An Outside View

Ever since the end of French Toast there's been debate on what a country needs in order to be successful, what it has to do and in what it has to emphasize. The eUK has never been a military power, nor has it tried to be such. In the early days when I lived in the eUK, the country was rich with political debate, its culture and administrative leadership was in a way top notch of the world, leaving all other countries behind in the complexity of the political regime. It is, and was blamed for its rigidity, inflexibility and slowness, but I'd still like to see the old political system as richness intrinsic to the eUK. Despite being slow and off-game based, the system provided a totally different approach to eRepublik, and in times when there was no war, it offered another way to enjoy the game without getting bored.

Nowadays the eUK has tried to streamline its political system, and much of the old legislation has been thrown away. In a way it could be said that eUK follows a different philosophy compared to the eUK of the old, and that's okay. Still, you aren't doing it 100 %, which creates problems. The aim behind cleaning and streamlining legislation has been to try simply make the eUK follow game mechanics, but the problem is, people there still don't see the forest from the trees. However much I liked the complexity of your old political system, it hindered participation in the actual game other countries play. There's a lot of junk still in the way, but this one thing is notably dragging the eUK behind, and no one seems to be doing a thing about it. That one thing is party politics. You need to get rid of it.

Parties are platforms for individuals. They are simply organisations which are necessary to make you able to run for congress or presidency, they're nothing else. Parties comprise of alike-thinking people, or people you should be getting along with, and that's it. Stop thinking that parties represent something, or that getting a party a ”shadow cabinet” or policies actually matter. Think for a second what is related to party politics - do any of the discussions you have inside the party, or with other parties, involve military planning, economics, tax discussion or foreign politics in game mechanical terms? I haven't seen that at all, and by reading what you've come up with, seems to me most of you haven't either.

However much you get involved in party politics, it does not teach you game mechanics, it won't teach you how to lead a country, or how to make an impact in congress. The power-play between parties is the same, useless approach into trying to improve the country. All party politics does is keeps you from learning the game, keeps the country divided between different groups, and what's most important - it creates political infighting within the country.

If you actually want to improve your country, just stop thinking a party actually matters. Parties represent ideologies, which have little to no effect on how game mechanics dictate events and conditions in-game. Parties comprise of people, supporting people is how you improve a country. Dedicating your life to a party, to party politics and political infighting helps no one. This is what was, and maybe still is, wrong in the eUK. The congress concentrates on debating issues which don't relate to the game, and so minister candidates elected from the congress don't know a thing about how to run a country. There is a huge difference between minister level activity and congress - to increase the number of active, experienced players you need to close that gap. The first step is to stop arguing about party politics, and concentrate in things that actually matter.


P.S. I'll just put a nice picture at the end so you vote the article:



Avec, former eUK citizen