Dear Plato, All I Want for Christmas...; An eRepublik Improvement List

Day 1,695, 23:54 Published in Canada Canada by Shoi12

If you've been with me since the very beginning, you'll have read something like this before. Basically, back in my first week of playing, I noticed many ways to improve this game we're all secretly obsessed over. If we ever see a v3 of eRepublik in the future, here are some things I'd like to see. Of course, now that I have a larger audience, hopefully some of these ideas can become more widespread. Pretty please?

Warning: This article is not safe for those whose attention span is less that that of a gnat. If you are not prepared to read 11 pages of material, please be careful. You have been warned.

1. Bug Fixes

This is the most obvious and most important thing that needs to happen first. Whether it's the at-times shoddy connection with the servers, or it's the fact that some province pages don't exist, there are a lot of problems with v2, even before considering upgrades.

Here's a simple example of how much is wrong with the map screen from something I did a month ago. I click the 'World Map' button, curious to see the world. So far, so good. I look for my beloved Bosnia & Herzegovina, at this time fully occupied by Serbia. Sucks, but it looks like it's working so far. Curious, I check the Federation of BiH, one of the provinces originally part of the country. To my joy, I see a revolt spawning, but here's where the first problem occurs. It does show that there is a resistance war there, but it does not mention who is doing the fighting; the space where the name should be is blank. Instead of being able to click the link straight to the battle, I have to go out of my way through the 'Wars' tab, all the way down to 'All Campaigns', and search there in the cluster of battles that mean nothing to me. Oh well, right?

Curious to see the political activity, I reopen the popup for Federation of BiH, and click the country flag. This should lead straight to the country info page, but I get a 404 error instead. It's been over a year since v2 came out and still, the admins have not bothered fixing a simple link?! And it's not just for one or two nations. ALL countries are like this. What the hell?

Whatever. I click the province for the third time, and click on the name of the province (Federation of BiH), thinking to go to the province screen and make my way to the national events screen. But I'm denied once again! I get sent straight back to the main menu, just like that. Luckily, most provinces don't have this problem, but seriously?! I discovered that for B&H especially, it is hell looking for their national data. What I have to do is go to the East Srpska Republic, the one province with a page, and go through there. If it was occupied by the Serbs, as it usually is, then tough luck, bro. Why can't the admins fix these simple errors instead of asking us to buy gold?

2. Customizable UI, Headlines

If you're one of the hardcore players in eRepublik, you've probably cursed at some point because the game made you jump through too many hoops, while smothering you with worthless information. As a person who writes a newspaper, talks on IRC, goes on various forums, and manages foreign relations, it's hell to click around and having to memorize so many different links and pathways to certain areas of the server. It's gotten so bad that I can occasionally type in the url by hand faster than search for it.

Of course, there are some custom scripts that alleviate some of the load, but if you don't use Chrome or don't know the methods to make it work on Firefox, you're screwed. Would it be too difficult to simply give us a few tabs on the screen to put whatever shortcuts we needed?

And for some of the two-clickers and specialists, there's a lot of stuff that isn't needed on a regular basis for them. I would suggest certain parts of the UI be customizable, so that we can adjust our screen to better fit our needs, adding shortcuts and removing unneeded sections of the screen. Any good text-based game should streamline the various screens, giving you what you need and what you don't. Making the game accessible for new players and deep enough for veterans will go a long way to retaining baby citizens.

3. Grand Alliances

A few weeks back, I asked a very basic question. "Hey guys, is China part of Terra?" It was a question a new player like me would ask, and sure enough, within a few minutes some of my friends corrected me, telling me that the Chinese were part of EDEN. But after fixing my mistake, I realized something very obvious. If alliances are one of the most important things in the game, and every player needs to be able to tell friend or foe, then why is it so difficult to know? Especially for the current situation, in which Terra and EDEN are partner alliances, it grows more and more tedious to keep track of everything. That's why I suggest a Grand Alliance system.

It would simplify all the frustration that the current verbal alliance system works. Currently, groups of common MPPs are considered alliances. But there's no actual system for alliances. So let me tell you how this would work.

A founding nation creates a Grand Alliance. The country invites several other nations to join it. The founder passes the idea to invite the nations with a default 2/3 majority in Congress, and if the idea passes in the invitee's Congress (default 2/3), then the member joins the Grand Alliance!

The process would remain the same for future members, but it would have to pass the 2/3 majority for all of the members' Congress. This way, alliances are never torn apart because of one nation's anger over another's acceptance, because any one nation can stop the process. This would force alliances to better choose nations that can work together and focus on certain nations instead of digging through the trash to find a stray nation who ends up harming the squad.

The Grand Alliance can have its own page, including all of its members and important information, as well as the various potential allies going through the voting process.

