Response to "Fortresses and Hospitals"
•
by dreaeuh
The markets are generally stable today.
The Banco de Espana decreased rates of the ESP from 0.031 to 0.030. With 39,000ESP on the market, this should net eSpain approximately 1,200GOLD. However, this action hasn't received much response from other ESP currency traders, with only approximately 4,500ESP also being traded at 0.030, leading many to believe the Banco of Espana is simply selling off supplies of ESP rather than trying to set the rate lower.
Personal traders are selling GRD at a discounted rate of 0.027 with limited quantities.
Fortresses and Hospitals
Phoenix Quinn has released a very helpful article ( http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/fortresses-nd-hospitals-a-guide-for-the-perplexed-988972/1/20 ) that describes the effects of fortresses and hospitals on national defense.
Some of the figures posted Phoenix Quinn's article could be restated; not that they were incorrect, but that they figures could be restated.
"On the open market, a Q1 hospital can go for around 1800 USD, or about 45 G, while a Q1 defense system costs around 3,000 USD, or about 75 G."
If the eUS uses dollars it had recently printed, an 1800USD Q1 hospital sells for 9GOLD.
The defense system would be about 75GOLD, or 15GOLD using freshly printed currency. Those are very cheap pricing for defense systems. Providing funds to buy large scale projects like this should be the only reason the eUS prints money. Again, they have over 500,000USD in their coffers and nothing with which to use those USD.
So, in those terms, a 15GOLD investment could add 10% defense to the region. That is a very good deal.
With very reasonable prices such as this, it is unfathomable why the government doesn't spend some cash and buy more defense systems, at least to stockpile, at rates higher than $0.01. In government terms, the USD has no value since they can print them at a tremendous profit.
In addition, the government can provide 400 Q1 weapons per 1GOLD. 33 Q5 weapons per 1GOLD. The eUS could have supplied 1 Q1 weapon for every fight in the last battle for 366GOLD.
The costs of defensive are much less than the costs of waging war; this is an axiom the Huns know well. The eHuns are refraining from getting attacked on a large scale, but responding to attacks with ferociousness, using their supply of weapons and health from their regions to gain experience and ranks.
"California
Q5 Defense System: Wall = 358100 * 1.5 = 537,150
Cost to attack: Goes up a lot: 50 + (3,581 / 4) = 895 G, plus about 2,630 G in armaments and wellness expenses comes to 3,525 G. The initial advantage still brings the wall below zero, but only to -71,850.
Florida
Q5 Defense System: Wall = 923500 * 1.5 = 1,385,250
Cost to attack: Goes up to a whopping: 50 + (9,235 / 4) = 2,359 G. Add 2,630 G in armament and wellness expenses and that brings the total cost to attack with 1,000 fighters to something like 4,989 G. And it still leaves the wall well above zero, at +314,500."
Indeed, it may cost a great sum of money to start a war, with 895GOLD and 2,630GOLD to begin, but the costs of armament can be substantially reduced if the government purchases the weapons.
The costs of armament to attack Florida could be reduced to 526GOLD, for a total of 2,985GOLD for the entire campaign.
The major costs associated with war is shoe-leather costs for running around, looking for cheap weapons (especially with people marking up weapons during battles), and the opportunity cost lost because we citizens have to spend our cash to buy our own weapons.
War is not something a citizen declares on another country. It is one country against one country, so paying out-of-pocket for weapons, weapons being taxed by the government declaring war, is just doubly redundant.
While defense systems are not necessities in every state in the union, why shouldn't hospitals be available in more of states, especially the high population states. At 9GOLD each (for a Q1), in the event of a war, it isn't a tremendous loss in comparison to the amount of lives saved.
Hungarian Aspect
With the numbers Quinn has given and the results of the eHungary/eUS battles, the Hungarians could storm the US for a cost of 4,166GOLD. 50GOLD per state for 47 states is 2350. The population outside of eCalifornia and eFlorida is 20,080 - 9,235 - 3,581 = 7264 / 4 = 1,816.
In fact, it could be much less to take a large portion of eUS oil and diamond product by attacking via Saskatchewan. That would be 8 states at 50GOLD, approximately 2,450 population, so about 600GOLD.
They would face a possible MPP response; however, it could simply be argued that they were underdefended and it could be a major slaughter without a defense network between those states.
This is just the mathematical aspect of the battle; I'm not sure if that is how the battles happen or the specific political consequences of another attack on mainland eUSA.
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
"it costs XX, or YY with freshly printed money"
This is a false argument. Money is printed to pump into the economy, most of the profit of that is pumped into the military.
You can't say "We paid 400 gold to the Marines this week, or 80 gold from fresh printed money." It's an incorrect assertion, and it hides the enormous cost of infrastructure.
There were significant errors and fallacies in PQ's article as well.
Thanks for the corrections. You are quite right of course about my error with respect to the USD / G conversion rates. Will go fix that now.
It makes perfect sense. You don't sell freshly printed gold.
If you have a project that costs 1,000USD, you can buy USD on the open market at 0.025, and get 40USD per gold. Thus, the project costs 25GOLD on the open market.
If the eUS prints a batch of money, it only costs 5GOLD, since you get 200,000USD per 1,000GOLD, thus 200USD per 1GOLD.
It shouldn't be pumped into intangibles like weapons, since weapons disappear after they are used once. Hospitals and defense systems can be used continually (until they are destroyed).
It is like using a credit card to buy food. You just don't do it.
No, your fallacy was saying that the infrastructure cost less BECAUSE the Government prints money.
The price of infrastructure stays the same. The purchasing power of Government gold stays the same. Don't misrepresent the issues at hand. If something costs 300 gold on the open market, it still takes 300 government gold to purchase it.
You are still talking about GOLD. I was not talking about GOLD. The only eUS expenditures that cannot be changed from terms of GOLD is the costs of declaring war. I did not discount those. I discounted the costs of armament, that is, buying weapons and gifts. Those are done in currency, not GOLD. As I mentioned, I didn't discuss a concept of "freshly print gold". Currency, however, can be freshly printed. The government can take 40,000USD and buy 1,000GOLD on the market and then vote to print another 200,000USD. That is freshly printed money. Paying to start a war or costs for attacking a population are in GOLD, and if you check, I didn't discount those.
That is a function of government. It's part of what keeps the government afloat in the first place. It's a bad argument on your part for including the profits of printing money directly into your equations. Mention it, but don't base your argument on it.
It is a profit if they stick it in their coffers. If they spend it, then it is expansionary policy.
Nice effort, dreaeuh. Voted.
I think what the rash of articles like this demonstrates is that a straightforward understanding of erepublik's game mechanics can't force consensus on matters of policy.