Join the new world

The word for the day is: Mentor

Update, 17:30 erep time: Thanks to all who made suggestions through comments and PMs through the day. You were a great help! For the record, in case anybody wants to reuse any of this, I am updated my article with the version I spammed my mentorees with. I broke it into 6 parts.

Remember the 2-clicker sloppy salute! 7o!

PS : I really think this could be useful to many players ... let's keep voting this one up !

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I was assigned my first six mentorees yesterday as part of the USA mentoring program. A great idea! Since I spent awhile yesterday composing an introductory message, and the wars are still in snooze land, I thought I'd post a draft of my message here and ask for comments. Please let me know if I left anything out, got anything wrong, or say too much! Remember this is meant for a complete noob: less than experience level 5.

If you think this is useful, subscribe and vote it up!!

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WELCOME MESSAGE
*****PART I*****

Hello and welcome to the eRepublik! This is the greatest massive online social strategy in the world. As part of the eUSA mentorship program, I have been assigned your mentor. I will help you get started, answer questions, and give advice. Please ask me any questions about the game, strategy, whatever. This game has a lot going on and is confusing at first. I agreed to be a mentor because the first 2 weeks of my elife were confusing and hard. I learned the hard way, and hope to pass it on. You don't owe me anything for the help-I just hope you stay in the game and enjoy! The eUSA needs you.

You've started the game during the 3rd major World War. It started in early July with attacks on the eUSA by the dastardly minions of the PEACE alliance, led by Hungary, Indonesia, Russia, Portugal and France. During July they took over most of the North American continent, wiping out Canada and reducing the USA to one state, Florida. Yes, just one! Through great leadership, cooperation, and stupendous allies, we were able to come back in August and September, and have liberated almost our entire continent. Hungary, a very powerful foe, still holds Washington, Alaska, and part of Canada. After their defeat in North America, PEACE is now attacking Scandinavia, but we have been able to fight them to a standstill. At the moment, the war is in a lull, but expect more fireworks soon. This is a game about diplomacy, commerce, friendship, but first and foremost, war!

So we have just survived an existential threat. But that threat left the eUSA stronger and more united than ever! Yes, you have joined this game at a wonderful time.

Okay, on to my mentor advice. My first lesson is simple: Remember this is a game! Real life is more important! Some people do forget this and spend 20 hours a day on this game--we often wind up calling them "President" 🙂.

I will follow up with some more introduction in a separate email.
~Zheng He

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*****PART II*****
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I would like to introduce some basic concepts. You might have already figured some of these things out, but just in case:

- Wellness: Your wellness is always shown on the left of your screen. It's very important to keep it high (more later).

- Foo😛 You automatically eat one food item per day. If you run out of food you lose wellness fast, so go to the Marketplace and buy more. Buy Q1 food at first ("Q1" means "1 star", and it goes up to 5). I buy 5 at a time to save multiple trips. If you run out, the little Plato guy will tell you to buy more.

- Company: You need to get a job to earn money, gain experience, and build skill.

- Skill: We have 3 types of skills, Manufacturing, Land, and Constructions. As you get more skill, you can get higher paying jobs.

- Train and Strength: Every day you train, you get stronger and gain experience.

- XP points: How much experience you have. Working, training, and fighting gives experience points and experience is how we level up.

- Level: An approximation of how much we've done in the game. Below level 5 we can't do much. From level 5 through about 12 or 13, we can fight and join various activities, but don't really have the strength or experience to have a major effect in the game. You can see players' levels on the bio tab of their profile pages.

- Money: You have to work every day to earn money.

- Gol😛 This is the international standard for money. You can sell Gold at the money market. The current rate is about 40 USD for 1 Gold. You get 5 Golds for reaching level 6 and at certain other milestones.

- Countries: Not all real countries are in the game, but many are. eGobba keeps a current map: http://www.egobba.de/

- Regions: Countries are divided into regions based more or less on real life. This summer we found that having a lot of small regions (like the USA) makes it harder to defend against attackers!

~Zheng He

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*****PART III*****
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This part of my message is about hospitals and newspapers.

- Hospitals: Some regions have hospitals. After fighting we go to the hospital in the region we live in and "heal". Healing at a Q1 hospital gives us 10 wellness and Q5 hospitals give us 50 wellness. That's the max. Once you start fighting, it's very important to live in a Q5 hospital region! The USA has Q5 hospitals in FL and CA and is building more (most were destroyed in the recent fighting).

