Grumpy Old Men: 5th Edition

Day 2,031, 16:28 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Sweet Drinker


The world is filled with grumpy old men.
MU's are built upon them.
Large countries are run by them.
Alliances are commanded by grumpy old men.
Even the women are grumpy old men!

Seems being old is something to be ashamed of these days...

We've nationalist mindsets
Our experience is outdated
We're only capable of old ideas

Sometimes us senile old bastards just repeat ourselves!

I decided to write an article tonight because recently there has been some popular media regarding the abandonment of game mechanics for individual pursuits.
While I'm a deep mechanist myself, I accept everyone can ofc play erep in the manner they choose.
However there was a particular aspect mentioned which concerned me "the unfair/irreconcilable strength advantage old players have over new players".
What follows below is an updated version of an article on this subject I wrote when training upgrades were first introduced.

To truly appreciate the effect of strength training (purely in military terms, the economic impact of strength training requires an entire article of it's own),
Strength Advantage must be observed on both sides of it's coin:
Static Discrepancy (Static = unchanging)
and
Proportionate Discrepancy (this is the variable)

During my first term as CP a common question interviewers posed to me when I was CP was "how did you become CP at such a young age.
They hadn't notice I was years in the game, my strength was so low they just assumed!

When Training Ground Upgrades were first introduced. I had roughly 2,000strength. I interacted regularly with players with player 10,000 strength...
There were no separate divisions back then. We all fought the same walls. I was so hopelessly outgunned by thousands of players with +400% strength that they didn't even notice when I hit!
But with the release of Upgrades I moved from free-only training to full-training.
Almost all of those thousands of soldiers with 5times my strength also bought the Upgrades and continued full training.

That is an important fact of full training:
Those guys with thousands more strength will always retain that static gap.
However, while that irreconcilable Static Discrepancy remains (8k more strength in my case),
the proportionate gap has closed considerably.
I'm now 40k strength while they are 48k strength.

The proportionate discrepancy of 400% they had over me has been reduced to 20%!
Now they notice when I hit the wall! 🙂

This principle is prevalent throughout life:

If I have €9 and you have €0, I'm infinitely richer than you.
If we then both receive €1, I'm now only 90% richer than you.
If we both receive €1 for 100 days, then my wealth advantage becomes almost inconsequential to you!

When you're 5years old, a sibling who is 5years older is entirely different to you.
But when you're 25 and they 30, there is little difference between you.

etc, etc.

Always remember that Erepublik is not a game of instant thrills, it is a game of linear progression.
One day I won't be 40k strength competing with 50k strength players,
I'll be 140k Strength against their 150k strength. That gap won't be noticeable on the battlefield.
If you've only 1k strength, my 40k may seem insurmountable to you now, but if you've got 100k when I'm 140k you might be pushing me off my wall 😉


This is the most basic military reasoning for strength training.
There are a plethora of other arguments in favour of developing your might also, even economic advantages!
But those are topics for other nights.

I'm going to run a series of information articles like this, dusting off some long forgotten articles and updating them, and introducing some more contemporary ideas as well.

That's it for tonight,
Sw33t