[DoE] Guide to: War Module

Day 1,981, 13:52 Published in USA USA by Department of Citizen Affairs


Vanek26 managed to find time in his busy schedule to write this amazing essay on the War Module. Enjoy!

The War Module of eRepublik as currently constituted is a conglomeration of years of changes and other areas of no change, resulting in some rather bizarre results, loopholes, and tactics. The wiki of the game, as well as the knowledgebank and any other admin maintained area is woefully out of date, so try not to consult those sources. Instead, I’ll attempt to explain how it operates, looking at it from the viewpoint of a Country President account. The Country President’s account is where the mechanics of war are mostly clustered.

A War is initiated from the page Country Administration. Here, a Country President has several options for various laws, as well as the ability to select a Campaign of the Day. I’ll discuss the campaign of the day later. For our purposes (Discussing the war module), we will ignore a few of these options and only discuss the parts that are underlined. Black is most pertinent to the topic, though red underlined parts are essential to success.



So, ignoring Message to New Citizens (auto-message to new players), Buy Buildings (obsolete, there are no buildings to buy), and trade embargoes (harmful to your own economy just as much), we shall instead discuss Declare War, Airstrike, and Natural Enemy, as well as Mutual Protection Pact and Peace Proposal. Note: All laws take 24 hours to pass, and only one of each kind can be proposed at the same time time.

Declare War is an obsolete mechanic that still (to the best of my knowledge) functions. I say to the best of my knowledge because it has not been used in years by any country. Why you say? It costs gold to declare war, lots of gold. Right now it would cost 789.2 gold to declare war. The law takes 24 hours and requires a 2/3 majority to pass.



So what do people use instead? Natural Enemy.



Natural Enemy is a mechanic the admins introduced a few years ago to spice up the game, but basically its just eradicated one mechanic and made this the standard. What makes natural enemy so appealing is it costs nothing to declare, it provides a 10% damage boost, and of course allows you the first attack. The downside is that you cannot change Natural Enemy for 7 (basically 8 ) days, and peace proposals cannot be sent while it is active. What this means is a war started by Natural Enemy cannot end for around 10 days after being declared if both sides maintain regions. The 10 days comes from 7 days of having the NE, a day to change it, while the NE is still in effect, and then 2 days for peace proposals. More on that later though. Like declare war, it takes 24 hours to pass and requires 2/3 approval.

I figure this is the best place to introduce the actual mechanics of a war. Once a war has been declared, action for the Country President shifts to Country Tab: Military There, the Country President opens up the war his country is involved in.



There, the Country President sees a few things that are different from other people. First off, between battles, a timer is visible, counting down from 24 hours. Secondly, it provides options to attack different regions.



Now, what is a battle? A battle is one confrontation in a war or ‘campaign’. A battle is made up up rounds that last 1 hour and 30 minutes at the minimum, and 2 hours at max. Each round has a separate battle in 4 different divisions, based on level. Division 1 is levels 1 - 24, Division 2 is 25 - 29, Division 3 is 30 - 36, and Division 4 is 37 onward. Division 1 provides 1 point per round, Division 2 provides 2 points, Division 3 provides 3 points, and Division 4 provides 5 points. In each division, there are two stats that are important. One is the wall, and the other is the domination. Every minute that Side A has over 50% on the wall, their side gains domination, depending on what time in the round it is. When one side reaches 1800 domination, that division is won, and its points are awarded. When one country reaches 83 points, adding the points from each division and each round, the battle is won. Since 11 points are awarded each round, 8 rounds is the quickest that a battle can last, 15 the longest.

When a battle is completed, the victor gains initiative. Initiative means that the possessing nation gets to pick which enemy region to attack, and when. There is a 24 hour timer attached to this, so the attack must come within this time or an auto attack will take place, where the game selects a region at random to attack. The only regions that can be attacked are the regions bordering regions of your nation. If there are no regions of the enemy left, or none left touching your regions, the war closes even if there is a NE open. This is the most common way for a war to end.

