Join the new world

Ya gotta hand it to the sun. I go outside for more than 5 minutes for the first time in over a month, and what does it do? Burns me. Worst of all, because I’m as cheap as they come and haven’t gotten a haircut in months, I have a “Bieber flip” burn across my forehead. This is going to make it a lot harder to walk down the street each day. I’ll have to wade through Brits and Beliebers.



Eric Sums it Up

Eric Last is a beast. The man has stepped up bigtime into the VP spot - though he’ll pretend he doesn’t really do anything just to be modest. Throughout this term he’s stood in the usual advisory spot, and also taken on a lot of the Battle Orders that get put out by the government. But recently, most particularly yesterday, Eric has gone out of his way to make sure our country continues to go along smoothly.

EDEN held its second summit of the month yesterday. Rescheduled at the last minute due to a conflict with higher-ups, it landed right in the middle of my real life “date” that I was not going to pass up (oh gawd). And so Eric, the next in line, represented Canada at the follow-up summit that I mentioned last week. Once again some new items were brought onto the table, including a few that are quite wonderful to hear and that I wasn’t yet aware of. There was also a lot of follow-up about topics from the last summit - more news on all of these things after they’ve been finalized.

EDEN will be having another summit next week to continue our conversation and maintain the open lines of communication that several CPs have been striving for. Eric and I will be in contact with a variety of EDENites over the weekend, and of course Master Pluggers will continue to do his fantastic work. Moral of the story? I am extremely pleased with Cabinet and their continued work to improve Canada’s reputation. The entire point of a Cabinet is to step in when the CP cannot, and they’ve done so repeatedly. Hurrah!


Everyone Wins and Nobody Loses

Inevitably in eRepublik, there is speculation about strength and domination. Which player is the most powerful? Which country can hold its own over its neighbours? Will we keep our colonies, can we protect our borders? Do our allies have the strength to protect us? Every nation - Terran, EDENite, ONEian, and Neutral - they all face these questions of force.

The ongoing war with Britain is our latest manifestation of “can we has?” They’ve successfully liberated 3 of our 9 colonies and are well on their way to reclaiming others. Does this mean that Canada has lost its newfound strength when it overran Britain “single-handedly?” Does this mean that the British baby boom has finally paid off for our rivals, and that we should scramble for peace? Neither, in fact. It reflects the “everyone wins, no one loses” of a risk-free internet game. eRepublik used to have serious consequences for wipes, wars, and military defeat. Older players remember the days when Presidents could not be elected and when regions were worth large wads of cash. Now, capturing a region only offers a border advantage or a resource boost.

We conquered Britain with “relative ease” because of superior allied support in the region and reasonably superior organization. This isn’t a discredit to Britain’s strength or Appleby’s quality, just that he’s said himself that war is not his thing, and ONE was focusing on plenty of other things (see: France). We’ve lost 3 colonies to that same Britain, not because Canada is without love and weak from age, but because we have other priorities, interests, and goals for our nation. We don’t need to hold Britain to the ground (wasting much energy in the process), because we can achieve our goals by doing other things.

I’ve noticed a lot of new players, British and Canadian, have been reading these article. A word from an oldie: if anyone tells you that your nation is “best,” they’re probably just a spin doctor. Yeah, Canada’s good at certain things. And Britain is too. But there are very few measures of “best” in a game that has no serious consequence for failure, and no overpowering reward for victory. The ebb and flow are standard issue.


Cashing in on Citizens

I’m told, by Brits and Canucks alike, that the British baby boom is the result of a Facebook rush and mass-recruitment drive. Certainly the NHS has been helping retention, but the initial “where do we get 4000” certainly didn’t come from food packets. It’s an outside venture.

Most of the time, Baby Booms are used for one reason: grabbing a massive number of players, very quickly, to increase national activity, strength, and global importance. France owes its current status in large part to a ‘partially’ successful boom from back in the day. While almost all of their babies died, some pulled through in Spartan fashion, and now they’re larger for it.

But there are other ways to benefit from a boom. Two weeks ago I got a friend to join this game using my referral link. I’ve raked in 2.6 gold from him already. Suppose I were eLibya and I ran a baby boom. 2000 people join. 200 of them live past a week. Maybe 20 become highly active. Most of the time, I profit from international attention, a little more respect, and eventually some greater national hitting power. Britain’s seeing all of those things now. The real profit is - shockingly - in the gold.

Referring players receive a 10% profit on all gold earned by their babes. That’s 0.1 for every level that every player reaches - ever. Suppose you make no money from the 1800 who die before levelling (they literally quit before clicking 5 buttons). From the 200 who survive the week, you’re looking at each and every one of them hitting level 10 (at least). That’s (200*0.1*10)+([200/10]*5) - 300 Gold between referral cash and Society Builder medals. The 20 who live beyond that rake in even more. Had I bothered to collect it in time, one of my referrals would have netted me 50 Gold.

I assume you can see where I’m going with this. Baby booms are nice, and a great thing if you can actually get them to work (most people can’t, because they have no marketing skills). But if you succeed in a baby boom and miss out on that 300+ gold, then your NHS-style systems drain money from already greedy oldies who don’t often support new player support programs. Cash in on that 300 and you’re looking at a self-sustaining system. Plus profit. And medals. And profit.


Into the Woods

Cue music? As I hinted at earlier in the term, I will be going “camping” in the “outdoors” for a short while. This will give me a chance to recharge, but more importantly it gives certain people (Eric) a chance to accept and realize that he would make a strong CP. Over the weekend I will be popping in whenever possible to keep Canada up to speed and communicate internally and abroad. CoTDs, NEs, and such will be set as per usual.

In the meantime, Cabinet’s received full instructions on what to look out for and what areas they’ll take a temporarily larger role in fulfilling during my blink-and-you-might-miss-it jaunt through the woods. I have full confidence in their ability to manage everything with my reduced activity, and will happily praise their work once I’m back to my do-you-go-outside routine. Cheers for now.