The rise and fall of nations. Natural cycle.

Day 596, 06:43 • Published in Romania Romania • by MoonlightShadow

Many of you reading this article have no idea what the word “beta” means, related to eRepublik. On the other hand, some of you ARE the beta history of eRepublik. Today I'll tell you some stories, some old stories, some new ones, about the rise and fall of nations. And how easily this can happen. And why.

Most of the citizens grew up in countries not having behind an “imperialistic” history. I mean, how many great empires ever existed in the last 2000 years, let's say? Not so many, Roman Empire, Persian, Western Europe's Empires stretching all over the world. We also have Ottomans, and a couple of others. Anyway, most of the world was fighting one of another, for freedom, for their national identities. But both nations which sometime in the past ruled a great empire, as well as nations fighting back those empires attacking them from all sides, should have learned one of the history's greatest lesson: you can't stop your empire from falling, you can only delay the day. I`m a Romanian in RL, and this little country was alone and fought back for centuries three empires, each demanding 1/3 of its lan😛 Ottomans in the south, Austro-Hungarians in the west, and Russians in the east. One by one, they all had fallen.

As a social and political simulator, eRepublik inevitable has its own empires. And just as inevitable, what goes up, must come down, mainly for the very same reasons RL empires dissolve sooner or later. Moreover, time runs “faster” in eRepublik, hence the rise and fall of nations can occur much, much faster. If it took 300 years for an RL empire to get overwhelmed by “RW”s, started by angry citizens demanding their lands and nations back, in eRepublik the necessary amount of time is reduced to perhaps 3 months.

Few remember or even had heard about the old days of eRepublik populated with barely 20.000 citizens, back in spring-summer of 2008. In those times, the biggest Powers in the world were countries like Sweden, Norway, Spain. Hungary? We can easily say that they just didn't exist back then, military or politically or economically speaking. Once upon a time, Sweden was a Great Power. Once upon a time, Norway's Army was a slayer of their enemy's dreams. Once upon a time Spain used to be a pillar of Atlantis. All of them are today just a faded left-over of once powerful country. We see today rising nations like Poland, Croatia, Serbia. We see today Hungary claiming the statute of “Biggest Power”. That's just the natural cycle, some countries fall, other rise. We see Romania being now just a moderate powerful country, at best. There was a time when Romania alone defeated all PEACE armies, back in last winter. Not later than three months ago Romania had been fighting daily on 2-3 battlefields all PEACE. Daily, and for more than a month kept back all those armies, before finally falling. Great power it was, and not anymore. There was a time when the whole world was fearing “what if Romania beats both Indonesia and Hungary, like it seems is capable? This will be the end of the world”.

Well, the end of the world will have to wait, Romania had been thrown in the “middle” class of countries. Maybe the world needs to worry about the new Powers, like Hungary. The important thing is that, unlike real-world, in eRepublik absolutely any given little country has the ability to become a super-power really fast. It's all about population, today. True, there was a time when having 15 tanks more than your enemy was the difference between having won or having lost the battle. But back then the populations were really small, and just a handful of powerful tanks inflicting damage with the gold from the state could just won the battle. Not anymore, when we talk about millions of damage/battle. I wouldn't be surprised to see Poland the greatest power in the world this autumn, if their population increases in the rate it does now. On the other hand, the population alone is not enough to turn a insignificant country into a respected world-wide power. You also need some skilled leaders. We can think at USA, which for almost a year is in top 3 of population, but never had it reached the statute of a Great Power. And many says it's a “bad management” situation.
But after all, why do empires have to fall? Well, mainly because with power also comes greed. And also arrogance. And also, pretty soon leaders might even start to believe they are invincible. You win battle after battle, you conquer region after region, you see world map painting with your empire color. You forget that those were not just “regions” good for your wealth, those were “home” for other nations. So, you inflate your balloon larger and larger. The larger the balloon the easier it will “pop”.

Sooner or later Hungary will fall, when their balloon will grow larger than they could handle, like Romania did..Sooner or later countries like Poland or Serbia will take its place. Sooner or later PEACE will loose its statute of biggest alliance, like Atlantis did. It's just a matter of time. So never be discouraged. Never stop dreaming, no matter how impossible it may seem to achieve such high position in eRepublik. Or to regain your lost position. All you need is passion, and willing to involve in the Rise of your nation.