Join the new world

Hello friends,

Thank you to those who read, voted or commented on my previous article! For those who have not read it, you can find a quicker summary of the below. This manifesto will be very text heavy and will detail each of the points I raised in full. These policies will help fulfil the very things I am looking to bring to the eUK:






Military

Both Military and Domestics policies were a big focus of my previous manifesto. In both, I feel there is a lot I want to continue to pursue. Military Orders will be made easier to follow, and hosted on the eUK Portal as well as on a regularly-updated google doc as a single source of truth. Weapons Gifting will happen on a universal-reward basis, with payouts being based on reaching a kills threshold and sent out without the need to comment on an article. Bounties will be streamlined and benefit from further automation in terms of reporting to Congress and reqThere is further detail on this in the article for those who want to know more. This being eRepublik, there are a couple of areas which are always changing and so I would like to pick up on them specifically:

Training wars & Potential Partners

There was an interesting discussion about Training Wars in the comments of this article a few weeks ago, and a lot of citizens voiced that they felt 8/9 active Training Wars at a time was an good baseline. Although the number of active battles can dip below that, we should be more diligent that our TW stack is large enough to accommodate these battles, and take practical steps to aim for double-digit battles being the norm. If elected I will work with the MoFA to actively identify potential TW partners, so in the event that military campaigns around the world cause the closure of any of our TW’s we know where the next one is coming from. This marks a difference from waiting for TW’s to happen to us and fits the theme of taking a more active interest in our foreign affairs.

Regions and Reasons Review

As detailed last month the public and Congress would definitely benefit from a full rundown of our regions and, in the event of their occupation, the reasons why. This will improve transparency on foreign affairs, can document any text or agreements/understandings around the regions we occupy or let out. It will also highlight and allow us to address gaps in our understanding or any occupations that aren’t accompanied by a formal agreement, such as with Northern Ireland. It can also feed into the potential partners/TW review, and ultimately just act as an audit of what agreements we have so that they can be subject to proper scrutiny. These will also be hosted on the eUK portal so anyone will be able to have a look and see at a glance which countries are our training partners, which regions are being used and the agreements mentioned above all in one place.

Defensive Alliances

In the past two months there have been a few cases of the eUK bumping into the real military campaigns being fought around the world, and this has come close to us being invaded (as far as we can guess, to ensure nations invading our neighbours have more border-options). It is only a matter of time until a nation attacks us for exactly this reason or worse for an actual invasion. In addition to adopting DoW Readiness plans, we must, as a responsible Government, be fully aware of our options in terms of defensive networks and alliances. We will seek to understand what a Defensive Alliance could mean for the eUK, for our Training Wars, and most importantly for our security, before sharing options on the future of foreign affairs with Congress. We will also set up communications with all MU commanders and captains, and some of our hardest hitting citizens, to ensure in the event we need to direct damage we have an easy route to ensure as many people can be on the same page. As long as we have an effective and efficient method in place in case we are deliberately attacked then this will make us a more attractive partner when it comes to searching for defensive allies.





Domestics

Last month I talked about the New Player Contract, complimented by an overhauled eUK Portal to support players signing up to play in the eUK. I also talked about a Health Alignment initiative to make sure our fragmented health system can be brought into a streamlined offering. These will remain a priority if I am elected in August. Of course, Mr Woldy and I have put a lot of work into the eUK Portal but as we all know wiki rabbit-holes are never ending and so there should always be a baseline of effort going into updating pages. Otherwise guaranteeing new players are contacted, fed and informed will be the central domestic mission in my Government.

To keep things fresh we have a few new ideas to throw into the offering as well!

Gamified Comms

The Ministry of Communications has been contacting people with wiki links and support about twice a month since the MoHA brought it into being. I suggest we integrate mentoring and comms approaches AND make things interesting by ‘gamifying’ messages, with click-to-enter style draws facilitated by tools like google forms. That way the Government will have a way of encouraging activity and a rudimentary measure of whether it seems to be working.

eUK Mission Statement

We can see two broad play-styles in the eUK, those who enjoy an active community and see the media and politics as somewhere to channel that, and those who want to focus on medals and building strength. I’m going to be radical here - both are good ways to play and they can easily co-exist! I don’t believe the Presidency should sit back and watch a community argue amongst itself to the detriment of everyone’s enjoyment. I will ask my cabinet ministers to commit to bridging gaps, and will start with inviting people from across all parties to collaborate on an eUK Mission statement. This can be just a few lines to serve as an anchor with which to remind ourselves we are on the same team, and that we shouldn’t judge people by their party but take each individual on their own merits.

