To merge or not to merge?

Day 2,877, 15:11 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by Fhaemita The Apostate
Disclaimer:
This is a *personal* article written as eBelgium citizen and former president as well as former citizen and former president of eNetherlands and also former citizen of eUnited Netherlands. My opinions or what I write does not reflect my position as dictator of eBelgium, the government of eBelgium or eBelgium as a whole.

Recently a new party United Netherlands Party was launched. As the name implies one of their (main) stances is to reunited eNetherlands and eBelgium. This article is also a revisiting a topic I have written about before in an article with the same name To merge of not to merge. That was almost five years ago and this time I will take the opposite side, siding against such merger. In that five years a lot has changed the stances of the countries, alliances, the people and also very important the game mechanics.

For those who were not around back in 2009, eNetherlands and eBelgium for a time merged under the name United Netherlands The merger between the two countries was proposed because of a PTO threat by a spanish group who called themselves Las tropas imperiales who had taken the majority of the congress seats in eBelgium. Most of the citizens moved in United Netherlands but some left for the eUK. The merger lasted until Frebruary 2010 when a Romanian group who named themselves 'The Group' with the help of EDEN and by American Seal Team Six "liberated" eBelgium.


Game Mechanics

Since back in the day when our two countries were merged there have been some big changes one of those being the game mechanics. Back in the day a resistance war was much harder, one citizen has to pay 50 GOLD plus 0.25 GOLD per citizen residing in the region so if you knew a resistance war was going to be started you had to move as many people to that region to make it more expensive. Back then there was also no determination so it did not get easier when a region was held by another country for a very long time.

Would there be a merger in these times there would be a couple of problems. One of those are resistance wars, with determination resistance wars medals and freedom fighter medals we would be fighting resistance wars almost around the clock with no no chance of actually beating the resistance wars especially when determination is high and lots of people fighting for their freedom fighter and resistance wars medals. Although it would be good for true patriot it would we would not be able to help allies as much as we like or should.

Until recently before the new dictator addition to the game another problem was presidential elections, unlike in 2009 there are still presidential elections but now with the dictator the president has no power and it isn't a problem anymore. There need to be a dictator in the country that merges in the other, this makes that country very vulnerable for Military Take Overs. You would need to reset the determination of the dictatorship or you might face a Military Take Over and this goes for both the wiped country and the country that the other country merged into. All other elections also keeps going on but that is of lesser importance

The countries & communities

One of the main obstacles besides game mechanics are the difference stances of our two countries, eNetherlands is pro Asteria while eBelgium is on the opposite side. recently there was talk about a pro Asteria alliances that included eNetherlands and eBelgium but eBelgium decided not to join and went the opposite way because of Asteria countries having used eBelgium as a landing ground too often recently. Being on opposite sides makes a merger that more difficult one side would need to give up their position.

Both countries have their internal struggles and can hardly be called homogeneous both have factions. in eBelgium you have "the elite" and "the pto'ers" and in eNetherlands you also two sides although since Iron and Wine is only a shadow of what it used to be and Democratisch Netherlands moved more towards Revolution et Libertas and the fighting has become less prominent just as the fighting in eBelgium has become less prominent since installing a dictator.

If you merge you also have the questions of the Walloons, this was also an issue with the first merger. Many of them do not speak English or barely speak English. So even if you did everything in three languages Dutch, English and French there would still be a language barrier seeing discussion ingame, on the forum and irc are generally done in English. This would mean many of the Walloons would leave, most likely to French as many of them already do.

Merging would also mean all people from one country would have to get citizenship in the other country this would be quite the project because of people who not want to leave, people who disagree with the merger and do not want to leave, people who do not give a shit like two clickers. Merger would most likely mean just a small group of people those who are active would merge into the other and not even all of the active people will because under the active citizens you will have people who disagree. This will mean that most people will be left behind and making the merger most likely not even worth while.

Also new citizens are an issue, the last merger in 2009 it was easy people would get Netherlands citizen if a person started in a eBelgian region that was occupied by eNetherlands. Game Mechanics have changed and they would still get eBelgian citizenship. It would be very confusing for new citizens to explain why one country is "occupied" by the other. You would need to inform and educate new citizens of what is going on and even then there is a good chance they will not understand or agree.

Finally the issue of who is merging into who, like said the previous time eBelgium merged into the eNetherlands because of the Spanish PTO threat by spaniards. It would only be fair that if this would happen that that eNetherlands would be merging into eBelgium. This might be a sore point because of a lot citizens of eNetherlands especially those who want this merger are very nationalistic and I am not sure if they would agree with eNetherlands merging into eBelgium.

Solution?
Is there a solution? a Full merger like United Netherlands Party wants is in my opinion not an option. There are too many issues both with ingame game mechanics and the differences between the two countries. I do think there is a compromise a union like that of Germany and Denmark. Both countries work together very closely but both have their own dictator, president and government. Some of the issues that I listed earlier i this article will still be an issue but it would be a better solution than a full merger between our two countries.

The main difference would still be our countries being on different sides and I do not think either side is willing to compromise and willing to switch side for both countries are on the side that they are for a good reason. I start could be made with more cooperation of some sort but because of the differences in allegiances and allies that will even be very difficult. There have been months of cooperation between the two countries but it has not been stable or long term it always dependent on who was president. Some presidents wanted to cooperate some wanted war between our two countries so peace and cooperation never lasted long.

Who knows eventually some day in the future, I do think small countries like us should stick together but for now I do not see this happening anytime soon.


Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.



Former President of eBelgium
Former President of eNetherlands
Former citizens of eUnited Netherlands