A comprehensive guide to eDutch Party Politics

Day 4,155, 08:12 • Published in Netherlands Poland • by Gwom


My dear fellow eDutchmen,

In the recent surge of activity in eNL we have seen the return of intense party politics again. The party propaganda machines have been working tirelessly to sway voters for the next elections. I want to create some clarity in this jungle of propaganda and election promises by writing an objective party guide. So I sent a number of questions to the party presidents of the 5 major parties and urged them to think about it and discuss the questions within their parties. I got back results from all of them and I processed the answers (I shortened some answers to remove unnecessary propaganda which did not contribute to answering the questions in my opinion).
I hope this guide will teach you some new things about our parties!

A note about objectivity:
I know that writing an objective article is hard, and since I am a member of a party myself there is a risk that I try to make my own party look better. I will assure you that I write this article as a journalist, and not as a party member! I did not answer the questions to my own party myself and I cut the propaganda out of them just as I did with the other parties.

Introducing the parties
The first two questions were about introducing the parties, I was hoping to get some more information than the few lines that are on the party page. (Parties are ranked on alphabetical order)

1. Can you describe your party in one short sentence?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
Democratisch Nederland is a political party founded on democracy, freedom of speech, debates while being pragmatic in doing what is best for the community of the eNetherlands.

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
GPN is a right wing political party that stands for all citizens of eNL, young and old players.

Iron and Wine (I&W):
A party with mostly older experienced pragmatic and sometimes humourus members. always involving themselves in the business of keeping the country safe.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
We are a pragmatic party doing what’s best for the eNetherlands (hence the ‘centre’ ideology) and in general a fun bunch of people – focusing on different aspects of the game, politics but military/economy too.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
Verenigd Nederland (United Netherlands) stands for unity. We should all strive for a United nation in which political differences may never interfere with our country’s needs.


2. What distinguishes your party from the other parties in the eNetherlands?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
In a few hashtags, #PoliticalActivity #Hand-OnApproach #CommunityFirst #LawIsLaw #GovernmentPrograms #ActiveCongressIsImportant #Broersje

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
GPN has a rich history in eNL politics. Since the beginning we have been THE party of the people. For years GPN was by far the biggest political party delivering many of our country presidents. Nowadays we are smaller in numbers, but we are strengthened by our rich tradition of governance and our own unique political style.

Iron and Wine (I&W):
Our history (oldest party in eNl) our values (both in word and action). our respect and willingness to protect our laws.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
As a party having found its origin in a merger of several parties we have a very diverse background but are united in the pragmatic goal of improving the eNetherlands, whether this is a ‘left-wing’ or ‘right-wing’ solution. We’re not tied to a fixed pretension of an ideology trying to put Real Life ideas on a fictional game in which those are not relevant. We see the difference between 2009 and 2019 and are adaptive to these circumstances (e.g. in the discussion regarding the Forum, which we already put on the agenda years ago). Our hands are not tied behind our backs by ancient ideas of how it’s supposed to be or who we should work with.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
We don’t choose sides/exclude someone on beforehand. Only when it’s clear (s)he’s up to no good that might be the case. That’s also the reason we don’t support CP candidates. If you support someone you automatically are against someone else so we don’t. We (try to) help by actively supporting activities that lead to improvements. We have not been very active in politics for a very long time as it only was frustrating due to all political differences (mainly the forum players and game players) Over the last year or so we became more active again to support the changes for the better that were starting and lead to the political landscape we are in now.

Political chart
Now that we know a bit about the parties and what they stand for, we can look where they stand on issues with respect to eachother. As a scientist I like numbers and graphs 😃, so I asked the next 2 questions to be answered with a number on a scale:

3. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being conservative and 10 being progressive, where would you place your party?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
I would say about a 7.

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
We are a 2 at Conservative, because of our rich tradition. But we are always open for new ideas and approaches!

Iron and Wine (I&W):
5. We aren't opposed to change, but we do require proof of validity of arguments before implementing changes.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
10. Without doubt Revolution and Libertas is the most progressive party of the eNetherlands. Not shy of ruffling feathers, we despise status-quo thinking that leads our country to run behind because of ‘tradition’. If an institution like ‘The Forum’ or certain rules of ‘The Law’ are not relevant anymore, it should be abolished regardless of the nostalgia attached to it.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
That’s hard to say. I don’t think there is a box we fit in. It depends on the subject. Just like in real life the so called left and right political parties are not consistent on that. So I keep it mostly in the middle. Or should I say Cottage Cheese? Cottage Cheese you say? Yes indeed. As will be explained here for the Dutch speaking community.


4. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being pacifist and 10 being pro-war, where would you place your party?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
Most people would probably consider DemNL a group of pacifists but this is not entirely true. We are however considering our power. I would rate the us being a 4.

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
We are a 7 on war side, we are not afraid of a challenge! War is an important part of erepublik. But we are also realistic about our capabilities.

Iron and Wine (I&W):
4 we aren't opposed to a war, however diving into wars as some parties desired in the past isn't a good course of action. We will ofcourse always support our allies in defending their territory.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
8. We’re pro-war. In the past we were utterly ridiculed for our calls for war activity, but finally people have seen the light and proclaim our message as well. The simple fact is that this game and (economic) activity herein is solely based on war activity. We are, however, not irrational in fighting offensive wars that are utterly hopeless. But do not be fooled, others prefer being defeatist & enslaved to an offensive occupation ‘Treaty’ or being blocked by a strong country instead. We don’t.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
That has two sides to it sadly. For this game to work one needs war so that would be a 10. Preferably war between your home country and another nation as fighting for you home country has benefits. The 10% damage bonus being one of them so you rank faster and do more damage faster. And when you did fight a lot you get the legend bonus which rapidly increases your damage up to a 200% bonus! Apart from that fighting sadly is the part where you can profit the most by scoring medals. eNL however is very small and lost a lot of fighting power due to political games. A real war therefore will be hard and needs to be managed by a small amount of players and supported by allies and friends. So for that reason we would need to say a 1.


