Join the new world

It has been a while ago that one could say that. Must be 5-7 years ago I think. But clearly eNL is prospering at the moment.
Ever since we got rid of our forum for congress and several outdated (forum created) laws that frustrated congress and governments that wanted things changed the path was clear for actual change. And that happened! We have governments that are active and seek ways to help players rather than just babysit gov seats and put money in an emergency fund. And that has a large effect on our society!

Now, why do I say so? For congress, activity is way higher nowadays. One can simply look in the articles from the CoC team to see people are actively voting. A large contrast to the times when forum was used and voting quorum as low as 30 or 40% or so of the possible votes were not reached several times. Not to mention the fact the current way to manage congress works way better than it often did on forum.
And last but certainly not least: A well-functioning congress helps a Gov to function well as well!

That’s all nice. But I want to show you other stuff. The effects of that on society being:

Our presence on the battlefield and in the air!
We have had a time, roughly 2 years ago, where we had let’s say less connected gov’s. And also a less connected commander that put himself into place when he was CP for purely political reasons and did not bother to ever help MU members. He was not even willing to share RW starting information and (still) not even willing to wear the DAFatar. As a result our national MU and even nation rapidly lost players and the ones that did stick around became less active.
He was removed from command a while ago and replaced by a commander that does help players and is concerned by their wellbeing. Also, Gov began promoting fighting in the air for our players. The reason for that being we lacked strong ground fighters and therefore would never be able to make a real difference on the ground. Slowly but steadily the tide turns! And you know what? Also on the ground. Not only did the number of active fighters in the air get a boost due to the promotion of fighting but the effect was also visible on the ground!
In both cases however the numbers of active fighters are largely influenced by the introduction of the eRepublik App that caused a lot of players to enter the game but quit soon again. They can be recognized for the most part by their names: Citizen xxxxxx. So the number of active players did show non-representative numbers for a while. That was a temporary situation though and apart from messing with the active number of citizens no harm is done as those players hardly did damage or other stuff. And as that situation is gone for quite some time now (we only have 1 every now and then amongst our midst) we can safely say the number of active fighters increases slowly. Both on the ground as in the air;



Resulting damage
Now the number of active citizens is one thing. It is however about what they do that counts. Being active on the battlefield is one of the major aspects of this game. That goes along with running companies to support the ones on the battlefield and some political activity as well. The latter alone, however, brings us nowhere where scoring high on the battlefield alone could provide a strong nation. Naturally, the best is a well-balanced playing field in all aspects. If we look into the most visible and important part we see 2 clear patterns.

Ground damage
When it comes to ground damage the pattern until roughly day 3.990 is clear. Damage output is stagnant at best but more precisely lowering. But let’s face it: even a stagnant damage output means dropping back. People get stronger, eRep introduced all kinds of events in which extra damage would become available, so the only way should be up. Now on the ground, one can argue the increase in damage gets slower every rank and thus the higher one’s rank the less increase in damage he gains ranking. Contrary to common belief it’s far from true every rank increase gives a 5% damage output increase.
Around day 4,000 matters changed. We had a temporary spike in damage output due to some events I presume. After that damage output dropped back again but stayed higher than before. Likely a side effect of the Flying Dutch program that was started. After the introduction of the Green Beret program on day 4,116 however, a constant increase was visible and at this point in time our damage output is about ten times as high as it was before day 4,000. That will be temporary after the 12th-anniversary event and Black Friday but it’s safe to say 5 times higher damage is our standard nowadays!

Air damage
Air damage is a bit different. People have been urging new players and/or players that have low Strength to focus on Air damage. As a result, our Air damage did show a fluctuating output, yet with a rising trend in it. That’s the fact till roughly day 3,940. From that moment on our damage output started a clear uptrend. That got a boost on day 3,955 when The Flying Dutchman program was introduced. Ever since our Air damage never dropped below 4 million again. An amount that in the period before that only by exception was reached.

Now, as damage on the ground and in the air differ a lot and we also had events causing large spikes in output I made a logarithmic graph of the damage output from both for comparison and trend visibility. A bit further on in the article you’ll be able to see the damage spikes more clearly.