This could even make the map cooler! When the Grand Alliance has chosen its name and a color, by clicking the Grand Alliance filter, you would be able to see all the alliance members glow the same color, and the name of your glorious alliance shine brightly right on the map, overshadowing your pitiful rival alliances!

But what about the payments for MPPs? What if you want to leave? Well, the nation would pay the cost for the alliance upkeep just like if it was a normal MPP, perhaps a slightly lower cost. This would encourage countries to avoid allying other nations besides those in your Grand Alliance, leading to more epic global battles rather than small skirmishes, because let's face it: a battle between Singapore and Malaysia isn't as awesome as a battle between all of Terra and all of ONE, right?

Leaving could take place in two ways. Either an alliance votes 2/3 majority default to kick out the member, or the member leaves by voting themselves out through Congress. This way, members can neither be held hostage by their allies nor can they ruin the alliance for a long period of time.

Of course, the MPP system can still work out, for those unwilling to dedicate themselves with a full-on alliance yet desiring to secure some extra support. The Grand Alliance system would help support large commitments, while smaller partnerships would continue using the MPP system. In fact, the Grand Alliance would require at least 5 founding members, preventing an abuse of the system.

4. Official Ministries

I love being the Minister of Foreign Affairs. But often, people aren't able to know this fact unless they knew me personally. Players with a ministry job should have their title displayed, similar to the CP. While it is true that not all nations function the same way, there should be options to grant titles such as MoFA or MoD to players instead of mere verbal titles. CPs wouldn't be forced to use the system, but it would be highly recommended when running for CP to mark players as their various ministers. Many candidates put up their cabinet in their newspaper, but some don't write any such thing, making it very difficult to talk to a person with a certain position without asking around.

Such players should also be recognized for their achievement, with various achievements being handed out for service in the system. Ministers often contribute a large chunk of a CP's term, so it is imperative to give rewards for the ministers as well as the CPs.

Players should also have the option to display their title while writing PMs. I have a had a few instances when other MoFAs ignored me because of my relative newness to the game, but had I had the title displayed, they may have paid attention to my message. There are many ways to encourage political activity, and one of those is to make ministries integrated into the core of the game.

5. Improved Map

Besides bugs on the map, it could use some spicing up. I'm making a logical guess when saying that each province is individually drawn out of a rectangle representing the width and length of the province, then the name pops out of the middle of the rectangle. While this works well for polygonal and round provinces, curved, thin provinces, such as Norwegian Nord-Norge, ruin such a system, causing the name to appear on a different province. While eventually the player will understand which is which, but for a new player, it is extremely confusing to see two names on one province and no name on another.

The map also needs more filters. The current ones do a decent job of displaying info, but things such as original borders and the aforementioned alliance filter are nowhere to be seen. The battle filter could also be improved by having the original color of the province dotted with the color of the attacker, though players should be able to toggle between the two.

Another issue, while minor, is the difference between RWs and regular campaigns. It would be wonderful for there to be a distinction between the two, as they have a different impact and level of importance. Something as simple as displaying "Attacked by: Bolivian Rebels" instead of "Attacked by: Bolivia" would make things much more clear in times when a nation is attempting to free itself from another's occupation.

Some of the province names are also very unoriginal. The 4 Dutch provinces are as follows: Northern Netherlands, Western Netherlands, Eastern Netherlands, and...you guessed it, Southern Netherlands. Was it that hard to think of good names that represent the region and not just bland titles that work but don't show the effort the admins put. It's not hard to go on Wikipedia and look for a general region name.

Some of the province balance seems a bit awkward as well. While there's not much to do about it, it still bothers me that a small island such as Taiwan has 4 provinces, more than Albania, FYROM, and Slovakia! And America's 50 provinces to represent the 50 states, while accurate, unfortunately make USA extremely overpowered due to its large stack of resources.

The map in general simply looks unpolished at times. The darker color that appears when mousing over a province often doesn't correlate with the province's apparent boundaries, there are regions full of gray (though in the future this will be less of an issue), and sometimes the provinces just don't look that well drawn and natural. While it'd be foolish to ask for more province balance and extra stuff crammed into today's map, simply cleaning up the map and making things more clear would please many.

6. Resource Variety

What makes so many war games fun is that each and every province matters. Part of what makes it special is the variety and diversity of resources. What this game has done is made resources into a mere addition game. Resources should not be even. Provinces should have varying amounts of resources, and more than one resource per province.

Resources should also have more than one use. For example, oil currently makes weapon production go up. But wouldn't it be interesting if it also slightly lowered travel cost? The possibilities are endless, but as of now, most people don't even pay attention to the resource map. The resources are a good start, but the system needs to develop and become much more interesting.

