[USA] How-to: Fighting in V2

Day 1,025, 11:33 • Published in USA USA • by Blank Keating

** Note: You can click on any instructional image to get a zoomed in version.

Hey there, newbies and veterans alike. In the contents of this here article, you will learn everything you could possibly need to know about deploying and fighting on the battlegrounds of eRepublik. If you're an experienced one or are on time restraints, skip to the bottom for the bullet points and other links to help you out.



The Basics + Getting Ready
“The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed during war.” - Chinese Proverb

The very first thing you should do as soon as you consider fighting is pick a unit and stick with it. Generally, it's a good idea to only train one unit skill all the way up to skill level 9 or 10, and then branch out to other unit skills. To do so, you should first know the ins and outs of each one. Lucky for you, I've MS Painted a chart for you:

* = Word is that base damage will be normalized at 10 sometime in the future. Also, only helicopters can traverse over rivers.

Now that you've selected your tool of destruction, train for the day in it. In fact, train every day for it. How long is up to you, but squeeze in a minimum of 2 game hours training that unit's skill every day. Also, do your other 3 activities (work, study, relax) before any fight, as low health will damage your productivity and make your boss mad. Now, you can go to the marketplace and buy a low level unit to start fighting with.
Now we have our daily activities out of the way and we have our equipment and skill all set up. It’s time to check out a battlefield. Go to the DoD orders (subscribe to it, read it, vote it!) and enter the battle on there.



Observing Enemies
“It is wiser to find out than to suppose.” - Mark Twain

Welcome to the big scary battlefield. Before you do anything, look to the top right of the battlefield and there will be a little blue icon that says “Need help?” that can tell you what most of the stuff on this screen is. Here’s the image with a link to the help page:


What it doesn’t tell you is how to find out if a butt kicking is in your near future. Follow these steps to consider your foes:




How to estimate weapon quality with icons:


As you can see in the example, the 4th Phoenix baddie is the weakest link, with a lower rank and skill and inferior firepower than the other 3 baddies. You think you have a shot, so it’s time to attack.



Entering the Fray
“No poor b*****d ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb b*****d die for their country.” - George S. Patton

The battle consists of alternating 90 second rounds for the attacker and then the defender. Now you can deploy into any tile that your country holds, as long as there are no enemy units adjacent to it. The attacker’s tiles are in red, and the defender’s tiles are in blue. On the minimap in the bottom left, you can scroll the battlefield and see an overview of all the tiles (defender tiles appear as white on the minimap).

On your turn, use the big blue deploy* button in the bottom right, and then select your weaponry that you got earlier. Deploy as close to your enemy as you can, and move your unit next to theirs (helicopters can move three times, tanks can move twice, rifle/artillery can move once). Press attack and select the enemy’s tile. Now you can choose your target. Remember, the person with the least health is not always the weakest, there’s rank and skill to take in account.



Select telescopic sight as your booster, the priced options are only for the rich or military funded heavy hitters. Eventually, you might get the honor of funding, but only if you train everyday 😉.

The battle will automatically unfold as your turn ends, there’s no button mashing or anything. Now the opposing side takes their turn.

(*Note: Deploying does not lock you out of the game. You can deploy onto a capital or construction and do other things, even go AFK. You will defend in absentia.)



After Your Attack
“Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.” - Colman McCarthy

With the battle done, you’ll quickly see whether you won or lost. If you lost, you’re not out of the picture forever. See Healing for more info on what happens after you lose.

If you won however, that means you’re rewarded with some rank points (which are only attainable through fighting) and a miniscule amount of skill points (the ones you train for). However, you’re also hung out to dry as the opponent nation picks their moves. Chances are high enough that your vanquished foe will redeploy near you and challenge you to a rematch. Press Defend in the bottom right and choose your trusty telescopic sight again. Other than this, there’s nothing else you can do until the opponent makes their move.

After they’re done, it’s your turn again and you can move and attack again, leave the battlefield, or re-enter it if you lost during the last attack period.

On most battlefields, you’ll see a decent amount of people of higher rank and skill than you. How should you remedy this? Teamwork.



Conditions and Objectives
“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.” - George S. Patton

There’s a lot more to do on the battlefield than just attacking enemies, even just attacking/defending the capital. How do you find out what to do on a fluctuating battlefield? Join either one of these: The Coordinated Civilian Effort or The U.S Military / a Private Militia.

