Stan rogers wrote: Also if a nation controlled all 3 ports of a needed resource, it could make things more of a challenge but not insurmountable by any means.
after you mentioned that I checked the ports to remind myself of what nations own what, and spain actually nearly has a monopoly on food. and it is rather unlikely any nation could take over the whole map, they would face some SERIOUS retaliation from nearly everyone. I heard that's what happened to Barbados, though that was before my time. although I suppose if all the most powerful players decided to come together and form some super nation they could dominate, but considering how some may not like eachother and they would end up fighting over who would be the top dog of the super nation even that would not be possible.