The Last War of V1 – Invasion of Croatia begins, USA attacks Russia.

Day 957, 05:54 • Published in USA USA • by Sossu
My last article in V1 - The nearly two-year journey ends with Russian attack on Poland and the decisive battle for the destiny of Croatia.

With The Great Unknown ahead just 3 days from now, both alliances are rushing to try and benefit from the relatively simple V1 military module, starting campaigns against Croatia and Russia and aiming to grab as much land as possible before the V2 launch and the week of frozen military module after that. Phoenix initiated an invasion against Croatia, a nation who has launched several Phoenix MPP-sets against them during various campaigns in Europe. Phoenix hasn’t been keen to attack Eden original territories before, as the Eden MPP-set would have emerged stronger in battles where both alliances meet with full force. The loss of Aquitaine and Rhone Alps evened the gap, but now Poland is on their way to a new rise as they claimed 3 out of 5 resources through a lease agreement with USA. Phoenix decided to launch their campaign before Poland can start to fully benefit from the resource-filled lands in USA, and being unsure about the power balance in V2. Yesterday was the final possible date of launching a campaign that could ultimately lead to the complete destruction of Croatia during V1.

In Asia, the President of the United States culminated his highly acclaimed term by attacking Russia with the help of the activated MPP😒 launched by Russian President earlier this month. By his own words, the goal of the mission is to lift America from depression and falling retention by offering something interesting to do right before the launch of V2, possibly keeping the interest of players through the first week of V2 when no wars can be waged.

If USA wins the battle, they can attack forward and invade both diamond regions of Russia, making it possible to share the other one with either Poland or China. Far Eastern Russia is a bottleneck region though, so unless USA wins the battle or swaps through China with the help of Philippines and attacks another territory before the battle ends, Russia claims the initiative and can start attacking. They will probably refrain from doing so though as invading Alaska would expose them to a block from Canada and after that, a counterattack from USA. France has activated MPP😒 against Canada, and they might attack, but time is running short and Phoenix might wait for V2 before waging war in Northern America.


President Choc explaining the motives of the attack.

Chances of success are slim however, as 4th of July is the Independence Day of America, a popular holiday. Many players might not pay attention to the happenings of eRepublik during today, and USA is probably going to be defeated in Far Eastern Russia unless significant Eden help changes the battle’s presumed outcome. Eden’s hands are tied to defending Croatia though, and USA will probably fall behind, exposing them to a counterattack unless Russia is blocked before. Several nations can block Russia, but an attack coming from China would be a serious mistake tactically and both regions Finland can attack are expendable. Poland might not be too keen either to attack Russia by themselves on the eve of V2, jeopardizing their colonies in USA if Russia is able to plow through them.

Eden and Phoenix battle over Croatia.

V1 is going to end with a good old invasion war. Last time neither Phoenix or Eden waged a war purely aiming to utterly destroy the opposing nation was when Croatia, Romania and Poland teamed up and tried to destroy Hungary, coming one region short. All wars after that have been waged to secure tactical advantages, like the war in British Isles when Poland jumped to Northern America, or trying to capture resource colonies, like the Phoenix campaign against Spain or Eden’s attempts to invade Liaoning.

Croatia doesn’t have anything strategically relevant to offer, so the war is waged purely for roleplaying purposes and keeping the game interesting for the players. The Balkan subcontinent is loaded with real life friction, making it a fertile ground for babybooms during invasion wars. What would be a better way to recruit new players than invading the neighboring nation before V2 and attracting new players to defend their nation during the Croatian independence attempts and finally the counterattack?

Just like when Hungary attacked Rhone Alps, this time as well the Phoenix pawn nation Austria has captured Hungarian territories and closed the Romanian border, denying Romania the possibility to launch distraction attacks. After that Hungary and Slovenia attacked three Croatian regions, Slovenia concentrating to regions with lesser importance while Hungary attacked one of the three Croatian core regions, Northwest Croatia. Eden defended this region multiple times against Hungary in the past, but this time the task is harder as both Slovenia and Hungary have PHX MPP😒 backing their effort. Serbia was unable to attend to the first wave of attacks as China blocked them earlier on their regions in North Korea. Also Romania attacked Serbian original region of Eastern Serbia, which Serbia later retreated, exposing Romania to a block coming from Bulgaria. After the Chinese attack ends, Serbia has free hands to attack Croatia as they have initiative over India who can't block them in Sindh, and China faces an attack on Heilongjiang, a region they can't retreat.


War for Croatia, Day 957, eTime 05:30. Highlighted area: Austrian blockade against Romania. Arrows: Slovenian/Hungarian attacks on Croatia, Bulgarian block on Romania.

Croatia is hard to invade due to them being a slim nation with many bottleneck regions in the southern parts of the nation. Phoenix has to plan their attacks carefully to get the maximum advantage from the two fronts they are engaging Croatia on instead of closing each other from advancing further. Hungary, being the stronger one of the attackers will probably concentrate on the northern, densely populated regions of Croatia while Slovenia attacks the less important coastal regions in the South. If Hungary invades Central Croatia and Slovenia conquers the regions of Lika-Gorski Kotar and Istria-Kvarner, they will face do or die-battles on two occasions as North Dalmatia and South Dalmatia are both bottlenecks. If Hungary finishes their invasion first and are noy able to block Croatia, Slovenia might lose the initiative and let Croatia go on offensive. Even further, the friendly neighboring nation Bosnia and Herzegovina can take North Dalmatia, cutting Slovenia’s path and leaving South Dalmatia inside the allied Bosnia.

If Serbia is freed from blocks, they could team up with Hungary and launch double attacks on Slavonia, worsening Croatia’s situation dramatically. Eden will pay the utmost attention on Croatia as it’d be a complete disaster for them to lose important regions or even the entire country and not being able to RW them back during the no-war period in the beginning of V2. All battles will be extremely close as all of Eden faces all of Phoenix in a war that could become legendary. The first wave of attacks were started 0😇0 AM CET, setting the stage of epic tanking in the end of the battles between European armies, while American military is mostly absent, celebrating their RL holiday.

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Depending on the outcome of the battles, the world war will smoothly transfer to V2 as Croatia will either battle for their independency or launch counterattacks on Slovenia and Hungary, and USA will either advance further in to Russia or face a repeat of the North American War last summer.