Join the new world

Let's face it: the game we play has ceased to be a game of strategy long time ago.

First, the land-swaps were eliminated. That killed any possibility for surprise maneuvers.

Then the automatic attack was introduced. That made everyone's moves even easier to anticipate.

After that, all which counted for victory was achieving overwhelming numerical superiority.

Wining by overwhelming numerical superiority requires two things:

1) To have players who can find the "Fight" button on the web page.

They can even be color-blind, unaware the color of the button is red, and still they would be able to play the game and win "epic victories" as long as they know they should push the LARGEST button on the screen.

Most people are good at playing eRepublik since they need to be able to push the other large button anyway (the one that turns on the computer) in order to play the game.

2) To be part of an alliance which has overwhelming numerical superiority.

The key word here is overwhelming.

Just numerical superiority is insufficient for victory: ONE still has the ability to deal more damage than TEDEN. Yet right now ONE isn't doing well because its numerical superiority isn't overwhelming anymore.

I have listed the two success factors (the shrewdness to find the largest button on the screen + the wittiness of being part of a huge mob) as independent. But are they truly independent?!

In order to put together a huge alliance that cleverly defeats everybody else at the push of a button, some diplomacy needs to happen first. At first glance, that is a two step process:

I) In the first step, the leaders negotiate among themselves.

II) In the second step, the populations need to approve the alliances.

But there's also step zero: the populations elect the leaders who negotiate.

So in truth, the ability to form an alliance depends on the abilities of the population to weight the advantages and the disadvantages of an alliance.

For the populations of the countries of ONE, the decision wasn't exactly simple.

- It is true that pressing the big red button allowed the Serbs to "liberate" Texas in-game after ruining their own country in Real Life;

- The people from FYROM could brag about a Macedonian Empire without having to speak Greek as well;

- And the Hungarians "avenged the historical injustices" by performing legendary feats of heroism with a mouse in hand.

Each of those accomplishments is truly bound to bring everlasting glory. And their grandchildren and great-grandchildren would honor their memories and dream of matching their bravery and patriotism.

So in case of Serbia, FYROM and Hungary, the choice to form a HUGE alliance was natural.

However the two other villains, Spain and Poland, at first glance had absolutely zero motivations to betray their allies: both were eRepublik empires at that time anyway.

And in Real Life there weren't any serious "wrongs" which needed to be made "right". Especially in a computer game.

But before blaming them let's remember that each of us is alone in birth, in death and in pressing the BIG RED BUTTON.

While the first is definitely not our merit and the second is usually not of our own choosing, the third is ours and ours only.

We have reached by our own hard work and intelligence the point in which we can for sure tell which button is the largest on the screen and nobody else can take credit for that.

One day we weren't even toilet-trained but look at us today: we can be proud Poles or Spaniards who can find the right button to press even though the Admins try to fool us with other large buttons like "Buy food" or "Missions" (or the tiny "Logout" - but hey, nobody is falling for that trick - the "Logout" is both tiny and grayed out. Nice try Admins though!)

For now Terra and EDEN have managed to avoid being alliances where people feel great about themselves because they pressed the right button every day.

They have also avoided to be the alliances of embittered people who are genuinely convinced that what happens in a computer game has anything to do with historical rights or wrongs. Or with national greatness (think of the FYROM "superpower" compared to the "weakling" Germany).

Let's keep it that way in the future too.



P.S. (Има цици, има вот)