Join the new world

Today I will talk about what we will do in order to enjoy the game more, as members of EDEN.

The players from any country, large or small, derive most of the fun from the military module. That in turn means that we would be happy, as members of the alliance, if we can have interesting campaigns.

Interesting campaigns

An interesting campaign means actually 3 things:
1) Our country will be involved in a direct war at some stage during the campaign;

2) At the end of the campaign we will count some victories, even if they are short lived. The current advantage ONE has over us means we cannot realistically hope to wipe out somebody from that alliance and keep them wiped out. Nor could we permanently annex colonies. But for sure we can kick the butt of anyone there, as long as we work well as a team;

3) At the end of the campaign we can hold elections for congress in all the member countries. If a country lacks congress it becomes harder for her to finance the battles of her own citizens, which means next month the players from that country will have less fun.

What needs to be done

The 3 criteria above set the framework for how our campaigns should be planned and executed. It means that our campaigns fall in 2 time slots:

- Starting with the 26th of one month and till somewhere around the 20th of the next month we can have all out offensive campaigns;

- Around the 20th of the month, we need to combine offensive and defensive operations, so that during the 23rd to 25th each country has at least one region free, so they can submit candidates for congress on 23rd and hold elections on the 25th.

By the way, all the above holds true also for the members of ONE, the only difference being they have more firepower available and therefore their task is easier if we let them live an easy life.

How are we going to do it

While on paper ONE outguns us, we have seen time and again that we can actually defeat them. And sometimes we can even wipe out the most powerful members of their alliance.

What is the secret behind our successes? The secret is better coordination.

Here is how better coordination works:

1) We open several battles in the same time;

2) Some of those battles we truly want to win, the others we actually do not care about their outcome. The battles we don’t care about are the “drains” or “damage-draining battles”;

3) The idea behind the drains is to make sure ONE wastes firepower there, going into overkill. They might have X billion damage more than us – if they pour that X billion in the wrong battles, we will defeat them in the other battles, those we want to win;

4) We make sure we do not waste our damage, that we never go into overkill mode, even in those battles, which are really important.

The challenges and the solutions

We usually do well with the first 3 points, but we’re not always capable of executing well the 4th point.

There are several causes for that, and I will address them here, together with the solutions:

1) We sometimes fail to change the priorities at alliance level according to how the battles evolve. Sometimes we keep on the priority list battles long closed, battles active but already lost by a large, battle active but already won by a large margin.

There are 2 ways to correct that, and we should apply them both together for excellent results:

- We need to have somebody present at all times on the military channels, with the ability to reshuffle the priorities. This translates in having Assistant Military Coordinators and Assistant Supreme Commanders from all the 3 time zones: Americas, Europe and Far East Asia;

- We should use the MoDs, vice-MoDs and CPs who are present at any time on the military channel as a “Permanent War Council”.

It may happen that all the aMCs and all the aSC could at one point in time be absent. Real Life is always full of surprises and sh*t happens. So it may be that in spite of our care to have all the Time Zones covered, sometimes there will be nobody able to change the priorities.

But at any point in time we will have MoDs, viceMoDs and CPs on the military channel. All of them have brains and all of them have the authority in their own countries, to direct the damage of that country to any battle that matters.

So all we need is those people to notice the priorities are not correct anymore and to decide right then and there, by discussing among themselves, on the new correct priorities. When the SC, aSC, MO, MC or aMC shows up, we return to the normal operating procedure.

That way we will never behave like a headless chicken, even if the whole EDEN HQ is blown to pieces by an Al-Qaeda attack.


2) The other major problem we sometimes face is the slow process of bringing the priorities from the alliance level to the country level.

In such situation the priorities are right, the SC, MO, MC etc are present and watching all the battles closely so everything works at the alliance level.

What is however NOT working is the fact some member countries’ CoDs are not reflecting the priority list, nor are the military units from those countries fighting where they should.

One reason why that does not happen is legitimate: sometimes several countries are fighting important battles at tight scores, in which case each of those countries would of course prioritize her own resources accordingly.

However, as you remember, we will be fighting also draining battles. The countries which are involved in such draining battles might use the trick of setting the Campaign of the Day for that battle (so ONE spies would believe the battle is legit). But in spite of what the CoD says, they should direct their own Military Units to the battles which really matter. When that does not happen, we have a problem.

The other reason why the countries take sometimes 3 – 5 hours (!!!) so align their operations to those of the alliance has to do with the internal regulations of that country.

More to the point, the rules of that country say that even though the MoD sees the correct list of priorities at the alliance level, he/she cannot pass those priorities to the Military Units unless the Country President approves them.

We all do realize what kind of problems such internal rule causes: if the Country President is missing for 3 – 5 hours or if he/she is hit by a truck, that country is completely paralyzed.

Each country needs to be protected from the risk of paralysis when the president is unavailable. How each country does it will depend on the local customs. Countries have full sovereignty on how they solve this problem, as long as the problem is solved.

Therefore what we need to be sure is within the next two weeks, after the new presidents are elected, each country has developed a procedure which ensures that the military priorities do not have to wait for missing persons in order to be implemented at country level.

It could be that each country establishes some sort of Military Council, which has the authority to make military decisions in the absence of the president.

It could be that the government of the country decides on implementing the military priorities in the absence of the president.

There is a wide array of possible solutions, all aimed at reducing the dependence of a country from the presence of a single individual.

If we manage to solve within the next two weeks after the presidential election the problem of the continuity of the command both at HQ level and at national level, we will be able to deliver more fun for our members than we did before.

So let’s have fun! Let’s kick butt!