[WAL] The Big Picture [debate]
Day 2,735, 01:36
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Published in Netherlands 
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by
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by Walhallah
Fellow Countrymen,
Last term when I ran for President I presented you a so called 'big picture', a graphical image of how things in game are interconnected in this game, in my opinion. Thorough understanding of these concepts should enable to play this game more succesful as a nation.
The point is, each and every one of us has their own personal strategy wheter it is pursuing a political career, a military one or one based on friendship and fun.
In my opinion, running a country is something else than 'running' a citizen-account. We need some sort of general understanding of what goals we are pursuing on a longer term, in order to make each individual government more succesful. That way one government will not accidentally undo a previous governments work in yet another attempt to strive for 'that months short term goals'. Naturally, each government should have their own freedom to play the game as they see fit, press on different buttons, stress other elements but a big picture that gives guidance and serves as a reminder is needed.
The picture I presented was composed of several concepts I deducted from this game and is by no standard the truth, other than my personal opinion:
However, I would like to start a discussion on how we all see this picture, and compose a big picture that can count on a certain foundation in our society.
In order to achieve this and since I have no experience in article-brainstorming, I propose the following:
1) we discuss the central most important goal
after that:
2) we discuss the big elements that lead to this
after that
3) we add more refined small elements to this picture.
It seems somehow logical that all the elements that can be found in game, buttons, concepts (MU's, market's, raw materials, feed's etc.) can and should be used.
So here is my question to you: what should be the CENTRAL concept, that one main goal for our nation. Why are we here?
Sr Journalist element (just to give in depth analysis a chance over giveaways for a change):
i'll make a poll based on the comments. The person that came with the winning central goal gets 5 gold.
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what I wrote in the forum debate:
I indeed think it is a pity that some CP's just ignore the work that has been done in the previous terms, why should you change anything if it went well last time? Of course, there can be/should be a couple of small adjustments, else it is not needed to elect a new president, but changing the whole plan, is a bit too enthousiastic for me.
If you ask me, why do you play this game, there is one main reason, for fun, I will never play a game if I don't enjoy it. I think some people forget this sometimes, for example, the immigration policy, there are people who reject players just because they forgot to train once or twice. I think this is a bit too serious, if that player doesn't feel like he will enjoy playing erep that day, you can't force him to train or work, because if erep becomes an obligation, the fun is gone if you ask me.
if you are in the government, you choose for that, so at that point, you can't deny your work because you don't feel like playing that day, if that happens to you, than you know that you shouldn't join the government next time.
I think a lot of people disagree with me, ad if I said something that is not true, I would like to know
Of course my most important drive is to have fun in this game. When I started playing I formulated some goals for myself to generate fun.
It is my personal goal to help my country as best as possible. To improve our country. This means primarily to make our country more democratic. Adjust laws and creating new ones, with the final goal to improve the game experience of everyone. I think that should be our common goal. The citizens of eNL play the game, the politics of eNL is here to give them a fun time.
I was writing a concept for a new article for my newspaper about the exact same thing. Long term policies. I think I will hopefully publish it in the upcoming days (maybe today if I am able to finish this). In short: We are bound by the willingness of the next government to continue the policies of the previous government. We have some long term ministries, but also some short term ministries where there isn't much chance for long term things.
But what to do? I don't know what is done about this in the past. There is a section of the law which is not much used, but I assume it was meant for things like this. It's called government programs (Chapter V of the law book), with only the forum registration bonus in it. To ensure long term policies, I think the government should propose the policy to congress, who decides to place it on the long term. This means the next government is obligated to work with it. This is the only way in my opinion to ensure long term policies.
The question is, do we need this? Should we institutionalize policies? Maybe. I hope there are some other ideas to think about.
(Keep an eye out for my new article! 😛)
Quicker than I thougt, it's finished 😛 http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2524534/1/20
It's not a reaction on your questions, it's more like my personal view on long term policies. I hope it will contribute to this debate.
In my opinion there are only 2 main choices for a main goal:
- Fun for ALL eDutch
- Make eNL big, strong, active
I think the first one is the most important. But the important part is the "for all" aspect. We need to include our whole society in this, which is something that makes it challenging. Everyone must speak up, and not just quit if the game is no fun for them, including the players who are just starting. Actually they may well be the most important.
The second challenging thing is the game (and the way it is run) itself. We cannot create an empire right away. Which is something that is disappointing to some players. And there may be times when we're not even on the map...
If we succeed in making eNL fun, the second one will follow automatically. We will become big (in numbers, because players don't just quit), thereby automatically strong, and since we are with so many, it would be buzzing with activity.
Good luck, until now your goals are just dreams, there's not fun just hate against me and I'm eDutch. Big, strong, active? Where? A strong country start with a kind community and with democracy, not with the same people over and over again in the same positions.
Everyone must speak up? For what? Are you going to change the general opinion of a closed minded society? You just can't.
If you're asking what our goals as a country should be, I'd say:
- Have 4 regions and possibly more, without running the risk of being overrun as a result of having more regions.
- Have an active community that is GROWING instead of staying the same size.
And more concrete:
- Become a member of a (respected) international alliance.
- Keep satisfying allied bonds with strong countries surrounding us, ensuring our position to be stronger and former said goals to be achieved.
I agree that this game is about fun, but there is no fun in just kidding around and telling each other how much fun we're having. If we set some realistic goals, we can have fun by trying to achieve them!
In my opinion we all should work around 1 thing: Making the community have fun.
We all know this is a game, and we are here to enjoy our time. We have to find the better way to enjoy ourselves, and for some of us this is with wars, politics and participating in the gov. If we want to be seen as a real country, that knows what to do and in which you can trust, we need a long term stability. That means non changing allies every month or every two months and having clear who are our friends and who aren't. This is the main point a CP should take into account about what did the previous CP do.
I think in internal politics there is more flexibility, it's important to have long term goals, but we don't need to take it too serious, I mean, if the previous CP organized a contest that the following one thinks is not necessary, why do it again? But what every gov should do is make the people who aren't in it to take part of the game and enjoy themselves also, there are many ways to do it, with games, contests, communication...
Making the people participate also means informing them and being more transparent, because some govs don’t tell anything about what they are doing and we all have to trust that they are working well, or at least working (that doesn't mean, at all, that everyone should know everything).
As a summary: The gov should care about the citizens having fun and should have at least a little of stability, mainly in FA (MPPs, Wars and allies). And I don't think it matters if they want to change the whole internal politics to have fun if it works.
the main goal should be; 'showing activity'.
Only a few things that are debated at the forum are posted ingame, it almost act like a 'extension' for erepublik regarding the political part.
2nd important is the lack of long term vision/ long term departments. Every CP starts his own projects, some ministers start some projects, but after 1-3 months they are gone again.
Choose people for a department that want to set up a long term vision without politics involved. NL should be able to have 3-4 on every ministery, with only the minister changing every month.
(we should even agree that the government only change every 2 months to increase the durability of it)