(IMP) Why Spain is not a Boss

Day 2,090, 14:05 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Death and Taxes

Starters.



IMP or the Irish Military Party is a new political party that wants to change the way politics is perceived and operates, initially in Ireland and then hopefully throughout eRepublik.

Our perspective is that this is just a game, and increasingly, a game that operates purely in a military theatre. However, we find that the relatively simple military objectives countries should have, utilised by game mechanics, are needlessly complicated by the political module. Whether it's down to the role-playing political masses, or old fashioned RL nationalism, our perspective is refreshingly simple: that countries should ditch their nationalistic tendencies and form military alliances that reflect their geographical and historical bindings.

We invite all Irish citizens to join our party here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/party/irish-military-party-4478/1 on the basis that we will provide over time, a return to our original territories, an alliance that improves our standing in the world, a series of campaigns where we can prove our worth, and an increase in our territories and resources. We can achieve this by the simple expedient of exploitation of game mechanics, and making astute decisions on alliances and changes before and as they are happening.

In this, the first of a series, the IMP turn our focus on an issue within TWO, currently the dominant alliance in what we would call the western world. Appropriately, this bookends another article by New Faustian Man here http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2304041/1/20 about Serbia. Our intention however, is to talk about Spain.

But before we talk about Spain, we need to make a comparison to a real boss, Poland.



In eRepublik, the true measure of a 'Boss' is to be able to gain and more importantly, retain 10/10 resources. Not only is this an important ecomomic fillip for the country, it's also looked upon as a measure that the country has the political and military firepower to be at the upper echelons of eRepublik nation states.



Have a look at the economic resources of Poland above. What do you see? Because I tell you what I see, I see a lot of duplicates in the top 5 resources. And if this was a resource game exclusively, you could see a very good reason why nations would rent out their duplicate resources............but we shall leave this for another day.

No, what I want you to concentrate on is the bottom 5 resources, and a common theme in two of them:



That's right, Netherlands is the critical component for Poland for two resources. So because of simple game mechanics, like Poland is very, very strong, and Netherlands is regretfully, quite weak that as long as Poland maintains its current geographical position, there is ZERO chance that Netherlands will ever have a region of its own. Never, ever, have a congress. The best they can hope for is some deal on Northern Netherlands but as we have seen over the last few months, Poland has no intention of giving them anything.

Why am I telling you this? Well, simply, if you look at the game situation in Netherlands and Poland and forget about the nationalistic and knee-jerk anti-bullying positioning, you start to begin to understand how situations evolve and how they can be redressed.

Which brings us to Spain.



So, as you can see, Spain also has a 10/10 bonus. Just like Poland. So Spain is like Poland, right? Spain has a lot of duplicate resources, although unlike Poland, they need to concentrate on just three of the last five to complete the set.

Indeed, with an agreement with fellow alliance member Venezuela, and an increasingly comfortable relationship with their previous arch enemy Portugal, Spain are in an extremely strong position to retain and maintain their 10/10 resources.

But there are two issues with this.

First of all, there is Spain's insistence on maintaining its historical ties with Chile and Brazil in terms of MPP's, even though this compromises its position with its current alliance members and proposed alliance members like Argentina. True bosses do not pander to previous emotional or historical ties once their military usefulness ceases.

Secondly and more pertinently, Spain has conquered and continues to subjugate Canada. The importance is that this is of no military, economic or political value. The original reason was that Canada had gone to the aid of an ally, Portugal, and Spain wanted to teach Canada a lesson.

Fair enough.

But now that Portugal and Spain are such friends that they are conducting a training war, what possible reason has Spain got to retain all or part of the Canadian regions?

What makes things worse, is that as any military strategist would tell you, the last thing an army does is to stretch its supply chain and resources to the point where it can't protect them. While the current ascendancy of TWO allows the luxury to Spain to retain its Canadian territories, this will not last.

When the tide turns as it always does, Spain will be fatally conflicted in retaining its Canadian colonies to save face whilst reducing the assistance it can give its allies.

And all of this remember, for no resource benefit whatsoever.



If Spain considers herself a boss and true member of her alliance, she will divest herself of her links with Brazil and Chile, support Argentina to allow her to dominate South America, and allow Canada back her territories.

But Spain shall not do this.

Because Spain is not a boss.

Fail Spain