"Please make the alliances more even", they said and continued to do nothing
Day 3,504, 15:24
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Published in Finland 
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by
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by TheJuliusCaesar
[The content of this article is completely that of my own and does not represent the view of Pacifica in any way.]
Greetings,
I have noticed I'm finding inspiration from the comment sections of different articles lately, this time from the magnificent interview by J211. All my thanks for you, readers, and especially those commenting.
One of the most common and persistent point of view regarding the current alliance system is that it supposedly kills all the fun in the game, that Pacifica "destroyed the game" by aligning more with Asteria. It is past time the issue is addressed. The hypothesis leads us to a two-folded question: what is fun and how to preserve it?
As I briefly touched in the above-linked interview, the definition of game enjoyment is not simply one-size-fits-it-all approach with a prescribed mechanism. Some players enjoy tight battles (which are there from time to time, nevermind the current alliance setup); others enjoy struggling to come out on top in politics, be it national or international; while a third group likes to maximise their economic output and profits. Some like to feel the game passionately and don't think twice to rush to the battlefield or spend money without hesitation in one place or another, while others prefer to only operate with cold logic sans emotions. Most of the citizens do something in between.
Political and economic modules being reduced to what they currently are, I of course recognise that I myself am a lone wolf enjoying mostly political endeavours, and that the majority of the citizens left in the game find their enjoyment from the military module. Therefore we should turn on the second part of the question, which also is more pertinent to the analysis of alliance politics and indeed Pacifica.
Assuming most of the citizens get their fun from the military module, and assuming that the fun stems from tight battles (I hear this the most), then it is in order to ask ourselves: how to make the sides as even as possible? There are two ways to approach this: either we let the alliance blocs find equilibrium naturally, or then we do not let it find it naturally and force more even alliances to commence. It is time for a thought experiment!
Let us imagine that we decide globally that it is in order to employ the latter mentioned solution of the forcing of most even possible alliance blocs. Obviously, this would require some sort of supranational organ (I won't even get into how this is formed) to determine the most even alliances (how many is optimal?) so we can have the most even battles possible. Perhaps this magnificent supranational organ would take into account the raw damage output of each nation and combine it with (pre-determined and arranged tables of persons with varying degrees of) political skills, as well as modify the output according to the quality of coordination within each nation. And continuously keep these factors updated, as well as devising more attributes to quantify, resulting in changes to alliances when needed to maintain a good™ Balance of Power.
Does it sound feasible and easy to maintain without Plato's intervention? I don't think so either, my beloved readers. In fact, I do not think that would even be fun at all. This is why it is in order to let the alliances be determined naturally by politics. By negotiations. By diplomacy. Freely. This is, of course, the current system we are operating with, yet I sense some are quite discontent with the freedom to determine alliances by politics.
Now, next step is that as it is not possible or feasible to maintain even-sided alliances with force, some still want alliances to "make them more equal" to be fun. For them I have a question: where is it tenable to draw a limit? At which point does a certain bloc become too dominant? Exactly, this too is better to be left for individuals as a whole to decide. It just does not work so that the losing side, which lost only and only because of their inferiority in the game of alliances, demands a new deal of cards and that the stronger side should arbitrarily play worse to be more fair, or something.
The above consideration leads to two main deductions. First, anyone can and should voice their opinion if they feel that this is boring, that is the indicator that you feel so. Second, and more importantly, the solution to achieve better game enjoyment (as in tighter battles) is not to sit on your hands, do nothing and moan that someone was better at politics than you. Everything starts from yourself: organise, dive into politics that determine the framework of the alliance system, cooperate and engage in diplomacy. If enough people feel that the current setup is boring, the system changes naturally via the avenues developed with diplomacy and politics. If there is no effort from the losing side to engage in diplomacy and politics, there will be no avenues to go with.
Taken into the level of the actual game we're playing, Pacifica was last January in a situation where it faced a decision. At the dawn of deepening conflict with Orion, we could have either chosen to de-escalate it, or go full-in and draw Asteria in too. We chose to de-escalate, which, combined with diplomacy, brought us to our current position. I have no regrets, as I believe that being on the winning side heightens the opportunities for an alliance to have fun, however you want to define said fun.
The Andes alliance is a prime example of the lack of avenues: how can the dominant side approach those on the losing side if the losing side makes no move to come forwards from their losing positions? And more importantly, why should the dominant side approach if they are having fun? It raises the bar to reshuffle if both sides just dig deeper into their holes, but I am most sure it in the end hurts the losing side way more to do so.
