand it's way more cool to be the guy who goes against the grain, but the numbers quite simply say that, far more often than any other continent...(sorry, I'm not going to say it again).

Now, please understand that this doesn't mean the first player to take Aussie is the guy who always wins, rather that players rarely win by taking a bonus besides Aussie and going from there.

So, I understand that you were trying to make a joke by urging me to bestow my wisdom upon you, but unfortunately, it seems that you really need it. So, somebody else gets Aussie and South America and you don't have a great drop in one of the others. What are your choices? You can battle everyone out of Africa, Europe, or NA. This should cost many armies and many turns unless you're super lucky. Meanwhile, the dude in SA is just stacking up guys and ready to smack you down the first turn you actually take it since you're not likely to have a ton of guys left over to defend it. So, considering that the guys who are holding SA or Aussie realize that playing nice with you is ultimately going to be a bad deal for them. Thus far, they've enjoyed the early arms lead due to the fact that they're the only one earning a bonus. However, if everyone just plays nice, the guy who just took the bigger spots is going to end up better off. So, right now, while you have few guys defending, they're going to hit you. So now you're still not earning a bonus and have lost still more men. And so on.

So, who do I want to be if I'm not the guy who's holding Aussie? I wan to be the guy hanging out in Ural or Afgan watching all this go down. Every turn, I'm only earning 3 guys, but nobody's hitting me because I have a big stack that's not protecting anything. Why is somebody going to come over and waste a bunch of armies whittling down a stack? I mean, you seem to rely on nobody bothering to hit a marginally defended bonus area, right? So, as often as it doesn't, I'll be among the leaders in total armies 10-15 turns into the game. Now, if everyone does play nice and builds up, this is going to backfire, and it certainly has. Fortunately, however because the guys who get the early jump realize that the waiting game is going to cost them that isn't typically the case. Thus, at least as often as you're going to win from one of the big spots, there's going to be some big battle somewhere and you're going to be able to pick up the crumbs. Perhaps the guy who first took Aussie is going to stretch himself too thin and you'll be able to poach it. Of course, if you end up winning, then you'll qualify for the stat of guys who ended up winning took Aussie as their first bonus.

None the less, it doesn't really matter what you or I think is the best place to start, because the numbers don't lie. That's really it. I'm sorry there's not more, but when you have evidence on your side, you don't have to embellish or grandstand.

[suggs]

*tentatively enters a serious risk based discussion,*

I reckon the geezer who isnt medefe is right.
Just call me Claus.

[MeDeFe]

Fine, the numbers, I searched for standard, flat rate/no cards, classic, no fog, looked at 100 games with 3 or more players and found...

Aussie 33
SA 32
Africa 17
NA 12
Europe 9
Asia 2

If you count you will see that there are 105 starting continent bonuses listed and not 100, that's because in 5 games the eventual winner held 2 continents the first time they got a bonus, in those cases I listed both.


The bias in favour of Australia isn't very large, overall small continents clearly do appear to be the safer bet as far as staging points go than large ones, I'll grant you that, but honestly, is 1 win more conclusive of Australia's overall superiority? It's hardly a "landslide" as you claimed in your first post. While you can use this to support a more general thesis regarding small, easy-to-get continents, it's not enough to claim that Australia is the be-all and end-all of online boardgames.


And since you started talking of likely scenarios, what is the chance that you have a so shitty drop that it's not viable to go for any continent at all? If it's not worth it for you to go for one of the bigger continents, 3 other people are probably already trying to get one of them. As for the player in SA sitting there waiting to hammer you as soon as you get your bonus, well, which one of you? The one in NA or the one in Africa? He'll hardly have enough for both.

Another thing, if you read my first post in this thread, I mean thoroughly, you will notice that I didn't say anything about which continent I think is best, nor did I say that in any of my other posts. What I did was relativise the unmitigated praise of Australia. So where exactly did that closing statement of yours come from?



ps.
And since you're taking your statistics from my games, here are the continents I've won from on classic, most to least frequent, just in case you really want to discuss my games and my playing style. 51 no cards/flat rate games on that map, 26 wins total, 8 of them from Europe, that's practically as frequently as Aussie in the sample above, want to draw any conclusions?

