Join the new world

Day 1485
Dec 14


This's Interview With Iain Keers

1) Hey! Tell us something about your real life. How old Iain is, where do you live, do you work or you are still studying?


I am 24 IRL, I live in the North of England where we only get 5 hours of daylight a day and arctic winds freeze me to death every day 😛 I work for the government in the national health service here. I finished all my studying back in 2009- the year I started playing erep properly.


2) How you found out eRepublik? What happened that you joined eRepublik society?

A RL friend of mine suggested it. A bunch of us joined together at the beginning from the RL UK Labour Party, but only I am left out of those guys. I was interested in how RL political techniques could be applied in erep, and the legacy of that experiment was the huge success of my own party (TUP) and the slow evolution of eUK politics in general to be quite a complex thing.


3) What do you think about last Promotion Anniversary in eRepublik? Does it seems to be a good for Player or you just hate them for what they have done ?

Special offers are just a way to get people buying gold. I think there are two possible business models for erep- one is a small group of buyers spending 500 euros or more every 3-4 months, another is a very large number of buyers spending maybe 10-20 euros a year. I always favoured the second model- I think a lot of people would happily pay 1-2 euros a month for extra features, more customisation, skins etc. It would make the game less unbalanced than now, and bring in the same amount of money.


4) How much time per day you spend on controling battles, giving orders etc.?

Almost none, I will be honest. As SG my job isn’t to be standing making minute-to-minute decisions about where armies need to fight - that is for the Military Commander- Unihorn. Myself and aVie are responsible for diplomacy, strategy, broad direction of the alliance and solving disputes between members.


5 ) EDEN and Terra winning at important battles from all ONE members including the two superpowers Serbia and Poland, does ONE have a plan to recover those battles?

Well I think that the attitude of ONE needs fixing. Firstly, we are not exactly “losing” when most TEDEN countries are wiped off the map 😛 Australia even left because EDEN made no effort to help them. ONE has pretty much total domination in Europe, the Middle-East and South-East Asia. The Americas pose a problem to us because of the timezone difference, but really the USA, Brazil, Bulgaria and China are the only countries which have managed to maintain their “home regions” in the recent past.

We can’t expect to win every single battle- it’s unrealistic. But when (for example) EDEN calls it a huge victory when it manages to free a few regions, it is a bit funny really. Count how many TEDEN regions are occupied by ONE, and how many ONE regions are occupied by TEDEN- and then count the difference 😛


6) What Your Opinion About New ONE Members (UK, Iran And Slovenia)?

I have mixed opinions. I obviously follow the will of our member countries, who voted on the new members. I think that those 3 countries have all behaved (much like Indo did) as ONE members for nearly a year now. The only difference giving them membership has done is to integrate them better in our communications, and to add their leadership talents to the alliance. It means instead of having 2-3 different rooms and queries, we can relay orders straight away. And if ONE is giving orders for attack or defence, as members they are expected to fight with us. It makes a small difference to my job in terms of the work I have to do, but it makes a big difference to the members of those countries.


7) What are your plans? Do you plan to run once again for CP or SG ONE ?

This is my second term as ONE SG already- this time with aVie who is a very creative person and has been behind a lot of the changes in the alliance. At the minute I am not considering anything- I won’t know what the situation is in January until much later. I have served as advisor to both ONE (and it’s predecessors) and the UK for so long the idea of being CP or SG for me is more a matter of duty than anything else. I would be glad to give the mantle of leadership to another person if they had the skill, support and enthusiasm to do it. I am sure aVie feels the same though he has a bit more left in him than me 😛


😎 What is your favourite ONE CP, MoD and MoFA?

Haha that’s an impossible question 😛 My favourite CP is the one who comes to me and offers to help, who shares information and who can keep his mouth shut 😛 My favourite MoD is the one who sets our orders and not their own, and my favourite MoFA is the one who is always active and able to relay messages and so forth back to their home countries.


9) Do you buy gold? And if yes how much?

