FarmVille Versus "Going Croatian"
William Thomas Riker
War Stuff, Explained by Pfeiffer.
Alone we are strong but together we are unstoppable by Celtic Knight
Dear Croatia (A Reasonable Letter) by Derphoof
MOD's at WAR: Wild Owl vs Zdlemmy [EN/ES] by Pescaman
[CRO MoFA] A message to company owners in the USA by Croatian Foreign Office
eRepublik and moral justifications by Korosh I
[Croatia] My USA vacation by Warmdox
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Justification of US Airstrike on Croatia
3. Plato, balanced game earns more money
4. Other
1. INTRODUCTION
Instead of writing a lengthy introduction, I offer you linked articles at the top. Read them to better understand my text. Bear in mind I write this as an individual, rather than a member of Croatian government. And although I lost all respect (won't say forever) for USA, its institutions, and most of its populace trying to justify their attack and insulting Croats, I still respect some. I've lived for some time in the US, and it saddenes me that most (not all) Americans, both as individuals and as a country, live up to their bad reputation in eRepublik, just like they do IRL. I hope one day, when you refuse ignorance and indoctrination, you will start respecting other peoples and cultures and keep to your own backyard, instead of forcibly coming to our sh*thole countries.
2. JUSTIFICATION OF US AIRSTRIKE ON CROATIA
I'm not going to say Americans lie or make up stories, but they do distort the truth to suit their own needs. I will ignore pure insults (and there has been a lot of those) from Americans. Pay attention to their statements before Americans launched their AS, and after Croats defeated them.
Croatia has attempted to be our friends for like 3 years. It never works out because they are just a little to weak. - chickensguys
We had intelligence that Croatia has been covertly working on plans for a 'United Yugoslavia' in which Croatia, which hasn't had its cores in almost 3 years, due to repeated back stabbing of allies (including us), will finally get its cores back and attack us in conjunction with other Balkan countries. - Celtic Knight
everybody in this gae knows it, you re working on it for long time.. - Korosh I
USA didn't expect dead Croatian tanks and generals to come back to life. Seems like not only Americans don't appreciate allies and their friendship over American interests, but they also don't stay in touch with each other. Most of Croatian players are V1 veterans, and have met regularly on eRepublik meetings and formed RL friendships. Others stay in Facebook and and Whatsapp groups, just in case something amazing happens (like V1 return). It's something you woould know about if, instead of your perpetual interests, you had perpetual friendships.
USA wanted to liberate Thailand. I can't believe American people actually believed this crap. Then again, that is all they believe in IRL, so why am I surprised. Croatia was in Thailand with their permission (they are mostly Balkanians), and was about to leave and start a new TW. That is why Croatia was able to launch an Airstrike as soon as they did, since their AS was filled for that TW. Another proof of this is Thailand fighting for Croatia against USA.
Croatia thinks now they have a “moral responsibility” to show their “craziness, bravery, morality” to the world by going against “big bad USA” for "revenge". Croatia attacks USA. - Korosh I
In my opinion, virtue lies in actions and not intentions. You say you are brave and fight wars without fear (I don't know exactly what constitutes fear in an online game, but ok). - Korosh I
USA tried to help Hungary. Huh? Croatia is Hungary's ally, and an active one. Please, stop with excuses, they are getting more lame with each one of them.
Croatian AS wasn't planned at all, totally random. But we haven't forgotten about you. We will come back. And then, we will wipe you out. We will leave you Wyoming. Maybe then, just maybe, you'll learn to appreciate it and all other Wyomings across the globe.
3. PLATO, BALANCED GAME EARNS MORE MONEY
Often when somebody mentions the game imbalance, they get showered with insulting and demeaning comments. Though, they might have a point. It was foolish of me to think players belonging to the winning side would like to ballance the game on their expense. I always thought it not fun to be on a stronger side. Balance is best, but when unavaialbe, I would rather be on a slightly weaker side. I repeat, just a slightly weaker side. Like when you play soccer, and there is an odd number of kids on the playground. No problem, we will play 5:6, and I'd like to be in the weaker team. More funn. Any game or sport that would become unbalanced, most kids would restart. Hell, even when I play Dota, and it becomes so obvious one side is losing, we restart. What's the point of continuing the match when you already know who is going to win? How is that any fun?
