Complete eRepublik Economy - Quo Vadis, Plato?
Day 5,789, 03:37
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Published in Croatia 
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by
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by Janko Fran
READeR
Dear eRepublikans,
If you have been wondering what is the current state of the eRepublik economy, you are not alone...
I have been wondering as well... I have been wondering about which types of companies are, or at least which companies could be, profitable at this point, and which not?
They say an image is worth a 1000 words, so let me show you:
Food Raw Material Production Profitability
Weapon Raw Material Production Profitability
House Raw Material Production Profitability
Aircraft Weapon Raw Material Production Profitability
Companies Production Profitability
The companies marked with a red X are those that are not profitable.
Hm, I can see here more red X's than on America's Got Talent...
4 Red X's After an Undisclosed Bad Performance on America's Got Talent
And by not profitable, I don't mean in the sense they are not profitable enough or just breaking even. No, I mean, they produce loss!
Factory Blues - The more you produce, the more you lose...
Here is such a use case, from music industry...
New Order – Blue Monday. Click on the image to play the video and listen to the song.
Unlike in eRepublik, a business operating when the price is less than average variable cost is rarely found in the real world. One cherished example, however, comes from 1983 from the celebrated record label Factory, which agreed to produce a single, Blue Monday by New Order, in an extremely expensive laser-cut sleeve.
Blue Monday is the biggest selling 12” single of all time. The sleeve was designed by renowned Factory Records designer Peter Saville, and was made to resemble a 5¼" floppy disc. The sleeve was so expensive to produce that the label actually lost money for each copy that was sold.
A lot of copies of the first edition were sold and so Factory lost a large amount overall, taking greater losses the more it sold. The single if often regarded as a classic, both in music and design, but Factory is never cited as a positive example in business textbooks!
Plato on America's Got Talent
Not good, Plato! Not good!...
Why?
Well, for Food Raw Material production Q1-Q5 and for Weapon Raw Material production Q1-Q2 the Work Tax and (and also Import Tax on top of that, if you are exporting) take more than the product value on the market.
For House Raw Material production Q1-Q5 and Aircraft Weapon Raw Material production the Salaries to produce material are higher than the product value on the market.
For Weapon production Q1 and Q2, for House production Q1, Q2 and Q5 as well as for Aircraft Weapon production Q1-Q4 it's the combination of the previous two reasons...
Current State of the eRepublik economy
So, what is the state of the eRepublik economy?
Out of 44 different types of companies, 25 types, so more than half, are nonprofitable, that is, only producing losses, which means dead!
So 56% of all branches of eRepublik industry is dead.
If you are more visual type, imagine this...
If Plato was a player playing a video game, and actually, Plato is a player of this video game, and he doesn't seem to be doing that well...
Here is his profile:
And if the health state of the eRepublik industry would be shown as Plato's nutrients, stamina and a health bar, this is how it would look like:
Plato's Nutrition Bar - Raw Industry Health Bar
Plato's Stamina Bar - Factory Industry Health Bar
Plato's Health Bar - Total eRepublik Industry Health Bar
Plato, you don't look well... Plato, what are you doing?
Where are you going, Plato?
Plato, you'd need to do something, you are not doing well...
Plato, you'd need a diagnosis...
Perhaps you should get some medical kit for your economy's health...
Diagnosis of eRepublik Economy
Here are the numbers:
And here are detailed calculations with maximal (or near maximal) bonuses for each type of the industry.
Click on the image to see it in its full size.
What Does this mean?
Ok, let me give you some tips...
Tips:
1. First, definitely don't invest your hard earned money (no matter if gold, or CC) in eRepublik industry, it's not worth it, you'll probably lose money.
2. Second, If you have to invest some money in eRepublik industry, don't invest it in Food Raw Material or House Raw Material production, you'll definitely lose money and the more you produce, the more you lose, they are producing with a loss, no matter what quality, what bonuses and what taxes are in place...