Once again: Actions have consequences.
- Caesar
Greetings,
I have noticed I'm finding inspiration from the comment sections of different articles lately, this time from the magnificent interview by J211. All my thanks for you, readers, and especially those commenting.
One of the most common and persistent point of view regarding the current alliance system is that it supposedly kills all the fun in the game, that Pacifica "destroyed the game" by aligning more with Asteria. It is past time the issue is addressed. The hypothesis leads us to a two-folded question: what is fun and how to preserve it?
As I briefly touched in the above-linked interview, the definition of game enjoyment is not simply one-size-fits-it-all approach with a prescribed mechanism. Some players enjoy tight battles (which are there from time to time, nevermind the current alliance setup); others enjoy struggling to come out on top in politics, be it national or international; while a third group likes to maximise their economic output and profits. Some like to feel the game passionately and don't think twice to rush to the battlefield or spend money without hesitation in one place or another, while others prefer to only operate with cold logic sans emotions. Most of the citizens do something in between.
Political and economic modules being reduced to what they currently are, I of course recognise that I myself am a lone wolf enjoying mostly political endeavours, and that the majority of the citizens left in the game find their enjoyment from the military module. Therefore we should turn on the second part of the question, which also is more pertinent to the analysis of alliance politics and indeed Pacifica.
Assuming most of the citizens get their fun from the military module, and assuming that the fun stems from tight battles (I hear this the most), then it is in order to ask ourselves: how to make the sides as even as possible? There are two ways to approach this: either we let the alliance blocs find equilibrium naturally, or then we do not let it find it naturally and force more even alliances to commence. It is time for a thought experiment!
Let us imagine that we decide globally that it is in order to employ the latter mentioned solution of the forcing of most even possible alliance blocs. Obviously, this would require some sort of supranational organ (I won't even get into how this is formed) to determine the most even alliances (how many is optimal?) so we can have the most even battles possible. Perhaps this magnificent supranational organ would take into account the raw damage output of each nation and combine it with (pre-determined and arranged tables of persons with varying degrees of) political skills, as well as modify the output according to the quality of coordination within each nation. And continuously keep these factors updated, as well as devising more attributes to quantify, resulting in changes to alliances when needed to maintain a good™ Balance of Power.
Does it sound feasible and easy to maintain without Plato's intervention? I don't think so either, my beloved readers. In fact, I do not think that would even be fun at all. This is why it is in order to let the alliances be determined naturally by politics. By negotiations. By diplomacy. Freely. This is, of course, the current system we are operating with, yet I sense some are quite discontent with the freedom to determine alliances by politics.
Now, next step is that as it is not possible or feasible to maintain even-sided alliances with force, some still want alliances to "make them more equal" to be fun. For them I have a question: where is it tenable to draw a limit? At which point does a certain bloc become too dominant? Exactly, this too is better to be left for individuals as a whole to decide. It just does not work so that the losing side, which lost only and only because of their inferiority in the game of alliances, demands a new deal of cards and that the stronger side should arbitrarily play worse to be more fair, or something.
The above consideration leads to two main deductions. First, anyone can and should voice their opinion if they feel that this is boring, that is the indicator that you feel so. Second, and more importantly, the solution to achieve better game enjoyment (as in tighter battles) is not to sit on your hands, do nothing and moan that someone was better at politics than you. Everything starts from yourself: organise, dive into politics that determine the framework of the alliance system, cooperate and engage in diplomacy. If enough people feel that the current setup is boring, the system changes naturally via the avenues developed with diplomacy and politics. If there is no effort from the losing side to engage in diplomacy and politics, there will be no avenues to go with.
Taken into the level of the actual game we're playing, Pacifica was last January in a situation where it faced a decision. At the dawn of deepening conflict with Orion, we could have either chosen to de-escalate it, or go full-in and draw Asteria in too. We chose to de-escalate, which, combined with diplomacy, brought us to our current position. I have no regrets, as I believe that being on the winning side heightens the opportunities for an alliance to have fun, however you want to define said fun.
The Andes alliance is a prime example of the lack of avenues: how can the dominant side approach those on the losing side if the losing side makes no move to come forwards from their losing positions? And more importantly, why should the dominant side approach if they are having fun? It raises the bar to reshuffle if both sides just dig deeper into their holes, but I am most sure it in the end hurts the losing side way more to do so.
Once again: Actions have consequences.
