[DoE] The Unexpected Tide of eRepublik

Day 2,677, 18:14 • Published in USA USA • by Department of Citizen Affairs

by Wooky Jack

Dafuq is iNCi?

Before I get started I had a few things to consider. First, I would need a tl;dr version. Second, I would present the colossus movement of that which took this game by storm. The perspective I am presenting is mainly from an eUSA perspective. Constructive criticism is of course appreciated. This presentation is also mainly for my own edification because I knew very little about the group. Not to mention it is a major part of eUSA history and new players probably run into an owl avatar in many places not knowing what the heck it means.

Its also arguable that other movements may have been larger or more important, but what's relevant to this story is that it directly affected eUSA. (Also, gnilraps’ recent articles prompted me to seek out something fun and interesting to research and write about...since not much else is going on in this game.) I am presenting facts, opinions and resources in this piece. If you feel something is inaccurate or needs tweaking just let me know and I can look into making an adjustment. Otherwise, the accounts and details given are mostly from first hand experience by players who were willing to participate in providing me information to write this article.

tl;dr?

Some RL (real life) Turks from some site similar to 4chan (incisozluk [DOT] com) found erepublik, amassed one of the largest communities this game has ever seen, visited eUSA (or invaded depending on your perspective), and then the tide receded back to nothingness because Plato pissed off most of them. The end.
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For everyone else, prepare to get your feet wet…



The Unexpected Tide of Erepublik



Paul Proteus “Inci was terrifying at the time, it was the first time there was a true external threat to the eUS and we were afraid and somewhat confused, inci turned out to be, in a lot of ways, an interesting and productive group, but the initial fear and distrust characterized that relationship for a while, and also affected our election procedures providing a sort of precedent to our more recent unity measures.”

Dave Trenga ” I believe that everyone feared iNCi at first. They came into the game as an already organized entity (or so it seemed). And when they started entering other countries than turkey the PTO lamps were flashing, and as far as I remember USA had some issues. But even there they got fully integrated both as political party and their MU was one of USA's strongest weapons at some point. So I would say that iNCi was a positive movement in and for erep while they were here.”

Wild Owl ”I think it was an interesting concept that brought its own color and charm to eRepublik. While some of iNCi's tactics were definitely condemnable, they played the game for fun and made it enjoyable and amusing for many people. I believe that the loss of most of this community, and honestly of any player, is a significant loss for eRepublik.”

dmjohnston ”I was in eUS military (when it was still official) at the time, and initially there was a pretty strong protectionist mentality. We weren't allowed to accept them into Training Corps, stuff like that. That sentiment thawed a bit over time. The biggest issue that really comes with any mass immigration movement is the risk of PTO and not knowing what their plans or intentions are.”

Arrden ”eUSA very compassionately granted full asylum to the INCI party, and gave them the number 5 Party spot in eAmerican Politics, AND gave them $30,000 a month in OMS funding from eUS Public Money. Sadly, [a small group of ] INCI made a joke of our Political and Immigration system. [These] INCI Congressman broke IES protocol every month, and laughed at our reprimands. Months down the line, when there was too much bad blood in the water, [this small group] took all the money we gave them, and went back to eTurkey. Laughing at eUSA all the way back home.”

The fear was real. A question mark loomed over a group of unknown players that are still a mystery today.

You have just read direct quotes from eUSA players who were there and experienced the beginning, middle and end of the show. One of the biggest fears in erepublik is having your country political taken over; aka “PTO’d”. Task forces such as the Department of Homeland Security (DoHS) were essentially the guardians of eUSA and enemy number one was pthut (aka RgR) | reference |

Nothing really prepared eUSA for this. Yes, the organization and skill that was used to stop eUSA’s enemy number one had been good practice in developing strategy, defense and offensive attacks towards the PTO, but nothing like iNCi had ever been tackled before. The majority of eUSA players were immediately skeptical. New iNCi owls were born every day and the country remained vigilant while pondering how to approach this movement that wasn’t a multi army...or was it? This wracked the minds of prominent eUSA citizens for months. With the help of a couple actual former and/or current iNCi members I was able to find out more than I was prepared for...




What was ‘cCc iNCi cCc’ and what do the characters mean?



What are your immediate feelings? Disgust? Hatred? Confusion?
“I don’t care, man, erepublik sucks so I’m gonna two click!”
“Shut up, ya damn two clicker, I just want to keep reading!”

“Inci” means pearl in Turkish. It comes from the name of incisozluk. Incisozluk is similar to 4chan in general attitude, but not so much in functionality (it has a dictionary format more like urban dictionary rather than an image board).

cCc is a reference to the three crescent symbols of the Nationalist Movement Party (a RL ultranationalist party in TR sometimes viewed as bordering fascism). People in iNCisozluk adopted the cCc cCc symbol to mock them, because incisozluk community was quite anti-racist and anti-nationalist. iNCi was founded by the ‘Prophet, Founder’ or leader cCc imelih messi cCc.