And there I was wront, most of you do not share my opinion. Playing soccer in a team of 6 versus 5 and winning 4:0 wouldn't be a problem for you, because you like to win. You would never think of saying „hey, one of us will come play for your team.“ When you play Dota and have already destroyed their base towers, while they haven't even touched any of yours, you proceed to drag the battle for another hour or two destroying their base building by building. You don't like to play, let alone face a challenge. You hate the beginning, when all bets are off. You take life too serously, let alone a game, and on top of that a crappy one. If you really feel that way, life is going to be hard on you. The real life.
There is a point you are right at. Some of you might think to yourself: „What if we stop playing farmville first, and start a real war, nobody supports us, and we get wiped for a long time?“ That's an ok thinking, a rational thinking. But that kind of mindset doesn't belong to this game. You are better off wiped, than playing farmville. You are afraid, I can understand that. But that is like suffering at a bad job with an as*hole of a boss, or being afraid to criticize your partner because you are afraid you're gonna end up getting dumped. It is ok to be afraid, but if you can't face those situations, than you are not an adult person capable to run their own life. So, to let that fear run your life is not having a life at all. It'w not worth living. And that is RL. With you having so much fear in this game, it's even worse. Let me quote Korosh again:
In my opinion, virtue lies in actions and not intentions. You say you are brave and fight wars without fear (I don't know exactly what constitutes fear in an online game, but ok).
And that comes from a citizen of farmville. Pacifica is afraid to fight against Asteria. USA is afraid to fight against Serbia. Americans are afraid to lose their resources. So much hipocrisy.
Balancing the game remains to be done by eRepublik Labs. The thing is that all mechanisms that enable TW and farmville need to be removed.
Airstrike and Direct trade routes
Designed as a poor measure to flush out CC and food. Seriously, you could make regular declarations of war to cost extra money and products. Airstrikes only enable strong, mostly Eurpean countries, to hunt for resource colonies in Asia. Russia, Poland, Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia need no airstrikes to wage wars. It also removed a lot of strategy planning from campaings. It's a lot harder, and also more rewarding to build corridors through a lot of friendly and enemy countries to reach a certain resource, and then return/abandon regions you need no more. It also requires capable leadership.
Determination Bonus and Resistance Wars
How did we come from epic battles for resources in Lion King and Hello Kitty to farmville? V1 mechanisms made conquering regions tough, and liberating them even tougher, since there were always DS and Hospital bonuses for whoever was defending the region, and supporting a resistance costed 50 Gold + 0.25 Gold per resident. Furthermore, only citizens of the conquered country could raise the resiestance Now the resistance side gets a bonus, it costs less than 2.5 gold, any everybody can raise them anywhere. Nobody wants to fight a real war when they know they could lose regions so easily.
Adding countries
The Labs did a mistake by doing this. Countries with resources and low populace only serve as colonies for the powerful to play farmville. Why attack your powerful neighbour, when you have so many weak Asian countries and the AS option to reach them. Best case scenario: they don't get wiped, but still ruled by Europeans who couldn't earn their CP and CM medals back at home. All countries that couldn't, let's say, get at least 50 voters in CPs election during the 2017, puff, gone. Seriously, no reason to keep them, otherwise you can fill out the entire map, 'cause I'm pretty sure you could find players of all nationalities here.
Resource allocation mechanism
Resource wars are a trap. They grant resources to countries which are able to dish out most damage during that competition. As we have seen, Croatia can dish a lot of damage in a week, and then it's done. We get resources, and a more powerful Serbia wipes us for them. Same with other countries. Resources should be allocated based on let's say, total damage done last year. Make Hungary, Poland, Romani and Serbia fight each other for rubber, don't let them make so many colonies, so far away, so easy. Or do it based on RL resources (from past and present, otherwise Europe would have no metal). Or simply return the V1 resources and their placement on the map, it worked. The only industry that didn't exist back then is aircraft industry. Just delete it, we don't need it, nor air battles. One would think the Labs added air battles so people who don't pay RL money would have a chance. But that could only be possible of there were a fixed daily amount of energy, equal for everybody. This way, the same people that rule D4, lower divisions with Maverick, also rule Air with EBs. And there is barely any strategy added.
