Compendium of eRepublik history: Serbia Part I

Day 1,736, 06:50 • Published in United Kingdom Serbia • by Dio Maximus


Click here for: Requiem for a dream by Clint Mantsell
Introduction
There are some events in the history of eRepublik that are naturally viewed as accompanied by a full orchestra playing a grandiose Beethoven symphony; some events are just seen that way, as a grand accomplishment of previous planning. It is odd to see the events actually happen, and in the course of one's everyday eRepublik life it truly is quite a monumental moment.

I've established this newspaper in a attempt to recall and archive personal memories and those of my in-game friends of the geopolitical events that shaped the history of this game. This will be a series of articles in memory of great battles, empires, strategic moves and similar occurrences which left a mark in our memories. Since the articles will most probably turn out to be extremely longer than expected, nation histories will be divided into three sensibly sized articles instead of one excessively large.

I'll start first with Serbia, as I've spent quite some time there from 2009 to 2011, when I parted eRepublik. Most of the Serbs themselves have long forgotten about the early days of Serbia, as most of the veterans have either quit playing or went on a self-imposed hiatus of 2-clicking.
Birth of a nation

Our story begins sometime in December 2008, when a first significant concentration of eRepublik Serbs arrived in then scarcely populated Austria, which served as a staging ground for players who were seeking introduction of their own countries in eRepublik v1. Serb immigrants took the reigns of power into their own hands by taking control of congress and most of the Austrian government. This was significant as the Serb community proved it's numbers and organization to the administrators as it gathered around one party for the first time, and the admins announced their introduction of Serbia to the eRepublik in short notice. 12th February was the date when Serbia was first introduced into the game, three days before the real life statehood anniversary. However trouble soon followed as some players apparently took some of the Austrian gold and money from the Austrian state treasury. Shortly, most of the eSerbian players moved to their long awaited nation.

Almost immediately after Serbia's introduction to the game, troubles ensued with their somewhat "older" neighbors; Croatia and Romania. Romania was already considered a military powerhouse, and it proved to be a constant thread to Serbia's existence on the map (the only thing that protected Serbia was an admin ban on attacks against newly created countries). Running and maintaining a completely new nation proved to be increasingly difficult in the beginning. It was extremely harder then running a well-established one. Early Serbian government encountered some strange problems of economic nature. The country was overrun by opportunists and schemers who created multi - accounts to bleed out the national currency and starve the nation (reduction of minimum citizen fee wasn't possible), others however opted for the more lucrative option of establishing companies, severely underpaying it's employing whilst overpricing most products. International money-makers came to Serbia, and the speculation with the national currency on the monetary market was by then unavoidable, but luckily enough it was stopped after a week or two of hard conditions.
The first takeover
Most of the opportunists that almost ruined the economy were the neighbor Croats. After the initial "welcoming party", a larger then normal concentration of Croatian "talking banks" and players (the infamous ZDRUG unit) appeared in Serbia. Two fake parties (TO parties) were established, one Croatian, and unfortunately, the other never identified to a satisfactory certainty, but Iranian name was tossed around. First congressional elections drew closer and the Serb establishment grew increasingly nervous as the eligible voters were numbered around two hundred- number small enough for a successful political takeover. A bitter political battle ensued, among other things the Croatians changed their party name to look like the sole Serbian party (adding a full-stop at the end of it's name) in an attempt to mislead voters and steal some votes. In addition to that move, several Croatian players released a plethora of misleading articles trying to deceive younger and inexperienced players that they are the real Serbian party. Heated battle of arguments, comments, shouts and a lot of bans (multies,flaming etc.) followed the articles.

Serbs eventually emerged victorious, but unfortunately this was just the start of their troubles. They won by the slimmest margin, 22 seats to 18. As the TO-ers proposed detrimental laws, the Serbs celebrated and started passing beneficial laws for the citizenry (fee,taxes, moving money to the national bank, etc). During these elections there were several TO attempts around the world and Serbia was the only country that was able to defend itself. The fact that by the end there were over 400 votes cast (200% voter turnout rate) just goes to show how grandeur this political battle was.
Second, or the successful TO
However the Croatian TO team didn't falter in it's resolve to completely take over and eventually destroy Serbia. In a moment of anger, responding to Croatian inflammatory remarks, the sole Serbian presidential candidate flamed a Croatian player in a personal message. The recipient saved the message and reported the Serb which landed him a permanent ban (due to him already having forfeit points) The ban fell on the Serbs in a most unfortunate moment, just hours away from the beginning of the first presidential elections. And, in a weird twist of fate, a Croat became the first president of Serbia by default. Political instability followed and the interim government was formed to cope with the crisis, as national companies were stolen, and people in the congress got banned or simply quit the game giving the Croatian TO team complete rule over Serbia.

Borkan, Croat in the presidential seat, soon declared war on Croatia and attacked their original territory in order to activate the numerous ATLANTIS mutual protection pacts on their side. Croats soon attacked back, and "Serbian" president simply pressed retread every time the Croatian army attacked. Four territories including Vojvodina (only Serbian high grain territory) was lost this way. The fifth fell without the pressing of retreat button as Serbia's small army was no match for the Atlantis war machine. Croats then attacked the remaining, sixth territory, but hastily retreated every time, using the remaining area of Serbia as an ATLANTIS targeting practice area.

To be continued.


A dead leftist poet