Military Academy, Part I.

Day 635, 13:22 Published in Japan Japan by Koppanyi Ferenc

Si vis pacem, para bellum – the old Latin phrase means: If you wish for peace, prepare for war. Therefore I decided to start a new series: I try to help to understand what is going on behind the curtains, to see the reasons and have a guess for the next step on the battlefield. The first part is about the basic concepts.

I have to say, this is not my own article. The author is rlazol, former MoD of Hungary. He calls the Japanese readers, vote for the original article too.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/strat-giai-kisokos-basics-of-estrategies-hun-eng--896094/1/20

Step 1, Casus belli – reason for war.
On Erep you do not need much for that. A rare raw material is just good enough reason. One year ago, Romania declared war on Hungary just because they were bored.
However the most common reason is economy. Land companies are the best to be on HIGH resource regions, and this is the base for all manufacture and construction industry. Nevertheless this game is based on war, when weapons (based on iron) gifts (based on diamond) and infrastructures (hospital, DS both based on wood) are to be used. Without war, these markets are dying, players get bored and leave the game and nobody will use gold for Wellness Packs, opening of battles and stuff.

2, MPP, Mutual Protection pact, BASICS
When thinking about an assault, you must check the targeted region (easy with GOBBA, whether it is original or not. If it is original you must see which alliances the owning country has. This because when you attack an original region you trigger the MPP’s – allied countries can join the fight from home without moving anywhere (just like USA’ MPPs now). Nevertheless, a new war will open against those MPPs who the attacker share a common border and the MPPs that both the attacker and defender has will be cancelled on the attacker’s side. Please note, that only the MPP’s active at the opening of the battle will be triggered, to trigger the ones accepted later other original regions must be attacked. Once activated it will remain active as long as the war is on.

3, Opening a war
You need an opened war to launch an attack. It is not enough to be on the opposite side through MPP s in a war. Check the „Military” part of the countries description to see which wars she is involved in.
A, Declaration of War: This is the basic solution. The president shell propose this law and the congress is to accept it with single majority. Once is has passed, the war is opened and the one declared the war has the initiative for 24 hours.
B, Chain reaction: Declaration of war is very expensive. 200 golds+ 0.1 gold for each citizen of the attacker. It means that Hungary (currently 19thousand citizen) should pay more then 2100 gold (200+19000*0,1) for that. This is enormous quantity of money. But a new war will open against your neighboring country if you attack an origin region of a country that has MPP with your neighbor. Okay, its not THAT difficult. Example. Hungary wants a war Croatia. Hungary has an opened war with Austria. Austria has an MPP with Croatia, and Hungary is a neighbor for both. If Hungary attacks Austria on original territory, a new war with Croatia would open, as Croatia has MPP with Austria and is a neighbor of Hungary. Of course, as alliances and power relations change often on Erep, activating any country’s MPP carries a risk.

4, Opening a battle
It is the privilege of the President, he owns the BIG RED BUTTON. Of course an opened war is necessary to attack a country, and only bordering regions can be attacked. Cost of attack is 50 gold plus 0.25 gold for each citizen and in that region. This is why Hungary builds Q5 hospital on the occupied regions and directs people to live there. Two other requirements must met in order to open a battle: you can not be blocked or penalized. Details on this issue is later on.

5, Blocking
You can not attack while being attacked. It is that easy. RW (to be discussed later) is not considered as an attack, but every other battle is. Wall size, end time does not matter. Therefore blocking is simply an intervention of a third country into a war between two countries. Spain, North Korea and Norway did this when they attacked France/Russia. Timing is essential when you block, as I will explain blocking later on.

6, Resistance War – RW
Resistance war is meant to liberate a region independently from the government of both the current and the legatine owner. Therefore anybody can initiate it, but it costs just as much as opening a battle. Of course RW can only be started on regions that do not belong to the original owner. Only the citizen of the conqueror is able to fight in an RW, and each of them can determine to fight for the resistance or against it. If the RW succeed the person who started receives a medal and the region will be returned to the original owner. However, RWs rarely succeed, usually only as a result on international contracts or for tactical reasons. Still RWs are initiated often as a diversion to steal some damage away from the main battle.

6, The Battle
Once the battle is opened its link would appear in the Main events of both the attacker and the defender. The citizen of the other countries (including those who can fight there through triggered MPPs) can only find it in the international events. It is very important that RWs will appear only in the country where started (as only those citizen can participate). The battle is practically some source of brick layer job, as the there is a wall that the attacker must destroy and the defender must protect. The beginning size of the wall depends on the population and the Defense System of the region. The attacker must bring the wall down into the underground thus needs to inflict more damage then the defender + wall size while for the defender it is enough to make just as much damage as the attacker. As the battle is going on for 24 hours it does not matter where the wall stands during the battle. The only thing matter is where it stands when the counter hits zero. If after 24 hours it is neither secured nor captured the battle goes on until one of the requirements is met.