True Patriot, Mercenary, Freedom Fighter
We all know that when there were real wars, there were around 10-20 of those, and no country was in perpetual war, so it could fight for it allies as well. True Patriot motivates players to keep fighting in their TWs instead in real wars of their allies.
Mercenary and FF medals were introduced to help smaller countries (seriously, jsut delete them). It resulted in all wars becoming TW to farm the medals., just like TP. All these medals pump too much CC in the game.
MPPs versus Alliances
If a country is officially (by ingame mechanisms) a member of an alliance, it should not be able to make an MPP with a country who is a member of an another alliance, to avoid current situation: Pacifica becoming proAsteria. MPPs could be possible with countries outside alliances, though this could be missused by a country practically being in an alliance (and fighting for its interests and gaining from it) while officially being without an alliance. Maybe the abuse could be limited by limiting the number of MPPs per country (perhaps 5), so if a country wants more allies, it has to formally join an alliance. MPPs are limited to around 5 anyway, by that deployment thing. Which is useless as well.
Citizenship
No, I don't want to erase that feature, just make it more powerful. It could prevent citizens of other countries from fighting in wars that their own or allied/MPP countries are not involved in - if they want to freely fight anywhere, for CO, epic PPs, FF & M medals, they should have the option to renounce their citizenship and be real soldiers of fortune.
eReblik Labs could earn more money
Pack consuption should be elevated simply because patriotic visa players stopped using RL money since either there is no need (their strong country rules weakers ones), or because it would be in vain (a couple of visa tanks from weaker countries cannot defend their countries for long term against stronger ones, so they won't bother swiping at all). By putting strong countries against each other, patriotic visa players might start spending RL money again.
4. OTHER
All congresmen votes on law proposals ought to be public. How else are we supposed to know for sure who exactly works for their voters' interests? Also, both Croatia and USA complained about recent enemy infiltrationsn (Serbs and Croats, respectively) in ther respective congresses simply because some congressmen vote law proposals contra their country's interests, but we cann't determine who for sure.
Also, all congress proposals should be in the country shout tab, with enabled comments for discussions.
Comments
v
BIG V
erep labs don't care, why should we?
I still reckon it was all a ploy the the Amerikan government to hike taxes.
They need a reason?
SO LONG TO READ.
o7
hail farm ville
Good propaganda. 6/10
Are you saying that someone breached into your account and typed all that?
No he just sad ro me that he and USA will fuc. Croatia, Brandy was good i will come back for all factory😃
@Wild Owl
Bad boys, bad boys
What'cha gonna do?
What'cha gonna do when they come for you?
o7
V o/
Super tekst ali kaj to pomaže, kad je več 90% onih, što bi ga razumljeli, več napustilo igru... 😛
Very good article, many good points although some are debatable. Well done!
Superb article!!!
Only thing that somewhat explains this situation is that the US government was infiltrated by Goa'ulds !
That is Stargate, not Star Trek!
Yes Gua'ulds, Bluegills ......They all come from a far away galaxy, and guess whats the first place they come to in their search for brains? US ofc...
All the space parasites love it there 🙂. Good thing that we and the rest of the world are no interest to them, but to make it sure, have always a roll of tinfoil to protect your family and friends.
Jesus ti baš ono zaslužuješ sub.
Odličan članak!
Hrvatska verzija?
'Manifest Destiny is their version of Mein Kampf'
Quite possibly the best sentence ever uttered in eRepublik!
We will make America great again !😃
oh, stop effin' whining.. seriously, you guys farmed eb's like everyone else, just that you couldn't farm CC, you attacked for the lulz, burnt a shitload of cc & ebs in less than a week with poor planning as well. now go back and farm ebs for another 2 years, bring zdlamey back for another 3 days of fun and so on.
at least this time you left out RL violence enticements. a step up from rock bottom
It could be worse but we are not Romanians 🙂
you wish though
That's my wet dream but don't tell anyone 😉
Go back to your sheep farm, Naufragiatu. You are losing cc while typing here.
so.. nothing against what I said. thanks for passive confirmation 🙂
tell admins to make mini erep, give my side 50 teritory and 1 bill dmg in total and your side 50 teriitory and 1 bill dmg...and gave us 50 battles. i would win you in 51. That much about you....
