Join the new world

Today I reached 100 wellness for the first time since joining eRepublik. I got there gradually but I got there a lot faster than my brother-in-law who has been playing the game a little longer than me ... and he's still working on it. I don't mean to make fun of my brother-in-law ... my sister does that plenty ... in fact this article is written with him in mind.

When I start an endeavor I tend to seek out all of the rules and read whatever I can find about how to do it. That is my geeky obsession and I realize that isn't for everyone and that often people don't have enough time to sit at their computer and scour the web looking for info. That is also probably the lawyer in me as well and it combines with my legal research skill when it comes to having an open terminal and Google (plus I have the added benefit that the iPhone loads eRepublik very well).

I was chatting with my college roommate, who I've invited into eRepublik, about how well things are going in my first week. His response was "I'm shocked ... shocked that you would be doing so well in a social networking game." Of course, he jests because he knows that I'm a very social sort of guy. He said that he has known few people as willing to go up to unknown people and strike up a conversation as I am. And that is really part of how eRepublik works.

The attraction of eRepublik is that you can log on and in 10 minutes work/train for the day and click a few links and then you're done. But you can do more if you want and that's what I've been trying to do this week as I learn the ins and outs of this world. I have been reading the eRepublik forums, I joined a party and have been reading through their message forums, and I've been emailing back and forth with party leaders and other folks who have been members of this social experiment for much of its first year.

The result is that I've learned quite a bit about the dynamics and mechanics of eRepublik. Thus, when I managed to get some gold that I spent it on high quality food and gifts to exchange with other friends that I've been adding along the way this week. That is one of the secrets of doing well in eRepublik. The more social networking you do the better you will fare. I've been offering gifts to people who have, in turn, given gifts back to me boosting my wellness quickly to 100 ... much quicker than I would have thought actually. Some people have been nice enough to tell me to save my gifts because they are already self-supporting and have simply asked me to pay it forward ... and I appreciate that sentiment too and have tried to do that where I can as I meet more people and get more "friends" attached to my profile. Then again, sometimes I've only offered gifts with the implied hint that I could use the boost myself more than they could ... and that has also worked (altruism has it's place).

My brother-in-law got 5 gold when I joined eRepublik and quickly spent it. It occurred to me to ask him what he spent it on since he was only at 70% health and had no house to show for it. He said that he had spent it on wellness and I groaned. See, you can buy 10 wellness for 2 gold but that is a terrible bargain! You can get $35 to $40 USD from 1 gold and gifts cost about $1 a piece for Q1 gifts (one health boost) or $1.50 a piece for Q2 gifts (two health boosts). Thus, if you bought 30 Q1 gifts and 30 Q2 food with that 2 gold you would sustain your health from training and working each day with the Q2 food and you could get up to 10 wellness per day out of reciprocal gifts from friendly folks who want to acknowledge your gesture getting yourself from 50 to 100 wellness in just 5 days and then keep yourself there while making friends who can help you if you take a future hit with continued gift support (i.e. if you get knocked down in a military campaign).

So here is my advice for your gold. Convert your gold by going to the "exchange money" tab under "economy". Find the deal where you get an exchange of at least 1USD for 0.028 gold (the going rate seems to be just below 0.03). Then buy as many dollars as you want once you click the "buy" tab you can enter in various dollar amounts and see how much gold it will take before you actually "buy" the exchange. If you get some good gold at some point then think about using it to get a Q2 house to help keep your health up. If you want gold really bad then you can also buy 20 gold every 7 days using a PayPal account (and real money equal to about $15 USD after the conversion). Don't spend gold on wellness except for indirectly like I suggested above.

Think about saving gold for other purposes. I've been thinking about starting a company when the V1 change happens and a need for a new level of businesses arises. I don't know if I'll buy gold or beg/borrow it from others when that need arises. There will be a whole level of higher companies who will be relying upon folks to start the level of businesses below them so there could be some good incentives for them to help get lower businesses started. We'll see how all of that works. Right now I'm just exploring options. Owning a business would certainly increase the social networking aspect of eRepublik ... and so would running for political office which is something else that appeals to me.

Till next time...