One Nation in a Global Game

Day 2,020, 15:37 • Published in USA USA • by Sir Gulden Draak

This August will mark four years since I began playing this game, albeit off and on throughout the last few years. During these years I have seen the nation go through several cycles. I saw this nation get wiped for a brief period of time when I first started playing, only to witness us come together as a nation and vanquish our invaders. I have seen alliances rise and then self implode. I have seen great players, great minds, quit and disappear into the ether only to see new players rise up to fill the voids. The point being, is that the only constant in this game is change. As the game changes, nations change including our own. Despite this constant sea of change, a few things for better or worse still seem to drive this nation and determine where we sit on the global scale. Because it is a rainy day where I am, I felt like sharing my views on this subject with you.

It's a numbers game

The USA has 51 original regions. To put this into perspective, Brazil, Russia, Croatia, Albania, and France have less than 51 original regions combined. When we lose an original region, we lose less than 2% of our regions. However, when Croatia loses an original region they lose 14% of their regions, Albania loses 33%. It is these simple percentages that are the underlying driving force for how damage is directed to various battles around the world. When our nation is attacked, it is often easy to take a me, me, me approach and when a region of ours is taken, as has occurred this past week, the easy solution is to place the blame on our allies. Can our allies do more to help us? Sure, you can always do more, but it is important to understand that because of our size we will always take a back seat on the global scale when it comes to battles regardless of who are allies are at the time. We must realize that by helping others we help ourselves, and we must trust that when we are truly in danger (for us losing a few regions is not true danger) our allies will have our back.



Eurocentrism and breaking from it

Lets face it, the game is Eurocentric. The game was created in Europe, and the majority of the game population has some sort of European citizenship in real life despite whatever eNation they are currently residing in (looking at you AFA). The hatred between some of these nations based on real life circumstances is immense. This true hatred is something that our nation does not have. Sure it is fun to provoke Canada and Mexico from time to time. And yes, it is always fun to take a trip across the pond to pester the United Kingdom on occasion. However, that deep hatred like Serbia vs. Croatia, or Romania vs. Hungary does not exist for us and quite frankly I am glad we don't have it. In my opinion, it is pretty sad that some of these nations have literally been at non-stop war since this game was created with thousands, upon thousands of Euros being spent trying to take regions that will only be lost at some later time. The point of this little rant is that while Eurocentrism drives this game, I am thankful that we have the ability to separate ourselves from it. We are not always attacking the same nation time after time, I mean it has to get boring. As a nation we must realize that we should assist our allies, but the Balkan Wars will always be there and we should have the freedom to explore our own interests from time to time.

The Beast Within

In my opinion, our limiting factor as a nation has always been ourselves. No matter what, it seems that the majority of the time we are always embroiled in some stupid argument. Whether is it party vs. party, JCS vs. politicos, etc. we just can't help ourselves. While this conflict is good at times, and it leads to improvement in the game, our stubbornness has often deterred this change from happening. Nothing in this game is a life and death matter, and to move forward as a nation it often means that some other individual or group must move back. It is evolution, you can't fight it, change in this game is the one constant. The quicker we separate ourselves from some past glory, and just move forward the happier we will be. Dead men tell no tales, and it best to let sleeping dogs lie.



Whoring myself out for votes

Conclusions

Despite our shortcomings, I feel fortunate to have played the game in this nation with all of you. For better or worse this game still seems to be going, and to improve as a nation we must learn from the past but not let it dictate our current and future decisions. For our nation to move forward, we as individuals most move backward, and sometimes it is best for our nation to take a backseat even when other nations seem to not return the favor. It is a game, and let's have fun!

Stay thirsty my friends,

Gulden Draak