Literally none of their former allies want to be with them. Those who did commit the mistake of doing it get wiped. But the problem is always with us, never with them.
And Cro does more damage than USA on any given week. But we are "bullies" for attacking them. Top kek.
"But we are "bullies" for attacking them."
Well yeah ,thats the point of bullying. Bullies attack.
Its your problem you thought Croatia is going to be an soft punching bag,
When we fought back many of Americans started preparing for the worst case scenario ,screaming in the comments ,you even raised your taxes ,I think you wouldn't do it if you thought the war is going to end in 3-4 days.
Your friends saved you from the fight. I respect that ,they are great allies.
But then someone said that we have no friends and no allies because we always backstab them. Nope.
Our friends would help us for sure (and vice versa) if they weren't already wiped and exhausted by an third side you were not a part of ,yet. You didn't participe in their defeat so you have no right to call them out.
Also ,I would like to see how would Americans behave if they had no more 50 regions. You need to admit it's an unfair advantage to your side.
Oh yes, good media, excellent :3
Likewise. Although I don't comment your articles as often (or anybody else's, for that matter), I think you make fair points, even when it comes to your last one regarding Pacifica's and Hungary's farewell. I appreciate that we can follow each other's train of thought and more often than not see logic in and agree with them, even when it comes to matters we support on opposing sides.
I think the biggest flaw in the second section is that you are trying to find a common line of thought among opinions of multiple people. If a same player would have said weaker & stronger before and after, I could be more convinced. And you need to filter out the inevitable political posturing of an acting CP.
On the third part, yes, I still maintain that I am not going to play consciously worse because it hurts someone else's chances to succeed. I am not bored, not even close. When I become bored, I'll yearn for change. That's the point when it happens: when the majority wants change.
Legit question, how would you solve the problem, when the AntiAsteria is not even willing to make the first move and crawl from their entrenchements? I have written about this a lot. How would the "balancing" practically work out? Perhaps the biggest grievance I have with this argument about needing a balance is just that: that it is entirely arbitrary. Subjective. Who decides when we are even "enough", on what basis? Do we cast a die and act accordingly? That would take away maybe the biggest essence in this game: diplomacy and politics. I would be the last one supporting that move.
But yes, removing incentives for Training wars like True Patriot would be extremely nice. Further, decreasing the amount of bonuses in the game would force nations to compete about them more. And making harder to keep them for a long time would reduce the path dependency of that. New nations were a huge mistake. I more or less agree with these thoughts on improvement.
Great article, always a pleasure.
About second section: I admit, Pfeiffer is the only person I have quotes on regarding both before (insulting Croats) and after (it's ok to lose). But the genral point was to present how Americans as people can't admit a mistake: some of them have insulted us before the AS, others have done that after. Why couldn't they simply be quiet and more humble?
On the third section: well, you enjoy because you are a metathinker, you deal with diplomacy and high politics, and you are a true analyst. I am one step below that, part thinker, part doer, and deal with economy. Others like me deal with military strategy. And then most are just doers: they like to fight, and they need others to create content for them. And for the past couple of years, their eRep life has been a bore.
AntiAsteria did their moves. We are all finished, our territories wiped clean. I don't know the issues of other anti-Asteriacountries, but I will answer for Croatia. You do realize that Croatia has had no true strategist for years now (Zdlemmy was the last, and he was dead for years), don't you? The only remnants of diplomatic corps were Don Croatas (he dissapeared) and Samohajduk101 (who turned two-clicking because of RL). And I am the last Croat here who deals with economics. There is around 30 active people left, and we are split on two sides, and we only got together last week after US AS. We have no people with will and/or knowledge to deal in high politics, diplomacy, military strategy, economics, organization... And since we cannot communicate internally, how the hell are supposed to form a functioning alliance with other countries?
Extremely fair points all around. And yes I have noticed I am an anomaly, yet I really struggle to find any other explanations than that the majority still enjoys this. If they wouldn't we would see CP's looking for fun also in Asterian nations, which we to large degree are not.
I didn't in fact know things in Croatia have grown that inactive, thanks for the honest response. The situation in Finland is roughly the same, though we've always been a smaller community.
