Join the new world

Of late the game has received many updates and tweaks, some of which we have been aware of for quite some time, and others that have been revealed in the last few days. This period of change is probably the most intense since the end of V2, in terms of the volume of the updates, but not necessarily as groundbreaking as game alterations such as the WAM or currency for MPPs. We have since the start of the year received the following:

Expanded Rankings
Comment reply overhaul
Rocket Factory level changes and new bonuses
Alliances “In-Game” (IG)
Shake-Up of donations
Guerilla Fights and Gold Mines
(New Map – although the release was staggered, many people got this at different times!)

It started so well leading on from last year. The community was feeling mildly content on a diet of Cabinet titles being put IG and winter missions. From the conference in Romania, we knew that the Map would be coming soon, but we were also pleasantly surprised with good improvements through updated stats (Str, TP damage and now Alliances and citizenship totals) and the way we interact with media. Calls for a complete re-design of the economic module seemed to have finally got through, and although hope wasn't high for something amazing, players felt that at least it wouldn't be as bad as the current market conditions we have. That at least is the sense some people got. Others knew that soon the admin balance of awful would be restored.

You can make your own mind up on Rocket facilities. They expanded the levels, tweaked the damage and added a small new daily damage booster; “For Q4 and Q5 level you will now have a new line of production that allows you to build a 50% Damage Booster. The booster requires the same amount of weapons as the rocket. The damage booster is activated the moment you built it and is valid for 5 minutes. Both rocket and damage booster can be built daily, at a limit of one per day. You can only store one rocket in your inventory.” I've heard it doesn't really make much of a difference, but I suppose the eBill Gates' need to splash the cash somewhere. Why not comment below if you have this feature enabled?

IMO Alliances were something that should have been in the game long ago, but no matter, they're here now. Donations is pretty irrelevant imo because they never should have got rid of the donations list (good multi / scammer / political thief catching tool) but at least no one died. :3

So on to the new changes. We first heard about the new “Call of Duty” (CoD) style game mode through pictures leaked slowly by the admins and through insider updates on the whole system from several attendees of the convention. After a slow “beta” , all players now should have it enabled. I think this is a mistake for several reasons. Firstly the developers should have allowed for a system when there are long periods on battlefields with only players wanting to Guerrilla fight on one side. The current system entails waiting for long periods of time to get into battles with vastly mis-matched players (perils of playing in real time I suppose.) This has lead to under-use and disinterest in the system already. A brief overview of the rules lay out the round rules from the admins, which I'll boil down to basics with my own additions:

Set-Up

- The Guerrilla Fight is only available in direct battles, not in RWs.
- You will be able to join a Guerrilla Fight after defeating five opponents in a sitting.
- If one side involved in the battle has more than 1400 Domination Points the fight will not start.
- Before you go into the GF mode, you can kit your citizen out with appropriate weapons and ammo.



Pre-fight Screen

- The pre-fight screen shows a head to head comparison of the two opponents
- The “Bonus Damage” is an indicator of each player’s strength in relation to the opponent (if there is an even match, both players will have similar Bonus Damage) – NB: There is no even match!
- Both players enter the fight with maximum 100 Energy
- The Energy that is about to be used in the Guerrilla Fight is now removed from the total Energy

The Fight

- The combat is divided in rounds; players can perform one action/round
- The basic actions are listed below

FIRE - shoot with the equipped weapon
MOVE - get closer or farther away from your opponent
DODGE - lowers the opponent’s hit chance. If a grenade is present it will be used.
RELOAD - when you run out of ammo the FIRE button will turn into RELOAD



Fight Results

- The player who loses all his Energy first is defeated – basically you “die”, but no IG effect other than the energy decrease.
- In case of a draw the player who dealt more damage wins
- The Energy that is not lost in the Guerrilla Fight is returned to the total Energy
- Each player will add an amount of damage to the influence bar of the battle, depending on his Strength and Military Rank. The winner will add substantially more damage than the defeated player.
The damage added to the influence bar is cumulated with the damage dealt prior to the Guerrilla Fight. It also counts for achievements like Battle Hero, Campaign Hero or True Patriot.
- Players will receive Rank Points according to the amount of damage added to the influence bar
- The winning player also receives one item (mystery meat!) as a reward.

