Where is the Downside to War?
Day 1,738, 04:45
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Satya Yuga
"Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided."
-- Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Star Trek: A Taste of Armageddon
One thing I've noticed about these browser games is that there is no downside to war. In RL, war is a terrible thing. People die, property gets destroyed, physical and mental turmoil (which needs to be repaired) occurs to both the military and civilian population. In eRepublik, with the new rockets and bombs, you have radiation levels which would normally make a region's resources unusable as well as residential and industrial areas.
One addition that could address this, and spur the economy, is the ability for individual players to build Private Clinics as an additional option to Hospitals. Food would be used to revive energy, but there needs to be a possibility of a player getting wounded. These wounds could be repaired over a subsequent number of visits to private clinics.
With the effect of war on the civilian population, make the presence of Hospitals a necessity. Without so many Hospitals in existence, you would have less people in your labor force, resulting in less raw material bonuses. The number of Hospitals needed in a region, and how the labor force is impacted, could be determined by the amount of damage that occurred in the region.
In a captured/occupied region you would have usable resources at a lower level due to battle-related damage. You would have a decrease in worker morale, which would lead to a lower productivity in the workplace.
What about the effect of war on our own Food and Weapons Companies? Where are they located? When I TANK to defend the region, in the Citizenship Country where my companies are located, whether we win or lose, you don't think that the opposing side won't notice my TANKing and attempt to destroy the companies I own in retribution?
The millions of influence of damage that we see committed by each side in a region should have a profound impact on people, as well as property, residing in that region. Why don't we ever see it?
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Please vote and comment! I actually put some thought into this article. =^)
Great article. Like you say, if a region is heavily fought there should be manifest consequences of this. Having a period where the regions resources is depleted for a set number of days depending upon how heavy the fighting was would be a nice addition, as would the reduced worker productivity. It would create an entirely new motive for attacking somewhere.
Well, it could be that "war" is just a word or concept applied here. Just like it is with "country" and "tanks" and "food." Basically, eRep is a resource management game where one side tries to produce more points than the other side, so they can possibly take away some of the point production on the other side.
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The gameskin could easily be "HungryHungryHippos" or "Tug-of-War Pacman" and the mechanics would still be the same. Only the elections and the articles are something 'real' in a sense.
That's probably not what you meant with this article, but it would explain why there is no real approximation of war in this game ~ just the use of its name to describe a barely related set of actions.
Chess is supposed to represent military conflict, too, right?
The downside is it would victimise countries like Albania, Bosnia etc. who can only just make a small congress each month. What we're talking about here, i.e. damage to infrastructure, would create a further massive challenge for countries like that, who every time they regained an original region would find it in ruins. Ofcourse it would also make their regions less attractive to greedy neighbours who'd be aware damage to the region's infrastructure has offset any potential reward in bonuses.
Had this conversation years ago when Bonte was comparing eRep to Civ for investors.
Civ it ain't, and never will be.
Plain fact is, they cba doing anything, why should they, money keeps kerchinging in on the basics alone. v2 was a short foray into making things "logical &sensible", and we all saw how that worked out.
Ideas are cool, but they're never gonna happen here.
This is actually very good idea....
That would make this game much more interesting then Q9 weapons..
Glad to read the thoughtful comments. Any other insights? Bring 'em on!
Great article as always. It would be interesting to see the results if your ideas were put into action.
This is actually very good idea....
x2
It WOULD make the game more interesting.
Ideas are cool, but they're never gonna happen here.
x2
It will happen for one simple reason: this model is overproductive and thus the prices are falling. Destruction helps a recovery of the economy ( or science). voted!
while i find most the ideas intriguing most likely not feasible within a game like this the one thing i like and have thought for a while that you should be able to incorporate is the hospitals again...
increase something else in the market worth buying lol....
use it either for a faster regeneration of health( ie 30 or 45 mins to regen 100 health instead of 60mins), or total increase of health...as long as you have a hospital in your inventory...make them last a couple days
kinda like a
v + s
nice idea
Plugson
Day 1,738, 04:59.
"Chess is supposed to represent military conflict, too, right?"
Chess = War inspired game.
Checkers = eRep
I guarantee if you implemented half of what you suggest 95% of people playing eRep would quit because they wouldn't understand it. Hence we have the "upgraded" version of eRep sans strategy. (I refer you to the former econ mod.)
Had a part of my mind kick in while I was out. 'Go' is the ultimate strategy game, or so it is said. Supposed to make chess look like a game of Old Maid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)
Damned eRepublik! Copy/paste the whole thing to go to the correct site.
Parts of this use to exist, I think. But Plato has spent the last 2 years dumbing down this game.
Go, is a game I've been wanting to learn to play for the longest time now, but I've never made the time to do so. Time to look for a tutorial.
The idea of "collateral" damage in warfare is great:
1.) Balkanese nations would think twice before they attack themselves endlessly in fruitless wars because they would see that wars are no fun and ruin the own economy/nation.
2.) Conquest wars will be expensive for the conqueror too because he will be forced to build up conquered regions again before he could make profit out of this provinces.
3.) How about the population factor in a nation at war?
- soldiers are workers who out of the circle of productivity of a nation, a nation at war ever has a suffering economy.
So this article is very interesting and shows, how much potential a "simple" game could have. It could be a real "life" simulation if the admins wouldnt only think of making money.
* with poopy missions!
Thoughtful article, good for you!
Risk, Sim City, the original Warcraft, not that role-playing game, I like the Real Time Strategy and resource manadgement games.
Logistics aren't covered in almost any of the strategy games. Supply lines are infinate. My dawg Courage invented a few different strategy games in RL.
This is a little insight on my experience.
Most of the new player think this it's too hard already. It really isn't. We make it that way with the metagame.
Also, only buying gold will motivate Plato.
"Most of the new player think this it's too hard already. It really isn't. We make it that way with the metagame." x2
Keeping in mind what Ulysses101164 has said, the process of destruction and rebuilding would require the expenditure of Gold, therefore the more Gold that would need to be purchased from Plato.
Because in this game there are no Civilians...
It would be cool to add WarGames type stats.. Like cities destroyed, buildings and #'s of causalities make it a higher reward, or higher risk/harder to do for area's with large populations... Awesome lets add in a body count feature.. Ok really now, is all that necessary?
@TheNorm: Why not civilians? NPCs are a common feature in games. Why not include them here? I'm reminded of the novel "REAMDE" by Neal Stephenson where, in the game T'Rain, a character's reputation would drop because he would fail to acknowledge greetings by other characters. In "Daemon" and "Freedom (TM)" by Daniel Suarez, participants in the Darknet would get feedback ratings and reasons for those ratings.
This facilitates the lesson that actions have consequences. I believe that this is something that needs to be reinforced in the gaming world. Sure, in HuungryHungrHippos, it doesn't matter what, or how many of something, you eat. But in a war game, I don't believe that this is the case.
V+S interesting article and hope it is a real "game changer"