The Economist ~ Comparison of New Era and TUP policy

Day 1,827, 10:58 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Spite313


Dear friends,


Yesterday New Era released the result of their IRC conference, in the form of a set of policies on a number of areas. In most areas these policies differ from those of TUP, so in this article I just hope to lay our policies side-by-side and allow people to see how they compare. For the most part I’m just going to quote New Era policies directly from Goku’s article, and I’ll put any comments I have in [square brackets] so you know it’s my opinion. Obviously, for those of you who don’t know, I’m a member of The Unity Party. I’m describing our policy position based on long discussions and past conferences, since our own November Conference will remain open until just prior to the congress elections on the 25th.

I decided against fancy graphics for this article. No need to thank me for the free advertising New Era.

Justice System


New Era Policy


Any [UK Official Forum] ban, warning or other restriction on a UK citizen must be accompanied with proof and reasons so that we can all see for ourselves Justice being done and if it is fair and reasonable or not.

[Just as an aside, it is already the case that a reason must be given for a warning.. Usually the reason is something to do with a specific post, so the “evidence” is the post itself. The exceptions to this are forum multi-accounting, leaking from a private forum and breaking ingame rules]

A UK citizen should always be able to appeal and respond to any action taken against them, with all UK citizens taking part in deciding innocence or guilt. If a citizen is found guilty, there will always be a way back for them - a list of steps to set things right. Bans should never ever be permanent in a game which spans years.

Channels and Forums not taking part in this system will have to be abandoned by Party & Government and listed firmly as "private" and "unofficial".


TUP Policy

The Unity Party believes that a fair and impartial system of forum governance is essential for the UK. That means that the ultimate authority must be a non-partisan person who can judge based on no preconceptions. In this case those people are Kumnaa and Nelsaidi. Most of you won’t know who those people are, but they own the forums, and were players way back in beta. Neither of them play any more, and have no ties to any party.

In the past both moderators and admins have been removed by them if they felt they were too biased or at risk of being biased. For example, I used to be a forum admin in the UK but was removed by Kumnaa when I became PP of TUP and started spamming anti-UKRP stuff (long time ago). If you want to appeal a ban, appeal to either of them. Most of the time an unjustified ban will be removed.

TUP do not believe that lots of people asking for an unban is a good reason to do it- especially if the player has been banned for a permanent ban offence such as ban avoidance, racism, exploits or multi-accounting. The forums and the official eUK IRC channel #euk are moderated by a team chosen by Nelsaidi and Kumnaa. If anyone feels they have a genuine grievance, take it up with them. Only a tiny number of people are perma-banned, all for exploits. At the minute, it is only Sage Goku who is banned, for multi-accounts, leaking from UK Sensitive Issues and exploits.

Right to Return

New Era Policy

UK citizens who have left the UK should have an automatic right to return regardless of their reasons for leaving and what they did before and after they left.

Combined with a Justice system, even the most infamous former citizens will be able to arrage a set of steps to set things right and get a citizenship pass.


TUP Policy

All citizenship applications should be judged exactly the same. The only reasons citizens are not accepted is if they:
*Fought against the UK directly over a long period of time
*Fought against our allies to the detriment of the UK
*Are from an enemy country (PTO threat see: here
*Betrayed the UK in a dramatic fashion (stole, gave away plans or companies, left mid-war to fight against us)

In these cases we think it is clear that someone shouldn’t have an automatic right of return but must prove themselves. An apology would also be nice. Repeat offenders should be permanently refused citizenship - there’s no point giving someone access to your political system if they have a lifetime of screwing the UK over.

3) Freedom of Information

New Era Policy

Citizens should be informed of everything so that they can make their own informed choices.

Alliances need to be explained in detail as alliance groups change. Votes for Renewing MPPs will come with why we are allied, why they need our help or what they can offer us if we need help. Each Battle Order should have a summary of why the battle is important.

Our finances can be tracked transparently and in detail so that we can see our income and expenses.

[This sort of information is all freely available on request on the UK Official Forums]


TUP Policy

Government should always be directly accountable to the public, and the President and Government should answer any questions asked about such things as alliance alignment, MPPs and spending. They should also actively promote this information and involve congress and the public in discussion as much as possible.