3. Third, Aircraft Raw Material production is volatile, quite risky depending on the price of Aircraft Raw Material, quite expensive and its profitability is limited only to Neodymium Mines, so better to avoid...
4. Fourth, if you have to invest in Raw Material production, then Saltpeter Mines (Q4) are still the most profitable among all the industires, although not as profitable as earlier. So if you would invest today 8500 CC (or 8.5 g) in getting a Saltpeter Mine and the prices stayed the same, you would see your money back in 7 months and 7 days or so... However, with the ever lowering prices of Weapon Raw Material, having Saltpeter Mines has become riskier in case of overproduction and prices dropping bellow it's profitability breaking point. So, don't tell me I haven't warned you. In that case the Rubber Plantation would become the only choice for Weapon Raw Material production. And if you would invest today 35 g in getting a shiny black Rubber Plantation and the prices stayed the same, you would see your money back in 16 months and 16 days...
5. Food production, yes, that's the safest bet, you'll need food and everyone needs food, the Food Raw Material is relatively cheap, you can produce tons of food and you can't go wrong with investing in the Food Production, no matter the quality. It's not the most profitable option, but it's the safest option. Regarding the quality, Q2 has the fastest rate of return on your investment (ROI). You invest today 30 g and you'll see your money again in 15 months and 5 days. Or if you wait for the next Black Friday offer in exactly 2 months from today and you might get 30% discount on company upgrades. In that case, you'd save 6 gold on upgrade from Q1 to Q2 and you'll see your 24 gold investment in 364 days, just in time for the Black Friday a year later. Unless, of course, a lot of people does the same until then...
6. Sixth, if you invest in Weapon production, then invest only in the best - Q7 Weapon production is key to your success as everyone who can afford it, including the big tank players only fight and buy the highest quality weapon on the market. And there is never enough of Q7 weapons, no matter how much you produce, there is always a battle where more damage is needed or at least where someone needs a bit more damage than their competition, which is strong as ever... And it's the matter of prestige, after all...
The price? A bargain... Only 1230 gold (or 864 gold on Black Friday most probably).
7. Seventh, Aircraft Weapon production, as with Weapon production, only the best for your clients, in this case Aircraft Weapon Factory Q5. (I wouldn't hold my breath on Aircraft Weapon Factories Q6 and Q7 being introduced...)
Good thing, the entering bar is lower at only 380 gold, or 269 on BF. The problem? Your company probably won't work in full capacity as you are probably not going to sell that many Q5 Aircraft Weapons. There are not many players who could afford buying it often or at least there are not many of them who think it might be worthy to buy it. However, never underestimate the impulse buy in the heat of a battle. The US market sells decently well compared to other ones that I tested, although I haven't tested that many... So, I might be missing something... Feel free to enlighten me in the comments if you feel there is a market in dire need for more Q5 Aircraft Weapons...
8. Eighth... Houses... Oh, houses, houses...
Quo Vadis, Plato?
That could be the topic for a whole new article, but let's see...
Just after a break, as I need one... Probably you, too...
Pop Tops - Mammy Blue
Pop Tops - Mammy Blue
Welcome back!
In short, no, don't invest now in House production.
Or let's just say, hold on with investments in House production as at the moment the market is saturated with Q1 and Q2 houses due to the daily challenges, as the lowest quality houses are the cheapest to produce, so if you are buying some Q1 and/or Q2 houses, now is a good time and you'll probably get it for a bargain, definitely for under their cost of production.
Q3 and Q4 house production is good on paper, as the prices are higher than their production costs, but the demand for them is low as not many players can afford them and will buy them and the costs of production are quite high and the time needed for their production is rather high...
Q5 house production - just no, at least not at the current level of salaries and House Raw Material prices... Everything that holds for Q3 and Q4 House production holds for Q5 as well, only worse in costs and time for production and except that Q5 House production is also not profitable, that is, it produces with a loss. So, no!
Unless...
Unless we reevaluate the whole eRepublik real estate market...
So, the next question is...
How Much is a House Worth?
How Much is a House Worth, what is its value to the player?
