A few thoughts on Congress and Hostpitals
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by Aaron S
This is my first article in my new newspaper!
I have had the fortunate opportunity to experience life as an eUS Congressman from Oregon this past month. This is not a campaign article as I've decided I will not be seeking reelection.
The reason I was compelled to write this paper now is that I have a few thoughts and questions about the Fortress Strategy of hostpital placement that has been brought back into the news lately. The fact that just under half of our population have any hostpital access is being marginalized by the new Fortress theory. I'm not of the belief that the previous war's results end the discussion on further hostpital placement.
We are failing as a nation at player retention. We lead by a huge margin in population in this game but experience points per player is dismal. Ten experience points are given up each day by players not fighting. Saying they are stupid, dying, stubborn...etc is ignoring the fact that they are there. Thier wellness could be making our economy more productive. Fifty Q5s is unreasonable, I agree. Rhode Islands' small population could be relocated without much cost/effort for example. New York is carrying 1100 people right now though and has no hostpital while Texas has well over 600 citizens.
The payoff of putting Q5 hostpitals in high population states should be investigated more closely. I'm not accepting studies done before the war with no control states for comparisson as evidence these citizens aren't active. I have mass-messaged people on occasion, both for my campaign and for trap company warnings. The figures on how many of these citizens are actively working in non-hostpital states are being underestimated. Voting figures do not seem to match with active popluation either. I have heard similiar accounts from other Congressmen about their results with mass-messaging. I feel there are more semi-active people, that may get more involved with the game if given the opportunity, than is currently being quoted. The new mentoring program will hopefully help with some of this, but constantly moving the population around is an idea that I'd like to see more concrete evidence behind before name calling commences.
I feel like I will get a comment on this article about population meaning nothing in this game and it all being about raw material placement. I have read the debates on placement based on raw materials, companies, population, and borders. In these discussions, rarely does population come out as being the most important. Since population gets neglected with the reasoning that 'if people cared they would move,' I feel that I should at least point out that this reasoning shouldn't end the debate. I feel like there is an economic and defensive benefit to people. Having a large population should be more of an asset than high iron if we could get everyone to express their full potential. If studies come it that there are indeed only 20 active people in all of New York, I will drop this argument. I just would like a recent study with sound methodology before I stop questioning the dismissal of high populations.
It does sound great to protect all of your high regions with fortresses. The leading candiate for a third fortress from what I can glean in conversations is Pennsylvania. This is due to having high wood and a fair amount of companies. The idea being that we protect the economy in a war by having all of our high raw materials protected (high grain and oil in CA and high wood in PA). My thoughts on this are that if the argument is that we'd be down to just the three fortresses, I'm not sure that wood would be of a lot of use to us. Of the raw materials, wood seems to me is the one with the least amount of usefullness on a day-to-day basis. I would submit that another oil state may be more valuable than a wood state and before we go with a 'one-of-each' strategy we should look into the idea of protecting more oil or grain first.
What I'm proposing is that there should be a study done on retention rates of citizens starting in non-hostpital states and hostpital states with the differences in wellness, productivty, retention, and military strength examined. I would suggest that this study be an ongoing study to make more informed decisions on the placement of infrastructure and the need for social programs. The problem I have is that I'm not a person that knows enough about computer science to write a program to gather this information. I could manualy choose at random a percentage of the population in several key states and keep tabs on them. The problem with that is that I feel any study coming from me would be dismissed because I have already dared to question the two-state strategy and that would be a lot of work to put in for nothing. So it seems a computer program would be more efficient if such a thing could be done.
I would ask that someone contact me if they have the ability and desire to do a study on the population that could help answer some of these questions to settle some of these unknowns. I think we all need a few more answers before we commit to the Fortress Strategy.
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Short answer: No.
Not cost effective, spreading out hospitals doesn't affect player retention on any practical levels, and million point walls are the only walls worth having.
Christ, it really is getting back to the eUSA around here, huh?
Also: First.
If you have too many fortresses they all become weaker and boom, you now have 5 mini fortresses and no fortress.
That sounds great, but I would like some more evidence that walls are stronger than people in the long run. I believe that if you want to do a fortress strategy, you have to have huge numbers.
What I'm not sure of is that fortresses are more effective at defense than leveling up people etc. Also I would like to know if there are long term effects on the economy of more q5s vs less that'd make the country richer and more able to defend itself.
Hey there Aaron. 'Grats on getting a newspaper
Were you not here for the invasion?
Florida's status as a fortress was eMerica's saving grace, hands down.
Building more Q5's isn't the answer, as the goal of the fortress is to build up a population density to a point where attacks become impractical. Not to mention that moving tickets are easy to come by, and many organizations offer free moving tickets to new players.
I don't think that PEACE would leave Florida again if they had it to do over. They would have moved Russia down to attack it if they could go back in time.
The point I'm asking for evidence on still hasn't been addressed though. What is the toll on population, rank, wealth, and daily damage we give up by only having two hostpitals regions? Some number of citizens will not move from their home region and they may eventualy understand the reasoning and move, but somehow we've got to keep them interested in the game long enough to get them to that point.
There are consequences to the Fortress strategy, the question is 'how large are they?'
I understand well what the theory behind fortresses is...just wanting to make sure we know what/if anything we sacrifice for going that route.
It's not a matter of PEACE simply making a mistake when it came to Florida. Florida's status as a massive fortress has made it (for the time being) a target that is unattackable, required massive amounts of resources to even expect a chance of success.
Those small pockets of idiots are not worth the cost of the hospitals, nor are they even worth our time. This is a game, and the players that refuse to play it as such should be left by the wayside.
