Yeah, I had no idea how I was supposed to do it. Clearly it is NOT the better way to go, judging by my growth rate I'm now bringing my other lands up to speed, and another good indicator that I was doing it the wrong way is that after being at the bottom two of the list in the alliance for the entire time, I'm not moving up slightly. Who knows, maybe this tactic makes for a really slow start, but also a really steep growth rate later on...