The Economist ~ Reflections on Liaoning

Day 1,051, 10:25 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Spite313

Please help the Economist: Vote & Subscribe



Dear friends,

I am writing to you today not as a citizen or an adviser of the UK, but as Treasurer of Phoenix. For the most part, the role is a silent one. It doesn’t involve a lot of public remarks, but mostly involves quietly working behind the scenes, supporting the alliance in a number of different ways.

Today I want to reflect on the fall of Liaoning to its original owners, the Chinese. For many, the clock has been ticking on LK (as it is known) since the fall of sister region Heilongjiang, a Hungarian stronghold region. High resources are hard to hold onto, especially when distance from your borders means that the chance to swap is quite difficult, and when the occupied country has strong MPPs which prevent a direct attack.

However, in the end it was not a change in forces that allowed LK to be captured, but a change in game mechanics. The admins won LK for China by making attack costs cheaper, tanking unlimited and hospitals almost worthless. The sheer use of RL wealth to win that battle was sickening for many of us to watch. From a game where citizens could spend some money to get started, or get a little boost to their training, we have went to a game where spending RL money is the only way to win wars.

The fundamental basis of this game is that it is a simulation of real life. Imagine if, in real life, a soldier could die, insert $120 and come back from the dead. It is silly. Citizens in V1 got a maximum of 800 wellness in wellness packs, plus 50 from hospitals. Now, many citizens are routinely getting 1500-4000 wellness per battle. When admins admitted their past mistakes, they said that they were going to move the focus from a gold-dominated V2 to a more player friendly model. In reality, they simply removed the few complexities left in the game and created a new model where money goes in one end, and national pride comes out the other end.



Let me also reiterate one point- this war was fought for pride. LK as a region has vastly reduced in value since V1. It is estimated that the region made Serbia less that 20g a day in taxes (source- Bogdan_L’s excellent newspaper), and that in fact was only worth perhaps a tenth of what the Serbian mother region of Vojvodina. The region was not fought for the value of its contents, but for the symbolic value. It was a symbol that Serbia was stronger than EDEN. The reason why the EDEN propaganda articles feel so hollow, and the Phoenix response is so soft and not at all angry, is that we have not been beaten by tactics or strategy but simply by money.

I would also like to point out that in terms of economic muscle, EDEN and Phoenix are fairly balanced. We have similar tax incomes, similar overall company numbers. Phoenix has more citizens, but their distribution means that using them is often quite difficult. EDEN perhaps has more of the oldest tanks, with their own personal gold supplies. As you have seen over the past year, the forces have thus far been balanced. But these battles are not battles on a chess board between strategists, they’re bought and sold like cattle at a market. With forces so balanced, and my eye as ever on EDEN’s income, I can tell you it is impossible for EDEN to raise the gold to fight as they do. Impossible. Their expenditure has been consistently higher than the income of all their countries combined since the dawn of V2. This points to either illegal gold, or vast RL expenditure.

An apt comparison is two players sitting at a chessboard. Twenty moves in, there is a slow deadlock forming. Both players have sacrificed pieces, both have made clever moves and positioned themselves well. Each attack comes with a subsequent cost, and both players know that the final winner will be measured by a hairs breadth. Then suddenly the adjudicator comes along, and informs the players that they can buy new pieces for money. Hell, they can have ten Queens if they want. Suddenly all the skill and careful balance disappears from the game. In addition, the game board is removed and each piece is assigned a point value. The team with the most points wins. He who spends the most gets the most points.

The admins have turned the game into a competition to see who can give them the most money.

As these new rule changes come in, and all MPPs are permanently activated, we can expect new lows in strategy. Now, with all wars open, no holds barred, there is no longer any risk associated with attacking. In fact, attacking is the safest solution. At least by wiping a country, you no longer have to fear its MPPs. So now the UK, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Bosnia, Finland, Greece, Norway and Sweden are all sitting ducks. Larger countries like Hungary, Serbia, USA and Romania are at risk as well. No country is entirely safe. From a game which was akin to building your fortifications, we have entered a game which is more like trying to stay standing up on a slippery log. There are no advantages, no strategy and all we have is a constant mêlée.

The admins need to fix this now: They need to cap wellness packs at 400 wellness per day; they need to end the new MPP rules, and lower the price of MPPs by at least half; they need to make the game skill-based, with small incremental gold costs, not gold-based, with small incremental skill points. To tell us to pay more to play is one thing- we are already playing. But why would new players join a game where the only mode of advancement is ever-increased spending? Especially when the results are so meaningless and alienating to the individual? Correct this issue now admin, before it is too late.

Iain Keers
Phoenix Treasurer.