A war, aka ‘Campaign,’ is the collection of single battles for single regions. The general goal of any war is to capture strategic resources or hold them, and to capture all the enemies regions. This, as I said, ends the campaign, but it really doesn’t mean the end of the general war between the two warring nations. And neither is the war truly between two nations only. In truth, almost all wars in the eWorld take place between the various alliances. When nations clash, they are aided by their allies, the allies that have passed the law “Mutual Protection Pact.” This law, which costs 10,000 dollars for both countries, last 30 days and allows people in each nation to fight in each other’s battles. Each MPP, as they are known, is proposed by the CP of one of the two nations on the administration tab, and voted upon by the Congresses of both nations. So, the CP of USA can propose a MPP with Brazil, the CP of Brazil doesn’t have to do anything, but the Congress of USA and Brazil have to approve it by 1/2 +1 majority.



MPPs might seem pretty simple, but there are some important aspects of them that need to be considered when planning a campaign. First off, if both nations in a war have the same nation as MPPs, (ie USA attacks Mexico, both Mexico and USA have MPPs with Brazil), the attacking nation loses the MPP. This MPP appraisal takes place at the beginning of each battle, not the war. So in the situation I just described, the United States would not lose Brazil’s MPP until the moment the first battle was launched against Mexico. Furthermore, if Brazil is currently in a battle, the USA MPP does not disappear from that battle while it is still in progress, and will only not show up starting with their next battle. So, remember, MPPs are battle specific, not campaign specific.

This brings me to a strategy often employed in situations where both sides have an MPP in a war. If Brazil and the United States wanted to maintain their MPP at the cost of 10,000 dollars each and Brazil’s MPP with Mexico, the USA could intentionally lose the first battle while sending a new MPP to Brazil. When Mexico counterattacks, Mexico would lose their MPP with Brazil, while the USA would keep theirs.

The major part of the war module not covered yet are Resistance Wars. These are battles begun in regions occupied by a foreign nation. These differ from normal battles in a few ways. First off, they are not started by a President, but rather by 10 players. In addition, it costs 1,000 dollars from each player to start. The battle is begun by being in the desired region and checking the home page. When the time is right, a box will appear where you can support the RW. Winning the RW, as they are called in short, results in a hard to get medal known as the Resistance Hero medal and 5 gold. If successful, the starter can begin another, but if the RW fails, they cannot start another one for 7 days.

Once begun, a fairly normal battle is begun, with a few noticeable differences. First off, there are no MPPs, so only people in the country can fight. In addition, both sides are fighting from the same country, and must pick which side to fight on, resistance or the occupying country.

As I said, apart from this, they are pretty straightforward, same point totals to win, ect. What is important to note when looking at resistance wars from a more strategic perspective is when and where the next RW can be started. Here are the rules on where and when a RW can be starte😛

There must not be any other RW from the occupied nation in the occupying nation. For example, Nation A has 3 regions. Nation B controls 2 of them, and Nation C controls 1 of them. Nation B also controls 2 of Nation D’s regions, while Nation C controls 1. Thus, Nation A can start a one RW in each Nation A and Nation B, but in only one of Nation B’s 2 occupied region. Nation D can also start one RW in each nation, but again only in one of two regions occupied by Nation B.



That’s a little complicated, but the rest are fairly straight forward I think. If the previous Resistance War was successful (Resistance), a new one can be started right away at the cost of another 1000 dollars between 10 players. If the previous RW failed, however, a 24 hour freeze is imposed where no RW can be started in any region belonging to that occupied nation and occupier nation. So, by using a site like battle-watcher.com, one can see when the previous RW ended and know when the next one can be begun. There seems to be a bug of sorts, so the timing can be plus or minus 5 minutes from 24 hours before the box to support a new RW appears again.

So, how are resistance wars used? There are basically 4 different situations in which they are started. The first is if a mid to low level country with strong allies captures one of your regions. A recent example of this was Belgium versus France. Belgium was able to win the direct battles, but had trouble holding down the resistance wars. The second case is when 2 relatively equal strong countries fight, with one taking regions of the other. We often see successful or highly contested resistance wars in this situation. An example of this is in the Balkans. Romania and Bulgaria are at war very often, but rarely can they hold the territory captured.