Where did iNCi begin, when did you join, or can you elaborate on your experiences and what you liked/loved about the movement?


I joined this game with inci on November 27, 2010 but my elife with inci didn’t last long. Lots of people from incisozluk joined this game during Greek invasion and helped a lot to free Turkish regions. Inci is a non-nationalist group that is playing this game just for fun, no political moves, no backstabbings or no dirty jobs. That’s why people liked them. - Urban Cohort


On October 20th, 2010, there was a huge babyboom in eTR. A large group arrived from incisozluk and they created their own group under the leadership of imelihmessi. They ran for CP in eTR and won. However, the Lazokrats have first allied with them, and then backstabbed iNCi after luring them into a war with Greece. They did not fight in battles just to put iNCi in a tough situation. The result was a huge fight. In the end, iNCi started looking for other countries not infested with Lazokrats and other assorted cheaters (Fernu, etc - he had an “army of the dead” rumored to be 1000 strong).

I started eRep before the arrival of iNCi. I never had an account on incisozluk, I still don’t have one. I was Minister of Economics in the first iNCi cabinet in eTR, but I wasn’t officially a part of their group yet. Before they left eTR, they supported my CP candidature against the Lazokrats, but we lost 1000 to 2000. They [inci] left for Mexico first, and then eUS. I stayed in eTR for 3 more months in order not to abandon it during its wipe by Greece. When the invasion was over, I was fed up with eTR politics and immigrated to eUS. My app was accepted by IES, but I was told there weren’t any CS left. I asked depici if he could help, and he did. To repay the favor, I promised to help them get a better reputation in eUS. I joined iNCi a little while later.

What did I like about iNCi? There are so many answers. I will mention a few: iNCi had no hierarchy whatsoever. Leaders would be selected for short durations, and activity defined the group more than any established structure. Everyone was on the same level, and everyone had an unseen degree of camaraderie. Resources were shared across all. Gold buyers helped the rest. Anyone could move into positions of power very easily. We had internal votes for most of the decisions. The other thing I would mention would be diversity: We had tons of inner fractions within the movement. They had fun competitions and sometimes fights with each other, but in the end, we always made up. Activity was beyond any other group in eRep at the time. We would do mass attacks of 200-300 people during battles. The irc room was always packed full with people. Lastly, I think we had a lot of very educated players. Most could speak English very fluently, and came from the best educational institutions in TR. It made good company. - Kemal Ergenekon



What do the owls represent?



Like any massive group a theme takes shape. Whether its a real life imitation of an existing product or entity or one single person, place or thing a group of this size has some sort of mascot, for lack of a better word. The ‘ORLY’ image is just one instance of iNCi’s usages of representing the movement, but incisozluk’s symbol is still a mystery. It in fact came over from incisozluk and did not start in erepublik.

There were some popular images, uniforms or avatars that a majority of the players wore:





What was iNCi doing in eUSA?



Urban Cohort was not involved directly with iNCi’s arrival in eUSA, but Kemal played an entirely different role that has spanned over almost 5 years now. He arrived in June 2011 and was iNCi’s representative in the cabinet as Secretary of Treasury for eUSA. He rarely involved himself with politics for a long period of time. After some time he heard that iNCi members wanted government support for their MU in eUSA, but they were being delayed by bureaucracy and many left to eCyprus (about ⅔ of the players) | reference |. This endeavor was short lived because there will still such a resistance to this new ‘invasion’ of players the eUSA community was not used to. This led to Kemal arranging a meeting with all iNCi members in eUSA because he saw how advantageous it would be for them to become active in politics, work together to fight off Ajay (aka pthut; RGR) and eventually get iNCi to a more permanent top 5 party. Kemal and a fellow named pearlowl were Party President of iNCi’s party for months.

Eventually, around the beginning of 2012, the majority of iNCi that was in eCyprus came back to eUSA. Around July 2012 there was an internal problem and Kemal ceceded the Party Presidential elections after so much iNCi infighting. Kutluk Bilge Kul Kagan won the Party Presidency and gave an ultimatum to eUSA: iNCi Ultimatum to USA Government. They then allowed some PTOers into eUSA by selling citizenships. This led to A National State of Emergency. You can imagine there was a lot of blowback due to these ‘hostile’ actions against eUSA. A lot of eUSA citizens detested this ultimatum while other iNCi members tried to reasonably explain the actions performed by some iNCi members does not represent all iNCi players.

Eventually, a portion of iNCi players left eUSA again to return to eTurkey. This left a near irreparable stain on the group overall. What happened next took the game to a whole new level when a controversial issue took place by the banning of Kutluk Bilge Kul Kagan…



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