Understanding Military Game Mechanics

Day 2,600, 11:07 Published in USA USA by Gnilraps

A Soldier's Things (Mandatory listening)
Day 2600 of the New World
January 2, 2014



by Gnilraps




In my last article, I explained how Strength, Rank, and Experience combine to influence your career as an eRepublik Citizen. The main thrust of that article was to increase your strength while avoiding an increase in Experience.

Today I want to go over the basics of the Military Mechanics. Here you will learn more about why I made such a wild assertion as to avoid gaining XP.

This article will not examine Military Game Mechanics from a step-by-step approach. Instead we will discuss each type of click and consider the thoughts that should go into making them.

We will discuss the following types of clicks:

General Clicks:
Strength Training
Fight
Rocket Production and Rocket Firing in Battle
Bombs
Consuming Food and Energy Bars

Military Unit Clicks:
Daily Orders
Combat Orders
Regiment Captain

Contest Clicks:
Missions
Weekly Challenges

Medals:
Freedom Fighter
Mercenary
Super Soldier
Battle Hero
Campaign Hero
Top Fighter
True Patriot

Wars Page:
Symbols and what they mean

and Influence vs. Damage

That’s a lot, I know, and this article will be long. I will be as brief as possible, counting on the successful Citizen to already a rudimentary knowledge of the FIGHT button.






Strength Training
http://www.erepublik.com/en/economy/training-grounds

This is listed first in this article because it is MOST IMPORTANT. You can skip everything else about eRepublik, but you should never skip this. In fact, I have advised many successful Citizens to forsake all other clicks except Strength Training for months at a time. Every single one of them has thanked me for that advice. Do your Strength Training.

There are slightly varied opinions on the best route for upgrading/training. But two things are unarguable:

First, don’t spend any Gold on ANYTHING in eRepublik until you’ve AT LEAST upgraded your “Weights Room” - the cost-free Training Grounds (TG).



Second, save your Gold until eRepublik offers a discount for upgrading TGs, then upgrade your Weights Room as far as you can. Eventually it will be Q4. The image above shows a Q4 TG.

After that, opinions vary on what order to upgrade the remainder. Here’s my advice:

Upgrade your Climbing Center (0.19g to train) to Q4 before you begin training in it. Once it is upgraded to Q4, you will actually make Gold by training in it daily. This has been mathematically proven.



Basically, once it’s fully upgraded, it will produce 250 Strength before you’ve spent 5 Gold. And at 250 Strength you earn a 5 Gold reward. So this is clearly the second goal: Upgrade the Climbing Center to Q4.

Next upgrade your Shooting Range and Special Forces all the way to Q4 before you begin using them for training. There is no sense spending gold training in them when doing so will only slow down your rate of upgrading them. Nothing in this game is more important than fully upgraded Training Grounds.

My advice? Don’t train in either of them until they are both fully upgraded.


Fight

The Fight button in the battlefield screen actually does several things at once.

First, it will attempt to “hit” your enemy as many times as needed to kill him. If you are using a higher Q weapon, fewer hits will be needed. If you are using a Bazooka, only one hit will be needed. In either case, only one click of the Fight button was needed.

The exception to this is if you run out of energy in your meter before you made enough hits to kill your enemy. You should avoid this happening if possible. If it does happen, try to wait until your energy bar is ready to have 10 (or 20) energy added by eating. Then try to finish off your enemy. If the current battle ends with a half-killed enemy, you will have lost the hits you expended trying to kill him.

Second, the Fight button begins consuming 10 units of energy per hit. It does this by Reducing the amount of remaining energy you have to work with. (Remember, a “unit” of Health is not the same as a unit of Food. See: http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Customization_level

Third, the Fight button will add 1 XP to your running total for each hit against your enemy. Because of the importance of minimizing your XP increase, you should never fight with anything other than a Q7 tank. If you cannot fight with a Q7, skip fighting.

