Ireland's Population Problem

Day 1,258, 17:03 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Ian E Coleman

Est. 2010





Fourteenth Edition: Sunday, May 1, 2011

Because of the work I do on the wiki, I come across a lot of information and see the changes that happen on a regular basis. One of the things I do, is loosely track Ireland's population for historical purposes. You can find that wiki page here: http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Irish_Population_History

What I'd like to talk about today, is something we're probably all not completely unaware of. Ireland is losing its population at a fast pace. But just how much are we losing and why? The other thing I wanted to examine was how what was happening in Ireland compared to what was happening in the rest of the eWorld. In examining all of these issues, here is what I foun😛

Ireland's Population Since January 2010:


This is a very smoothed out representation. A perfectly accurate graph would show population hit zero on December 7th 2010 during the wipe for example. But it does show us that we have experienced a dramatic decline in population since August 2010 when we hit our all time high of over 2000 citizens. We dwindle now at about a quarter of that figure (519 on May 1, 2011).

Why did this happen? Well a few days after we hit our all time high the admins began deleting dead citizens - resulting in a world wide population decrease. This brought us back down to about 1000 citizens. This means that at the time when our population was its highest, about half of Ireland's population were already dead...

Our population was about 800 in the month of November when we were making attacks against the UK. This is a time when we had most of the island of Ireland so our region mass was supporting population. Ever since the wipe however, we have lost many citizens and never gotten them back. We float around 500 citizens now.

Now you might think that this is because we have taken to land swaps so often. But no: we currently have all of our original territories except for Shannon (current population: 4😎. So there has definitely been a significant amount of movement out of Ireland - either by players leaving, or the admin deleting multis and dead citizens (probably greatly due to the later).

How Does Ireland Compared to the eWorld?

Here's a website that shows very accurate records of eRepublik populations:

PRESS THIS LINK TO VISIT eRepublik-market.com

Now the following graph is harder to read because of the time table method, but just look at the graph line. What you're seeing is Ireland's population from just before the December 7th wipe, to the current day.


Population on eIreland going back to about November 2010

Alright so we've hit a high of around 525 citizens for after the wipe, and we're experiencing a slight decrease now. Notice the giant dip, that's the wipe. And we see the gradual rise back to our current mark.


Population of the eWorld going back to about November 2010

Here's the entire world population. Don't be alarmed by that line, it's just a trick of the way the graph is framed, notice the number scale going up the Y axis. Ok, so in the same time frame the eWorld lost about 6724.0 citizens. That's about 2.7% of the eWorld's population between the high and current point of that graph.

From when Ireland had its live population of 810 (according to the wiki records) to now (519)we've lost 291 citizens or 35.9% of our population. Granted - for that calculation I've gone back father than the other charts to avoid the UK invasion screwing the results.


EDEN's population (red) compared to the population of neutral countries (blue) going back to about November 2010

This is showing us EDEN's population in red. We see a pretty similar rise in population during the months after December as we see in Ireland (although there it's a bit artificial) and in the way the world population slows its decline in those same months.

Conclusion
Ireland is facing population decline, but it is not an independent event to what's happening in the rest of the world. Infact, to scale Ireland is facing less decline than much of the rest of the eWorld. But we did face a lot of population decline because of the invasion, that for some reason we never recovered. Likely, a lot of players left after or during that event and never came back. Players who are from around that time can think of many examples of good players who moved away and haven't ever come back.

What Do We Do Now?
Well, we all know that Ireland has been taking baby booms seriously for the last many months. We haven't given it our fullest attention, but there have been attempts made.

A while ago I brought this up with Eire Aonair. Here's some of the ideas that we came up with about how to get a baby boom going:

-> Guerrilla tactics (such as leaving eRepublik on the cpu at your local library or college)

-> Advertising (Facebook, newspapers, YouTube)

-> Interest Fishing (Going to forums and other internet communities and dropping links and info)

In the past Interest Fishing has been the most successful tool for Ireland. That's how we got a lot of Irish real life republicans to join up in order to fight for the virtual honour of Ireland. It's also one of the reasons we've had a desire for Northern Ireland at some points. So choosing the right community can also really effect how our government will end up playing this game - choose wisely.

And I know there have been government movements to put ads in the Irish newspaper for eRepublik? To me this sounds like a great idea if there's any way to see it through to fruition.

IDEA:
I also think Ireland could benefit from some community games aimed at killing two birds with one stone. Here's the idea, a YouTube film festival where Irish Citizens are given the chance to enter by creating YouTube videos that advertise eIreland and eRepublik. The winner would be voted on, and would receive a massive prize.


Add your thoughts and opinions in the comments section, and cheers!

Ian E Coleman - The Coleman Global




Forum: eireaonair.userboard.net
Wiki Page: Eire Aonair @ the wiki
eRep Page:Eire Aonair
Video:Eire Aonair @ YouTube








***Other Stories in this Paper***
Introductions: "The Coleman Global Takes Off"



Report: “Northern Ireland Flops Again”



Facts And Figures: “Which Country Is Most Survivable For Beginners? (2 Part Special)”



Report: "New Changes Cause Wave of Dissent"

Report: “Ireland On The Ropes”
Report: “IUP Member Companies: Fine Wine Or Poison?”
Report: “Another Digest of Your New eIrish Parliament”
Follow Up: "IUP Member Companies: Fine Wine Or Poison?"
Report: "Ireland Hits Her Stride"
Editorial: "The Current State of Affairs"
Editorial: "The Cross Roads: Ireland Being Tested?"
Special Announcement: "Eire Aonair: The Saint Patrick's Day Party"
Wiki Office: "Wiki: Get Your Own Page"
Eire Aonar: "Eire Aonair: Information and Important Message"
Elections: "Ian E Coleman: Running for Congress in Cork and Kerry"
Report: "Ireland's Population Problem"