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2012 has been one hell of a year. In terms of being militarily epic, 2012 certainly doesn't follow past years, where wars were won with effort as opposed to the size of one's wallet but hey-ho, times change, as does centres of power.

If I were to sum up 2012 in one word, it would be domination. Now this doesn't necessarily refer to anyone in particular. It's a generalisation. EDEN were able to accomplish quite the victory by February this year, in wiping 18-20 pro-ONE nations for the congress elections. However, this turned sour for EDEN as by the end of Summer, ex-ONE/TWO and CoT had the upper hand.

This past year has been marked with extraordinary diplomatic accomplishments and a significant amount of diplomatic failures. The biggest success would be Poland's ability to become allied with the USA on two occasions this year, among other diplomatic accomplishments by them. The biggest failure, in my opinion, was EDEN's acceptance of Turkey as a member, which forced Bulgaria away from EDEN, the effects of which can still be seen today in the form of Circle of Trust. The expulsion of Chile from Terra was, at the time, a minor event to the world but with the recent couple of babybooms for Chile, this transformed them from a smaller power to a great power in the world, especially in divisions 1 and 2.

Some bests and worsts of the year

The reason this appears incomplete is because I struggled thinking of stuff for other nations without being too partial about it. These are only the countries that I felt were certain.

Best at Diplomacy: Poland
- The reason I name them the best at diplomacy is simply down to the fact that they offer many opponents the chance to have regions back after war, which results in peace. Non-Aggression Pacts became something of a Polish thing to do, with these being signed with France and the Netherlands on multiple occasions and with Poland signing a NAP with the USA. In addition to this, after wars for fun, Poland promptly gave back regions, such as was the case with Ireland.

Worst at keeping their original regions: Croatia
- Not that this is a bad thing. Croatia have had the mighty accomplishment of being the only nation to successfully do an airstrike which can still be seen today. In addition to this, their presence in Mexico allowed them to be relatively peaceful for several weeks while war in Europe raged on.

Quietest Powerhouse: China
- We rarely see China do anything, which is a rarity for a powerful nation. When they do actually do something, the effects can certainly be felt. They have nearly, on two occasions, breached into Europe this last year but their invasions were promptly defeated.



Alliances

Four new alliances have formed this year - Circle of Trust, CTRL, TWO and Asgard - while ONE, Terra, ABC and EPIC disbanded. CTRL also disbanded within a month and a bit of its creation. This means that a total of 9 alliances were in function this year, which is most likely a record.

The main functional alliances of this year were EDEN, ONE, CoT, Terra and TWO, each had or have a large percentage of the world’s daily damage output.

I'd like to talk a bit about CTRL and EDEN.



CTRL

The idea of an anti-Balkan centric alliance had formed when the USA began signing Non-Aggression Pacts with their neighbours, firstly, in Spain and then in Poland, after Poland had been able to conquer Aquitaine off them. The USA wanted to secure their 10/10 resource bonus. Relations had warmed up quite considerably by this point, with Brazil joining in by signing MPPs with both Poland and Spain.

The meaning of the alliance became further clear when it was revealed in the August 2012 congress elections that quite a large number of foreign citizens were elected into the US Congress - some of them from Croatian and Macedonian origins. A few months earlier in Poland, it had been announced that there was a great deal of disatisfaction over the endless Balkan wars that had plaqued eRepublik, with particular attention being given to the Macedonia-Greece war. Outrage in Macedonia further ensued when the Polish Minister of Defence had called them "FYROM", which the proceeding Polish CP apologised for. Tensions were still there, however, even after the apology. Spain backed up Poland. In Brazil, dislike of EDEN began to grow after Romanians began to be admitted to congress. It was agreed that the alliance would try to be anti-balkan as a result of these problems that the membership faced.

Thus, CTRL was formed with Brazil, Poland, Spain and the USA as their core and only members.

A great deal of issues had arisen for the short lived alliance, including the issue of Poland having MPPs with Serbia and Hungary, traditionally defined as mortal enemies of the USA. The UK had also expressed, if minute, some desire to follow Poland into CTRL, which would've been thought as being repulsive by the USA. The USA had also been encouraging China, France and Germany to get involved. France had been occupied by Poland several times in the year by August and there was clearly a conflict of interests here.



EDEN

I'll try being an unbiased as possible but it's no secret to anyone that I absolutely loathe EDEN.

You could say that 2012 brought the worst out of EDEN but perhaps also the best. At the start of the year, EDEN became - for perhaps the first time in its three year history - the most destructive force the eWorld had ever seen. This had been a result of Turkey's defection from pro-ONE to pro-EDEN after ONE had chosen Iran over them. This one decision would prove to be the worst mistake that I've ever seen anyone do on the game. I'll get to that soon though.

In February of this year, EDEN and Terra had been so powerful that ONE struggled to win one battle in a day. Indonesia and the United Kingdom had been wiped for the first time by joint EDEN and Terran forces. Spain found itself permanently wiped by Brazil and USA. Serbia, the world's largest nation, had found itself wiped two months in a row by the congress elections. Trolling became a fixture from EDEN, priding themselves over these new found military achievements.

However, by March, tensions were rising fast between Turkey and Bulgaria, who had been able to resist the temptation of war for many months. A new group of countries were beginning to form in the EDEN bloc, comprising of Argentina, Turkey and Ukraine, all three of whom excerted their dominance in their own ways. Ukraine, for example, went to war with Poland. By late March, Bulgaria and Turkey were no longer peaceful after it became increasingly evident that brotherhood was being sacrificed for damage with Turkey's practically universal admission to EDEN. War ensued.

Bulgaria left EDEN and formed a new, rival alliance to EDEN, partially - at the time - aligned with ONE. Bulgaria had entered ONE's strategic channels so they could ask for support whenever they required it. EDEN's three month period of dominance had ended as a result of bad diplomacy. At the beginning of Bulgaria's alliance shift, things seemed more like 50/50 on the alliance axis, with fairly balanced battles taking place and ONE able to pursue their goals after their three month downfall.

Since Bulgaria left the alliance, several loyal members to EDEN had left, including Ireland - who traditionally held pro-Bulgarian views - and Finland, who left to form Asgard with Sweden. To replace them, Albania, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Netherlands, Republic of China and Turkey all joined the alliance. The isolation of several nations that supported EDEN, such as Brazil and the USA, have left the alliance in the situation that they find themselves in today. Only by reforming their alliance will they be able to continue as a functioning global alliance. Right now, they are merely a toy that CoT and TWO play with.



Recent Events

- Portugal holds a referendum on EDEN membership that is rejected by 56%. One of the rules of the referendum was that it was 50%+1, so it is quite close.
- An opinion poll conducted by TanGe LanGe states that only 35% of Croatia wants to see them exit EDEN, while the remainder support continuing the relationship. His article, which is in Croatian, can be found here.
- neppons, a former multiple time country president, declares the threat of a PTO in Sweden. The article can be found here
- Croatia is declaring India as natural enemy, meaning Croatia will lose a number of their MPPs.
- Estonia, Latvia and Venezuela become trial members of TWO.
- Serbia wiped Israel off the map, allowing Serbia to propose Turkey as natural enemy alongside Hungary.
- Ukraine leaves EDEN.

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So yeah, that pretty much wraps up this article. The reason this wasn't done with Kravenn is simply because he's taking a short break and I'll leave him to his stuff until we can put together another fantastic article.

Thank you for reading!
Thomas765