eRepublik as Risk - a trippy excursion

Day 872, 14:34 • Published in USA USA • by United Underdog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game)#Basic_strategy



"Players often attempt to gain control of what the game manual calls Australia (Australasia) early in the game..."
This is exactly what Indonesia did. Australia in eRepublik has two natural borders (South Africa and Indonesia) and provides a huge boost with the Diamonds there. Oh, and it's being fought again now.

"Generally, continents with fewer borders are easier to defend as they possess fewer points that can be attacked by other players."
This is part of why South America has so little going on most of the time, the other being mutual respect of the countries within. Along with Venezuela, Brazil forms a big buffer from the East and North, whereas the ocean covers the West and South.

Europe and Asia are the hardest to defend and frequently contested.
However, borders are only a part of this. The situation in Europe is fueled by large numbers of people online jostling for supremacy, while that in Asia is the opposite, a relative power vacuum but some choice resources of Iron, Wood, Grain, and Oil. The only country in Asia proving to be the exception now is China.

"Turtling: This is a rather defensive strategy where a player who feels vulnerable adopts a strategy to become too expensive to be removed while remaining a threat and harass other players."
The equivalent of turtling in eRepublik is refusing to activate the MPP of opponents, attacking only their non-original territory.

"Alliance making/breaking can be one of the most important elements of the game, and it adds human interaction to a decidedly probabilistic game."
While the MPP is a game mechanic, the multi-country alliance is not, and this has been a game-changing factor more than once.

Intercontinental connections are the same, with exceptions.
The primary exceptions being that Africa does not connect to Europe but does connect to Australia. Also, Portugal provides a direct bridge to South America from Europe, much like "North Africa." There is a second connection between North America and Asia through Hawaii, and there are numerous connections between North America and Europe.

Both games seem like they will never end.
This game actually will not, until the server goes offline. There is no set of winning conditions. Even if one country held every region, the resistance war always permits a country to resurrect.

There are differences of course, most of them stemming from the existence of people as the military, economic, and political units, instead of the godlike hands of players in Risk.



Would It Ever Be Possible to Control the Whole Board?
It would be exceedingly difficult but not, of course, strictly impossible. What would improve your chances? Here is my opinion.

(1) The first goal would be to create a super-country with every resource already within its borders.
(2) As part of that goal, you would want to convince as many people as possible to live there. It is okay if their local countries get destroyed. That just makes them easier to capture later (no MPP activation).
(3) Use every other country in your sphere of influence as pawns to enhancing the super-country. Use them to "block" initiative for you. Use them to sit pretty at choke points (e.g., South Africa or Turkey) and maintain inaccessibility to passage. Use their activated MPP to wear down resistance.
(4) Whenever a High resource is added from an opponent country, work it to exist in the super-country, through land swaps... or just conquer it directly.
(5) Once the super-country controls every High resource of a given type, it should immediately declare war on all that it cares to do so and declare Trade embargo on the rest. This will remove anything but double-priced products of that type from the rest of the economy.
(6) More people should then move to the super-country to be able to produce the resource, even if they wouldn't normally do so.
(7) Make it a priority to destroy any nations that somehow have MPP activated against the super-country, and try not to activate them unless necessary in the first place.
(😎 Once all MPP's are closed, and every High resource is controlled (or at least every High resouce of an important set - such as Iron and Diamonds), wait. Bleed the world economy.
(9) Repeat this process until all High regions are controlled.
(10) Destroy additional countries for giggles. Put down resistance wars with ease.

Which countries have the potential to do all this?

1 - Poland. They seem to know many of these tactics already.
2 - Russia. They are already in possession of every High resource and do many of these things.
3 - USA. It hasn't yet fully adopted these tactics but could.
4 - Brazil. It's a baby but in much the same position as Russia.

Past empires that seemed to operate somewhat similarly are Indonesia, Hungary, and Romania. A country that wishes it could do this but cannot is Serbia.

Use the force. That's all for now.