Here’s an overview of what objectives there are on an average battlefield, so you know what your team leaders are talking about.

Flipping tiles: Generally trying to avoid a central point of combat and instead running around the outer edges and changing the enemy’s tiles to your own. All you have to do to flip a tile is land on it at the end of your turn.

Take the hospital: You’ll notice near the capital there are big ol’ window buildings with red crosses on them. These heal up your damaged health every turn (elaborated in Healing). Flipping a hospital tile means it’s healing capabilities now assist your country every turn. Therefore, taking a hospital before attacking a big stack of enemies on a capital can be a good idea.

Take the defense system: Sometimes you’ll see a weird white box building near the capital also. That’s a defense system, and if you own it, enemies’ chance to hit on you will be much lower than normal when you’re in its vicinity. You can check a hospital or defense system’s area of effectiveness by clicking the building. Coordination is important with the defense system, as its importance can be low or high depending on the battlefield.

Stalling/spawncamping: Most battles come down to the last hour, and there’s a ton of activity to keep track of. You need 75% of the tiles and the capital to win. If you’re winning, you might want to wall up the enemy’s deployment zone so they can’t run in and flip tiles. If you’re losing, you want to get past them and get the 25% so the battle can’t end as a loss. Again, it’s important to coordinate when you’re dealing with the closing hour.

Healing
“It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.” - Aristotle

So you lost, or you’re just bruised from so much killin’. Not a problem. There are many ways to heal up your damaged health.

First Aid: When you get taken out, you’ll automatically use a first aid kit to heal yourself up. A first aid kit will bring your health up to 70, no matter how low you were taken. The catch is you can only use 3 of these every 24 hours, the timer starting when you die. After you’ve burned your 3 heals, you’ll stay at 20 until you heal with food or die again 24 hours later.

Foodstuffs: Food heals both health and happiness depending on what you buy in the marketplace, and you can eat it manually by clicking the button under your happiness numbers on the left. You can only heal 300 points of health with food every day.

Housing: At rollover (00:00 eRep time, which is PST), you’ll automatically get healed for a sum of health if you own a house. A low level house will heal 5-15 health for a couple weeks, and costs 30-50 USD. Houses are pretty expensive, and ironically you don’t need one to live, so don’t be afraid to live in a box for your first few weeks. Some militias/militaries provide low level housing to loyal members.

Hospitals: The easiest way of battlefield healing, if you’re in a controlled hospital’s vicinity (click to see the range of effectiveness), then you’ll be automatically healed at the end of the round. How much is dependent on the quality of hospitals, most high level hospitals will bring you up to 70-90. The best part: it’s completely free to use, so long as your country holds control of it.

Conclusion / Resources

The tl;dr:
- Coordinate! Join an army/militia or the CC effort. Link below.
- Fighting is the only way to increase your military rank on your profile, which increases your critical hit chance.
- Work before you fight! Low health will damage your productivity.
- Capitals, hospitals, and defense systems are key tiles of combat.
- You can deploy onto battlefields that are being won or controlled and defend key points in absentia (being retreated at 70 health if you’re attacked). i.e. Current orders request you deploy here on a hospital before you logoff, in case it’s attacked.
- Buying food and a house will help you keep your health up day to day, but daily first aid kits and hospitals are free to you. Don’t overexert yourself!

National Forums: The eUSA national forums, with much more information than the one on eRep. Any successful player should make an account here and at least read up on it.
Coordinated Civilian Effort: The information you need to join up with other civilians to attack and defend territories. Work in conjunction with the military without giving up your civilian label!
Help Your Country, Make Your Fights Count: Ligtreb’s awesome article (subscribe to his paper if you haven’t) cataloguing all of your options in the national military and private militias in the eUS.
DoD Orders: Official combat orders for eUS citizens, subscribe to it and vote every article. Enemies will often fake the newspaper, so subbing is a surefire way to make sure you’re getting the right paper. Accept no imposters!
The eRep Wiki: Has a lot of good information for new players. I recommend checking this out.
🙂



Now you’ve got everything you could possibly need. Get out there and show ‘em who’s who, soldier!

- Blank Keating
ST6 Chief Petty Officer o7