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i suppose

As always, great article. Tiacha for everything.

Really informative article. Thanks for the info T!

A very thoughtful and informative article, voted!

@citizenslave: You can defend a wall from anywhere in the country, so no moving tickets would be required. But, you're point about PTOs is a valid one...building up the population in two or three states makes sense from a military standpoint, but it does leave the other states susceptible to PTO attempts. Perhaps a few more Q3 and Q4 hospitals in other states would strike the right balance.

Voted, already subscribed. Nice summary, Tiachi!

Excellent explanation, Tiacha. I hope people will start to understand.

Great article Tiacha, its nice to see the DoE putting out articles again 😃

Very informative. It was good to read this after weeks of Zoli's hospital propaganda, but I am of the opinion that we should indeed consider our infrastructure a bit more. I understand your points, but one should always have a Plan B and C, just in case. Regardless, voted.

Some very good points made, and I thank you for taking the time to help me better understand the strategy.

I agree.

I hope people that complain about not having hospitals in every state reads this.

@mngoose33- what is the point of Q3 or Q4 hospitals? Would you fight from those states if you could just as easily fight from a Q5? As long as they have Q5 hospittals just in case, I am fine with how things are.

Simply put Q5 Hospital in let's say CA = 1 more fight per person which equals 1487 more fights from CA which let's say an avg. of 50 damage per person times 1487 fights = 74350 damage. And if we increased the hospital in N.Y. to a Q4 that would also = 1 more fight per person which would be 1015 fights times 50 = 50750 damage.

To those who believe we need a Q5 hospital please donate to the American Health Foundation: http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization/1538535" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization[..]8535

After only 3 weeks we're 1/5th of the way to getting a Q5 hospital! Donate today!

I agree with most of this article, and I support the NJ/FL strategy.
BUT:

Social behavior and preferences are huge components of the game mechanics. If people want to live in California, you can't just fault them for failing to understand how the game works - their desires not coinciding with your strategy IS how the game works. There's been a lot of talk about the "game within the game", but BOTH of those games (role-playing and hard-headed mechanics) are part of a larger "metagame": the political art of motivating people to contribute to a common good. Much of the rhetoric in defense of the current hospital policy is alienating (this article is a notable exception), and even when more rational the policy itself likely to drive off potentially active citizens.

A Q3 or Q4 hospital is a compromise option. Erepublik is not real life, but in this respect both are exactly the same: those who would direct the ship of state must balance their own insights into the public good with the art of compromise.

@chris wilson
i highly doubt everyone who resides in California/NY are fighting everyday if at all, because if they were they were fighting they would go to a state with a Q5 hospital. and i highly doubt the average person in California/NY is doing 50 damage because if they were they would move to a place with a Q5 hospital so they get more fights. in california for instance, only 750 in california have enough experience to fight, and thats just barely high enough to fight, they won't be doing 50 damage. and of those 750 at least 250 if not more are inactive. I'll assume they fight and do 25 damage because they probably aren't using weapons, and even if they are only the top 250 have strength above 5. So that's 500*25=12500 damage, which IMO is a high estimate, it's probably much lower. the only reason to put a Q5 somewhere is for defensive purposes, not extra damage. California is high in grain and oil, so it is a good place to defend, but we aren't getting as much additional damage as everyone seems to believe we would get.

and Q3-Q4 hospitals are worthless, they just encourage people to attack less instead of moving to a region with a Q5 and doing more damage and building a higher wall in an important region.

The Dept. of Education claims that "New Jersey is the only region in the US that produces iron." That's not true.

Arizona, Nevada and Utah produce medium iron as New Jersey does. Yet, Arizona has a Q2 hospital, a Q2 defense and a border with Mexico. Utah has a Q1 hospital and no defense. Nevada has no hospital and no defense.

New Jersey's population is about 10 times the population of Arizona. How vulnerable is that small wall in Arizona?

Great informative article! Voted!