I have bought gold as you might have guessed. I don’t buy it for the economy module- only for tanking really. As for how much, that’s not a good question since it makes me think about all the money I’ve spent 😛 Unlike Romper I’m not a millionaire 😛 I guess over a thousand gold 😛 It seems like a waste when I think of all the thousands that countries used to produce, and that even I have made and spent using the economy module. But the game changes, and it’s fun. I still think it would be better if we used a subscription model. At the minute I spend over 100g a month on training- so nearly 1000g this year. I paid for that with company profits, and it was a big investment from me. I also use hundreds of tanks and thousands of food each week- plus this week over 100g fighting- but I’d accept a strength and rank reset if it meant that we could have a better funding model for the game and an end to tanking. It’s not fair that how much money someone makes IRL dictates how much fun they have. It used to be a game of skill.


10) What is your opinion about ABC alliance or ProOne Countries like eSK, ePakistan, ePeru ? Does SG ONE thinks about them as a friends or a neutral alliance that sometimes has common business?

Well ABC is a strategic partner of ONE. Mostly they conduct their own business, since their main wars are with neighbours of (almost) equal strength. However we do recognise that they are essential to our strategy, and in a way we are essential to theirs- if EDEN decides to gang up on ABC they need our help. And we do try to send it, though we are often spread thinly.

As for the other proONE countries- we find it very difficult to fight in RWs as you might have noticed. I said over six months ago it was a weakness of ONE and it still is. We can defend RWs and MPP battles because of our huge citizen armies and mass damage, but mobilising armies to deploy to China or South America is very difficult. Elite units like the Polish units GROM, Bluerose (which is my MU), Hussars and so on have shown themselves to be very effective at this kind of war. Fighting and limiting TEDEN access to resources is obviously a massive priority for us, helping allies aside. So long as EDEN is occupying a country, we will try to help that country.


11) What is your opinion about eMKD Plan into China via eIndia ?

I think some countries need a national project to keep their people motivated. Macedonia got a bit screwed by the admins when they only gave them 3 regions- despite a huge population they can never have more than 60% resource bonus. And they are surrounded by Bulgaria, Greece and Albania, with Serbia to the North. All strong countries and hard to hold long term. I think when MKD went to Italy they realised the benefit of moving the capital, and now they’re trying to make that work.

I do forsee problems- mainly that defending RWs will be difficult. Once in India though they would be less vulnerable to RWs cutting off resources, and it would position them to threaten the EDEN resource stronghold in China. It’s a good plan so far as that. It’s not exactly grand strategy, but what is anymore?


12) Can you give me a name of 5 famous Indonesia people?

Of course.

Nico Sianpar of course, one of the oldest guys in eIndo and a legend in his own right. He was right by my side as we founded Phoenix way back in 2009, and has been around to advise and joke for years.

Yourself of course, I remember working with you back in Phoenix as CP and as MoFA I believe 😛

Psy_cho is always a good guy to contact if you need something, even now he’s an old man 🙂

Kandon of course who was CP when I was SG of Phoenix and helped us a lot.

And I suppose I should mention Ostin 😛 He was a permanent fixture in Phoenix and he did a lot of talking, always a good guy to have a laugh with. We need people like him around or we’d all become miserable 😛



And short questions!

1) Chelsea, Arsenal, MU, Man.City or Liverpool?

Aha, I don’t come from a football city ;P Durham is a cricket county. Even with that in mind, my local team would be Newcastle. Not that I particularly watch football.

2) Beer or Vodka?

Beer with that choice, though probably not the beer you think of 😛 I prefer single malt scotch whisky, a much better way to spend money than buying gold 😛


3) Good Movie or Good Book?

Good book of course 🙂 I have quite a big library. You can pick up a book any time, you need to sit down and watch a film. It can be annoying getting pinged all the time 😛


4) eRepublik or Real Life?

There is a bit of a blur here, since I don’t play erep with most of the people I meet here. We play other games, chat, hang out. I work long hours every day at work- even weekends. I do obviously socialise and go out like everyone else, but most of my day is not fun at all 😛 I think that I would be a lot less happy without video games so I can’t choose 😛


5) eIndonesia or eBrazil ?

Haha this isn’t a real question 😛 Brazil had a lot of good guys in it back in the day, and the ordinary players were mostly great guys. But a few people decided to mess everyone around for the sake of pride, and it all fell apart. Indonesia has always stuck by its friends- even when it was hard. They took so long to join ONE because of their friendships with non-ONE countries and we respect that. In the end it was other countries putting themselves first and fighting Indo which changed things.

Thanks and goodnight 😛