7. Terrain

I made a specific article about the next two topics here, and I maintain what I said. In addition to making each province more unique, it gives an advantage to the defender, which is desperately needed. All battles should have some sort of advantage to the defender. If a player fights for a weaker nation, he should have the chance to survive. Giving defensive bonuses helps balance the game significantly, nerfing the ridiculousness that strong nations have, while not overpowering weak nations.

But won't this cause games to simply be defensive battles? No it won't, because the fun part about terrain is that it's not a flat defensive bonus all around. Here's what I got for various types of terrain:

Plains 0% to defense
Forests 5% to defense
Jungles 20% to defense
Hills 15% to defense
Mountains 25% to defense

This encourages much more strategic attacks. While a province may have the resource you desire, it may be difficult to capture, so it may cause a selective approach to fighting. On the other hand, capturing a mountainous area would create a great stronghold. Terrain would simply create an extra layer of strategic depth needed to successfully win wars.

8. Weather

Another system is weather. Don't argue that war and weather don't go hand in hand, because they do. While terrain is a fact that never changes, weather could give the unpredictability of the war. By putting weather in, which could possibly give an even greater advantage to the defender, taking advantage of good weather would become key.

There would be several kinds of weather, including:
Clear 0% bonus to defense
Mist 5% bonus to defense
Rain 15% bonus to defense
Storms 25% bonus to defense

The various conditions would force players to seize the few chances to break through a tough barricade, giving yet another layer of strategy into a war game startlingly without much.

Weather could also be used in terms of overseas attacks. By having possible weather conditions preventing a Normandy-esque landing, it would give a feel of realism and depth to gameplay. Although weather is not needed as badly as terrain, it would bring war to the next level.

9. Core System

Borrowing the core system for province ownership from Europa Universalis III would be a brilliant move. For those not in the know, let me explain it briefly. A country who has legitimate claim for a piece of land has a so-called 'core' for the province. Countries can earn 'cores' by holding onto land for a long enough period of time, and can be forced to lose their 'cores' through diplomacy.

This makes perfect sense for eRepublik. After defeating an enemy nation and fully occupying it, you can ask for a the province itself. After a couple of months of holding the province, you'll gain a core on it. That way, even if you lose the province, you can still RW from it, increasing your chances of controlling it again if you lost it.

And it works the other way. By making the opponent cede the core, it prevents them from simply re-taking the province, and secures the province in the victor's hands. With this system, it will finally be possible to make actual gains in terms of land capture instead of occupation and white peace. It also forces nations to have a sense of urgency to free provinces before opponents core the province, making each RW more important. The core system, combined with the terrain system, would make conquering lands difficult to accomplish but easier to retain over time, a much higher level of satisfaction for a harder task, which should be the case. No more attacks with no consequence, a core system would make wars result in land changes much more often, and would make these changes more feasible.

10. Unions

While it's a minor feature, the full function of creating a union from a set of countries would give that extra touch that sets apart the good from the great. Germany is the latest example of the union. Absorbing Denmark into its territory, the two countries have combined to stand better odds against their foes. But there are still problems with the union that make these a rarity.

For one, the game does not recognize the union as such. As a result, Denmark can still technically revolt its way to existence, despite the fact that most of the country's people have accepted a merge with their German friends. This ends up making Germany a very unique country. Denmark can be exploited by a large anti-Germany group by Rwing its way back onto the map by force, causing havoc that should not exist.

Another problem is that Germany can also abuse this themselves. By using Denmark as a wall, Germany can slow down any invaders, the latest of which being Poland, simply by freeing a border Danish province, forcing the aggressor to sit around for 24 hours to pass another legislation to attack Denmark before voting for and attacking Germany once again. Having two nations united under a single flag ends up, to an extent, breaking the game. This is why unions have to be used in a system.

If both Congresses of the two potentially unified nations pass the movement (2/3 vote default), the countries can officially enter a union. All the cores (see above) are transferred to the new union, whose name, flag and map color are decided. Both congresses are kept, and both are required to accept any laws, forcing bipartisan support in order to pass any laws that might restrain part of the union. Many nations like the idea of unions but living under another nation's flag would be heartbreaking, so this would help support the idea, and perhaps encourage more unions. I'd love to see a orange Germark on the map, and with this system, it could be a reality.

11. Newspaper Series

This is a really simple request, something I actually expect to show up regardless of whether this goes viral. Basically, as an avid writer who does a few weekly series, it'd be really nice to be able to put articles in a series. Besides flipping articles in chronological order, it should also be allowed to flip between articles in the same series, rather than having to go through 6 other articles to get to the last in the series.