Fourth, after the enemy has been killed, Rank points are added to your total, True Patriot (TP) points are added if applicable, Prestige and Damage points are added to your Weekly Challenge total, a Kill is added to your kills total and to any of the counters that keep track of kills (more on these in the Medals section below).

Rocket Production

Generally, you should be ignoring the building of Rocket factory and subsequent upgrades until your TG are fully upgraded. By then you probably won’t need my advice. So I’ll keep this short.

Rockets do not “pay” off in terms of cost/damage. However, they can help you secure a Battle Hero medal if things get tight in the final minutes. Other than that, Rockets should rarely be used except by the wealthy. Particularly, Q4 Rockets are a total disaster.

My best advice, keep one produced rocket in inventory and enough materials to make another. Then never use them unless you are fighting to protect a Battle Hero (BH) medal. Even then, fire them very late in the battle.

Side note: I downgraded my Rocket Factory a long time ago.


Bombs

Bombs are prizes that are given either with Combat and Assault Packs, during Weekly Challenges, occasionally as prizes for winning a BH or Campaign Hero (CH) medal, or during the accomplishment of certain missions.

Bombs expire, so they are used differently than Rockets. Bombs should be used to help provide damage in meaningful battles, to establish yourself early in pursuit of a BH run, or in True Patriot battles where they will pay a decent return. They can also capture large chunks of money when Combat Orders are particularly high. More on Combat Orders later.


http://i57.servimg.com/u/f57/17/04/81/58/rocket10.png
This image shows from left to right the Rocket, Small Bomb, and Big Bomb buttons as they appear on the Battlefield.

Important Note: Although Bombs do expire after 30 days, every time you add a new Bomb to your inventory, all bombs in your inventory of the same type automatically refresh their 30-day expiration. So as long as Bombs continue to be made available, you can continue to stockpile them in inventory.

Consuming Food

Food is converted into Energy based on the Health benefit of each Food type. See this link http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Customization_level

Your Energy Meter will fall as your Energy is consumed by Fighting. When your Energy Meter is at 0 and you still have Energy in reserve, you can Eat. (This is true in or out of Battle). This is what the “Eat” button looks like on the battlefiel😛

http://i57.servimg.com/u/f57/17/04/81/58/eat10.png
If it changes to a picture of an Energy Bar (E😎, clicking it will consume both food and an energy bar. Don’t do this unless you know what you are doing.

Essentially, consuming EB’s should be done for one of two reasons:

Either because you’ve got no other way to complete your Daily Order (DO) because you must log off or day change is impending…

Or because you’re consuming them en masse in pursuit of some prize. I don’t recommend doing this at all in D1, sparingly in D2, and (especially if you are a newer player who has followed my advice) extensively in D3. By D4 you better not need my advice.




Daily Orders (DO)

Your MU (if you are not in one, get in one. Send me a PM and I’ll help you) will establish a DO. These Orders appear on your eRepublik Home screen.

If you are going to do any fighting in your first months in eRepublik (and congratulations if you’ve decided to avoid fighting and focus solely on Strength Training!), then it should only be for completing your DO.

It’s simple. Just make 25 kills in the linked battle, then return to your home screen to collect your reward of 1 EB and 1 Bazooka. (Save these, don’t spend them).

My advice is to never make more than ONLY these 25 kills per day during your days in D1. If you will do this, by the time you’re about to matriculate to D2 you’ll be scoring BH medals in D1 with very little difficulty.

But if you can restrain yourself from doing these 25 kills, pat yourself on the back. Every day you do Strength Training without adding additional XP by fighting is a good day.

Also, do not attempt to complete a DO unless you have enough Q7 tanks in inventory. If you don’t have enough, either ask for some more or wait for another day. Just don’t get stuck with 21 kills and no weapons left.

Combat Orders (CO)

Sometimes you will see a small red number on the right hand side of the battlefield. This indicates a CO is in effect. (If the number is grey, the CO is not active).

Clicking the small box turns the CO green. If the terms of the CO are met, you will make an amount of USD according to the Influence you do in that battle.