Preliminary conclusion
Active Gov’s and programs for the players do help. Something most people know of course although a certain Political party called Iron and Wine (AKA Rust and Vinegar or Iron and Whine) keeps being against supporting players, being active and having Training Wars. And for a while now that also seems the case with De Tegenpartij that seems related to it somehow. At least party members of the Latter do get congress seats due to becoming temporary members of I&W during congress elections. It looks like a sort of satellite party of I&W to me…

Is it real?
Now, wait a minute. It’s nice damage output increases. Yet I myself stated at the beginning damage output should always increase. Even when the amount of active players is stagnant. So is at a fact we are doing well? Or are the programs just a waste of resources using the increased damage output as an excuse?
Well, that could be. So let’s have a look at the broader picture then. How do we score in relation to other nations? Does our society progress harder than others?

The answer to that, both for ground and air can best be shown by looking into our weekly rankings. After all, they show how well we are doing compared to other nations. So without many further comments, I show you our damage output and our rank in a graph for Ground and one for Air. In both cases, you see our actual damage as a bar chart using the left axis and our worldwide ranking that belongs to it on the right axis. For clarity: The higher the damage (bar chart) the better and the lower the rank number (the line chart) the better!





So looking into our rank compared to the eRepublik world it becomes even more clear. Taken into account eRepublik consists of 74 nations, some big, some small, it’s clear we are doing very well these days scoring around the midfield where not so long ago we were among the bottom 10-15 nations!
To emphasize once again I show two graphs only showing rank. Both damage and kills.





So there can only be one way can’t it? Continue support and activity!

No remarks?
Well, there is one remark. Something we should be aware of. Not a threat or something like that, yet it’s something we should keep an eye on. Especially in the air. The last couple of months we’ve seen an increase in active players from abroad enter our country asking Citizenship. I applaud that. It also supports the fact we are doing well! We should be aware however we won’t end up with players seeking CS just because of the subsidy program. The Flying Dutch program is very generous to our Pilots. I mean even odan is actively flying nowadays so it must be worthwhile 😉.

Also one needs to realize people becoming a citizen but might keep fighting for their old country and stay a member of their old MU. As Pilots have no Legend Bonus citizenship makes no difference when fighting in the air so doing so has no downside in that respect. Truth be told, I have often seen our new Pilots fight hard in eNL battles or the ones Gov asked us to so no issue yet. Not being part of a Dutch MU (especially DAF in which active communication from Gov is done) will mean less tightly aimed damage could be done. That’s not only the case for players that immigrated recently, but also for players that are here for ages but that are simply no member of a MU (anymore). To give an indication of that I also made several graphs that show the activity of soldiers/pilots of DAF, other eNL MU’s and the ones not being a member of a Dutch MU.

In the charts below, you’ll notice 2 empty columns in each. Those 2 weeks I did not record MU specific data so no details can be given.

Active Soldiers and Pilots by MU type
For starters the number of active Soldiers and active Pilots grouped in DAF, other NL MU’s together and the ones not being a member of a Dutch MU. Be it not at all or being a member of a foreign one;





As can be seen, the number of active Soldiers in DAF is rising slowly, while the number of Pilots rises more swiftly. The numbers in other Dutch MU’s stays roughly the same while the number of players joining eNL but not becoming part of an NL MU shows a significant increase.

Damage from Soldiers and Pilots by MU type
In the same way as the number of active players, their damage output is measured by MU type.





As is to be expected the amount of damage from Soldiers on the ground not being a member of a Dutch MU isn’t that high. The amount of damage done by Pilots that are no member of a Dutch MU is way higher. Citizenship has no effect on where you fly so there is no incentive to focus damage on your CS country. Not saying something is going wrong, yet we need to be aware and keep track to prevent misuse of our support program!

Kills from Soldiers and Pilots by MU type
More or less the same as the previous 2 graphs, however as can be seen with Soldiers the amount of kills is relatively higher so the damage per hit apparently lower from the ones not being part of an NL MU. For Pilots, there isn’t much difference.





Final conclusion
eNL is doing well. Congress is active, the government is active, providing Training Wars and support programs and as a result, our community is growing in numbers and with impact on the battlefield. Keep it up. No matter what those Iron and Whiners want to let you believe this is the way to go!

©Weekstrom