This is super basic, and many newspapers have some sort of series or program that would benefit from this. By improving the newspaper, players will be able to better voice their opinion, one of the most important parts of the game, because believe it or not, this game is not just a war game. It is also a diplomatic game, and how can diplomacy happen without the voice of the people? Therefore, it is crucial to improve the newspaper module and allow articles to be grouped into series. And it helps me a lot too ^.^

12. Customizable Congress

Did you notice that for the last 11 points, if I mentioned Congress laws, I mentioned the term 'default'? It's because one of the ideas is being able to customize Congress. One of the things I hate most is the waiting period between deciding to declare war and the actual war itself. The 24-hour wait is tedious and only serves to buy the defender some time to quickly respond. My suggestion would be to allow changes in time allotted for various laws. While a tax law may take a few hours, a need to get to war fast might encourage a shorter time to act.

This freedom could also extend to the votes needed to pass a law. While currently some laws are majority vote and some are 2/3 majority, I've seen cases where it would have made sense one way or the other. That's why I want to be able to vote to change these settings, between majority, 2/3, and unanimous. This would give Congress more freedom to help their nations, and the time adjustments would help Congress move faster. Let's face it, you don't need 24 hours to decide to attack a nation, because in almost all cases, it's obvious one way or another what to do. Freedom to change these artificial barriers would better immerse Congress, and provide more tools to support their country.

13. Bazooka Factories

I know I'm not the only one who wants to be able to build bazookas. It's a needed contribution, because unlike other ideas, like a energy bar factory, it's not overpowered. By making bazooka factories at a decent cost, perhaps 5 gold, it would prevent spamming bazooka production, but the inexperienced player would have a chance to build powerful weapons without the mass cost of a rocket. Of course, the catch would be that the production would be low and only for one part of the 5-part bazooka.

Bazookas should also be a sell-able product, along with the parts. Many high-ranked players have no need for bazookas because they can do higher damage with tanks, and instead of wasting them, gathering and producing them to sell would help young players do more damage and earn more experience, making them more likely to take interest and stay in the game.

I remember that when I first started playing, I didn't fight for 2 weeks simply because I knew I couldn't do any damage. Even though in the division system it's a bit better, young players still have trouble making the impact, especially to win BH medals. Producing rockets is a nice start, but being able to produce bazookas would give green players who've smartly saved bazookas a chance to steal the spotlight. And getting players to stay and possibly waste spend money on gold is a good thing, right, admins?

14. Defensive Buildings, Infrastructure

For you seasoned veterans, I'm sure you remember the London that would not fall. Because of the various conditions in days past that no longer apply, London became a very powerful area, one that never fell until very late in eLife. My idea would help create such fortifications that would help a nation on its heels survive, though in a toned down manner.

Every month, countries would be able to spend gold to build defensive buildings in one province. This strict limit would prevent spamming, yet the small benefits the buildings would give, perhaps 2% each for a max of 10%, could help a weaker nation hold on to a province or area it truly needed, especially if used in unison with the terrain bonus.

One of my friends in real life suggested an infrastructure system, which I passed on the first time I heard it, but has since come back to my mind in a much more favorable manner. What he suggested was this: every month, similar to the defensive buildings, countries could purchase infrastructure in a single province. This infrastructure would help mine the resource(s) currently in the province, increasing its importance. It would make that lone oil province all the more useful, and would allow a small, fully upgraded nation to stand up to a vast yet uncultivated country.

The best part, he said, was that in a battle for the province, the infrastructure and defensive buildings could be destroyed, either by chance in battle (the longer the battle, the higher the chance) or by self-destruction with CP approval. It's very common for armies to destroy lands that it has to retreat from in order to inhibit enemy use, and this has the same idea. Defensive buildings to protect and infrastructure to thrive would be wonderful additions.

15. Mercenaries

The idea of mercenaries was thought up completely by myself. Definitely. Shameless self-Plugson right here. The basic idea of it is that when creating a Military Unit, instead of it being a country's army, it would be a mercenary unit. Countries could post requests for various amounts of damage in certain regions, and by being the unit to accept and complete the mission, it would receive funds from the country to pay the troops.

Allowing units to fight mercenary style instead of in dedication to one side would give an extra flavor to a battle. It would help countries with deep pockets but little forces to purchase their protection, as well as give countries fighting for freedom but little support to buy some support. It would also help players complete the Mercenary achievement by having actual support for running around to fight.

Well, that's 15 ideas and 8 hours down the drain! Hope you enjoy, and please shout this, not just for self-fame, but to improve this game that so many of us care about. I'm just one voice, but with all 130 of us non-sub4sub combined, we'd be like...131 voices, which ain't bad! So tell your friends, your allies, your enemies, your exes, and your exes that you still see every day because they're also your professor! Alright?

Until next time, take care!