Basically Stryke, the building cost change affected everyone that has large countries, so everyone's country sizes are going to be that much smaller this reset.

I would say that instead of gaining more land, you should have made sure all your land is built up before land-trading for more land. Since only 1/3 of your land is built, your best strategy at this point is to drop half of that empty land to reduce your building cost of the other half by more than 60%-70%.