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Russia's campaign into the Western mainland of the United States, and most recently Hawaii, has been met by flocks of headless chickens, black screens and absolutely no defense, with neither the US or Russia winning a single defensive battle in the campaign to date. The end result has been a slew of land swaps that may yet see the two superpowers trade continents (USA invades Far Eastern Russia) before the countries either learn to play defense, or the military module is tweaked to give defenses some staying power.

The offensive phenomena is largely attributable to the influence of time zones on the V2 war module. It doesn't take a mathematician to log on during the work day and see that Russia outnumbers the USA by an insurmountable number of troops, or to see the amount of gold the Russians dump in to the fight to decide that fighting on Russia's terms won't win the war.

In short, logging on to fight during Russia's peak hours is a great way to get your ass handed to you on a slice of baklava. If you want to be effective, know that the majority of the US forces are logging to fight 1 to 2 hours before the close of the battle, at which point they will be faced with a defensive push to retake the capital before the timer hit's the 24th hour.

If you can't make a showing at the final push, or you're looking for fight for the hell of it, it is helpful to know when the Russians will be most active. To determine this, we have a geography lesson.

Russia has less than half the RL population of the United States (140,702,000 Rus / 303,825,000 USA as of 200😎 and has nearly twice the geographical landmass (17,075,200 Rus / 9,629,091 in sq. kilometers).



More importantly to eRep, the Russian nation spans 9 times zones (reduced for economic reasons from 11 to 9 in March of 2010 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62R0DS20100328). The majority of the population lives in the western 1/3 of the country near Moscow which runs 8 hours ahead of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.



To help you get a handle for what is going on in Moscow, as you're reading this and as you step into the war module, take a look at the time difference and be aware of what is going on in that part of the world.

The times on the left correspond to the time on the United States' Eastern Seaboard (GMT -4 or Eastern Daylight time aka EDT), and the text corresponds with Russian daily activities (GMT +4 or Moscow Standard Time aka MSD).

i.e. Four A.M for you is the Russian's lunch break, etc.
--
4am - Lunch Break
5am - Afternoon at work
6am
7am
8am
9am - Happy Hour (5 o'clock somewhere)
10am - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME
11am - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME
12am - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME
1pm - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME
2pm - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME
3pm - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME
4pm - RUSSIAN PRIME TIME (Midnight)
5pm - Russia is a calendar day ahead of us at this point
6pm - zzZZzzZZzz (unless they plan to sleep through the next day)
7pm - zzZZzz
8pm - zzZZzz
9pm - zzZZzz
10pm - zzZZzz
11pm - Alarm clock plays California Girls in Russian
12am - Baklava & hot tea
1am - Work
2am -
3am -
4am - lunch break
--


The split in prime times, and the relative inactivity in the USA during Russian Prime time is significant, and vice versa. This, as stated above, contributes largely to the swap-fest that has been Russia's recent invasion of North America. Both nations simply have not found a defensive answer to the time zone difference.

How can the USA solve this problem? There are certainly a few clear answers. To accomplish the most intuitive of these solutions, the eUSA will have to tackle a bias that is pandemic in RL American society today.

Think about it. Check in on the next article and in the mean time, persevere America! Approximately two-thousand seven hundred years from today, the Russians' negative population growth will drop their population below 100 people. Seriously. Look it up.

Tim

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V2 Articles Index

Migrations and
Beta Testing
Closing Overview

Military Module:
Overview
Skills, Specializations, Maps
How the Battle Goes On
Closing Overview (Economic & Military)