Sometimes you can make decent money this way. Most CO do not pay enough to go chasing them. Some MUs (like Easy Company {EZC}) use CO regularly to help supply their soldiers.

Regiment Captain

Each Regiment of an MU has a designated Captain who is capable of setting DO’s under certain circumstances. If you are interested in serving as a Captain, it is best to become active in your MU’s community life. The MU shout wall is a good place to start.





Generally, contests are a tempting come-on to start clicking the Fight button way more than you ought to. Restrain yourself with this reminder: There will ALWAYS be another contest in eRepublik, and you will gain far more[/] while spending far less when you have gained higher Strength.


Missions

When a Mission is introduced, look for the Strength rewards. These are usually worth clicking for. The other rewards are almost always worth much less than what it will cost you to pursue them.

Early in your game, eRepublik guides you through the learning curve by providing Missions. It is best to let these come naturally and slowly. Don’t let them lure you into overclicking the fight button or overspending your assets. Especially with these early missions, they don’t go away, so what’s the rush?

Weekly Challenge

eRepublik has resorted to Weekly Challenges to stimulate activity. They dangle a variety of rewards for Citizens in exchange for clicking. For new players, none of the rewards is worth more than the value of avoiding them. For more experienced players, they can be part of a strategic run at a goal and can be considered valuable. Weekly Challenges reset on the day change between Monday and Tuesday.

So my advice to new players is to ignore the Weekly Challenge until you are XP level 30 or so.





Until you reach level 30, you should ignore the pursuit of Military related medals. Pursuing them only involves doing more fighting than is wise. Remember the primary principle: Avoid XP.

Freedom Fighter (FF)
note: “FF” is also used to refer to “Food Fights” - the fights you can do without consuming an EB. This article is using FF to mean Freedom Fighter. Also, since FF is about to convert from a Gold prize to a cash prize, I will refer to it herein as a cash reward.

This medal trades cash for Kills. Your first 5 FF medals will be relatively easy to gain with relatively fewer clicks, so they are not a bad way to spend your Bazookas when you’ve saved enough for the job. Since Zooks are one-hit-one-kill, the impact on your XP is minimal.

But let’s say you decide you are going to invest your clicks specifically for the FF task. You should just focus on a Resistance War (RW) that is already clearly being won by the Resistance. Don’t waste clicks. (If you can double up by putting your clicks into a Resistance where you have no previous kills, you will add a notch to your Mercenary Medal.)

By hovering over the FF medal on your Profile page, you will see information telling you what you’ve accomplished and what you’ve got left.

Mercenary

As I just indicated, you will eventually stumble into a decent number of the 50 nations you need to accumulate for the 1000cc prize.

In order to get 25 kills for 50 nations, you will be doing quite a bit of moving. For this reason it can be an expensive Medal to pursue. You can easily spend more than 1,000 USD in pursuit of it. It’s possible to spend less, but you have to think very strategically.

Q5 Moving Tickets are a very wise way to reduce the expense of pursuing this medal, as they can usually be purchased for little more than $20, but can be worth up to $100 depending on how far you have to move.

All in all, though, Merc medals are expensive to pursue.

For this reason I will simply say: the newer player should not pursue the Mercenary Medal until he has achieved XP level 27 or so.

Super Soldier (SS) Medal

This medal will take care of itself. It basically pays you Gold for training. The faster you can accumulate 250 Strength, the faster you’ll get another SS.

For more information about how to accumulate Strength wisely, see my previous article.

Battle Hero (BH) medal

This is awarded to the player in each Division who accumulates the highest total Influence during a single Mini-Battle. Newer players should be advised accordingly.

If you shoot your wad in pursuit of a BH too early in your career, you will set your Citizen way back in terms of overall progress. It is truly “fools gold”.

So don’t pursue a BH medal until you can score enough influence by doing only 25 or 30 kills to be within a rocket or bomb of winning the BH. Even then, you should be sure your potential competition isn’t waiting to race you. Getting goaded into throwing more clicks into a battle simply to chase a BH is generally a bad idea. In D1 you should only score a BH when it is easy to do so. Remember, all those Fight clicks increase your XP and that is bad.