Europe 8
Aussie 6
Africa 5
SA 5
NA 2
Asia 0


Oh, hi Claus.

[Robinette]

Forget about what 'FEELS' Right... here's a FACT,,,

in EVERY singles game (100% of the time, except assasin) the winner held NORTH AMERICA!

So NORTH AMERICA is where it's at!!!!




Well actually, by the final round they held ALL the continents... but for now lets just ignore that little detail...

Well, I understand where you're going with this but it's still not true. 1v1 games often end with out the winner holding all the continents because of neutrals.

*sigh* ... you really took the wind out of this sail...

and i wouldn't know anything about those neutrals .... never played 1v1 ...

Sorry, but there's neutrals on classic in all game settings but 3 and 6. Actually, I'm not sure about 3 even. They technically don't need them because 3 goes into 42 evenly, but they still might deploy them for some other reason.

Damn, it's getting pretty still out here. Better fire up that motor

Too late... She's run aground

[detlef]

Fine, the numbers, I searched for standard, flat rate/no cards, classic, no fog, looked at 100 games with 3 or more players and found...

Aussie 33
SA 32
Africa 17
NA 12
Europe 9
Asia 2

If you count you will see that there are 105 starting continent bonuses listed and not 100, that's because in 5 games the eventual winner held 2 continents the first time they got a bonus, in those cases I listed both.


The bias in favour of Australia isn't very large, overall small continents clearly do appear to be the safer bet as far as staging points go than large ones, I'll grant you that, but honestly, is 1 win more conclusive of Australia's overall superiority? It's hardly a "landslide" as you claimed in your first post. While you can use this to support a more general thesis regarding small, easy-to-get continents, it's not enough to claim that Australia is the be-all and end-all of online boardgames.


And since you started talking of likely scenarios, what is the chance that you have a so shitty drop that it's not viable to go for any continent at all? If it's not worth it for you to go for one of the bigger continents, 3 other people are probably already trying to get one of them. As for the player in SA sitting there waiting to hammer you as soon as you get your bonus, well, which one of you? The one in NA or the one in Africa? He'll hardly have enough for both.

Another thing, if you read my first post in this thread, I mean thoroughly, you will notice that I didn't say anything about which continent I think is best, nor did I say that in any of my other posts. What I did was relativise the unmitigated praise of Australia. So where exactly did that closing statement of yours come from?



ps.
And since you're taking your statistics from my games, here are the continents I've won from on classic, most to least frequent, just in case you really want to discuss my games and my playing style. 51 no cards/flat rate games on that map, 26 wins total, 8 of them from Europe, that's practically as frequently as Aussie in the sample above, want to draw any conclusions?

Europe 8
Aussie 6
Africa 5
SA 5
NA 2
Asia 0


Oh, hi Claus.

Nice work.

A few things. I would imagine that your data on those 100 games was actually skewed slightly towards larger continents by virtue of the inclusion of 3 player games. There's a much better chance of getting the kind of drop one would need to take a big spot in those games and there have been a number of threads that specifically ask what the best continent to go for in 3 and 4 player games which realize the fact that they're a more realistic option in those games.

As for your games, when I looked at your games before, I worked back from the most recent and stopped before I got to the end, so I didn't see all 54 singles/flat or no cards games. I stopped about half way it seems and ended up with this:
Oceania 13
Africa 4
SA 4
Europe 3
NA 1
I also looked at all the winners, not just you. So, what can be gathered from the fact that looking at the 26 most recent games you'd played (as of then) and all of them?

Well, for starters, It seems that Europe was a better play early on in the history of CC than it is now. Now, I understand that nearly everyone who's playing here played risk prior to joining so it's not like nobody knew what was going on at all. But let's not fool ourselves. How many of us routinely had 10 or more games going on at one time before we joined? How many of us played literally 100s of times per year before we joined. Thus, it's not a stretch to conclude the it is getting harder and harder to win (assuming, of course, that you're not feasting on noobs). I mean, when I first joined, we were all playing classic/six player/escalating just like the US board game rules. The winner nearly always got there by taking bonus areas, just like we did as kids on the board. So, it seems safe to say that the circle of players you joined with evolved similarly and made trying to grab a large bonus area like Europe a less and less attractive idea.