- Caesar
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Nice 🙂
As much as I hate the idea of Andes... Game needs a 3rd side. Been needing it for a long, long time. Eventually the other sides will get bored and duke it out between them. It's inevitable, the serbs always get bored eventually. If (big IF) Andes plays it smart, they should fight for the highest bidder. Or play their own game while the nukes fly.
Though is no longer the game of timezones it used to be, serbs will have to pay some nice CO's to attract the damage they need for their ultimate goal... Or not. And play diplomacy. Interesting times ahead.
I very much agree that a game with three major alliances is always more dynamic and prone for changes (nevermind the tendency of two to gang up on one, like one could argue of Pacifica + Asteria vs. Syndicate) than a two-polar world, but I just do not feel that Andes is the "panacea" to end the current system. Essentially, it consists of solely former proSyndicate members, which means that they effectively just diminished their damage-pool, or at least did not make it bigger.
Time will probably tell whether my opinion was accurate. Thank you for chiming in, glad to see heavyweights like you are still around.
Yeah, Andes wont be a powerhouse. Too weak for that. But they have enough to be independant as no side wants to antagonize them so much that they push them to the other side, as the recent talks shows.
Hell, if I were in charge of Andes, I'd go EDEN 2.0 and officially kill it, forcing a CoTWO split situation all over again.
If Andes can retain cohesiveness during the next great war, then they'll achieve something truly rare: to never be big enough to threaten the big alliances... yet never be small enough for one side to conquer them without the risk of pushing them to the other side. If well timed, they'll be ok. As you say, time will tell.
Came back recently, actually. o/
I'd really need to run numbers again someday, but I am not sure if even the raw damage would be enough for Andes to be the deciding bloc. I also have a feeling Pacifica was last year in such a niche position you described, but unfortunately not enough it seems xd
As far as I remember the world had some sort of what people call balance when it was bipolar.Balance in a 3 pole world is something that looks contradictory.
What game? Where?
Nowhere, don't run for president :^)
Oh maybe I should?!
I forgot I already am!
Or in the spiritismi of the article itself why is the game making it extremely hard to participate in the politics? Why doesnt anyone want to?
Tahdon nauttia elitismini yksin, valta on parasta kun sitä ei tartte jakaa :3
Ei ole vaaraa! 🙂
Plato should just limit the number of people or countries in an alliance and remove Epics. More small regional wars and politics. More fun.
[removed]
[removed]
The most important problem that the other side always had and still has is the fact that they never try to find middle ground with other countries they want as allies , they just try to force their agenda on others and well , that didnt work well. that usually goes like this :
Them : Country A , you need you to hate serbia and drop all relations and say all kosovo is albania
Country A : I can be ok with that , but i need little time to prepare and let the relations with new allies escalate first
Them : GTFO you serbian puppet
or
Them : Country B , you need to attack country C NOW!!
Country B : I am not really ready to attack now but i can help through COs and Fighters
Them : we have god emperor zdlemmy for COs and Fighter . GTFO of alliance
and other things like this.
if they ever learned to try move from their opinions and made it close with others . Aurius may have worked , many other sh*ts after that may have worked 😃
but it never does ," hurr durr kill servien puppets ,hurr durr kill adminlandians " for life 🙂
A saying goes: "If I am losing, how can I compromise; If I am winning, why should I compromise?" Machiavellian, indeed.
Feelings and animosity runs deep in alliance politics. Those overcoming them and trusting in pragmatism will prevail 😛
well , i believe that diplomacy is the art of compromise , to know how you should compromise and when you should compromise and when you should stand your grand tight.
Good diplomat is one who compromises equal or less than the diplomat on the other side.
No Compromise , Victory or death , belongs to battlefield , not politic table 😃 and it usually comes forth when diplomacy and trying to even the compromises doesnt work 😃
Very much so, couldn't have phrased it better. If you are not ready to compromise, don't expect the other counterpart to are either.
Aurius had Spain, thus their foreign affairs were condenmed from the very start.
As a HQ member in Asteria on some parts of Aurius times , i can say i had verious plans made for Aurius to beat the shit out of Asteria , in order to prepare counter moves if that happened.
I can say , they didnt even use 70% of their potential. we were preparing for something huge and then we got them randomly attacking somewhere more random and then half of one alliance would fight against the other , for terrorists sake. god praise the terrorists in gr tbh 😃
Global reset of territories every 90 days. Everyone goes back to "start" position no matter what. Alliance that that adds the most number of territories at reset receives some kind of prize. Basically have a 90 day event repeatedly.