Inter-Country Competition

We will run weekly competitions across the month for parties to work together in order to win cash prizes for their members. These will be in the form of competitions for most damage as a party, most battle hero medals and sky hero medals, and most individual articles in the Top 5. Team work and even cross-party alliances will be necessary in order to come out on top and win prizes.

Promotion of Immigration

One of the eUK’s strengths is our multiculturalism. Unfortunately we all know how hard it has been to keep new players in the game, and whilst I think that is an avenue that can be improved upon and will be something I take a hard look at, another factor that I have not seen considered to improve our standing within the eWorld is looking abroad and incentivising migration to the eUK. Other countries, especially those waning in activity, may have many citizens eager to join an active and politically thriving country if we advertise our merits overseas.

PMQs

Something I did put in my manifesto last month but would like to highlight again is PMQs. This will be a weekly thread created with congress where everyone will have an opportunity to ask any questions they may have. This will then be published in an article the same week with all the questions and responses and will be part of a broader article updating you on what has been going on that week. If there is enough interest within Congress, we can even consider doing it live in the Discord channels that already exist as a public-government interface.





Economics

It’s easy to neglect the Economic Module in eRep. But as with anything you can take a look at it and identify some quick wins to help people engage with the module, and to enhance the understanding amongst Congress and the public on our finances. As such I will implement some small steps to help on the information front and some larger steps to help on the ‘health of the economy’ front.

Finance and markets Committee

I don’t think it is unfair to say that the economics module is home to some of the more arcane elements of eRep. It can take a bit of work and reading to know what is going on with it, and this can result in people being proposal-shy around suggesting things to do with economics and can mean issues that are identified are not always raised. Nevertheless the eUK has a reputation for having many citizens who are very capable at navigating the economics module. So I propose that the MoFinance looks across all parties to form a group of citizens with an interest in our economics. They can then evaluate the position of our markets, concessions, income, GDP, tax position and so on, in order to identify income opportunities, tweaks, or regulatory measures, which they can propose to Congress and/or Cabinet as appropriate. This pools knowledge from across our community to channel it toward the good of the eUK.

Player Support Schemes

Something that greatly overlaps between finance and domestics is our current lengthy player support schemes of which a compendium can be found here. Those who may have looked through them would have noticed how long and difficult to read it is and you may be unsurprised to know they are rarely used if at all. If elected I will review these schemes for two reasons. The first is to streamline these to be easy to follow, easy to contact the relevant people and easy to distribute. The second thing is to contact new arrivals and point them to these in order to help players improve quicker and more efficiently. They were created to be used, and I propose therefore we should start using them!

Ministry of Finance advice line

One of the key things I want the Minister of Finance to fulfil is working as an advisor to new players and those who may not be business confident. This will mean taking questions, explaining how things work and publishing best practice on where to buy companies and how to run them. This can be embedded in the eUK Portal (where else!). This will extend to writing explainers on the eUK’s tax and market positions which will benefit the public and Congress alike.

Donations and Transparency

TRS has been banging a drum about transparency in donations being the key to Congress being able to take more responsibilities as to where money goes. We’ve worked in Cabinet to establish a system of proposing budgets, but there are a few more ways we can utilise the donate button and Government Orgs. This of course harks back to Moneyflow transparency recommendations thought up months ago. We are mostly there now, but I propose we tackle the spending end of the equation and provide congress with definitions and parameters of what money in dedicated orgs is being spent on, so they can be assured as to where it is going and can take more responsibility for how much is donated to each ‘pot’.





Thank you to those who managed to get through the word count of this manifesto, I look forward to hearing your comments. I passionately believe I can be the person to take the eUK back towards the heights of its past, and I hope that you will help me with this task by lending me your votes on Saturday the 5th of August.

Yours Sincerely,

Betafoxtrot
August CP Candidate
~in boblo we trust~