The Economist ~ Nihilism in eRepublik

Day 2,427, 04:44 • Published in Poland United Kingdom • by Spite313





Dear friends,


Take a look at the erepublik map- it’s something that I don’t do very often, and I guess most of you are the same. Unless you’re actively involved in your countries Ministry of Defence (MoD), you probably aren’t that interested about things which don’t affect you- you just fight where your daily order (DO) or Campaign of the Day (CotD) happens to be. During the period it had x2 damage, the already supreme Serbia managed to conquer a big chunk of Europe, including Poland and it’s “home” colonies in Germany. The Poles didn’t even bother trying to resist double damage, instead preferring to wait and strike back later. Now that it is “later” Serbia is coming under attack from several RWs and direct wars. The question is, what did the expedition achieve?


Long ago, wars in eRepublik were much more vicious and personal than they are now. Poland is one of the most pragmatic countries in the game, least prone to defending a bad idea out of nationalism. But the Poland of 2 years ago would have been in political turmoil over the decision to not defend a battle, no matter how hopeless. But now it’s ingrained into our minds that every victory is ultimately transitory with no real long term benefits. Without the x2 bonus from the competition, Serbia’s expedition wouldn’t even have lasted the ten to twenty days it has. The game has become an endless cycle of periodic victory and loss.


Argentina’s occupation of Spain and the UK offered some hope of a sustained occupation, but ultimately failed because the finely balanced alliance system meant that to keep it’s territories, Argentina had to fight harder than normal all the time, whereas Aurora-Sirius only had to fight hard long enough to dislodge them. I guess greater co-operation between the UK, Spain and Aurora had a part to play- Chile’s indifference toward them made them vulnerable to Argentina. Argentina’s night damage advantage, and the political unwillingness to spend big on CO played their part too.





However the point is that in the end, long term occupation of countries is a thing of the past in most cases- the exception being agreed region swaps and France, whose rubber bonus and general ability to annoy everyone, ever, means that they struggle to get support from allies whilst being one of the most attractive targets around. If the UK had rubber or saltpetre, it would be in the same boat. In any case, wars now have small benefits for the aggressor, and as a result most people just don’t care anymore about them.


Ask yourself, when was the last war you really cared about? Where you thought that it would make a real difference to your country? Even the countries who used to fight long ping pong wars against real life rivals (Croatia-Serbia for example) don’t really have the same level of care as they did. The passion has been worn down by repetition and a global stalemate which is only briefly disturbed by a larger victory- and those larger victories (like the one TWO achieved) are political, not battlefield.


So what is the solution to this? I remember when I was first born, the UK was not involved in any wars at all for the first 5 months of my life. I mean zero- by MPP or direct. That’s because war was insanely expensive. Hundreds of gold to declare, then every region attacked cost hundreds more- with Resistance Wars (RWs) equally expensive. I freed Bavaria from Poland once, and it cost 129 gold to start the resistance war. Imagine that, with the dozens of RWs we see every day now? It’s hard.



I’m not saying we should go back to that system, but there must be a happy medium. The Natural Enemy mechanics make war cheap and plentiful, but desensitise us to it. With a dozen minor wars going on at any time, it’s hard to feel engaged with any of them. The mechanics need to be tweaked to cut back the number of wars- whether that is by increasing the cost (or rather, making a cost) or by removing the NE law altogether. Attacking regions should have a cost too, and RWing them should have an even steeper cost. Right now it costs 50g to start a RW, but spread across 10 people it is nothing, which is why we get spammed proposals everywhere. Increase the cost, or remove the ten sponsors rule and have a single person foot the cost.


I guess a lot of people will disagree with me, because these changes cut down the number of personal benefits you as a player receives from the war module. However at the minute we do have a system where people fight for medals, or for benefits. How many times have you hit in a 66-0 battle just because you couldn’t be bothered to find a more meaningful one and needed to get the hits in to reach a competition milestone? We are playing for personal rewards, the war itself has become meaningless.


With a more expensive system, and less wars, we would again have the situation where whole alliances were clashing in a single key war that we all get behind. We wouldn’t all be playing for ourselves. Countries wouldn’t be starting wars just to get true patriot medals or out of boredom. We would have a genuine alliance system where allies were bound by the experience of fighting together in heroic battles like those of the past. Those names that echo down from V1, with no counterparts in the modern world of consumer battlefields.


The current game tends towards nihilism, but this is something the admins can change and should change. For battlefields with meaning!


Iain



To those of you wanting to join Unity drop Count Drakula, Lord Farhan or myself a PM. Be part of the best unit in the world 😁