Join the new world

Yet another anniversary, black friday and winter event has come and gone by. We are into a new year, which hopefully will be much better than the last and give everyone some much needed breathing room, both literally and figuratively speaking. It was particularly heartening to see the large number of fresh and dedicated players in the community of late. This group has already made their presence felt with the recently concluded resource wars, and it’s my hope this trend continues into the future.

As we look into the future, it’s also pertinent to look at the past. Today I’m writing about a small slice of e-history, which I personally experienced and found noteworthy.

The paradox of pakistan

New players who started playing the game in the fall of 2013 were presented by a jarring reality. The complete western half of the country was under the control of none other than Pakistan and the eastern bit by Croatia, a country 90% of Indians didn’t know about. Of course, strength in browser games is determined by the power of your credit card and it was apparent a whole host of small countries just by having a few dozen spenders were world beating superpowers.

After being removed in 2014, Pakistan never managed to take back control of Indian regions, but various conflicts still rolled on, ranging from border skirmishes to coordinated air-strikes. One noteworthy incident stands out - when the dictatorship module was first introduced, Pakistani elements initiated a coup in India and the battle was fiercely contested, with India ultimately prevailing and going into a defensive dictatorship for several years.

Today, with the signing of a MPP between the two countries, relations between India and Pakistan have moved on to neutrality and real-politick. This drives home the point that, there really are no permanent friends or enemies when it comes to diplomacy.

The pizzarayne era

First known as maverick, and then pizzarayne when he returned, pizza was a player who played a major role in Indian affairs, from the very beginning and had an extensive knowledge of statecraft and international diplomacy. During his time, he wrote many well-regarded articles, dramatically improving India’s stature in the eWorld. On top of that, he was the bulwark of the Indian fighters, mostly fighting on his own. This was especially true during the 2016 resource wars, where he was the sole fighter in a country filled with 2-clickers, much like Horatius of ancient Greek lore.

The Pizzarayne era ended, not with a bang, but in silence. As with many other players, he had run his time in the game and ceased logging in. After a long stretch of 30 days of not logging in, Pizzarayne, by a game mechanic, was removed as commander of the IAF MU and the dictatorship; simply disappearing like so many petals in a light breeze. To date, a memorial stands in his memory - the first two Legend ranks.



The Proliferation of TWs

An interesting aspect of modern economics is how things inevitably gravitate towards optimization and maximum utilization of resources. The situation in erepublik is no different. At the start, farming was not a thing, and packs didn’t exist. The strongest countries generally kept their “cores” intact - being “wiped” was generally a sign of disgrace. TWs usually took place, forcibly, most of the time in weaker countries.

Gold prices hovered around 1200 cc a piece while daily salaries were just 50-100 cc per work. But with the increase in TWs, and every country making the maximum use of all territories for full wars and ping pongs, followed by events such as the summer event, gold price has dropped dramatically. Even regular players can easily save up gold and buy up Q7 weapon companies, leading to greater supply and faster rank-ups of the players in general. Without real wars, the game is effectively a zero-stakes farming simulation, which in a way, brings home the need for rivalries like that between CODE and Asteria just to give the game some direction in the years to come.

A turbulent election

Bombay Bomb for years was a stalwart of the Indian community. But after a series of scandals, he had fallen from grace, and the fall was profound and shocking in many respects. The matters were wide in scope, including refusal to pay back loans taken from Indian players (Murthu and myself), inappropriate behaviour towards various female players in erepublik, shady business practices and misappropriation of government information and resources.

However, in spite of all that, the presidential election of Sept 2018 was close. The incumbent CP, Murthu was battling anti-incumbency, and Bombay Bomb operated an aggressive campaign, drawing on a base of support in DPI he had built over years, and many of the players were not fully aware of the true scope of the scandals. This was in addition to support from several fringe indian groups, many of which harbored resentments towards the Indian establishment, and were induced by BB by promises of positions of power.

It was a complex and fraught election, and the stakes were never higher. It was a battle for the soul of the nation. The initial results indicated a victory for BB, but ultimately, several votes were docked from his tally on account of being cast by multis and Murthu emerged the victor.



Bombay Bomb never recovered from the election loss, ultimately leaving the country and eventually being permanently banned. To date, he remains a nebulous figure in the Indian community, who many suspect still plays, albeit under a different name.

The Fhaemita and Zordacz sagas




For every country with a small community, the threat of a PTO lies heavy. The eWorld is populated by numerous “failed” nation-states, which are in the control of a couple of legends. India has been the target of numerous of these PTO attempts by various powerful individuals on the hunt for a personal kingdom.

Fhaemita arrived in eIndia as a veteran player with extensive experience in the eWorld. He quickly made his way into the inner circle of Indians, shaping policy and diplomatic relations, welding considerable influence from behind the scenes. But, on a fundamental level, for all his lofty credentials, FTA harbored a deep racial prejudice against Indians and others he perceived as inferior. Cracks first appeared with the breakout of the BB scandals. FTA’s response was to blame and deingitate the whole Indian community for the events rather than simply the individual concerned. Subsequently, for many months, he hampered Indian TWs until finally disappearing.

However, by far, the case of Zordacz was even more damaging and left an indelible impression on the Indian community. Zordacz, a developer of scripts had deep relationships across erepublik - from the top players who all used his scripts to the game administration who had for years labelled scripts illegal, but gave him a free pass and the unabashed support of governments of several nations, including Poland.

For over a year, eIndia fought against Zordacz, both on the battlefield, arena of coding and international diplomacy. Among the measures employed were the increase of taxes, to cripple Zordacz’s companies, but revenue from sale of his script was more than sufficient to keep him afloat and the battle continued, majorly in the battlefield, with Zordacz developing more and more sophisticated scripts, including one that automatically tracked down empty battles anywhere in the world and hit in them for cheap BHs. Finally, Zordacz was permanently banned for reasons that still aren’t fully clear, putting an end to this sordid chapter in Indian history.

To date, both these cases send out a sobering message - on the power of a single rogue individual with the time and resources to massively disrupt a community.