We lost the war, and a Failure of Intelligence

Day 876, 06:44 • Published in Australia Australia • by Aeros

As much as I really hate to admit it, the results of the Admins decision with regards to Western Australia means that our war is over for now. I am sure that the way things ended have got many of us thinking this.




I would be lying if I was not thinking the same thing. I’ve been in eRepublik since August of last year, so I have experienced all the pain and suffering that comes from the games war module errors Yes, the war module is utter crap, and yes, Admins did roll Australia over a barrel with this decision. To admit that there was a problem and then say they were not going to do anything about it is probably enough to make many of us want to quit. However, I also have to put things into a certain perspective.

This game is highly addictive for one simple reason. It allows you to try and make something of your country (or adoptive country as the case may be) and through a little effort start to dominate the community. One need only look to Poland to see how sometimes the stars can align. As a country, Poland is no more populated then Australia is, yet they have the largest in game population. There is nothing to prevent the same thing happening here. All that needs be done is a little effort to get the attention of RL Australians. True, the Polish baby boom may very well have been one in a million, but you don’t get bread by praying for the flour and water to bake themselves. You have to make it yourself.

I think what really bugs people about the bugs in the game (sheer poetry) is that we can see the awesome potential of this idea. At times, we can almost taste that awesomeness. The concept of a community based game where you can take a country and try to forge it into a world power is a fascinating concept, and to be honest, there is no other game like eRepublik out there. Well, maybe eJahan, but they are just a bunch of bitter Persians who could not hack it in the Canadian campaign here. So instead of viewing this as the end of the world, I’ll take this knock like I took all the others and learn from it.

1. For starters, in highly important battles we should always keep fighting/tanking until the fight button is disabled. This battle has ended previous military thinking on time limitations and battle closure.

2. Regaining Western Australia should become our principle national goal, and all our efforts should be put towards that. Indonesia can’t keep begging for help to save their colony every other day. We just have to keep twisting the screws at random intervals and eventually they will break.


A FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE

As a final aside, I am going to talk about something I feel is seriously, seriously lacking amongst the various countries of eRepublik, and that is viable intelligence operations. Did you know that Australia apparently has an intelligence service? Raise your hand if you do. Rumor has it we do, but its “unconfirmed.” This is the same with most other countries as well. And let me tell you, its total, unequivocal Role Playing BS. How the hell are these agencies supposed to collect information if nobody knows they exist?


EDENs so called spies think they are this

Its really cool to believe that Intelligence Collection is all James Bond espionage, deep cover, etc. And while that may be cool, its utter crap. I could tell you more about what a country plans to do based just on the gold they send from their banking org and what their media is saying, then any deep cover operation. But more important then just these overt observations is the ability for people to be able to CONTACT the intelligence collectors. One time sources are the bread and butter of any intelligence service, but all our so called wannabe spies are too wrapped up in giving themselves code names that they can be bothered to actually reach out and connect with the community on a meaningful level.


Actually, they are more like this, though far less funny

The actions of our own Government with regards to the Indonesian peace treaty speaks volumes as to how inadequate our own nations intelligence collection and dissemination procedures are, and also how inadequate our connection with our own allies are with regards to sharing information (if they even have any).

To that end, I am debating whether or not to form my own independent agency, devoted to collection and observation on the Phoenix Alliance. Instead of everyone else, this group won’t be ZOMG SO SECRET that nobody can communicate with it, and more to the point, it will actually know what the hell its doing. Please PM if you think this is a good idea. I don’t want to go to all the trouble of trying to build this organization if there is no interest : )