- Newspapers: Any citizen can publish a paper. Some are interesting, some informative, some funny, and some trash (like real life!). When you "Subscribe" to a paper, you will be notified when they publish. Four I HIGHLY recommen😛

1. The DoD Battle Orders: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/dod-orders-194506/1 Once you start fighting, it is IMPERATIVE to read this daily and follow orders. Sometimes the orders look odd, but the strategies are complicated and confusing. The DoD cannot explain all because it is read by our enemies abroad. (Note you can subscribe to newspapers from other countries.)

2. 2-Clicker 2-Minute Morning Coffee Summary : http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/2-clicker-morning-coffee-194873/1 This is my rag, where I post concise summaries every morning-all you need to know to get your eRepublik day started. (More subscriptions are important, so you can thank me by subscribing 😉. ) I also explain some strategy, but the next two papers give more details.

3. The Federalist Papers: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/the-federalist-papers-180344/1 This is our President's newspaper. Know what the Pres says.

4. Defense Intel Review: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/defense-intel-review-195345/1 Aeros works with the ePentagon to give in depth explanations for war strategies. (This is my personal favorite.)

I recommend immediately subscribing to these papers. Then look for others! I'm sure you have interests of your own.

~Zheng He

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*****PART IV*****
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** ****************** **
** VERY IMPORTANT!!!! **
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Your first goal as a new citizen is to reach level 5 with your WELLNESS ABOVE 40!
- Then you can fight. You cannot fight if your wellness goes below 40.
- Then you can go to your local hospital and heal.
- It takes about a week to get to level 5, then a couple of days to get your wellness into the 90s. After that you are more productive at work and can get a higher paying job.
- If you ever go below 40, ask for help with a "wellness gift". A friend can buy them and "gift" them to you, and your wellness is increased. Let me know and I'll help you out.

Hospitals
If you start in a region with no hospital, ou probably want to move to a state with a hospital (Florida and California have Q5 hospitals, allowing 5 fights per day). To move you need a moving ticket, which is expensive. But you can ask the Flying Unicorn Squadron for help: http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization/1520136

~Zheng He

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*****PART V*****
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The first thing you do is get a job. It's important to remember that as a new player, your wellness is low and your skill is low, so you are actually a liability to the company--your salary is higher than your productivity. That's how we all started. At some point, everybody either gets fired or our company goes bankrupt. It's happened to me at least a dozen times. DON'T WORRY! Go back to the company screen and look for a new job. Your salary may go up, or it may go down. Doesn't really matter. Also, make sure you work at a Q1 company at first. The "Q1" defines how much wellness you use in working and you can't afford higher Q jobs at first. Your productivity and salary depends on your skill level. So most players stick with one skill to keep their skill as high as possible. Also, when your skill reaches 2, it's time to go look for a new job with a higher salary. Just resign and look for a new company.

Every day you eat one food item. At the beginning, go to the market and buy Q1 food. If you ever need more food, the USA has a Meals on Wheels program just for you. Send the organization a message and they will donate some food to you: http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization/1330363

After level 5 the game gets *much* more fun! This is important to remember. The first few days are a bit dull. But after you get "battle ready", you can fight in the wars and you can start to meet other players.

Part of the game is about fighting. A larger part is about interacting with other people. The game is played by thousands worldwide and we have lots of ways to interact:
- Direct mail (like this message)
- Reading newspaper
- Commenting on newspapers
- Writing your own newspaper
- Reading the forums
- Writing into the forums
- Fighting in battles!
- Joining a political party
This game has a lot of aspects and there is something for everyone.

~Zheng He

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*****PART VI*****
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Finally, I will close with a few acronyms and terms that you might see and should know:
- RL - Real life
- 2-clickers - players who work (1 click) and train (2 click) and not much else. You can see a full definition in my paper: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2-clicker-2-minute-morning-coffee-summary-1-october-964916/1/20
- admins - The programmers who created the game. Sometimes referred to irreverently as "gods" because that's their real role in the game.

War terms:
- MPP - Mutual Protection Pact, allies who can fight in each other's wars.
- Damage - When you fight you do some damage, based on strength, weapons, wellness and level. Whichever side does the most damage wins.
- Wall - When one nation attacks, the region starts with a number of points based on population and defense systems. That is called the "wall" because it has to be brought down to 0 through damage attacks.

Now I will quit spamming you with messages 🙂.

Don't hesitate to send me a note or leave a comment on the 2-clicker if you have questions.

The most important advice; have fun!!!

~Zheng He