As for the Aussie v SA argument. Your analysis sure sheds a new light on things.

[MeDeFe]

The reason I only looked at games I won is that if we are going to start debating viable strategies (practically impossible to debate except in the broadest of terms anyway, there are too many details involved in actual gameplay) and starting positions I can only argue from my own perspective. You've mentioned the debate we had at a while back whether Europe is a viable starting position at all, I think it's safe to say that in my personal experience it is. The numbers from my games back me up on that point. Even if Europe does not appear to be a good bet if you take a larger sample of games with other players who prefer different strategies.


And I wouldn't be too sure about 3 player games skewing the results towards larger continents, if there are only a few players in the game your chance of being dropped 3 out of 4 territories on a small continent is also substantially larger. The strategy you outlined earlier relied rather heavily on speed for the person who got the small continent if I remember correctly, and getting the bonus by round 2 definitely qualifies for being included under the label "speed".

[jpliberty]

Forget about what 'FEELS' Right... here's a FACT,,,

in EVERY singles game (100% of the time, except assasin) the winner held NORTH AMERICA!

So NORTH AMERICA is where it's at!!!!




Well actually, by the final round they held ALL the continents... but for now lets just ignore that little detail...

Damn, where are you when I need a win?

Oceania is THE continent on the Classic map. N America, Europe and Asia virtually NEVER figure in the game, unless it is a multiple player game and ONLY if at least one of two things occurs:
1) someone gets all of N America, Europe or Asia on the drop and goes first;
2) at least one player is an idiot and so screws up the game that no one can stop someone from holding N America, Europe or Asia

Simply put, you are WAAAAY off base with your N America strategy and I so very much wish to get your points...any time you want to try your N America strategy against me, Pleeeeze do

LOL

[whitestazn88]

south america for sure has a better choice of where to go in terms of expansion..

i like australia for the fact that theres only one territ to hold as a block, but taking and holding asia after that is tough, whereas if you go for north america after south america, you only add 1 territ to defend really

[mpjh]

Don't have any research but the armies holding aus often seem to do well if not win. Aus loses when the armies on sa can hold it for a couple of turns. I have never seen anyony hold na for any period of time.

[Pippin]

Neither... I chose... Rapture.

(Australia)

[whitestazn88]

Don't have any research but the armies holding aus often seem to do well if not win. Aus loses when the armies on sa can hold it for a couple of turns. I have never seen anyony hold na for any period of time.

never seen anyone hold na for any period of time? its the easiest +5 to hold for sure... and if you already have sa, then its only got 3 defense points for +7...

[MeDeFe]

What's going on? I thought detlef and I had killed this thread.

[whitestazn88]

some guy pulled a 2 week bump on it, so i decided i'd add to the conversation

[Phoenix7]

I would rather do wheelies on my dirt bike or read a book.

Yet a 4 person game always go for NA. Otherwise Oz, I hate that map and do not play it unless there are 7 fools...lol. kisses

[WorldCup4James]

I think that both Australia and South America are good under certain circumstances. If you go for Australia on the Classic map you need to make sure you can control Asia by securing Dubai, Moscow, and Magadan, which can be difficult and easy, depending on whether Europe is colonized and how aggressive the player in North America or Africa is. Australia alone, in my opinion, is not enough to win. If you try securing Australia and another continent not adjacent it could work but often times deploying troops at two different locations of defense can be tough.
South America can be difficult if you´ve got someone bothering you up in North America. You´ve got to make a pact with the guy in Africa, or QUICKLY QUICKLY capture North America and hope you´re not bombarded in Sao Paulo. I wouldn´t go for Africa: you gain another 2 border points, while going for NA only requires you to defend one more border, plus a larger bonus.