We have a good thing, but we could have an even better one
mihail.cazacu
When ONE was reigning supreme and every EDEN and Terra were either wiped out or on the brink of being wiped out, small countries like Ireland, Israel or Belarus insisted in being members of EDEN.
They could have chosen the easy way out, to side with the winners. Like ABC for instance.
But they didn't.
Why not?
Because EDEN was an alliance where everybody had an equal saying on the matters.
There were no Hungary or Serbia in EDEN, to tell small countries "we're tired of fighting your wars instead of defending our colonies".
There was no Spain anymore, attacking left and right just 4 t3h lulz (the Spanish military philosophy has always been "let's have one war at each border if possible").
There was no Poland anymore, telling the other allies to stay put, not to waste the precious damage needed to defend the Polish colonies ( ah, the good old Rhone-Alps affair!)
So pretty much everything went smoothly because the situations were handled according to the spirit and the letter of the EDEN Treaty.
However recently we had a quite tensed situation which showed the EDEN Treaty fails to cover some important issues.
In theory it might be good if things aren't explicitly written down. Because only God Himself can know what future brings, therefore only He can write a EDEN Treaty which would be perfect for any future situation.
For the rest of us, leaving some situations open for a case-by-case decision makes it possible to adapt as things evolve in eRepublik. And if we can learn anything from the 3 years of eHistory, that is things DO evolve.
The problem is that the recent incidents showed us that sometimes trying to decide without any sort of guidelines can end up with the alliance putting more energy into in-fighting than dealing with the real enemies.
There are many possibilities to improve what we already have, but I can think of two which probably would right now enjoy the largest support among our members:
1.) To put a limit on the number of terms for the leadership positions. If we want the flexibility needed to adapt to future challenges, we need to have a large pool of leaders.
If a person can be elected time and again, we will get a handful of very experienced people while everybody else has little idea how to think beyond the immediate interests. So when those extremely experienced people get bored or Real Life forces them to quit, there aren't any seasoned replacements available.
If a person can only serve 2 times, that means during a year we can have at least 6 sets of people who have experienced thinking globally and harmonizing the interests of countries big and small.
Yes, it means we will have "n00bs" in the HQ more often than we have now. But usually those "n00bs" are ex-Country Presidents, ex-MoDs or ex-MoFAs. So they're not exactly green, are they? And if they ever feel like they need a second opinion, they can always turn for advice to those who have already been in the HQ.
But once advice is given, the decision will still be the responsibility of the person in office. "He/she told me that's the best thing to do" will never be a good excuse, would it?
2.) We need a much clearer set of criteria about what means "trustworthy", "reliable", "cooperation", etc. Without such clear criteria we can always argue about whether a candidate is "trustworthy" or not, if the unilateral action of a member is "constructive" or not, etc.
Of curse the human language itself is full with ambiguity and only God could find a perfect set of criteria. But we only need to define the minimum level of acceptable performance.
Let's take the example of the recent Russian - Norwegian conflict and imagine Russia wants to join EDEN in the future. (Russia is a valuable member of the other friendly alliance, Terra and to my knowledge they are very happy there, but I need a fresh example to illustrate my point).
Would Russia's application be automatically rejected because at several points in time Russia attacked Norway (when Russia was a member of Peace, when Russia was a member of Phoenix and now)?
Would Russia's application be accepted because Russia apologized officially and offered a rent accepted by the Norwegian government?
What if the Norwegian government of today considered the rent and apologies enough to close the conflict, but the Norwegian government of March 2013 holds that against Russia? What is the statute of limitation? (How old must be a conflict till it can't be held against a country anymore?)
What if Russia sends her army to fight for Norway several times in key Norwegian battles, even though there's no MPP between Norway and Russia? Would that be considered a further sign Russia is a trustworthy partner in spite of the recent incident? Or would the Russians be told "well guys, you did it on your own risk, we don't care you helped because we didn't ask for your help in the first place"?
If such criteria are left open to on-the-spot interpretation we might end again debating and escalating inner tensions instead of focusing our energies where it truly matters. That is, on the common enemies.
The Treaty of EDEN is what makes our alliance great, so great that small countries join EDEN even when the enemy mops the floor with the most powerful EDEN members. And still we can make it even better with additions like the ones above.
For a better future. Because the future is where we all will be playing this game.
Comments
Very good article 🙂
v+s
and no pictures
nice article. no boobs?
Great article, again!
voted
Another good article yet and again.
Votato.
no boobs?? but nice article 😁
there is ROmper and ROmania toll everybody what to do and what not to do
Poland and Spain payed your 30 str 'tanks' to hit full tank in every LK or HK battle without their money romania and croatia was nothing.
Jacob hate us moar.....
We still have your country under our occupation .
nice idea v
too long, i stoped reading somewere at the half.
good one, hope that players who have the possibility to modify the EDEN Treaty will read this article
treaty should be updated.
but if you limit the number of times people can be part of HQ, we should also add some requierements that have to be fulfilled in order to become part of EDEN HQ (for example it's not the same to lead a country or army as to lead the whole alliance, it's not the same to lead 1 nation and to lead and work for many equal nations with many different interests and the pressure is bigger and different)
noobs can do too much damage in a very short time...
so before one gets to HQ position, it has to be "trained" to be able to handle the situations
Because EDEN was an alliance where everybody had an equal saying on the matters.
LOL Bulgaria - Turkey
Cazacule, vad ca ai inceput sa deschizi ochii. Good for you!
voted
nice as usual
There is no treaty thet could cover your own greed.
It is not good to change the law just to cover one temporary conflictual situation.
It's more appropriate to make an exceptional group of experts to deal with this exceptional situation. They would judge and would recommend the most appropriate solutions to solve the issue.
Constantly changing the law will soon produce chaos and will destroy any construction that was hardly made before.
@MirceaDrac: Stai, ca mai e multa munca pana se repara tot ce s-a stricat luna trecuta. Situatia este inca volatila, chiar daca merge in directia buna.
V
Glad to see you again
Very good reading. Honor lays on each one of us, so does trust and trustworthiness. One CP might be frenzy, while the next is sane. It goes without saying, you can't trust a nation by it's previous records, but you can trust players by their previous records. Then again, trust can easily be lost.
As for the Russian invasion of Norway, it was really, really clumsy. However, we managed to pull through, and I respect Russia for making a deal in the end. Not sure if the respect is mutual however. 😉
Very good reading indeed! Voted and subscribed!
TEDEN is getting overcrowded, you need to start losing regions or you may start to lose members.