Teams switch up all the time so new strategies are required all the time.
Now you are having too much faith in things changing around when it comes to game mechanics, friend 😛
We could actually do this ourselves but that would require everyone to co-operate and want something better instead of just bitching about it.
A global government completely in meta-game? Intriguing, I'm interested. Can you recruit the other citizens left xdxd
I have several Multi's who completely agree with me.
[eV] Ideological Guide. Part V: Totalitarianism.
erepublik.com/en/article/2644040
Vote, Comment, Endose, Subscribe, Shout.
O7
Hayy... Let it go.
Go ´n´have a beer.
Nice article, though, once again.
Good reading, voted!
kys
I think the real problem is lack of initiative and creativeness, and high mortality rate in the game doens't help either.
I still remember how, when I was Colombia's CP, it was rejected a proposal from me to use Pacifica's press ORG to generate resources for the alliance and, then, begin a support between country members, not only military, but economically, politically and even in press area.
Alliances in eRepublik are only thought from the military module, with the only goal of eWorld domination (like Asteria and allies) or to challenge that dominion (like Syndicate in the past and now Andes) People then talks about the needs of a third way, but nobody seems to worry in giving any thinking about the essentials or the content of that way. Indeed, the reason I'm spamming with the link above this message is as a last resort in encouraging people to try something different.
I'll go further: I hate TO, but I can understand why Plato allows it: If a country thinks the same way but then some foreigners thinks in other ways, they can impose their POV and make something different (and maybe fun) from current statu quo. I mean, when you look Cuba, you look a tiny community composed of "tovers" from different countries (spaniards, latins, serbians, now catalans), each one trying to surpass the other in politics and diplomacy and, then, some people calling themselves "communists" and the other criticizing because they didn't represent communism or socialism. That, by far, is better, in community activity terms, than things happening in almost all others eR countries.
As the characters are running off, I summarize: As in RL, international political groups in eR needs to rethink ways of action that doesn't exclusively depends on military forces. eWorld domination (and their challengers) can't be the only way to play here. Things like protectionism, trading embargoes, work tax, babybooms, short wars and everything else must be used to build some identity in those groups.
This content was earlier more or less made by the community in form of what is usually categorised as "meta"-gaming, stuff that happens outside the game mechanics itself. As the player base and communities grew more scarce and inactive, so too the content-making in those circles unfortunately decreased.
Plato's moves regarding the modules have had a straight nullifying effect on the content too: if the framework sucks and doesn't generate incentives to be active in form of a, say, newspaper article or campaigning for your congressional spot, there will be lessened activity. Similarly, the economic module has greatly been hampered, and there really is close to nothing worth investing in.
I, too, hope that in future the communities generate more content and that Plato would incentivise it. A man can hope. Thanks for the comment!
When Asteria's zenith moment, Plato DID create two medals to support revolutionaries in the game, with the hope some people could organize and create a sort of revolutionary corps to become the third way. When it became evident community wasn't interested in revolutions, Plato lower the prizes of those medals. Conclussion: We neither can expect Plato's incentives; all is up to own community initative and creativeness.
Creating revolutionary corps as a third way, for example, can be summarized in so simple things like no commitment towards any alliance or country, saving moving tickets and random assignation about the territory to be liberated (the only complicated thing would be the ORG, but even that wouldn't be needed). With that and a simple goal (take territories back to rightful owners), we would have some fun. But for people, (in special, VISAS or rich players) that's too much effort.
Summarizing: People can't complain when they haven't made all efforts possible to change the game development from community.
Interesting, I hadn't connected the dots on the medal introduction and their subsequent value change. Rather fascinating if that indeed was the motivation behind the medals.
I think this group of players as a third way already exists, though in form of mercenaries who hit where the money is. Those citizens rarely concern them with aspects of politics. It's not very concentrated, though, especially since the advent of Combat Orders (god I miss the times of organised mercenary groups, we made mad bucks).
Everything starts from the players. No matter what tools are available, they need to be used by the citizens for something to happen.
Judging by the comments you are not so lone 🙂
Excellent interview and the answer
"If enough people feel that the current setup is boring, the system changes naturally via the avenues developed with diplomacy and politics."