MoD - Daily Strikes

New Era Policy

A UK IRC idle and random chat channel should host daily strikes, this would be #eUK on Rizon assuming cooperative moderators there. No political debate would be here to keep it friendly, new or party channels can be used for that.

All UK MUs and Citizens would try to hit at the same time in the evening in the most important battle up. There would be no additional Government supply, although rewards can be given out for things like most damage/biggest MU present depending on budget.


TUP Policy

TUP already implemented this policy, though we use #MoD since #eUK is a UK community channel and used by people of all nations as a first point of call. We do have daily strikes, though timing depends on the actual battles being fought. Having fixed times makes the army nothing more than a window-dressing organisation that hits for a visibly moving bar rather than usefully applying damage when it is needed. Battles are all at least 8 minis long, concentrating in just one means we would lose 8-1.

MoD - Training

New Era Policy

There needs to be a neutral government run training MU to help citizens to train up. It would have orders and supply set to help get Medals, not direct the highest damage possible. These could be new players in D1 or weak old players in D4.

To make this run the best, we always need a UK War where we take territory so that these citizens can work on Patriot and Resistance War medals.


TUP Policy

This radical policy was proposed and passed six months ago in the form of the NHS. The NHS ceased providing weapons when it became obvious that higher supplies of food would be a better function, and ceased performing as a MU under demand from congressmen.

However TUP would be happy to restart an NHS MU if there was popular demand.

MoFa - Resources

New Era Policy

The UK needs hope and dreams; we will have a long term aim to get +1 Weapons Resource from a region close to the UK.

We can work with allies to get this over many months. We must also focus on long term military training, recruitment and diplomacy so that we keep any gains.


TUP Policy

TUP is a party which prides itself on practicality. If the option to gain a weapon resource in Saltpetre or Rubber arises, we would take it. However:

*There are no resources of that type anywhere near the UK, making it impossible to get one, and nothing more than populism claiming we can.
*This excellent article explains how resource bonuses are over-valued anyway.

MoE - Recruitment

New Era Policy

The Ministry of Education should immediately switch its main purpose over to recruiting new players. The other Ministries can produce information and guides on their own expert subject areas.

We can recruit from other countries in eRepublik or from other websites on the internet.


TUP Policy

You don’t need to delete one Ministry to found another. The Ministry of Recruitment & Retention has existed in the past and there is no reason a Minister of Recruitment cannot exist.

Talon has stated that if anyone wants the position of Minister of Recruitment they are free to apply to him in person.

CP - Cabinet Structure

New Era Policy
Ministers should fit the in game titles:

* Governor is the Minister of Finance.
* Minister of Education is the Minister of Home Affairs or whatever it is called this month.
* Prime Minister is the Minister of Legislative Affairs and Justice.


TUP Policy

This is already the case.


So as you can see those are the main policy points. Confusingly many New Era policies are either already implemented, or are minor changes to existing policy which could probably be introduced without much fuss. Really the only two radical changes are:

Citizen application process - right of return

Forum policy - some sort of citizen poll on whether somebody should be punished


Personally I think these two bits of contention are more about moaning because Goku and a few other people have fallen foul of the rules and want to burn the whole system down in response. Goku himself admitted in his “confess-all” article that destroying the forums was his main goal. These policies mainly stem from his personal vendetta. I’m not going to repeat myself, but if you break the rules you get banned. I myself have been banned twice for breaking the rules, and most of the mod team has at some point as well. The difference is that I sat out my terms as a banned citizen and others multi-accounted to get round the bans and re-offended whilst under ban.

As the citizenship committee has now been introduced (selection is on the 26th) they have control over who is or isn’t allowed back in. On this basis the right of return would be decided on a case-by-case basis by the committee. Of course this isn't going to stop Goku letting random people in (nothing will) but I don't see the point in a democracy if you're just going to ignore any sort of group decision and do your own thing anyway.


I'd love to hear your thoughts (especially you Alphabethis)

knock yourselves out!


Iain