Interconnected World

Day 1,558, 23:42 • Published in Austria Austria • by Rangeley


eRepublik is an interconnected place. Events in one area effect others - no place is isolated, most certainly not Austria. Recent days show this. For the past month, Hungary has been a key target of a sustained Terra/EDEN offensive, and has lost regions to Romania, bringing them to our border - an unfamiliar, and risky position. Upon taking office, President Vreath - along with the government at large - put an immediate priority on helping our allies in the war.

This was done with the understanding that we aren’t operating in a bubble. We have a shared stake - Austria survives and thrives when our allies are succeeding; it does us no good to stand idly by when we have an opportunity to help our allies in a time of need.

Closing the Path

An opportunity was acted on with the region swap plan with Hungary, as mentioned in previous articles. But while swapping regions to them was relatively easy, the larger challenge would always be to close Romania’s path behind them. Obviously, it would do Hungary no actual good to gain more regions, if Romania would immediately be able to take them like the others.

To close the path, several actions were taken with our allies. First Salzburg was RW’d from Hungary, and returned to Austria. Next, Austria proposed Romania as NE, before Romania was able to propose Austria as theirs. This gave Austria the initiative against Romania, and acted as a delay. With this time, Slovakia was able to close its war with the Czech Republic, and declared Austria its new NE. They moved into Salzburg, providing a stronger buffer in defense of Hungary.

These actions, of course, led to a wipe of Austria. Though wipes are never ideal, they - as with everything else - must be weighed as an option. In this case, the wipe was a sacrifice for our allies - securing a safer location for Hungary from which they can regroup, and fight to regain all of their nation. This, in turn, will help to secure Austria - as our safety is most certainly not assured if EDEN has reached our doorstep with an invading army.



Wipes

The PTO leader, A.Emmerich, is naturally unhappy with our cooperation with Hungary. As he recently stated in his application for Croatian citizenship, he is an opponent of Hungary in eRepublik, so any moves in their favor would not receive his approval. It is quite obvious that Austria should not turn on our ally as he wishes, and doing so would only bring us harm. But he makes a specific criticism - against the fact we were wiped - which is worth specifically addressing, as it is blatantly silly.

On January 5th, the last day of Erdoni's presidency, Austria held all of our original regions. By January 8th, a mere three days into A.Emmerich's presidency, we had been completely wiped off the map.

He argues now that wipes are simply a demonstration of failure. While Austria was wiped 3 times faster under A.Emmerich than Vreath, I'm not putting this forward as an argument that A.Emmerich was a bad president, and that Vreath is a better president. Not that these things aren’t true - this would just be a silly way to argue it.

Rather, I’m putting it forward to show just how unserious he is as he claims his return to power would be beneficial; if he believes being wiped is simply a sign of failure, he concedes himself to have been a bigger failure by his own stated logic. As such, it seems pretty unlikely that he actually believes his own argument.

Rationality as a Mask

And of course, I’m not arguing A.Emmerich was a bad president because we were wiped under him, either. At the time we were wiped, he was still trying to earn Austria’s trust and was acting in a visibly rational way.

Then, as now, we were faced with the threat of invasion. Then, as now, the cabinet decided to take an action that would actually speed up a wipe (in that case, also NEing Hungary), in exchange for a strategic gain. Although we were wiped faster, by helping Hungary, it ensured the overall occupation would end in a much faster way - by keeping the pressure on EDEN, and enabling Hungary and Slovenia to expel them completely. Soon enough we regained lost regions and borders were restored. It is a perfect illustration of how we are a part of a larger strategic situation - and how acting with this knowledge has benefit.

The reason A.Emmerich ended up being bad isn’t because of actions like this - it is because of the underlying motivation behind them. He was merely playing the part of a rational player, to gain trust, move in supporters, and then early this month declare himself Emperor (a title he still refers to himself under even now), to further his own power. If his rational actions last month were a reflection of his true intentions, he’d most certainly still be president.

The problem of course is that they weren’t. Forced from power, he has progressively revealed more of his true selfish intentions. Nobody can pretend any longer that he wants to improve Austria, and judging by the arguments he now uses, not even he believes it.