8, Tanking
Every citizen is allowed to buy wellness packs (WP), 20 peace until lvl 15 and 40 after. The cost of one WP is 2 gold and it gives the warrior 10 wellness points, just as much as he looses with one fight. Therefore those, who have the funds can make further fights after the standard hospital round (with Q5 hospital = 50 wellness = 5 fights) and gifting round (1 day =10 gift =1 fight). After you pushed the FIGHT button you can see a small „buy WP” icon at the bottom of the screen that shows the damage you made.. DO NOT PUSH THAT! It removes 2 gold from your account and adds 10 to your wellness. So rich (or funded) guys can keep on doing this fight-WP-fight-WP rounds (fight on wellness 100, as that is where you are the most effective) until they reach the daily limit or the end of their money. This is called TANKING. Of course if a fighter spends 2 gold for one fight he is ought to buy some high Q weapons for that (1Q5 = 1-1,5 gold). Although anybody could do that, serious tanking can on be done from state money. Obviously the state is going the tank the strongest soldiers. A top Tank of today with Q5 weapon, rank of Field Marshall and the wellness at 100 can make a damage of 350 (it is higher each day with growing strength). Calculating with 40 WPs that equals 14.000 damage per day. Add the hospital and the gift round and remember to do that after day change, and you will get a total damage over 30.000 in a single battle. And a total cost of at least 300 gold (the cost of a Q5 hospital). Tanking IS very expensive, each country has her own strategy on that depening on the financial possibilities, the number of tanks available and of course the importance of battle. SUGGESTION: Do not use WP under STR 10, it just does not worth it. Under STR5 only Q1 weapon is suggested and only 1-2 peace. Between 5-7 you can start increasing the number of Q1 weapons used. Q2 worth it from STR7 (only for the first fight at top wellness), you might start using Q3 from STR 8-8.5 and Q4 over 10. But Q5 is economical only over STR 15. Don’t misunderstand, if you buy a Q5 it WILL increase your damage but the difference will not be that big to worth the price. As for a sergeant at STR4 it gives +18 dmg comparing to a Q1, while for a FM with STR 15 the gap is 110. Other important thing is that you make more damage with 2 Q1 weapon and 3 barehanded fights then 1 Q2 weapon and 4 barehanded fights (although price is the same)! That means that you should focus on buying ANY weapon for each fight instead of buying one expensive one.

9, fighting the wellness down.
This is something the Army does in extremely important battles. It means that the soldiers fight after using the hospital until their wellness drops under 50. It also means that (if in hurry between the rounds) the soldier would work on low wellness which hurts the economy. Therefore no civilian is suggested to do that until ordered.

10, Retreat
The battle supposed to be 24 hours long, but the both presidents (attacker + defender, but not the MPP presidents) has the option to retreat and close the battle, usually for tactical or strategically reasons. Once retreated, the battle closes. If the attacker retreats, the defender keeps the region, if the defender, then he looses the current region. But this is not always possible. No retreat is possible from the last region of the country (had a special significance for the presidential TO).[b No retreat is possible from RW-s. If more attackers are attacking the same region, the president can retreat only for the FIRST attacker (battles opened later will be closed, first attacker takes the region, no winner-looser therefore no penalty on the others).

11, End of battle, penalty
At the end of the battle (normal ending or retreat, but not when the battle closes because the defender retreated for a previous attacker) the defender takes the initiative (unless other battles are still on) and that is it. In case of the victory of the attacker (the rebel forces in the RW), the region gets a new owner (the origin owner in the RW) and obtains an amount of the enemy treasury (gold and national money). Hospitals and Defense Systems are destroyed. Companies can keep on working, and their original workers will keep receiving their payments as before, but the TAX system of the occupier will be put in place and the company can sell only according to the wars and trading embargoes of the new country. Company owners can buy a license for the occupier country for 5 gold (instead of the normal 20), and can post job offers only for the new country. The loosing country (does not matter if lost or retreated) will be penalized for 24 hours against the attacker (no penalty for loosing RW). It means the she can not attack the winner for 24 hours. But the penalty is set only against THAT attacker! So if you retreat from the attacked region you can still attack somebody else. Regardless how the battle ends, the soldier, who inflicted the most damage for each side will receive a Battle hero medal.

12, MPPs in an offensive
Once somebody attacked an original region, the triggered MPPs of the defender will be involved into the war. Once that happened, attack or defense, original or non-original region, as long as the war is opened all triggered MPPs can participate in any battle of the war (RW is not a part of any war!). That means that if they feel themselves strong enough, the originally attacked country can trigger the others MPP forcing an alliance vs. alliance war, like it happened in the current word war.

13, More on blocking
As discussed earlier, simple block means that a third country attacks the one on offensive in a war between two countries. The blocker is not willing to win, perhaps will loose, and have a 24 hours penalty, during which the one blocked can continue the attack. Simple blocking can be bypassed easily with a retreat, but it can result that the blocker gains new borders to block on. Nevertheless, if the blocked country gains initiative by winning the block battle, and go on an offensive, problems can occur – like in North Korea or Spain.

But as long as having the initiative (and not being blocked) the blocker is allowed to open more battles, if there are more attackable regions. Like tthat, she can block for ever, as she opens a battle before the other ends – called „permablock”. This one is hard to bypass, as retreating from all of the attacked regions is only a temporarily solution. Winning one battle and retreating from the others minutes before the win is settled is an option, but it is risky. It is possibly because initiative will be determined on the outcome of the LAST battle closed. If the enemy suspects this, he can retreat before, or continue the offensive after the retreats (before the victory is settled). Never the less, a retreat from a region with Q5 hospital and 600 citizen is a hard decision.

Last but not least, there is the FULLBLOCK. Fullblock is when somebody opens an RW on a region before attacking it. As you can not retreat from an RW, and you can only retreat from the first attack, the country blocked has no option for getting out of the block for 24 hours. Of course, full block can be progressed only on non-original region.

14, PEACE TREATY
The war should be closed with a Peace treaty. Each presidents of the countries involved can propose the peace, but both congress must accept it. When that happens, the war is closed. But as long as it is pending, new battles can be opened. For wars with MPP, any of the two major countries (the one who triggered the MPPs, and the one whose MPPs are triggered) can propose a peace with each other and with any of the triggered MPPs of the other side. The two major countries a peace treaty closes the entire war, deactivating the MPPs triggered. If one major country signs a peace treaty with an MPP of the other side, then that country will be deleted from the list of participating countries until she is not triggered again.