Join the new world

Hey there,

It doesn't actually feel like such a long time ago really but I joined the game on the 14th of February, 2010. The game is a very different game than it was then. In fact, everything is different.

There weren't as many gold features, military units as an in-game feature didn't exist, you could vote candidates in congress elections instead of parties, and you couldn't work in every company you owned. The world was a larger but smaller place, in the sense that more people played the game but there were fewer countries.

The purpose of this is just to give a history of what I've seen and done on eRepublik. It's basically an account on the history. I tend to get a bit carried away, so there may be more than one or two articles. This article will cover the entirety of 2010.



The Beginning

Thee UK was in a pretty dire situation, if I recall. Dishmcds was CP and the USA had invaded, conquering all but London by the time I had arrived to the game. I tried to join in the South East of England but obtained USA citizenship instead. So, knowing that I wouldn't be able to obtain UK citizenship whilst being a US citizen, I decided to play along for the time being.

Large countries can often be unappealing and unfriendly when you're a new player, so I left to go to Austria, a country of about 1000 people in the middle of Europe, self proclaimed to be neutral but was actually pro-Phoenix due to frequent Croatian and Polish aggression. I met great people such as Rangeley, PrinceofAustria and Alfred Ball whilst there.

During my noob days, one naturally wrote really crappy articles about stuff based around real life. I recall one in particular, something that Alfred Ball never let me forget, about Karnataka and US imperialism. Karnataka was conquered by the USA from Indonesia to take advantage of High Iron bonuses.



Life in a small country

With Austria living in the shadow of enemies quite frequently and with several threats of PTOs appearing here and now, it kept Austria alive and kicking for the real inhabitants to keep the country functioning. Some of the same people from 2009 are still there, running the country whereas other countries such as Singapore, who were PTOed by Romanians, have changed from their former glory - as small countries go, glory doesn't occur often.

The first threat while I was there, was in the form of an EDEN takeover of the CP position in March 2010, when Hedera was elected as CP. He used his position to retreat the country to Poland, down to our last region. Austria was wiped for the congress elections after Croatia also got involved. All our parties were lost and we had open citizenship. A quantity of Croatians moved into Austria, so for a few months our elections were an uphill struggle. Even after their attempts, they were defeated by about July.

In June, Fragreg - leader of OmniCorp and long term Austrian citizen - became country president and became immediately involved in the Phoenix effort to liberate France from Poland. I was Minister of Domestic Affairs this month and was involved in cabinet discussions that saw SaraDroz resign as MoFA after it was agreed that Hungary could swap through Austria to get to Rhone Alps through Switzerland. The battle was a victory for Hungary, who had been able to conquer the High Wood region.

In June, I became party president of the Osterreich Independence Party, which still exists and is currently the largest party in Austria. In July, I had announced my candidature for the August 2010 CP elections. Initially, I faced opposition from the emerging 4chan group that sought to win by creating profiles en masse. Fortunately, they disappeared by the end of July and I had became the only candidate in the presidential elections. I won the election on the 5th of August with 95 votes.



Presidential Term #1

I was one of the first country presidents to be elected in Version 2, the totally new version of the game that saw quite a significant portion of the game leave.

On the second day on the job, the world was embroiled in the famous V2 hackings that had started with John Bartlett of the United Kingdom. The hacking had caused the UK to attack every country it bordered, activating MPPs against them. It was later confirmed to be a hack when something similar had happened with Hungary, where all their original regions were conquered by Romania by retreating. Austria had attacked Romania and Croatia during the night. All damage had been reversed by the eRep team the following day but I think the whole event had taken the kick right out of several CPs, including John Bartlett who resigned a week or so later.

The CP term of mine was getting more interesting. EDEN were planning a series of attacks in Central Europe with Poland and Italy both planning on taking Austria. The first move occurred when the Czech Republic was invaded by Austria. We immediately went into meetings with Hungarian and German representatives and they too wanted to stop the Polish advancement. In the guise of a training war, we allowed Hungary passage through Burgenland, Lower Austria and Upper Austria to block Poland's route south. Poland's advance was successfully blocked. Things were changing in the south though as Italy had decided to advance on us as well. They attacked Salzburg on the 24th of August. We were heavily out numbered on the hexagonal design battlefield but we were able to use strategy to our advantage, out manoeuvring the attacking Italians. The same occurred on the 3rd of September, when Italy attacked Tyrol. We won both battles with Phoenix help against a foe that was more than quadruple our size and strength.



Departure from Austria; formation of New Zealand

Things were heating up in Austria after my CP term, with two competing sides going against each other. I decided to leave the country to go to Singapore but that was short lived as I was asked to help ATO Austria against a sudden Hungarian PTO threat that appeared.

My return to Austria was also short lived. I left the nation again after the congress elections and moved to London, United Kingdom to try and enter the country. Unfortunately, my citizenship application was rejected. At the time I didn't know why but upon becoming Chairman of the Citizenship Committee in April 2011, I found out that I was rejected by Johnobrow for having several far-right wing fascists on my friend list.

I then moved to Queensland, Australia, waiting for New Zealand to be added to the game.

On the 6th of October 2010, New Zealand was added to the game alongside Belarus, Republic of Macedonia, Republic of China, Montenegro and Cyprus. Immediately, the country became embroiled in a bitter fight between Anglophone and Serbian citizens and by extension Phoenix and EDEN fights. Even at the country's formation, New Zealand began showing pro-Phoenix attitudes despite the overwhelming American influence in the nation. I believe one of the first MPPs that was signed was with Phoenix member France. The feuding continued well into 2011 but by then many citizens had left because they felt the nation was becoming a lost hope.



Arrival in the United Kingdom
Since the UK is most of what I've been involved in since leaving New Zealand, I'll do that in another article 😁

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Thank you for reading,

Thomas765