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Dear players of eSaudi Arabia,

So… This is it. I’ve finally decided to write this article. I’ve been thinking about writing it for a very long period of time… It’s just that I never really had the time, or the nerves, to do it. But recent events (I will talk about them later) actually made me speed up the process of writing this article. So, what’s the article about? Simple, it’s about my personal opinion, about everything that goes on in eSaudi Arabia. From scratch. Since messaging everyone and explaining everything to every single citizen, over and over again, seems difficult to me (because I can’t precisely track all of the responses I get when mass messaging), I think this article should do the trick. Unfortunately, I am well aware that few people will actually read it. I am sure that some will, and I would really like to hear their personal opinion, via comment. Some might try to read it, but find it long and/or boring then stop, some will have problems reading my English either because they find it too complex or because their own English isn’t good enough, and some just won’t care at all. Well… So what. I am writing this article for the people that do care, but if you don’t read this, don’t expect me to treat you the same way. Why? Because this article means a lot to me. And why is that? Because I’ve been trying to get all of these thoughts off my chest, for a really long time, as I’ve already said… So let’s begin.

One simple fact: we are screwed. You might ask yourself: why? Here’s why: the number of the active citizens in Saudi Arabia is extremely small. Really small. This is our main problem, and I’ve already said that a thousand times, and it seems like nobody cares, still after all of this time. There are 4 ways we can fix this problem.

1) inviting real life friends/acquaintances (who don’t play eRepublik) to make an account in Saudi Arabia

This is hard to do, because most people don’t play these kind of games. For example, I’ve been trying to get my classmates hooked on eRep for a long time and it doesn’t work… It just doesn’t. People in general prefer other stuff. That’s why it’s a good idea to ask only your best friends to play. Ask them to try the game (as your referral, of course), and they might like it. If they dislike it, you can ask them to play from time to time as a favor… They are your friends, so they might do it in order to help you, even though the game might be boring for them.

2) inviting online friends or other people online to make an account in Saudi Arabia

Again, if you don’t know someone that well, it gets quite hard. The difference is that you have much more options online, like forums, blogs, other browser games, etc. If you’re an active player of some other online games, you might find potential referrals / eSaudi citizens there. You can also spam, and hope to find some people that way, though your chances are pretty slim if you do this.

3) inviting good eRepublik friends to join eSaudi Arabia

This is a good idea if and only if your eRepublik friend is trustworthy and if you fully trust that person. If someone takes the eSaudi citizenship, but changes it a month later, then we have no result… The people who take our citizenship must stay here.

4) making our current citizens more active

And yes, this is the most important thing you can, and must, do. Why? We get a lot of players who stop playing this game either because they find it boring or hard to play. You can socialize with the players, talk to them about both eRepublik related topics and real life things… That is quite helpful. That way you can form a connection with the newbs, and they won’t feel the same way about quitting eRepublik if they have a few good friends here. This requires a lot of time and effort. Other than making friends with the newer players, you can also teach them about how eRepublik functions. There is a lot to be learnt, because this game is not that simple. It has a lot of gameplay elements. If you’re a newer player and reading this, you can talk to me anytime you need something. I spend a lot of time on this game (more than I should), so I will probably read your message soon. Another way to make the citizens active is by giving everyone simple tasks to do. One person can write a tutorial about the country stats, another about the eRepublik Wiki… Somebody else can send messages about the Party President elections, etc.

This is not impossible to do, but it requires everyone to do their part. That’s one of the reasons why I’m writing this article: to make people think differently. This article might affect some people, but then again, it might not affect anyone. I don’t know. I’m just trying to make a difference, somehow. I know we have enough active citizens to pull this off, but our organization is the main problem. You might ask yourself: why am I talking about this issue in full details and not doing everything myself? That is because I don’t speak Arabic. You can’t blame me for being born in another country in real life. I am trying to do everything I can, and I certainly can’t speak to newbs in Arabic. But some other players can. That’s why every player must get assignments that he is capable of doing.

I might be talking about this like it’s all that easy, whilst it’s quite difficult… It takes months of planning, and even after all these years I feel like we’ve barely started. Why? Unfortunately, I don’t know. But it’s never too late, I say. That is why I will kill a lot of time this summer and try to do something big. I promise everyone that. I don’t have any responsibilities other than learning German when my school’s done (in one week). I will try something new, something big, anything. I’ve been thinking about making an official legal charter for our country, and we could keep all the newbs in one place (list) and teach them what to do and what not. I can talk to my foreign friends and ask them for tutorial help. The other citizens can do something else, right?

Before I go on, I’m going to add one small detail: one of the worst things you can do to eSaudi Arabia is change your citizenship. If you’re a true citizen of eSaudi Arabia and if you really care about this country, then leaving is just a fu**ing miserable thing, totally dishonorable in any way.

Each month we struggle to win the Party President elections, we can get PTO’d quite easily, and then I see players asking me if they could change their citizenship. The answer is no, and it will remain no. It doesn’t matter if you’re an Ambassador or foreign representative, or whatever… Doing this is just as as bad as voting against the official Party President candidate. Changing your citizenship is almost never acceptable. You need to have a really good reason if you want to do that. If you get your citizenship changed before the Government approves it, you won’t be able to get it back once it gets changed.

So, now that I’ve said what we should focus on, I am going to say what we shouldn’t focus on, but what most people unfortunately do focus on:

First of all, there are the regions. We usually have one or two regions, and I constantly get messages where people ask me why we can’t get more. The reason is simple: we can’t handle more regions. We don’t have enough active players to fill in a Congress with more than 20 members, so 3+ regions is actually really bad for us. Our best combo is Jizan + Al Bahah.