I disagree with that. There are many factors that can stop that "natural change":
- Leaders have different preferences than followers and they do not internalize followers' preferences. Given the current state of the game a change in leadership is complicated. (classical principal-agent theorem)
- Prisoner's dilemma. Even if we all wanted to move to a more tight system of alliances, no one is ready to make the first move since it might be hard to find real compromise on the other side.
- Those who disagree with the current system of order chose to leave instead of unite and fight, creating a vicious circle. (those who stay are, in relative terms, more willing to continue with the global order, it's easy to see this leads us to an equilibrium where only those who like the current system keep playing)
I'm not saying all of this is happening, but don't oversimplify things, changing the status quo is not easy.
- Of course, the impediments for natural change are myriad. This, in my mind, only reinforces the latter point of making your opinion heard and doing something for yourself too, enhancing the probability of said change. Be it voting, writing articles or other activity. I do not deny that there surely is a gap in constituent preferences and leader preferences, but it does not erase the overall point of natural change.
- The prisoner's dilemma is a valid consideration. This intertwines with the last paragraphs in the article: those one the winning side (and hence with more chances to enjoy the game) have no incentive to change anything, as long as they have fun. And they always have more fun that those on the losing side. Therefore it should be obvious that it is the job of those in worse position to pioneer the avenues with which the change can come in the first place. If it is left for those having the upper hand, it seriously hampers the probabilities of anything happening, as those having the upper hand have less incentives to change anything.
- Of course, it is quite possible that those who find the game boring will probably leave. This intertwines with the overall message of the article: if you are not yourself ready to raise your ass or do a thing for your own game enjoyment, why on earth would those doing better than you do? I find the "we'll leave the game" argument rather bland in that regards. If you're not ready to play the game, quit and don't play the game.
Apologies if I simplified the article too much. It is sometimes necessary, as I have found out that not everyone likes to read thousands after thousands of words xdxd
My problem is that winners are not taking into acount the real reason why they are having fun. Would u have fun being CP if u were the last player left in the game? I don't think so.
That is why I believe it is in the winner's BEST INTEREST to not anhiliate the opposition, so, if you see they are leaving, instead of encouraging them to quit cause they are not ready to win, it is in your BEST INTEREST that they stay in the game, so that u can actually win someone. This is why on earth those who are doing better than you should look a bit further.
It's from the adversity that real challenges arise and it's real challenges, that are complicated enough but not too complex that make us have fun.
But I think both being confortable and the incentive problem will be too big for those in a position to make real changes and we are ALL f**ked up in the medium run.
I just have to politely disagree in here. I do not see the alliance system as the main or even significant driver of citizens away from the game. Most vocal group, though, it is surely.
I very much agree that it is in our common interest to keep players in this game. If we were to assume that the alliance situation indeed is a significant factor driving people away, we again hit the wall of "what is dominant enough" and especially "how to counter it". Should the dominant bloc just arbitrarily and consciously play worse? I have no answer to this, which is the reason why I advocate for individuals to decide it themselves, as you are doing right now and have the full right to do. I just disagree with your position of it (players leaving because of the alliance system) being a significant problem.
And, again, it goes full circle to the matter of taking things onto one's own hands. We agree that it is a common interest to retain players. We seem to disagree who should do most of the work on retaining and why, with what consequences.
It is a pleasure to discuss this issue, this is why I keep writing.
Admin should randomly add 50% of countries on side A and 50% of countries on side B.
Divided reasonably equally based on influence, switched around every 12 months.
MPP between all members of a side automatically, no possibility to attack a member of your own side.
This would take certain fun aspects of the game away :/ In certain other political sim they did this with external tournaments of nations. It got out of hand but yeah.
Jymalauta NYT!!!
Kenon eviisilla on toista tuhatta tilaajaa ja JULLUlla reippaat kolmesataa?? Menkää ny itteenne!
*eAviisilla
Be careful what you wish for my dear Caesar, another major alliance may be coming sooner than you think to shake things up.
I'm always up for challenges :3
I think certain shaking up has taken place. Was it this Serbian thing you referred to, or is there more to come? :3
could read an article about RL, reads one about Erep...
that last picture looked a bit like a DICK at first, and is a bit how i talk to mine.
The game has had great imbalance between the "two sides" for as long as I remember. One side will brown-nose every smaller bloc so that they have the numbers on their side, then after while the other side's citizen just leave the game en-masse.
Look how far countries like Croatia have fallen after years of being on the "losing side". Is it really fun when domination slowly turns the game from war in to a circle jerk because the big countries are frightened of making the first move?
Winning is irrelevant when there's nobody left to witness it.