Let's Chat #3: Are Airstrikes Good?

Day 2,167, 15:22 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Jimbobfrey


Airstrikes were added to eRepublik on 9th August 2012 (Day 1724) and, according to the eRepublik wiki, 22 countries have successfully launched airstrikes.

For those of you who don’t know what an airstrike is, I will explain. On your country’s military page (see the eUK’s one here), people can donate food and currency to the country’s airstrike fund. Once they reach 100%, the country can then launch an attack on any region, anywhere in the eWorld. This allows you to attack countries who you don’t share a border with - pretty cool, right?



Well, small countries (like Pakistan, Montenegro, etc.) often use airstrikes when the countries they share borders with are just too powerful for them to fight against. With an airstrike, they can fight somebody new and also somebody their own size, if they want to.

Some countries (like Albania and Croatia) have used airstrikes to escape from their original regions and ‘run away’ to safer places - both of these countries have lost their original regions but have moved their capital city to India. Moving the capital there means that they get the Indian resource bonuses and they have effectively started again outside of Europe.



Yeah, it’s pretty good. But how much do airstrikes cost? It’s all based on how big and powerful your country is. The formulae are as follows:



What this means is simple: big countries just can’t afford airstrikes and small countries have extremely cheap airstrikes so they are able to use them far more often, if they want to. In a way, that’s good to stop large countries like Serbia, Poland or the USA having world domination but it’s quite unfair that only smaller countries can afford airstrikes.

I’ll show you why I think it’s unfair using 2 examples:


Requirements for the eUK

Belgium requirements:

Requirements for eBelgium

Notice that the eUK (population of 1636) has to pay 15.2 million more food and over 73,000 more currency than eBelgium (population of 327). The eUK is not exactly a large country but, because it is not tiny, it is hard to afford an airstrike but Belgium’s airstrike costs are far more affordable - especially considering that CoT HQ does still have a decent sum of money left…

Just my opinion but I think the different costs of airstrikes are completely unfair!



Personally, I would like the cost of airstrikes to be changed so that more countries are able to afford them. I think that larger countries should have to pay less than they currently do and that smaller countries should have to pay more than they currently do.

Why? To make it more fair. So that it takes any country the same amount of time to save up for an airstrike.

Personally, I also think the formulae should not use the government's spending on MPPs to decide how much currency and food should be required for the airstrike. Otherwise, what's the point of having allies if they're only going to raise the prices for your airstrike? I think it should require any country to have to reduce their MPPs for a couple of months in order to save enough money to afford an airstrike. It should be a relatively large amount to pay for any country.



So, back to the original question, are airstrikes good?

Yes! They are excellent because they change our eWorld map by letting countries move to different continents and starting wars between countries who would never usually border each other.

...And also no. The costs of airstrikes are favouring the smallest countries. The ability to buy in countries with a larger population means that of course the cost should be greater but the price of food and currency is roughly equal in all countries. Also, I don't agree that countries with more allies should have to pay more than similar countries who don't have as many allies. Until the formulae used or the economic module change, I think airstrikes need improvement.

TL😃R version: Airstrikes are great but Jimbobfrey doesn’t like their cost.

See you next time, my wonderful butterflies!
-Jimbobfrey

EDIT: Chinese version is here - http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-quot-quot-1-2334798/1/20