The eUSA's population is stupid. Fact.
Spreading out hospitals only gives our idiots more incentive to spread out away from our fortress states. You have to be simple with the people, and giving them only two options for Q5 healing is simple.
Where is your research to show that the negative effects of the fortress strategy outweigh the positive effects? Even New Jersey with it's 3000 people and 650k wall fell in one battle.
We're still at war. We're still occupied. We may be invaded again. It's funny that our saving grace right now is Hungary owning Alaska. So how do you justify taking those funds out of the hands of the military, and using it for infrastructure that few will likely use, and would only water down our fortresses further?
Quite frankly, you don't have any concrete evidence that the 8800 people in the non-hospital territories would be using the hospitals even if they were placed, and you sent instructions to every single person. We don't have any concrete evidence that the Florida fortress saved us from annihilation.
We can only go on empirical evidence. 47 hospitals before the war, and legions of dead citizens. 1,500,000 point wall in Florida, they never attacked. Seems to speak for itself.
Really think we need a fortresses at choke points, California, obviously perfect, we need protection in the south in Texas, Mexico has shown they can not be trusted. The next Logical place would be NJ/NY
system101, it was your article that inspired this one. Pleas re-read the my article. I didn't say I had evidence that the damage would outweigh the fortress strategy. I asked for a study to be done to explore the option because for some reason, people get defensive when you ask them what the consequences of fortressing are.
Really, you and Hari are still arguing on theory, I'm tired of having that discussion. Making up percentages to see who can make the best statistic up isn't going to convince me. I proposed we undertake an actual study. But instead of actualy reading, you all go to attack mode which is what is so frustrating about the players in this game.
"Those small pockets of idiots are not worth the cost of the hospitals, nor are they even worth our time. This is a game, and the players that refuse to play it as such should be left by the wayside.
The eUSA's population is stupid. Fact."
Wow. Talk about proving Aaron S's point about alienating players.
THIS is the problem people! Not the fortress strategy as such, but the arrogance that seems to come with it. People quit this game before they even get started, because so many of us jump on their asses and start telling them what they have to do. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun to most folks. My best friend, who invited me in, got sick of it at level 17 and quit.
Good riddance you say? Sure - we could toss aside our population advantage and focus instead on organizing ourselves like a bunch of hardcore-gamer Hungarian-style tanks. Except I don't like the way Hungary plays. If I did, I'd move there. Like lots of RL americans who are more interested in "winning" an unwinnable game already have.
Me, I prefer to see if we can't play this game successfully AS Americans. Its more challenging that way. Hence, more fun.
And by the way: By the time PEACE got to Florida, we WANTED them to take it to cancel our mpps, like Canada! I'm not sure how that makes Florida our "saving grace".
first page!
your analysis - while sounds intelligent - doesn't work. Sorry.
Good stuff with the newspaper. keep it up!
Ut Prosim indeed.
People want to serve and they want to learn.
Why not encourage more study?
Phoenix, you did a great article on explaining the benefits of a fortress system. Now I think it is time we compare those benefits to a study on player retention as it relates to hostpitals and the possible effects of only two hostpitals.
For more information on what the Fortress system is and the benefits of it, see Phoenix Quinn's article:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/fortresses-and-hospitals-a-guide-for-the-perplexed-988972/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/fort[..]/1/20
The US has 51 (original) regions and it would be futile to attempt to get a hospital for each one.
However, I think the opposite extreme is just as bad. There should be Q5 hospitals in Florida, Texas, New York and California, because these are the four most populated states. Progress has been made on that end as California and Florida have them. Now you have to just get New York and Texas hospitals.
I call this the Four-tress States Strategy.
Comandante, don't even try to say that I've done anything to put off new players. I'll fight you tooth and nail on this one, so keep your hand out of this particular meat grinder.
comandantedavid was talking about the arrogance of some of the higher players, and I quite agree with him.
In this game, there are so many who think that they are above others and the fact may be true to a degree...
but alienating newcomers because you are a Prima DOnna is wrong, no matter who does it.
And he was spot on quoting you, so there is nothing you can say about that.
That being said, education of the fortress system is probably in oder. Maybe instead of trolling people's papers, you can give out some knowledge in a manner that is not condescending.
Way to go AARon!!
Voted & subed!
You called not only new players but every other player in America stupid. Fact. Perhaps you should be the one stepping away from the meat grinder that you turned on with your arrogant trolling. Anyone who thinks that there is a right or wrong answer to the problem of defending 51 regions, a ridiculous number, is fooling themselves. Pheonix Quinn wrote a mammoth last article on simply one side of the issue and, despite a lot of comments from hardcore mechanicicists and fortress supporters, was not even beginning to give support to one side or the other or even profess significant knowledge of the subject. Aaron is completely in the right to call for further analysis and if the article doesn't prove that then read up in the comments where he is actually talking with Quinn about research efforts to further study this issue. I wish he were running for congress again so that we could get some educated, question asking people in there who aren't afraid to do some hardcore research with other members to try to find the right course of action for our country. I'm going to end this rant now but this probably won't be my last so keep ya eyes open y'her?!?
About those damn hospitals!
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/about-those-damn-hospitals-again-eng--991730/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/abou[..]/1/20
Sub/voted. Aaron demonstrates a good working knowledge of the game, and he clearly knows how to be a good leader. It's too bad that Aaron decided not to run for Congress anymore. Anyhow, I agree with this article. I'd like to see the development of a new Government building that would grant a virtual Q1 hospital status to all territories in an eNations that would buy/build this new building. I discuss this idea and others here. http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/gold-burning-opportunities-1090874/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/gold[..]/1/20