Keep up writing o/
You now admit communities shrink both in proAsteria and antiAsteria countries, and that you and other leaders are still not bored.
This comfirms my opinion boredom won't lead to changes, because by the time the leaders will find the game boring, the population have already vanished below them and there will be nothing left to save. We don't even know what is the situation right now, because a big proportion of the players leave the game gradually: they stop playing personally first, but their character is still present in the game run by scripts. This makes look like as if players would have fun, while they are not even here. The admins let the use of scripts because unless many would find the game doesn't worth the effort to click manually anymore. Maybe the removal of scripts would lead to a sudden collapse that the game couldn't survive.
I also agree with WTR in that the anti-Asteria won't be able to change the situation through diplomacy because there is no competent personnel to do that. The fact Hungary couldn't achieve its aim in the Pacifica - which was a much better position for diplomacy than being outside of the alliance - tells a lot.
So we can wait for the anti-Asteria to change but it didn't happen and will be just less and less likely to happen. By this I don't want to blame you or suggest that you should play consciously worse, this is just a fact, and we don't know what to do with this situation.
Jej, imamo novog neprijatelja umjesto srba, mislio sam da ćeš bit sretan 🙂
Odličan članak.
I love how you dont like '' colonies'' countries but only when others are doing it.When Croatia was doing it why didnt you beach about it?Why didnt you gave all this feedback when eRo was SerHun's beach and Croatia was pretty cozy in India and later in Mexico?
Your analogy of 4vs5 in football for this game is good but incomplete.Asteria was the team with an extra member and Croatia in the other.But you failed to mention that ,when 2 new players wanted to join (Bul&Mkd),YOU were the one saying: ''We dont need you.Go play somewhere else''.And they did.They joined Asteria side and made you irrelevant for the past year.
We are here mainly because of your mistakes.You had the chance to balance the game and you didnt care.
we dont have colonies, we relocate our country
not that we dont want colonies, but we simply lose our cores and end up relocating our capital 😃
Im not talking about now.I'm talking Eden times.You were the first big e-country that started this.One thing that i hate is hypocrisy.And this article is full of it.
Started what? You and Hungary held iron for years... talking about colonies.
Romper,because that was the only thing to do back then.You had to have it first if you didnt want your opponent to have a big advantage over you.
After that it was easier to have big bonuses and Croatia was the first one to care more about it rather then beeing a good teamplayer.
Well, I don't go that back, but the earliest I remember was when we relocated to India after getting wiped. And that was consentual.
I'm not saying no to colonies (obvisously I mentioned Lion King and Hello Kitty as good), I'm saying that big countries refuse to fight each other and go for small. We were always fighting Serbia, even when we were in India. And Mexico was an adventure that lasted a short time. Now, powerful countries have been occupying small one for years, and without a real war.
Funny how you say that it was for survival but both India and Mexico had rubber back then.And rubber was the must have resource.And Mexico was a short trip because everybody was tired of this.Big countries in Eden,without you, were suffering and Croatia was in a cozy place.
I'm not seeing how powerful countries ocuppying small one.Most of them have some sort of agreement like you had with Mexico and India.
You want change when Croatia isnt in a nice place like you were used to.
Small countries have agreements with bigger ones because they have no choice.
And I still don't understand why are you putting this on me. You think I'd like a strong Croatia farming weak countries? That's no fun.
when Croatia was having fun in Mexico and India we were getting wiped every week. Until your departure there was a form of balance in the region, even if ONE countries were stronger
good old days of EDEN 🙂
Ukr has one of the best deals in this game.How can you say that. When resource wars was they made a plan with eRo and they are doing great.
That's the point.Croatia was farming on weak countries but back then you didnt had this bright ideas.How come you have them now?
just one exclamation: Croatia made a deal with mexico and Columbia BEFORE we got there. we didn't conquer them and forced them an agreement 😉
if we disagreed at the first place we would have never even started our journey there, remember, there were NO airstrikes then 😉
and, no, EDEN wasn't suffering from it, the opposite side was cause croatia was, indeed, in a cozy position which meant that we could fight all the time for our allies and be in a endless war and damage drain with serbia and other countries (no legend bonus and TP then as well).