We need (a few) more q5 hospitals, imo. Also, DS's are always a complete waste of money, unless we need to stall after 24 hours, or we planned to lose the region to begin with.

Jim: That maybe true but NJ borders two regions of France, a PEACE country. That was part of the reason why the Q5 went to NJ. That and the Iron.

Ok I have read this article and have found it to be very informative. It also helped me to understand the strategy being used. However it also leads me to question the defencive capablity of the rest of the country... Does an advisary need to border a state of our country to be able to attack that state? For example it was mensioned that NJ borders two regions of france... Does that mean that france can only attack NJ or any other bordering state? Or can they attack anywhere? If we can only be attacked on the border of another country then that would explain the strategy better. Also if that is the case, What are the other states that border another country? What are we doing about the defence of these states?

Dept. of E😛 Delaware shares a boundary with two French regions. Delaware has only a Q3 defense. Delaware has 27 people. NJ has 1837 people.

If any enemy attacks the USA, they will will hit a weak state that has a small population.

Great article Tiacha. Does the eUS new citizen welcome message have a link to the DoE paper? It should.

Regarding the point about weak states... We'd rather have an enemy waste their gold attacking a weak state that has no strategic importance. Continuing with the example of Delaware... Losing Delaware would not be a loss at all (except, maybe to morale). My apologies to the 27 people that live in Delaware. Makes one wonder, why is their a Q3 Defense System there?

Take for example the recent successful resistance wars in Greece. As we liberated various low-value regions from the Turks, PEACE did not care. Those were not strategically important prizes. Only Turks fought to keep those regions. But when we began the liberation of the high-iron region (Central Greece), all the dogs came to play: Hun Elite, Indo tanks, and other assorted PEACE fighters moved in and brought their gold to tank. In the same way, we should plan our defenses and military expenditures based on strategic goals. It is better to have a powerful, highly-funded military that can project power *anywhere* than a static resource in a low-strategic region that might even pull population away from high-strategic regions.

> 'When V1 was first introduced, Construction was a booming industry. Every nation wanted a new Q5 hospital.'

FAQS founder here. Construction was never a booming industry, ever. Housing began on equal grounds as Food and Weapons and was beginning to fall behind by the first month of beta. Hospitals never picked up. And when the industries split into Manufacturing (5) vs Construction (crappy 3), that really nailed it shut.


> By having the population in one state, you make that region easier to defend... Defense systems are tricky. They are good when a region has a high population, but not worth the money if a region has a low population.

I disagree. Increasing the size of a barrier fails utterly. As Vincent said, it's only purpose is if you intend to lose or you want to hold back the attackers past the 24 hour clock, like if you need more time to rally foreign aid. There's probably over a half dozen reasons why this doesn't apply to the USA.


I've written dozens of times on both industries, but I try to be fair when I make a full analysis. I feel that, if you're officially the DoE, you've wrongfully put your own opinions into this article and haven't written the whole story.

I haven't understood this issue until now. Thanks, Tiacha, and thanks to the DOE!

However, I have to agree with the mongoose; leaving other states with small populations creates a vulnerability issue politically.

Great article!

Mtn,

Yes, it requires a border for them to attack.
We have a lot of states with a border, but some of them are more of a threat then others are. And we don't have the people and resources to make all of our border regions at max defense.


I also appreciate the article. I knew most of it, though I didn't have a clue when I first started, but it still cleared things up for me as well.

When I started in this game I went to Georgia, why I am Georgian. After learning of the value of hospitals I moved to Florida. It took me a few weeks to make the move because a) I was still learning, and b) I was only going from a 4Q to 5Q, so it was marginal gain. I gained good levels in Georgia because it had a 4Q but the move was slower because it was a 4Q....So, placing Q2 and Q3's in areas where noobs generaly join would be a smart strategy, they would still be able to gain levels while they learn and once rich enough and knowledgable enough they would have decent incentive to move to NJ or FL...

