Join the new world

The sun rises on a new day here in the “real world.” I play eRepublik from a desk near a balcony that overlooks most of the city. Every morning, after I bemoan wherever I fell asleep, I sit down to the game and use the cityscape to help me think. It’s interesting to see things from just above the treeline, if a little strange. I’m back in the city for the rest of the month, and while Exalted and Eric are enjoying a bit of time off, poor Pluggers and Mac keep trucking on. “Pluggers and Mac.” Like some odd sort of kiddie dinner.



Featuring: Doctor of Souls’ Ministry of Health

Yesterday I talked about the “Ministry of Health” that’s been propped up through Doctor of Souls and his newspaper. From now on, DoS’s logo will feature in every CP update and every set of Battle Orders so that newer players who wander across these will get a referral to this operation. It covers a wide range of players: even those of you above level 31 can get occassional health boosts from the ministry. Its main support is angled at levels 20-30. Why this range? It’s when Canadians start to do some meaningful damage, but also when they start to slow down in the levelling process. You can hit level 20 in a matter of days, but getting past that becomes increasingly difficult. In a game where the oldest always wins, giving these middle-aged players a hand makes sense.



If you want to contribute to DoS’s program, click the image above and drop him a line. He and I will be chatting about how the actual “ministries” can assist, but it’s still DoS’s operation and we’ll be making sure that the good Doctor gets all the credit. Got a program you want to get off the ground? Gimmy a shout!


Hungary Closes the Border

As promised, and much to Alexandross’ chagrin, we declared a Hungarian NE yesterday. And as many of you noticed, Hungary launched and successfully retreated a battle in Brittany to close that border and null the NE. My wayward British readers (hello!) have a fair point - it makes strategic sense to avoid wars if you don’t want to fight them. And that’s the piece that we need to remember here. Hungary - many times our size and much more powerful than we are - doesn’t want to face an attack from Canada. They don’t even want to border us over the risk that we’ll attack them before they’re ready for their cute annual invasion (you didn’t think Britain won its border regions alone, did you?).

Y’all are very right that we haven’t gotten that Sexy War that I’ve been itching for. And yes, you have every right to say “hey, uh, Sperry, where da fawk is that?” This is why we’ve taken our focus off the British, who are so old hat it’s painful, and are eyeing other places. Certainly Funky makes a good point that Britain is a crossroad path - they are. They certainly know they are. But with every desire not to land ourselves in another 3 months of dumb, I’ll look to our other options first, so that this game can be enjoyable for everybody, and not just the small minority who get hardons from pushing the same button over and over again. Not my favourite constituents.


What’s in a Court? Not Sanctions.

The Supreme Court has long been the subject of frustration. Players have wanted it abolished since the day it was made. Many of them have tried, and many of those people have been former court justices who see the system no longer works. Last month I set out my position: if it can be useful, keep it. Otherwise, can it. At the time, all the court did was put the “judge” in “judgement.” Ego-stroking and arrogance defined the court’s actions, handing down sanctions and helping no one but themselves.

So we changed that. The courts no longer have the power to sanction. And frankly, they should never have this power again unless game mechanics change to make that realistic (an “if” if there ever was one). Now, the courts have been scaled back. Their power is to advise and interpret, giving input as needed or requested.

Is it necessary that the court exist? No. Are the sitting justices legal experts by any means? No. But I am willing to give this advisor-status a chance, as an improvement from the harmful sanctioning system, to see what happens. Certainly I recognize there is a group who accepted the scale-back that would have refused an abolition, and I’d rather guarantee a treatment than fail to find a cure. If the court’s advising is productive and non-destructive, I’m neutral to it. And if it continues to harm our community, then away it will go. The ball’s in their “court” now. Hurr Hurr.


Simon and the Money

The budget passed last week. In that budget was a $50,000 CAD line for Capital Investment. We thought about legislation around this budget line, but since eRepublik absolutely hates writing anything down and any legalese would be painfully vague and useless to have, we’ve held off on it for now. Simon (our Comptroller) has that money on the Market, and he’s using it to help build Canada’s assets for the next discount offerred by Plato and Company.

In the meantime, Simon and Macubex are still storing government Gold on their accounts. Simon’s got 20, and Mac is holding on to 75. The remaining 5 Gold is still with a player, as he works on earning a Super Soldier medal after getting the government boost earlier this month. We’ve managed to recover all of the Gold given out to players who have already achieved their next medal. As soon as this last player turns over his 5, we’ll have hit the ideal 100 that we set out to match when this offer was made. That’s pretty promising for running these discounts in the future, so, hurrah players who pay us back.



About June 5th

A few of you have been wondering what I plan to do next month. There’s only 2 weeks left in this term. 14 days from now we’ll have new Presidents the world over - so what’s going to happen in Canada? Simply put, yes, I do plan on running again. I love this job and don’t for a minute agree with the “you hate it more every time” position of some of our past leaders. This job gives me the chance to interact with a lot of people, and help build Canada’s image into one that I can be proud of, instead of one that makes players jump ship every few months.

Not everything about me is perfect: I’m not “da best CP evar” and I haven’t landslided on every goal I’ve targeted this month. Some have been backburnered and some have been redirected. But that’s what this is all about: achieving some goals, and striving forward to reach others. Shifting tactics rather than giving up when a plan doesn’t work. Keeping lines of communication open and proving our worth to our allies, rather than slipping into silence at the first sign of trouble.

We’ve seen a lot in the past 20 days. We’re bound to see a lot more in the coming weeks. I love this job and I love being a part of Canada, so I’ll be asking for your vote again on June 5th. Campaign articles will start coming out shortly, as we look to next month and what Canada has in store. In the meantime, let’s keep going with this term, and see what we can achieve before this term is through. Dum Spiro Spero, Canada.