Join the new world

Since the new MPP rules came into effect that every country can use their MPPs in both defensive and offensive battles, the worldscene has changed drastically from the V1 era. Beforehand, when a country had MPPs active against another country if it had triggered them by an attack on home soil, active MPPs were precious and they dictated the regional power balance. For example, Slovenia's active MPPs against Croatia and Poland made Slovenia an effective showstopper for both of those countries, even though both Poland and Croatia could have easily wiped out Slovenia alone. Now that all countries can use their MPPs in any case, the world scene and the power balance has changed. Or has it? I dare to argue that only the rules of warfare have changed, not the power balance that existed. It did waver at first, but after a while the situation stabilised, and now it's close to square one. Why is this? Let's see if we can come up with an explanation.


One-on-one battles: battle of numbers and organizational skills


The first paragraphs are the boring ones, but bear with me.

In V1 era one-on-one battles were waged by two countries that had not activated each other's MPPs, but had common border and open war on a third country's soil. For example, Finland waged 1-vs-1 battles against Russia in Norwegian soil way back, as did Romania against Indonesia in Asian countries almost two years ago. Duels are usually decided by which country is the stronger one by population, economy, average citizen strength and army size. The outcome can be predicted by comparing population sizes and estimates about army strength, while sometimes the case isn't so easy to predict due to variance in the population age and wealth. Still, the war is won by who has the numbers on his side – the one that can make more damage wins. This is a no-brainer of course, but when moving onto larger battles where several countries are involved, or at least several foreign armies, it isn't that easy to see. So, what changes when we move on from one-on-one battles to battles that are waged by more than two opposing countries?


Active MPPs in war: what changes?

As it was stated above, battles are won by the country that can do more damage (in a battle, to be specific). To make explaining this easier, let me introduce to you the Yellow country and the Blue country, and the rest of the colour palette while at it. So, let's assume that the Yellow country has signed several MPPs, while the Blue country is poor and has zero MPPs. So, when the Yellow country attacks the Blue country, then the battle is not anymore between the Yellow and the Blue countries, but Yellow+Red+White+You-name-it against Blue alone. So, depending on how strong Yellow's MPP partners are, the Blue country has to match the damage made by all of those countries in order to win. The Blue country can sign MPPs to balance the numbers, or gain upperhand by other means (foreign mobile armies, tanking, etc). These are still the easy cases: we aren't taking into account open fronts elsewhere that could involve either country's allies that'd drain their damage from the primary clash. This is where we get to the point. The basis of the war module is of course this rule that battles are won by the side that can do more damage than the other, not minding any other factors like stronger/weaker economy, awesome diplomacy, or politicking (these factors affect the amount of damage made, but don't win battles alone. No 'Diplomatic Supremacy Victory' option in eRepublik).


Several fronts open between several countries around the globe


So, in the scenario above the Yellow country attacked the Blue country with MPP support, and the Blue country signed MPPs in order to defend itself from the aggression. What else could it do to defend itself? For one, it can invite a third country in the play to attack Yellow country from another direction, and divide Yellow country's and its allies damage in two fronts. This is very often used tactic in the battlefield – for example, when Hungary attacked Croatia in June, it had Slovenia attack Croatia too from another direction, and later on Serbia joined the battle. Croatia might have won the battle against Hungary and its MPPs with their own MPP set, but three fronts to win against is a lot harder. Better example about this is the operation used to get Poland into North America via Scotland. Poland had no active MPPs against the UK, but when it attacked the UK, the UK got all its MPPs activated against the Polish attack, while Poland was fighting the battle alone. So, how did Poland win the fight?

Not minding about the starting time of the battle and the other factors, basically, the attack into Scotland was aided by several attacks against the UK's allies around the world. Every country the UK had allied with was attacked by Poland's allies, which effectively made those countries defend those fronts except the front open in Scotland, which was the main target. So, even though the UK and its allies could have outnumbered Poland if they had all concentrated on that one single battle, the open fronts elsewhere made victory possible for Poland. The point I'm trying to make here is that it doesn't matter which side can do more damage, only which side does more. Often the calculated strengths, population sizes and economy sizes are publicised and used as propaganda, and even used to compare countries and alliances, but those figures tell little about the real strength in any battle. As they say: there are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics.


Statistics can be used to show nearly anything, but then again reading statistics correctly is essential if you're going to use them for anything.


Global superiority versus localized push

As much as statistics can be the worst display of how much damage is available and from where, still the only and the most accurate measure for this we have are the statistical variables. You can measure the average damage an alliance can do daily, and also their armies' collective damage output, varying the amount of tanking they are expected to do. This is actually a relevant measure in the battlefiel😛 in a world where nearly every MPP is active 24/7, the damage every country can do will project somewhere during the day. What does this mean in practice? If the alliance leadership knows that their side has the global superiority in numbers, it's to their benefit to open as many fronts are possible (concentrated on meaningful enemy targets of course), as the enemy needs to then struggle to match the damage one is making easily. If it can't, then some fronts are lost. Simple as that. The earlier success EDEN had against Phoenix was partially based on this: EDEN had the global superiority, and it used it by opening several fronts and pushing towards specific targets.

Yet, as I stated earlier, even if you can do more damage than the enemy, it means little if you won't do more. Global superiority means statistical upperhand, but it can be neglected in localised cases by concentrating your forces in a few fronts. In a world war like this, prioritising is an important concept – even if the enemy could outnumber you, it doesn't matter if you can win the fronts you deem meaningful, and turn the tide in those fronts to your favour. This is basically how Phoenix rose from the ashes after EDEN had stomped them down using the global superiority in damage – Phoenix concentrated on a few battles at a time, and now they're back on the map.


Power balance in the new world

In the introduction I questioned that the power balance in the world has changed from the V1 era. That is, because even now that all the MPPs are active, the basis for where the damage comes from has remained the same. It is still the same major countries and their player bases that are fighting in the battles, nothing has changed that. The countries that were powerful in V1 are still the key players in the modern era eRepublik, and will continue to be. Moreover, the more fronts are open, the more duel-like the battles become as every country is engaged in a direct battle, and they usually prefer fighting in the direct battles over MPP battles. So, this means that in most battles, the country waging the war is responsible for winning it also – the alliances are about right evenly balanced so MPPs in most cases cancel each other out, leaving the mother countries do the decisive damage output.

Before the update in rules that there's always going to be a battle open no matter what, you could at least somewhat decide if you were going to rely on global superiority, or make use of armies and advance towards local objectives. But now, you can't make that decision anymore. Both alliances in the world are going to have their damage pour in around the world whether you like it or not, so now the meaningful factor in the battlefields is, which side can concentrate their damage better than the other. So, to use the terms above, multifront war is nowadays about obtaining a local superiority. The war module always favours the side which has more regions, more population and more companies on its side, but in a world scene like this, that side changes monthly, if not weekly or more even often. The side which is more organised, which can outperform the enemy and maintain a functional economy to continue pushing for it, is more probable to win.


Until the next article (hopefully less dull), I wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 🙂



__________
Avec