Join the new world

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A Soldier’s Things (Mandatory listening)
Day 2246 of the New World
13 January, 2014


by Gnilraps


This is Part 2 of a 10-Part series called How to Succeed in eUSA



eRepublik is often discussed in terms of its “modules”. There is the (very lame) economics module, the media module, the politics module, and so on. Each module is guided by limits and processes we will call “mechanics”. The mechanics describe what the impact of each click will be, and what can or cannot be accomplished by clicking.

Much has been written about Military Game Mechanics in the way of step-by-step guides.

But this article will not examine Military Game Mechanics from a step-by-step approach. Instead we will discuss each type of click and consider the thoughts that should go into making them.

We will discuss the following types of clicks:

General Clicks:
Strength Training
Fight
Rocket Production and Rocket Firing in Battle
Bombs
Consuming Food and Energy Bars

Military Unit Clicks:
Daily Orders
Combat Orders
Running and Voting for Captain

Contest Clicks:
Missions
Weekly Challenges

Medals:
Freedom Fighter
Mercenary
Super Soldier
Battle Hero
Campaign Hero
Top Fighter
True Patriot

Wars Page:
Symbols and what they mean

and Influence vs. Damage

That’s a lot, I know, and this article will be long. I will be as brief as possible, counting on the successful Citizen to have already studied the step-by-step guide(s) and be familiar enough with the ingame interface to not need a ton of screenshots.




General Clicks:

Strength Training
http://www.erepublik.com/en/economy/training-grounds

This is listed first in this article because it is MOST IMPORTANT. You can skip everything else about eRepublik, but you should never skip this. In fact, I have advised many successful Citizens to forsake all other clicks except Strength Training for months at a time. Every single one of them has thanked me for that advice. Do your Strength Training.

There are slightly varied opinions on the best route for upgrading/training. But two things are unarguable:

First, don’t spend any Gold on ANYTHING in eRepublik until you’ve AT LEAST upgraded your “Weights Room” - the cost-free Training Grounds (TG).

Second, save your Gold until eRepublik offers a discount for upgrading TG, then upgrade your Weights Room as far as you can. Eventually it will be Q4.

After that, opinions vary on what order to upgrade the remainder. Here’s my advice:

Upgrade your Climbing Center to Q4 before you begin training in it. Once it is upgraded to Q4, you will actually “make” Gold by training in it daily. This has been mathematically proven. It is going to slow down your progress in building Strength in the short term, though, because you will be upgrading the least effective TG. But the investment plus patience is worth it in the long run.

Next upgrade your Shooting Range and Special Forces all the way to Q4 before you begin using them for training. There is no sense spending for training in them when doing so will only slow down your rate of upgrading them. Nothing in this game is more important than fully upgraded Training Grounds.

Fight

The Fight button in the battlefield screen actually does several things at once.

First, it will attempt to “hit” your enemy as many times as needed to kill him. If you are using a higher Q weapon, fewer hits will be needed. If you are using a Bazooka, only one hit will be needed. In either case, only one click of the Fight button was needed.

The exception to this is if you run out of energy in your meter before you made enough hits to kill your enemy. You should avoid this happening if possible. If it does happen, try to wait until your energy bar is ready to have 10 (or 20) energy added by eating. Then try to finish off your enemy. If the current battle ends with a half-killed enemy, you will have lost the hits you expended trying to kill him. In this case you will not be rewarded the benefits of having spent your clicks.

Second, the Fight button begins consuming 10 units of energy per hit. It does this by automatically consuming 10 units of Health per 10 units of energy. (Remember, a “unit” of Health is not the same as a unit of Food. See: http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Customization_level

Third, the Fight button will add 1 XP to your running total for each hit against your enemy. Because of the importance of minimizing your XP increase, you should never fight with anything other than a Q7 tank. If you cannot fight with a Q7, skip fighting.

Fourth, once the enemy has been killed, Rank points are added to your total, True Patriot (TP) points are added if applicable, Damage points are added to your Weekly Challenge total, a Kill is added to your kills total and to any of the counters that keep track of kills (more on these in the Medals section below).


Rocket Production

Generally, you should be ignoring the building of Rocket factory and subsequent upgrades until your TG are fully upgraded. By then you probably won’t need my advice. So I’ll keep this short.

Rockets do not “pay” off in terms of cost/damage. However, they can help you secure a Battle Hero medal if things get tight in the final minutes. Other than that, Rockets should rarely be used except by the wealthy. Particularly, Q4 Rockets are a total disaster and should never be built. One should upgrade straight from Q3 to Q5.

My best advice, keep one produced rocket in inventory and enough materials to make another. Then never use them unless you are fighting to protect a Battle Hero (BH) medal. Even then, fire them very late in the battle.


Bombs

Bombs are prizes that are given either with Combat and Assault Packs, during Weekly Challenges, occasionally as prizes for winning a BH or Campaign Hero (CH) medal, or during the accomplishment of certain missions.

Bombs expire, so they are used differently than Rockets. Bombs should be used to help provide damage in meaningful battles, to establish yourself early in pursuit of a BH run, or in True Patriot battles where they will pay a decent return in Gold.