Then we have the Ambassadors. Most new players apply to be Ambassadors, without realizing that this position is almost completely useless. Why? Because they are more needed in the Social Affairs sector, like everyone else. Since we are small and aren’t involved in any active alliance, one or two people can fully manage the Foreign Affairs team. We won’t need Ambassadors until we become stronger.

The stronger we are, the more interest we can get when talking to other countries. With our current strength, nobody would want to help us. Who would have an interest by signing a Mutual Protection Pact (MPP) with a country that has only 4 Division 4 players? Almost nobody. Perhaps the only other countries that would be interested, are as strong as us, and couldn’t bring any decent military help.

This doesn’t mean that the Foreign Affairs are an easy task. On the contrary, they are a difficult task, and they require a lot of experience. I’ve been MoFA 16 times in total, so believe me when I say that I know how things work. We don’t need 10 people working in Foreign Affairs, only 2 or 3 maximum. Any extra would do nothing, which is pointless. Our Foreign Affairs are in pretty good shape, so I don’t believe I should mention anything about this topic. If you want to know more about our relations with the other countries or about diplomacy in general, message me outside of this article.

One thing that I consider important is reducing the members of all the ministries that are not related to taking care of newer players. This is the only sector which we need. Everything else has to be done, but should not be the focus of our attention. This is what everyone (both experienced and new players) should be aware of:

A Government should function in a way such that it gives out the best possible result.

Now, I shall talk about the Congress…

I hope you all know this; besides getting a shiny new medal on his profile (as well as 5 Gold, can’t forget about that), a Congressman also has responsibilities, which includes rules which must be followed. If everyone did whatever they wanted, that wouldn’t be very good, would it? That is why rules and laws must exist.

A Congressman can propose laws. Laws are important because they control the country itself. Whenever a law is proposed, all the Congressmen (as well as the President) have the ability to vote yes or no. The majority of the votes wins (other than the impeachment or natural enemy law, where 67% is needed). Here are the 4 golden rules of eSaudi Arabian Congress:

1) A Congressman is only allowed to propose a law after he had received the approval from the eSaudi President, Vice-President or Minister of Interior/Legislative Affairs.

2) Whenever a Congressman gets asked by the Government to propose some law, he must do that.

3) A Congressman is only allowed to accept a citizenship application after he had received the approval from the eSaudi President, Vice-President or Minister of Interior/Legislative Affairs.

4) Whenever a Congressman gets asked by the Government to accept some citizenship application, he must do that.

Stick to these, and there won’t be any problems. Remember, if you are chosen to be in the Congress, that means that the Government is relying on you to do a good job. Don’t screw it up, or you might not be in the Congress again.

And last, but not least, the Party President (PP). I’ve waited long and thought hard about writing this. I didn’t want to insult anyone, so I just kept delaying it, but now I really feel like I have to mention it, and talk about this… So, because I respect the people that are gonna be mentioned in this paragraph (and I’m gonna talk about how they screwed up a lot), I’m not gonna mention their real nicks, let’s just call them player X and player Y. The duty of a Party President is quite a serious thing. That is why he needs to be fully trusted by the Government, and have a decent amount of in-game experience as well. Even though the responsibilities of a Party President are important, serious, and crucial, they are fairly simple. There are three duties, to be precise:

1) writing an article about the Congress elections and telling everyone to run

2) selecting an appropriate Congress with the help of the President, Vice-President and Minister of Interior/Legislative Affairs

3) selecting the rightful Country President (the Government decides on who the next Country President will be)

The first duty is not essential, but the second two are. Two of our Party Presidents haven’t done those two duties during their term. Player X has forgotten to set up the Country President two times and hasn’t selected the Congress once, and player Y hasn’t selected the Congress once (this is all I remember). These are really bad things to do. It could have caused serious damage.

Selecting the Country President (CP) is really important, but not as important as the Party President (PP)… If the PP doesn’t nominate a CP, the new CP won’t get the CP medal, and the previous CP will continue to be Country President in-game… So the new CP is losing a medal, and the entire term as well… That makes things quite complicated, because someone who wasn’t supposed to be President has to do the job, or at least propose the laws when needed.

However…

Not selecting the Congress is even worse. Players which are multiple accounts of 1 person could get into the Congress and accept citizenships to PTO’ers (PTO = Political Take Over) or propose harmful laws. Either way, both of these duties need to be done by the Party President. That is why, whenever a thing like this happens again, I will personally ban than player from ever being Party President again. I will veto him every time he runs and make serious problems if needed… I’ll do the same thing when a Congressman does something illegal. This doesn’t effect Player X and Player Y (they can go for Party President again if they promise not the screw up again), I’m just saying that we need to be a lot more strict in the future. This law can take place from now on. The past is behind us.

As for keeping things formal and controlled by the laws, that is a good way of keeping things organized. We can teach those laws to the new players later… If everyone knows what he can and cannot do, I believe some sort of order should be established, and that could make things better. It depends. I think that should be tried out. I can start working on it if the others are up for it.

So yeah, this is that long article. Please state your opinion via comment. Tell me what are all the things you agree with and all the things you dislike, and if you have any suggestions, please write them down. All criticism is useful. If you have a different perception of me because of this article, then I’m happy I’ve done something. If you believe that this article is a bad thing, then all I can say is that I don’t care. I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do. That is my personal thing. Now a fresh start awaits me after I’ve let go of everything that’s been in my mind for so long…

I-G-D,
known as Ivan to my friends