Why is everyone ignoring Inferno's comment? Anyway, I would oppose any placement of hospitals that aren't q5. Anything which lessens the incentive to use a q5 is counterproductive. I do support several more q5's though. The only problem I see is political will. I really just don't buy the "strategic defense location" argument. It should be the population location that dictates the hospitals' placement.

I just saw this article. I am going to bad right now but in the mornin I will point out that you are wrong.

I can't wait Zoli. Your presence always makes my day.

Eh, and I was almost considering trying the USA again.

Thanks for the article. However, as a relative newbie, the hospitals seem to only have value in war. Unless eUS becomes more militaristic, what would be the value of more Q5 hospitals? Perhaps I am missing something here, I welcome further explanation.

@PaminBB
We have lots of war.

Indonesian citizens bought their own hospital.. (Sumatra)
Maybe you guys can make a donation and buy one for yourself..

Tiacha- Could you answer some of my questions on the following article? I don't want to post a wall of text....
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-some-questions-hospital-placement-844635/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-som[..]1/20

@Pamin: As of a month or two ago, wargames became a normality. In the future, as long as finding GOLD remains reasonable, the USA will probably have at least one battle going on every day. And fighting is considered great for a nation in general.

@ Mt Gryphon yes certain states actually border foreign countries even though in RL they may be thousands of miles away. Florida borders portugal NJ borders France. Two of our former enemies hence why those states have q5 hospitals. Yes an enemy can only attack from one territory to another that directly borders it. (Think RISK) Most of New England borders Ireland and UK. All northern state border canada, all southern states border Mexico. Alaska borders Russia and hawaii borders japan.

btw where's Zoli?? I figured he would be up by now saying every US state needs a q5 hospital.

Ok being completely serious I would love to see someone make a rational argument as to why they must live in a certain state. No state is different except that some have high resources, and some border certain enemies. Apart from that where a person lives means absolutely nothing.

I totally agree with you but I think there's room for one more hospital without weakening our defenses. California being the obvious choice.

@dude i. rock I was actually one of the people who was willing to lose a fight a day, in order to stay in my home state of California. Then I realized I like exp more.


Does anyone know how many border states we have(to non-allies)? I'm too lazy to look it up.

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/opening-page-844865/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/open[..]/1/20

Eh, I take back whatever I said about hospitals. Your DoE matches real DoE perfectly. Sarcastic thumbs up.

JPJ, I guess it boils down to whether people are willing to treat eRepublik as nothing more than a game (and a rather simplistic one, at that, at least in concept), or as more than the sum of its parts. Because if you only view it as a game, then it makes sense to only have a couple of good hospitals in the entire country and to expect people to move to them to gain the benefits. It makes sense to hype a defensive strategy which concentrates as many people into as few states as possible (and screw the rest of them, by the way, since they aren't "strategic").

I object to the DOE being used to opine on this controversial issue. This is promotion of the government's policy, not education.

@jaime

I'm with you 99%, except for the definition of the "game". As I've mentioned elsewhere, social behavior is the BIGGEST part of the game. The "winnist" element that dominates the USWP like to pretend that the game is just mechanics that can be easily figured out. But perception, motivation, desire, choices, preferences - these are the real game, and our leaders would prefer that we just ignore them (so that their OWN preferences dominate by default).

@comandantedavid

Social behavior isn't the "real game". People like you want it to be the "real game" because it fits what you want, a social experiment. Except this isn't that at all, it's a game. What you call the current government policy is actually a highly effective strategy to prevent the US from being attacked and prevent our MOST IMPORTANT regions from being conquered. As much as I'm sure a few people love Kansas it doesn't deserve a Q5 hospital because it has no strategic value. There is absolutely no vulnerability issue like a few people have commented on either. Even if a border state with no Q5 hospital or DS got attacked we could hold it easily because we can fight from any region in the US. As much as Americans seem to love role play why can't you just pretend to be natives of New Jersey? Americans need to start throwing all preconceived notions of how this game works out the window when they start playing. That “default” setting you speak of is why new players are terrible at eRepublik and subsequently our leadership has to type up pretty little articles like this one (nice work Tiacha) to explain everything.