Figure 1: Visual representation of the answers of questions 3 and 4

Recent issues
Then I decided to spice things up a bit and ask the parties about their opinion on recent political events in our country. However, these questions were asked quite a while ago so the events aren't that recent anymore. The answers do tell us a bit about the stance of the different parties in these kind of issues.

5. What is your opinion about the current training war with eGermany, and about training wars in general?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
DemNL is does not have a collective opinion on this matter. Some of our members are not so keen on training wars but do appreciate the economic benefit, others embrace the wars.

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
Training war is practised by all countries of the world. The importance of such wars is reflected in winning medals and maintaining a constant military activity, as it is known that players are more motivated to fight for their country. Germany is a neighbouring country with which we have good cooperation and simple training war with Germany works well.

Iron and Wine (I&W):
absolutely not perfect, and basically only something for the big fish in the pond, since most younger citizens have hardly any benefit or opportunity to profit from it.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
In case of no real war it is fundamental to have battle activity regardless. The Netherlands should have at all times have a ‘war’ active to train our people and get activity running. Minor details about whether or not we should fight Resistance Wars or Direct Wars are deflecting from the responsibility of us politicians to deliver this mechanic to our citizens.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
The current Training War works very smoothly. Sure we need to bench a RW every now and then. Benching means if non NL/Ger citizens supported the start we do that to scare them away that way giving the option to score FF medals to NL and Ger citizens as it is our TW! The ones that supported the failing RW are “benched” for 7 days. They cannot support a RW during that time.
It benefits both nations to a large extend as fighting for your own nation gives you medals and due to that income you need to survive this game and it also generates taxes for the state. So TW’s in general are something we support for 100%!



6. What is your opinion about the current congress system (in-game debating and voting) with respect to the old system (on-forum debating and voting)?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
Personally I believe this is great step towards in-game transparency. Archiving these debates will be hard, especially looking at the long-term. Article debates will get lost if not archived on forum when started and might cause something to be debated twice. I'm happy to see the CoC is still performing that task.

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
We were never happy with the forum elites, the game should be played ingame !

Iron and Wine (I&W):
it is an improvement from the pm system. but we still prefer the forum, both for ease of use and better visibility. newspapers especially in the current busy paper climate quickly get buried and forgotten about.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
In every single way it is better than the previous system. We are one of major proponents of the innovations in this regards, introducing much needed transparency to the public. The ‘’Forum’’ became an institute that was unrepresentative and with unequal representation of power due to that (increased by arbitrary appointments of Moderators). Bringing everything back to the Game has created a new equal level-playing field, in which every Congress Member and Citizen is equally part of the actual game and the administration.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
In-game debating and voting is way better than the old forum. All players are involved now as in the past a lot did not want to play another game (which forum sort of was) or check stuff outside the game. People want to play eRepublik! In-game debating has a few downsides as quoting others is more difficult and it can be harder to have an overview of a debate or even find the debate if you have lots of PM’s or a lot of articles like these days. But on a scale from 1-10 I’d say in-game PM’s get a 9 from me, in-game articles a 7, where forum debates get a 3 due to the exclusion of a lot of players and the way things went there with some people abusing all kind of powers they only have due to being admin or another “made up” role.

View on eNL
The last two questions were about our country itself.

7. What do you think is the biggest threat to the eNetherlands at the moment?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
I don't think we are under any threat

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
Potential disagreements and complicated legal procedures. We believe that there is a real danger that at one moment the country will be paralysed on the internal plan.

Iron and Wine (I&W):
Inactivity, decline in players, and infiltration by foreigners.

Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
I fear the day that crumbles all down and we return to the ‘lazy’ governments of a while back that just keep things running, but nothing else. That would be disastrous for us, considering the low amount of players we currently have. We’re still in a precious situation and every effort should be taken to improve our status relative to the eWorld. This temporary spike of activity should be utilised to improve our metrics in economy, military and politics before we ever return to the sad state of tranquillity again.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
The return of the politics where we need to play on forum. That would be killing. Far more than a hostile occupation…


8. What do you think is the biggest strength of the eNetherlands at the moment?

Democratisch Nederland (DemNL):
Diplomacy and activity

Geuzen Partij Nederland (GPN):
Activity. In proportion to the number of players, there's no country which has as this many players interested in participating in the community's life.

Iron and Wine (I&W):
-While a negative for the congress system a positive for the country is the recent resurgence of the newspaper module.
-Some improvements in government programs.
-Experienced players still doing their thing for the country, although we would love to see the return of old eNL citizens return and perhaps a gov program can be set up to facilitate that.


Revolution and Libertas (ReL):
For a nation of this size we should all be proud of the mountains we can move, especially some individuals that put massive amounts of work in our future. Such ambition is missing in many countries our size and is key in setting forward a motion towards a stronger eNetherlands.

Verenigd Nederland (VN):
Our biggest strength currently is the unity between almost all players.

Some final notes
I hope you enjoyed this summary of party views and maybe it will help you to decide which party to vote in the next elections.

An enormous thanks to the following party presidents who had to endure my whining for answers:
DemNL:Shawtyl0w
GPN: Alex the best123
I&W: odan
ReL: NoTie112
VN: Weekstrom

As said before, I have cut in the original pieces sent by the party presidents for the sake of clarity and objectivity. If you feel like I left out essential information from your piece, or if I rephrased something wrongly, please contact me so I can fix it!
If you want to read the raw answers, please send me a PM so I can share them with you.

Kind regards,