This image shows from left to right the Rocket, Small Bomb, and Big Bomb buttons as they appear on the Battlefield.


Consuming Food

Food is converted into Energy based on the Health of each Food type. See this link http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Customization_level

Your Energy Meter will fall as your Energy is consumed by Fighting. When your Energy Meter is at 0 and you still have Energy in reserve, you can Eat. (This is true in or out of Battle). This is what the “Eat” button looks like on the battlefiel😛



If it changes to a picture of an Energy Bar (E😎, clicking it will consume an energy bar. Don’t do this unless you know what you are doing.

Essentially, consuming EB’s should be done for one of two reasons:

Either because you’ve got no other way to complete your Daily Order (DO) because you must log off or day change is impending…

Or because you’re consuming them en masse in pursuit of some prize. I don’t recommend doing this at all in D1, sparingly in D2, and (especially if you are a newer player who has followed my advice) extensively in D3. By D4 you better not need my advice.



Military Unit (MU) Clicks:

Daily Orders (DO)

Your MU (if you are not in one, get there. Try to find one that agrees in principle with what I’ve outlined here) will establish a DO. These Orders appear on your eRepublik Home screen.

If you are going to do any fighting in your first months in eRepublik (and congratulations if you’ve decided to avoid fighting and focus solely on Strength Training!), then it should be completing your DO. Then STOP FIGHTING.

It’s simple. Just make 25 kills in the linked battle, then return to your home screen to collect your reward of 1 EB and 1 Bazooka. (Save these, don’t spend them).

My advice is to never make more than ONLY these 25 kills per day during your days in D1. If you will do this, by the time you’re about to matriculate to D2 you’ll be scoring BH medals in D1 with very little additional effort more than those 25 kills. You’ll see.

But if you can restrain yourself from doing these 25 kills, pat yourself on the back. Every day you do Strength Training without adding additional XP by fighting is a good day.

Also, do not attempt to complete a DO unless you have enough Q7 tanks in inventory. If you don’t have enough, either ask for some more or wait for another day. Just don’t get stuck with 21 kills and no weapons left.


Combat Orders (CO)

Sometimes you will see a small red number on the right hand side of the battlefield. This indicates a CO is in effect. (If the number is grey, the CO is not active).

Clicking the small box turns the CO green. If the terms of the CO are met, you will make an amount of USD according to the Influence you do in that battle.

Sometimes you can make decent money this way. Most CO do not pay enough to go chasing them. Some MUs (like Easy Company {EZC}) use CO all of the time to help supply their soldiers.


Running for and Voting for Captain

MUs hold Captain elections every month on the 15th. You should learn the rules governing your MU before you candidate for Captain (which is only done on the 14th).

On the 15th, you will see a button reminding you to vote for Captain on your MU home page. You should find out if your MU has rules about voting before you vote.



Contest Clicks

Generally, contests are a tempting come-on to start clicking the Fight button way more than you ought to. Restrain yourself with this reminder: There will ALWAYS be another contest in eRepublik, and you will gain far more spending far less when you have gained higher Strength.


Missions

Lately, eRepublik has almost completely replaced Missions with the Weekly Challenges. But when a Mission is introduced, look for the Strength rewards. These are worth clicking for. The other rewards are almost always worth much less than what it will cost you to pursue them.

Early in your game, eRepublik guides you through the learning curve by providing Missions. It is best to let these come naturally and slowly. Don’t let them lure you into overclicking the fight button or overspending your assets.


Weekly Challenge

Lately, eRepublik has resorted to Weekly Challenges to stimulate activity. They dangle Strength rewards for Citizens who expend generally about 1,500 and 13,000 Energy over the course of 7 days. This is a dicey proposition because expending that much energy also means accumulating that much XP. I don’t think the exchange is worth it for D1 players. It may be worth it for a D2 player if he finds himself within spitting distance of a strength reward by Monday (Weekly Challenges reset on the day change between Monday and Tuesday).

So my advice to new players is to ignore the Weekly Challenge until you are XP level 27 or so.



Medals

Until you reach level 27, you should ignore the pursuit of Military related medals. Pursuing them only involves doing more fighting than is wise. Remember the primary principle: Avoid XP.


Freedom Fighter (FF)
note: “FF” is also used to refer to “Food Fights” - the fights you can do without consuming an EB.

This medal turns into an enormous waste of Influence. Some FF medals will be easy to gain, and so the first 5 can be attempted fairly early in your career. the 25 Gold will come in handy to upgrade your TGs.

First, decide you are going to invest your clicks specifically for the FF task. If you are, you should just focus on a Resistance War (RW) that is already clearly being won by the Resistance. Don’t waste clicks. (If you can double up by putting your clicks into a Resistance where you have no previous kills, you will add a notch to your Mercenary Medal.)

By hovering over the FF medal on your Profile page, you will see information telling you what you’ve accomplished and what you’ve got left.


Mercenary

As I just indicated, you will automatically stumble into a decent number of the 50 nations you need to accumulate for the 5G prize.