@ jamie I'm sorry, but I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than a game. When I log in I see "eRepublik is the first massive online social strategy GAME". Do some people log on as some sort of elaborate experiment to be someone they aren't, yes; however, they aren't contributing anything of quantifiable value to the game. They may as well be larping in their local park. It's fun for them, but their larping isn't doing anything to contribute to the locality. What your talking about is the difference between the domestic role-player, and the global game player. Many eUS citizens pay no attention to what's going on around the eWorld, because they don't care. They want to pretend that they are JFK and they're bringing social reform to the game, but in reality they aren't doing anything because the game itself prohibits them from doing something like that. Because it's not that kind of game. At the end of the day, we have about 20 states that are worth very little (no resources, no strategic value, etc) yet people continue to live there out of RL bias.

JPJ, the simple fact is that there isn't anything of quantifiable value here in eRepublik. No matter how you look at it, at the end of the day it's all 1s and 0s, and nothing anyone does here makes any real difference to their lives.

I mean, hell, if you're going to focus so exclusively on the idea of "quantifiable value", why play games at all? Why not focus on real life, on earning money and bettering yourself? It's because those "non-quantifiable values" that lead people like you and me to play games are actually worth something after all. People lead better and healthier lives when they do stuff for fun.

And it's the same here in eRepublik. Because when you get right down to it, eRepublik, if played according to the pure game mechanics, is a tedious and boring game where you click once to work, click once to train, and click a few times to fight in a war if one's available. Sure, you can be rewarded for other stuff, like getting elected to office or having a popular newspaper, but let's be frank here. How many people are going to be able to write newspapers that are consistently good enough to get a thousand subscribers? How many people are going to be able to get themselves elected to public office without some of those "non-quantifiable values" such as social networking?

The stuff you shrug off so easily is in fact important to the game. The fact that you're writing comments on an article is a "non-quantifiable value", yet you still do it. The fact that you write in support the government's policy is a "non-quantifiable value", but you still do it. Don't be so quick to decry the people who try to view this game as more than the sum of the game mechanics. Don't be so quick to mock people who choose to live in a particular state that isn't "valuable". Because when you get right down to it, that attitude can be pretty damaging to people in general.

The government has not forgotten its primary responsibility. But building any hospital besides a q5 is a waste. The government's primary responsibility is to protect the US. What good would it be to have 51 q5 hospitals if we are taken over by Hungary in a month? Because unfortunately, there are people out there that view this as a strategic game, and they want nothing better than to conquer the world. They have mastered the game mechanics and are taking over countries one by one. Eventually, we will be left all alone with no high iron resources. At that point, the game is over. They will simply out produce us when it comes to guns. They will invade and win easily. Every hospital we paid for will be destroyed - then what will you do?

Some of your points are right. The social aspect of this strategy game makes it unique, but a majority of the social game is played out in IRC, and various forums for political parties, countries, and militaries. To a smaller extent here in game in the newspapers and its comments. It's that part that keeps me interested. This game allows us to do many things, but nothing changes unless a majority of the people do one common thing. When you break it down, you are a domestic game-player, and I am a global game-player. I fight for allies, and you fight for hospitals.

Dear Tiacha,

I agree with most of what you wrote, but have two questions.

1) If California were to upgrade to a Q5 hospital, what happens to the Q4? Does it disappear? Can we sell it to Kansas? Do we get a trade-in bonus?

2) I don't want you reveal state secrets, but I have heard you and others mention "contingency plans" in case we were to lose Florida and/or New Jersey.

Is there a Q5 hospital that has already been built and purchased, and is held in reserve "just in case" we need to place it somewhere?

thanks,

JBB