Timezone Tanks: A Mil Module Analysis

Day 1,087, 02:25 • Published in USA USA • by The Libertine
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This article is analyzing a possible new military strategy, due to the changes to the military module.

Before I start, it is important to point out that everything below could be outdated very soon. The war module changes often, and with the general outcry against the strength migration, who knows how soon change will again be made.
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So, the strength migration has finally been implemented, and the dust is starting to settle. What have we found?

Pearlswine (as well as many others) has been doing some great work figuring out the new influence output formula. It looks like Strength (S) plays a huge role in determining influence, while Military Rank (R) matters much less.
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The Formula
Influence = (RS/250 + S/12.5 + R/2.5 + 1😎*(1+(Firepower of Weapon)/100)

From Pearlswine's analysis:
"So this says...
- Min influence is 18 @ a strength of 0
- Strength increases influence by 1 point for every 12.5 points of strength plus 1 points per rank for every 250 points of strength.
- 1 Rank increases influence by 1 for every 2.5 ranks and 1 for every 250 points of strength.
- Rank has a larger effect at high strengths."
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So what does this all mean?

I've created a spreadsheet calculating some damage output and cost/hit figures for a variety of citizens. You can check it out here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqDPl14AiT07dEI1Rk9FdkhzSW1ta2JQbUxLaWlTZFE&hl=en

Please read the rest of this article first, or else the charts may not make sense. It might not make sense anyway 😁
Different influence outputs are shown throughout the gdoc. It is fairly haphazardly put together. Sorry about that.

I'll analyze the results in greater detail, but here are some key points:
- When not using wellness packs, Q3 weapons are the most cost efficient, at the moment. (Prices will invariably fluctuate. There are barely any Q1 weapons on the market right now, so that will change weapons prices moving into the future)
- When the cost of a wellness pack is added, Q5 weapons gives the most influence per money spent.
- Strength (and therefore Influence) is determined in large part by how long people have been playing eRep. A relatively light fighter like Pearlswine could out-tank our SuperTank ex-President Colin Lantrip, if each were given the same amount of gold to spend. Despite a difference of nearly 5 million points in Military Rank, Pearlswine has been playing since day 68 and has ~1000 more Strength points than Colin. Since Strength matters more than Rank, longevity matters more than past damage output.
- The disparity between the influence of high strength and low strength players is stark. So stark, that it calls for a complete shift in military strategy.
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Wut Wut?

I once read a forum thread talking about how One Eye calculated that in V1 it would be more cost effective to give every citizen (if every citizen would be a good little soldier and FIGHT) 5 Q1 weapons than to pay for Q5 weapons and wellness packs (then limited per day per citizen) for super-tanks. Maybe I misread the post. I can't find it now.

Regardless, THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE. The fact that Q5 weapons do 5 hits now instead of the 1 hit they would do in V1, makes a big difference.

When the cost of a house is taken into consideration (for healing purposes of the first few fights that a citizen can do without having to pay to replenish with food), it is more cost efficient for the military to give a super-tank a Q5 weapons and 0.5 gold for a wellness pack (which are not limited right now) than to provide a Q5 weapon and 10 wellness worth of food money for the average soldier.

Using jankems as an eUS super-tank baseline, here are how the numbers break down:

jankems
Cost (in G) of Q5 weapon + Wellness pack: ~0.666
Strength: 2726.95
Military Rank: 40 (General*😉
Influence per 1G spent: ~2067

The "Break Even with jankems" Soldier
Cost (in G) of Q5 weapons + 10 wellness of foo😛 ~0.236
Strength (needed to match the efficiency of WP funding jankems): 965
Rank (ditto): 35 (Colonel😉
Influence per 1G spent: ~2070

Of course, the strength and rank can vary to reach the same efficiency point, but if strength goes down, the rank needs to be higher and vice-versa. Basically these calculations mean it is more cost efficient for the military to fund jankems to use wellness packs than give Q5 weapon and food support to any soldier with less than 1000 strength. If the equation is shifted to Q1 weapons (and this is shown on the gdoc), a soldier needs over 1300 strength to be worth funding.

There are very few Emerickans that can match the influence output of jankems. Unless I'm mistaken, he has the highest current output for anyone with eUS citizenship.
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Dawn of the Age of the Timezone Tanks?

