Fix eRepublik - Volume 2

Day 3,481, 10:29 • Published in USA USA • by Gnilraps
Day 3481 of the New World
June 1, 2017




A month ago I came to you with a very simple proposal to improve the game we love.



The gist of that article was that the population of eRepublik can no longer support an unlimited number of open Battle Campaigns. So I proposed a limit to the maximum number of Campaigns as a way of increasing competition, excitement, and significance in each individual battle. It is a great idea.



Today I will propose a second great idea to improve the quality of game play here at eRepublik, and I have renewed hope that Admin will listen since they have a new boss!



It is time to end the 5-Party system.




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In a social environment, it takes a certain amount of “social resources” to create vibrancy. I don’t know that I am qualified to make concrete assertions about exactly what these numbers might look like, but I’ll take a wild swing and see if I can make contact.




hey, at least I’m trying… I wonder if Plato has even stepped up to the plate lately!



I beg the international community to indulge my laziness but I will use the eUSA community as my sample.



In eUSA, we have an absolutely stagnant situation in the top 5. There has not been any change in the T5 membership in years. It’s Feds, USWP, BSP, WTP, and SFP.



Every f**king month.



Every f**king year.











Of course the main problem is that there simply isn’t enough population to support a vibrant 5-party system.



Back in the day, when the average political election involved 2 or 3 thousand voters in eUSA, there was some excitement about how elections would play out. There was even excitement as party membership would ebb and flow, creating changes in ranking… even *gasp* resulting in a 5th party becoming 6th and a 6th party becoming 5th!!!!!











But in an environment where there are maybe 300 or so active voters, 95% of whom are dyed-in-the-wool members of their chosen party, and

In an environment where there are maybe 2 or 3 legitimate potential new citizens per month, and

In an environment where a 5-party system is inflexibly forced upon this shrunken player base…



There’s not much fun left in the Party system.










So let’s fix it!



Let’s beg Plato to reduce the number of controlling parties to 3 per eNation.



A Top 3 Party system is perfect for the current eRepublik social environment.



With 3 Parties, you have a tightened political dynamic. Whichever is the top party must worry constantly about a coalition from the other two. In a depleted 5 Party system such as the one we have now, all it takes is an alliance between numbers 1 and 2 to effectively silence all other voices. This has been the situation in eUSA for years. USWP and FEDS have literally controlled congress by mutual agreement. This is not good for the game. The 5 Party system waters down the available pool of active participants such that it is easy for the top 2 to squat on power. I know this is the case in nearly every other healthy nation.


With 3 Parties, you have the potential for changes in power at the top. As it stands now, the pathetic slow trickle of new citizens gets so watered down by the 5-Party system that there is no real hope of party growth through outreach. Back in the day I used to run recruitment programs that systemmatically reached out to new citizens. I still have the ancient spreadsheets that show how each day we would send a particular PM to all new citizens. Then the next day we’d follow up with another PM. Then we’d have certain donations set up to attract them with gifts. Some of my old schemes were really elaborate. In other words, it used to be fun and exciting and productive to try to grow your party through outreach to new citizens. Today there is literally no point to it. I have tried twice in recent months to develop something along these lines and it’s just not worth it. Perhaps if there were only 3 politically meaningful parties competing for the trickle of new citizens instead of 5, it would be worth revisiting some of those recruitment programs.


With 3 Parties, CP elections might be a wee bit more interesting. One thing that hasn’t changed is that every now and then there is a barnburner of a CP election. It doesn’t happen every month, but when it does it’s fun. In fact, just two months ago in eUSA there was an election victory decided by fewer than 10 votes. And how many votes were “wasted” on 4th and 5th candidates? 43! In other words, while a 3-way election would not have created a 3-way race, it would have significantly increased the value of campaigning for votes between the top two candidates. Why do we need a 4th and a 5th candidate in a CP election that has almost never been significantly determined between more than 2 candidates? Come on, Plato.







We could talk about more benefits of a 3-party system over a 5-party system.

We could talk about the heightened focus each top party would have to place on identifying policy (which means heightened activity).

We could talk about the intensified competition over whatever the new “Residence Module” might provide (most T5 parties don’t even have enough active members to control a small number of regions. Wouldn’t political competition for regions be a good thing?)

We could talk about the condensed talent pool which would stimulate the media module (and other outlets) with competitive banter between 3 more significant competitors (whereas the current climate has stagnated with 5 mostly established non-competitors).

...and so on. You can probably add to the list.










So.


Dear Alexis and Stillfront,

Please just change the code to allow for 3 Top parties instead of 5.

And when, together, we grow this game back to a place where there are about 8 to 10 times the current number of active citizens, we can go back to 4 or 5 top parties because that was a really good system when there were more people playing. But right now? The 5 Party system is killing us.

Thanks.











You may now return to your regularly scheduled clicking