ADVICE – READ THIS OR DIE! :3

From my limited experience with this and the range of items on offer, I actually recommend going for armour that doesn't give a massive debuff to accuracy (if using armour at all!) and using the snippy riffle. Fire from long range and keep reloading and retreating. Seemed to do the trick in my battles.



Gold Mines are a feature added to the game in an attempt to re-kindle Battle of the Alliances from last year, and make people build gold to get more gold through conquest. I have not a lot to add on this other than it's silly. Here is the admins update text, I'll edit any retarded english I see (because they still can't translate) out and leave it for you to digest.

Gold Mines

- Each Gold Mine will hold a deposit of 100.000 Gold
- If your citizenship country owns a Mine, you can explore it daily and find a variable amount of Gold
- The Mine can be explored until all the Gold has been depleted

Gold Mines competition

- The Gold Mines competition is based on a new ranking: Citizenship Damage
- Five countries will receive a Gold Mine based on a contest held for 7 days between Day 1952 and Day 1958
- During this period, when you fight in ANY battle (even if your citizenship country is not involved in it) your damage will be added to the ranking as damage done by your citizenship country
- In this ranking, the world has been divided into 5 main areas: Europe, Asia, America, Oceania and Africa
- The country with the highest damage from each main area wins the contest and therefore a Gold Mine
- The Mines will be awarded within 24 hours after the end of the contest
- The Mines will be located in the real life capital of the winning countries
- Here is a list of the historical (real life) capitals: http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Capital



Where can I see the Gold Mines?

- The Gold Mines will appear on the country page of the countries that own one of the 5 Gold Mines, and from here you can check the Gold remaining in the Mine
- The same information is available on the page of the regions with a Gold Mine
- The Gold Mines will be visible on the map, with 3 different icons depending on the remaining deposit of Gold in the Mine

Gold Mines - How do I explore it?

- A citizen can explore the Mine if his citizenship country has a region with a Gold Mine
- A citizen can explore the Gold Mine daily, with the cost of only 10 Energy, by going to "My places"
- In “My places” there will be an “Explore” button which can be used once a day. After using it, the citizen receives a variable sum of Gold, between 0.3 Gold and 40 Gold
- When a citizen explores the Gold Mine, the amount of Gold he receives is withdrawn from the Gold Mine deposit
- When a citizen explores the Gold Mine, the country receives 0.1 Gold for every exploration, no matter what the citizen received
- The sum that goes to the country is also withdrawn from the Gold Mine deposit
- If a country owns two or more Gold Mines, the deposit of the Gold Mines gets accumulated
- If the country has two or more Gold Mines, the Gold withdrawn at each exploration is equally divided between the Gold Mines
- The amount received by the citizens and the countries at each exploration is not influenced by the number of Mines owned
- A citizen can explore the mine if that are at least level 22

The only other factor that comes into play with all this is the re-introduction of Airstrikes:

- Citizens are able to donate food and currency in order to start an Airstrike
- The formulas have been updated keeping into account the currency exchange rates and the food prices
- You can check the new formulas here: http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Airstrike
- The donations for the Airstrike will be available for at least one month
- Regions with Gold Mines can be attacked directly via the Airstrike, just like any other region (as long as the conditions for launching the Airstrike are met).
- Gold Mines can be explored even if there is no transport route to the capital – this is a key point as we will no doubt see nations fighting like dogs over tablescraps.

Finally: The Gold Stash.


This is an offer to drive you to give away your cash, but I would seriously advise looking at it for value. If you buy gold once in a blue moon, this is probably the best offer they've ever done.

I hope you've enjoyed this little guide and commentary, look for many of my next articles, as the worst kept secret will soon be out 😉 Please let me and others know your thoughts on which countries will end up with the bonuses and why in the comments below!

Jimbojoy

P.S.
This should be fun! 😃