In order to get 25 kills for 50 nations, you will be doing quite a bit of moving. For this reason it can be an expensive Medal to pursue. You can easily spend more than 2,000 USD (the basic equivalent of 5G) in pursuit of it. It’s possible to spend less, but you have to think very strategically.

For this reason I will simply say: the newer player should not pursue the Mercenary Medal until he has achieved XP level 27 or so.


Super Soldier (SS) Medal

This medal will take care of itself. It basically pays you Gold for training. The faster you can accumulate 250 Strength, the faster you’ll get another SS.

For information about how to accumulate Strength wisely, see Part 1 of this Guide.


Battle Hero (BH) medal

This is awarded to the player in each Division who accumulates the highest total Influence during a single Mini-Battle. Newer players should be advised accordingly.

If you shoot your wad in pursuit of a BH too early in your career, you will set your Citizen way back in terms of overall progress.

So don’t pursue a BH medal until you can score enough influence by doing only 25 or 30 kills to be within a rocket or bomb of winning the BH. Even then, you should be sure your potential competition isn’t waiting to race you. Getting goaded into throwing more clicks into a battle simply to chase a BH is generally a bad idea. In D1 you should only score a BH when it is easy to do so. Remember, all those Fight clicks increase your XP and that is bad.


Campaign Hero (CH) Medal

In order to win a CH medal you have to have done the most Influence over the course of an entire Military Campaign. This will cost you FAR MORE than 5G worth of resources to accomplish. For that reason, I advise against pursuing CH medals until you are wealthy ingame.


Top Fighter (TF) Medal

Even more extravagant than the CH is the TF. To be awarded this medal you must be in the top 100 of all Citizens Worldwide on 30 different days. This requires literally tens of millions of Influence. Ignore.


True Patriot (TP) Medal

This is the new player’s best friend.

You should avoid overclicking to achieve the TP medal because it will always just eventually come to you. But if you find a MU which favors TP DO’s you can earn some nice Gold this way.

It should be noted, however, that the stronger you get, the easier TP gold comes. TP’s are awarded for doing a set amount of Influence for eUSA in battle. As is generally always the case in most things eRepublik, the stronger you are when you pursue this medal the fewer clicks you will need to achieve it.

But since there is never any competition for TP gold, it will eventually come to you. For that reason the successful Citizen will generally keep an eye out for battles involving eUSA.



Wars Page:

Symbols and what they mean


1 - The yellow-highlighted battle indicates that battle which the Country President has selected as the currently most important battle involving one of eUSA's allies. If you really have the urge to fight, fight there.

2 - A small checkmark next to a flag indicates an ally of eUSA

3 - Clicking this Fight button does not actually cause you to fight, it merely takes you to the Battlefield where the real Fight button appears.

4 - Battles in the "USA's Campaigns" are battles which you can fight in without having to move your citizen.

5 - Battles in the "All Campaigns" section are battles which will require your citizen to move. This will cost you either a moving ticket or cash.

6 - The small box with red numbers appears when a Resistance War is effected by "Determination". To read more about Determination, click this link: http://forum.erepublik.com/index.php?/topic/1817-empires-determination-updated/

7 - The small red star with a white fist indicates a Resistance War.

8 - The red circle with a number indicates that a CO is in effect for that battle. There is no way of knowing what the details of that CO are until you move. (Dear Admin, Please fix this.)

9 - Ignore this

10 - The picture of a tank is cool. It does nothing (Unless you install a special script for Chrome or Firefox which is technically illegal so you won't read anything in my guides about Stuff+ because... well, there I went and mentioned it.)

11 - If one of eUSA's allies is involved in a battle, you will be able to fight in it without moving.


Influence vs. Damage

Influence is the amount of points your Citizen adds to the accumulating total of the side you are fighting for. It calculated as follows:

I = 10 × (1 +S/400) × (1 +R/5) × (1 +FirePower/100)

I: Influence on the hit
R: Value of the Rank
S: Strength
This formula simply means that increasing your strength, rank, and using Q7 weapons will yield ever-increasing Influence.

Damage is not the same. It has to do with how many hits you require to kill an enemy. Here is the Damage formula:

D = (60 + ((S1-S2)/10)) × (1 + (Your FirePower-Enemys FirePower)/400) / 2

D : Damage
S1: Your Strength
S2: Enemy's Strength

So to get the greatest number of kills with the least number of clicks (and aside from using Bazookas), Q7 weapons are critically important. You can’t control who you fight in Battle. You can control what weapon you bring and you can control your Strength.


Daily Military Goals
in order of importance

Strength Training - Daily. Always.
Daily Order - Maybe. Always OK to pass.
Combat Orders - Rarely worth chasing. Great if they coincide with your DO.
Check inventory - Never carry fewer than 10 Q7 weapons - enough to complete your DO.
Chase Medals - Rarely. Some almost never.
Chase Contests - Rarely until you have leveled up past XP level 27.



Part 3 of this Guide will explain how to think through and manage your Inventory. Using Inventory is the greatest key to economic success.


You may now return to your regularly scheduled clicking