Campaign Hero (CH) Medal[\u]

In order to win a CH medal you have to have done the most Influence over the course of an entire Military Campaign. This will cost you FAR MORE than 5G worth of resources to accomplish. For that reason, I advise against pursuing CH medals until you are wealthy ingame.

Top Fighter (TF) Medal

Even more extravagant than the CH is the TF. To be awarded this medal you must be in the top 100 of all Citizens Worldwide on 30 different days. This requires literally billions of Influence.

Ignore.

True Patriot (TP) Medal

You should avoid overclicking to achieve the TP medal because it will always just eventually come to you. But if you find a MU which favors TP DO’s you can earn some decent cash this way.

This medal trades cash for Influence, specifically in battles for your home country. But since they reward cash currency and not Gold, it is most advantageous for you to wait as long as possible before making them an actual focus of your routine. Remember when you’ve gained more strength, that Influence will come in larger chunks. This means the reward will be worth relatively more later than it is worth sooner.

To put it more clearly, the stronger you are when you pursue this medal the fewer clicks you will need to achieve it.

There is never any competition for TP cash, so it will eventually come to you. For that reason the successful Citizen will generally keep an eye out for battles involving eUSA.





Symbols and what they mean



1 - The yellow-highlighted battle indicates that battle which the Country President has selected as the currently most important battle involving one of eUSA's allies. If you really have the urge to fight, fight there.

2 - A small checkmark next to a flag indicates an ally of eUSA

3 - Clicking this Fight button does not actually cause you to fight, it merely takes you to the Battlefield where the real Fight button appears.

4 - Battles in the "USA's Campaigns" are battles which you can fight in without having to move your citizen.

5 - Battles in the "All Campaigns" section are battles which will require your citizen to move. This will cost you either a moving ticket or cash.

6 - The small box with red numbers appears when a Resistance War is effected by "Determination". To read more about Determination, click this link: http://forum.erepublik.com/index.php?/topic/1817-empires-determination-updated/

7 - The small red star with a white fist indicates a Resistance War.

8 - The red circle with a number indicates that a CO is in effect for that battle. Simply hover over it and you will see all the information you need regarding that CO

9 - Ignore this. It's here just to see if you are reading.

10 - The picture of a tank is cool. It does nothing (Unless you install a special script for Chrome or Firefox which is technically illegal so you won't read anything in my guides about googling "Stuff++" because... well, there I went and mentioned it.)

11 - If one of eUSA's allies is involved in a battle, you will be able to fight in it without moving.

Influence vs. Damage

Influence is the amount of points your Citizen adds to the accumulating total of the side you are fighting for. It calculated as follows:

I = 10 × (1 +S/400) × (1 +R/5) × (1 +FirePower/100)

I: Influence on the hit
R: Value of the Rank
S: Strength
This formula simply means that increasing your strength, rank, and using Q7 weapons will yield ever-increasing Influence.

Damage is not the same. It has to do with how many hits you require to kill an enemy. Here is the Damage formula:

D = (60 + ((S1-S2)/10)) × (1 + (Your FirePower-Enemys FirePower)/400) / 2

😨 Damage
S1: Your Strength
S2: Enemy's Strength

So to get the greatest number of kills with the least number of clicks (and aside from using Bazookas), Q7 weapons are critically important. You can’t control who you fight in Battle. You can control what weapon you bring and you can control your Strength.

Daily Military Goals
in order of importance

Strength Training - Daily. Always.
Daily Order - Maybe. Always OK to pass.
Combat Orders - Rarely worth chasing if you are a new player. Great if they coincide with your DO.
Check inventory - Never carry fewer than 10 Q7 weapons - enough to complete your DO.
Chase Medals - Rarely. Some almost never.
Chase Contests - Rarely until you have leveled up past XP level 27.



As always I remain available to assist any newer players with any questions they may have.



(Custom) Tracker courtesy of Mike Ontry's Hit Tracker.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled clicking