The Economist ~ Philosophy of war

Day 1,696, 14:26 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Spite313



Dear friends,

I know at times like this it can be a bit difficult to understand what’s going on. I try to keep people updated on the specific goings on of government as best I can via the Presidential Announcements sub-forum, but still tactics are had to explain without giving away the bigger picture too much to your enemies. I’m going to try and explain a few basic philosophies or principles of warfare that apply to eRepublik, in the hope that it might help people to understand my motivations and decisions a bit. I understand people might disagree, but all I am doing is trying to explain my position.


Know your enemy

Knowing your enemy is the first principle of war in eRepublik. You have to be able to understand them totally to be able to plan against them: And by this, I mean understand every feature, function and foible of their country. You need to be able to understand how many men they have, how much money they have, how organised they are. You need to know all of their internal squabbles, their enemies, their worries, their aspirations. Only then can you make plans against them. War aren’t won by charging at each other until they’re dead, most wars end because of politics within a country, economic reasons or a new threat. Understanding an enemy completely, sometimes the decisions you make are not seemingly the best (in terms of battles) but can have a more profound effect on the chances of victory.


Know yourself

You knew that was coming right? Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses is absolutely the most important thing for any CP. A lot of countries are “wide-eye stupid”. They can see exactly what they are, but they don’t understand it at all. They say “we can win!” when they can’t, or they push endlessly at battles which were lost before they’d begun. Being realistic doesn’t mean being a cynic or a pessimist, it just means you understand your strengths and limitations. One of the UK’s big strengths is that adversity brings out the best in its people. We’re the kind of country that can get knocked down and come up asking for more. But we’re not a military superpower and we have to spend our strength wisely.




Choose your battleground

When two countries fight there is a thing called initiative. Basically in eRepublik this means that the country who declares war first (or has won the last battle) has the ability to pick the time and place of an attack. In general, the rule (IRL as well) is that a general with a smaller army must attack. This is because initiative allows the general to pick conditions which are best for them. Sacrificing ground to get those conditions is part of war. In some cases I have not fought battles simply because there is no point squandering our limited resources on a battle where all the advantages rest with a numerically superior enemy. Instead I pick a time and place where we have the advantage, seize initiative and drive the wedge in. Losing a battle is not important, losing a war is. Saying that there have been times (like the East of England battle) where we’ve had to fight against the grain, and when that happens we just have to throw everything at it in the most unsubtle way and pray.


Bring power to a point

Another vital part of warfare in this game is the ability to bring limited power to a point. We are a small country. Our three enemies in this case- France, Canada and Germany - are all stronger than we are. They have an older, better organised population with more gold buying “tank” level citizens. That’s a simple fact. The only way we can beat them is by dividing them, making them get in each other’s way, confusing them and laying false tracks. Then when we do attack, we give it everything we have. We push hard and relentless, we defeat them, then fade away to strike somewhere else. By always creating confusion, we prevent them gathering to defend, we make ourselves impossible to predict.



Keep your goal in mind

War is not an end in itself, except for idiots. There has to be some motivation, whether it is resources for yourself, denial of resources to others, or tactical control of land. Anyone who goes to war without one of these reasons is, frankly, a child and shouldn’t be allowed access to any buttons whatsoever. Without a goal, you cannot measure success. In the case of the UK, I was forced into this war by the actions of others beyond my control. My goal is simple- restoring the status quo. Once the UK has the same regions it had before I will stop fighting. The route to that goal is a complex one, and sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward, but the goal is paramount and I am focused on it to the exclusion of everything else.


Keep a global perspective

We are a small country in a world full of players. There are tens of thousands on each side, and only a tiny fraction of the fighting in the world happens in the UK. Saying that, sometimes our battles become world-wide battlegrounds for the war between these super-alliances. When we call the full force of our allies, so do our enemies. When they call their allies, we need to go to ours for help. But remember these allies are countries like us with their own problems and threats. No single country will always have priority. We have to help others, even when we’re in danger, and they return the favour. Think of it like a naval battle. If one ship is sinking, you have to go rescue the sailors. But there’s no point sacrificing another ship to do that. If all the ships sink, then there’s nobody to bail us out. We’ve been in that situation before- where every ally was in trouble, and it took months of hard work (most of which we had no country) to get free of. So there is a reason priorities are sometimes focused abroad.


I hope this has given you a bit of insight into my decisions!


Iain