Join the new world

In which I refer to this article here Mid 20 blues This article updates the previous one, and hopefully gives the readers positive feedback.

We'll start off with the bad news. Your leveling progression remains stuck in a big treacle vat. The numbers tick by oh-so-slowly, and the only positive is checking your progression in national rank. If you're lucky and live in eIreland or similar, you'll slowly see your ranking improve, if you're unlucky you might be in eSerbia where at best it stays still, and in some cases, goes backward.

Now let's have some good news:

Damage. It's at this stage that you start making a difference in a battle. The days when you used to do 495 damage having emptied out half your health bar, gets replaced by doing 2500. So depending on your health building(s), you'll be churning out between 35-50,000 damage per cycle. OK, it's not going to win the battle, but it does count as a genuine contribution, compared to the token damage you were doing heretofore.

Rank. What's great with rank is that it scales with damage, so your progression in ranks remains pretty much on an even curve. The time taken to get from Lt. Colonel to Lt. Colonel*** is pretty much the same as getting from Colonel to Colonel*** Yeah, look I know that this is unlikely to last forever and it will get harder, but to be even more positive, when that happens, you'll be putting through a lot more damage in the battlefield, so you won't notice it too much.

Seasonal missions. It's a nod to that great MMO World of Warcraft (WoW) that eRepublik are putting their own spin on what was a staple of that game, the achievement system. What this means is that once every two months (I guess), they'll come out with a new set of missions to complete. This achieves two things, firstly it breaks up the drudgery of the day-to-day tasks, and secondly, it gives the player an appreciable boost in XP, or strength, or rank points or whatever goody they come up with.

As this is now a staple of the game, it gives you a leveling advantage to those that have gone before you. Which is a bit like WoW became with an emphasis on getting players up on their feet as quickly as possible, now extending to make it easier even at mid-levels.

Achievements. Having now completed your first mercenary medal, you'll have copped on how to do it again in half the time. In addition, now that you can complete the D.O. everyday, your handy stockpile of bazookas can now be used up to get you your Battle Hero achievement. Just make sure you have enough Bazookas to do 1.5m damage (50) and maybe even more to be on the safe side. Also, it's important to pick the right campaign and most important of all, the right side. As your achievement will be shouted out to all your friends, we don't want to embarrass ourselves needlessly, do we?

Being Selfish. At this stage, it's still possible to be selfish and put your own interests first above unit and country. I say this with particular regard to achievements, but, only on the basis that the gold acquired is used to build your companies and land assets and thus make you stronger. It's also - particularly considering the current climate - important to point out that various people will ask you where you were when eUK were attacking Dublin? It might not go down too well if you were earning the Battle Hero for Bolivia. So use your head.