So just give jankems a ton of weapons and gold right?

No, obviously.

One person can't be awake all day to fight. Nor can they click fast enough to win large contested battles on their own in the last minute.

But.

The data clearly shows that anyone with more than 2000 strength is invaluable to a nation for efficient fighting, while anyone with less than 1000 strength is mathematically useless. Having about 220 strength myself, I feel this hard. Before the strength migration, I could do about 180 influence per hit with a Q5 weapon. Jankems could do about 500. Now, I can do about 160, while jankems is able to do close to 1400. That's a huge difference.

Using the max strength booster (along with the 20% booster from invited friends), a citizen can raise their strength by 1000 in 63 days. This would cost: 67.77 Gold (112.77 Gold minus the 10 treasure maps, which I value at 4.5G each). If you add in two Hard Worker medals, the cost ends at 58.77G. If the 50% booster is used, the cost becomes negligible (you can make your money back in the long run), but it will take twice as long to increase your strength. All the while, it is virtually guaranteed that the top soldiers will be using the max booster each day. Catching up will be costly and take a long time. [EDIT: With the daily bonus for working and training, it actually would take about 59 days to increase Strength by 1000. With bonuses from "missions" this number would likely be even lower, possibly down to about 50 days (but still very costly)]

If the logistics made sense, the smartest thing that any military could do is to make a list of perhaps their 10 best tanks, make sure that one can be online at all times, and funnel military funding only to those soldiers. Taking things a step further, if this type of thing could be organized centrally by EDEN (yes, I know we are not a member, this is purely a hypothetical), it could be ensured that the best available online global super tanks receive funding for the most needed battles. In a weird insurance-pool kind of way, this could ensure that the military budgets of allied countries are being spent in the most cost-effective way to win battles.

Of course, like I've said, the logistics don't make sense, but on paper, this is the conclusion of my data collection. At the very least, it would make sense for military organizations to "trim the fat" a bit in terms of enrollment and set the bar higher for joining different branches. Hell, as far as I can tell, it only makes sense to have a military of about 30 or 50 top tanks, and the Training Corp should focus more on funneling new citizens into the political and media arenas, since it will take many many months for a new citizen to be any sort of useful on the battlefield. I want to make it clear that I'm not actively advocating or pursuing this idea. I'm no longer a member of the government. These are simply my conclusions, as a private citizen, based on the calculations and evidence I have seen so far (and I'm sure that I haven't yet seen the full picture).

The new system is the complete opposite of the V2 module, where large amounts of forces were needed to fill up the battlefield map. Also, the idea of "Timezone Tanks" only makes sense because there is no limit on wellness packs. I'm still split about whether a limit should be set, and I'm leaning against no. I'll explain why below.
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In Closing

Yea, this change sucks for me, but this isn't a protest article. I'll keep clicking along no matter what. I feel fairly emasculated after achieving three Battle Hero medals before the skill migration and likely never being able to get another since a super tank can surpass my maximum daily damage in about four hits, but this is the way things should be. I remember V1, when Battle Heroes were looked at like gods. We're heading back in that direction (just as I'm writing this, jankems and NicoSianipar each won Battle Hero medals in Southern Thailand with roughly 100k influence each).

Without any wellness packs, my max daily influence is about 5.5k, and it costs a fortune to reach that (with the only tangible gain from such labor now being higher exp). I feel mortal, once again, and I think it's a good thing. It will either lead to more specialization, as younger players focus more on politics and media to carve a niche, or it will lead to more ragequits.

Few people will admit it, but this change is for the best. We need heroes. In V2, wars were won by the faceless masses. In V1.5 (the common nomenclature for the current mini-battle war module), anyone and their mother could get a Battle Hero. Now? I'm not sure what V we are in (although it should be something new, because the strength migration represents a massive shift in the way war works), but the old V1 super tanks are back and more important to a nation's success than ever before.

Sure, I won't get a BH anytime soon. But war heroes will rise up. Josh Frost, jankems, Colin Lantrip, and others from around the world will lead the way, to victory and into our hearts. And that is well worth the price of being militarily irrelevant once again.

Best,
CRoy

Please leave a comment if you have something to add, critique, correct, or question. I'll try to respond to as many as possible.