The third, and probably most common, is the drain. Enemies of the country open the RWs not to try to win, but to distract two clicker damage from other battles. Basically, since the battle is open, it has to be won, and to win, damage needs to be put into it. Add in people trying to get battle heroes and campaign heros, and there can be a lot of wasted damage. The most famous example of this is Saxony. Saxony is an original German region that has been occupied by Poland for a year now, and connects the original territories of Poland to their empire and resources. If Saxony was to be cut, Poland would lose around 40% of their economic output. Obviously, both Poland and their main enemies, EDEN, know of this, and so EDEN often starts RWs there to drain Poland and Poland is forced to spend damage to make sure their empire doesn’t get cut off. As a side note, Germany has a treaty with Poland that allows this arrangement that benefits both sides, and has lasted a long time now.

The fourth, and in my opinion the most fun, and rarest, kind of RW is the hotly contested RW between weaker country and strong occupiers. Usually around the 20th of any month, counties that are completely occupied, or ‘wiped,’ try to gain regions back. These are, as I said, against some of the strongest countries in the game, so they need lots of damage, lots of tanking (gold fueled fighting for lots of damage), lots of allied help, handing out supplies, and other distractions to succeed. The most common occurrence of this are the monthly attempts by countries occupied by Poland and Serbia to gain Congresses. For example, EDEN will start RWs in BiH, Albania, and Croatia at the same time and attempt to split Serbian damage in order to win some, or even all, of the battles.

It is important to note that only one battle can take place in a region at any given time,either an actual battle or a resistance war. What this means is, when a battle is taking place for a region, a RW cannot be started there. On the reverse however, when a RW is on-going, a region may be attacked. However,the attack simply goes into a queue, and will start as soon as the RW ends. If the RW is won by the occupying force, the attack begins immediately in that region. If the RW is won by the resistance, and the region changes hands, the attack will begin a random region that your country borders. This also takes place when 2 countries are at war with the same country. If country A attacks region A, and Country B attacks region A right after, the same situation occurs. It is important for a President to be aware of this when attacking regions, so that their attack is not delayed. However, sometimes it is a great tactic to intentionally attack a region under a RW,especially one that just started, in order to make the attack happen well past the normal 24 hour period between attacks.

So, that’s about it on the war module. The only thing left really is the Airstrike. The Airstrike is an expensive module opened by the admins periodically that allows countries to attack anywhere the world. So far there have been two times the admins have allowed Airstrikes to be created. An Airstrike is funded not by the government alone, but by the citizens of the country. When donations are enabled, citizens can donate food and money to the Airstrike Fund. The amount of food required is a formula: Health Units Required = (Country Citizenship Population + All Allies Population ) *50 Basically what this means is that the more MPPs you have, the more food it will cost to complete an airstrike. To get an airstrike cheaper, a country might not renew a MPP to drop the cost. The other component is money, and is the far easier one. Currency Required = (1.000.000 Currency + 100.000 Currency for each region owned that is not original ) * ( 1 + (25 * Number of distinct Food Resources Owned)/100 )) .



There are a few caveats to the Airstrike, they can be used any time, but only can be made when the admin runs a special contest or other promotion. Secondly, It is possible to launch an airstrike, and if the admin donation window is still open, build another one and use it. However, the country would have to wait 14 days between Airstrikes. Thirdly, the law can only be used on countries you do NOT border. If you want to fight someone on your borders, NE them.

The Airstrike is very expensive and risky, and I frankly don’t think it is worth the cost. Basically what happens is a battle, with MPPs for both sides, is opened after the law is passed at the discretion of the CP, same as an war. The difference, however, is that there are no NE bonuses. If the attacker wins the first battle, they of course gain the region and the war proceeds much the same as any other. Its common for both sides to declare NE’s on each other right after the first battle ends so that they can get it for the next battle. (Natural Enemy bonus points come into effect whenever the law is passed). If the attacker loses, however, the war ends and they will have wasted lots of food and money.