Let's see what we get for them...
Q1: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +100 EC
Q2: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +160 EC
Q3: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +200 EC
Q4: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +300 EC
Q5: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +400 EC
And all that for a week... 7 days or 8.4 days if you happen to have a residence in a region that is not too crowded... But, let's stay with 7 days...
So how much is the value of all this?
Let's calculate it one by one...
Energy Value
A week of +20 E/h is 3360 Energy points in total.
If 10 Double Energy Bars (or 20 regular energy bars, in any case 2000 Energy points) on sale with 30% discount costed 27.3 gold, then at that price it would be equivalent to 33.6 Energy Bars (regular), which would make it worth to an equivalent of 45.86 gold. It would be released over a week though, not in less than an hour or within minutes like with Energy Bars, but still, let's say it's worth that much...
3360 Energy points = 45.86 Gold (45860 CC)
Overtime Work Points Value
+1 Overtime Work Point/h over a week is 7 daily salaries. Let's assume that the net salary that you get is around 4100 CC, which makes 28700 CC or 28.7 gold of value for you.
168 Overtime Work Point = 28.7 Gold (28700 CC)
Temporary Energy Center Values
Calculating the Temporary Energy Center Values is a bit trickier as there is not such a good comparison, at least that I know of... (Please, let me know if you do...)
However, there are permanent Energy Centers in the Gold Store. I still haven't bought most of them, so perhaps you could help me... This is what I see at the moment...
And this is what it reads on eRepublik Wiki page on Energy center.
So, for a reference point, let's assume the best possible scenario in which you bought these centers as soon as they appeared at the most affordable price so you have been using them for years now...
So...
220 Energy Center (2018 anniversary event) - 225 GOLD
240 Energy Center (2019 anniversary event) - 245 GOLD
260 Energy Center (2020 anniversary event) - 265 GOLD
280 Energy Center (2021 anniversary event) - no information on the price on eRepublik Wiki, so I'll disregard this Energy Center for now and base my calculations on the first 3... (And if I had to, I'd assume its price to be 285 Gold, please, correct me if I am wrong...)
The first one has been on the market for about 5 years (or 260 weeks),
the second one for 4 years (or 204 weeks),
the third one for 3 yers (or 156 weeks), the fourth one for 2 years (104 weeks).
So the prices according to that would be:
220 EC: 0.87 Gold/Week
240 EC: 1.20 Gold/Week
260 EC: 1.70 Gold/Week
280 EC: 2.69 Gold/Week
And if you bought them first three of them last year at the anniversary event, that would have costed you 735 gold for the total of 720 Energy Center storage for the last 52 weeks. Or if we average it, that would be 240 EC for 245 gold for 52 weeks.
240 EC: 4.71 Gold/Week (52 weeks)
If we calculate the price per 100 EC storage points, that would give us the following prices:
220 EC (2018 ): 0.40 Gold/Week (per 100 EC)
240 EC (2019): 0.50 Gold/Week (per 100 EC)
260 EC (2020): 0.65 Gold/Week (per 100 EC)
280 EC (2021): 0.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) - Extrapolated
240 EC (2022): 1.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) - Averaged over a year
That gives an average price of 0.894 Gold/Week and maximal price of 1.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) if you calculate it against the long term value for at least a year. Unfortunately, your temporary Energy Center from the house will last only for a single Weekly Challenge... But let's assume the value to be an average of 0.894 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) for older players and the maximal price to be 1.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) for the newer players, depending how long you have those Energy Centers.
Why are the Energy Centers Important?
Personally, I play this game for more than 13 years with some breaks between, the last one being for 5 years until February this year, and I don't own any of the mentioned energy centers yet. As my playing style was focused mostly on production and journalism and not so much on fighting, so I haven't had so much need for energy centers.
Now, when the eRepublik economy is in ruins and the global eRepublik players' and readers' community is reduced from 235000 in 2009 or 368000 players in 2010 down to 10% of these numbers or less, with today's number of 34,319 players in the eWorld, I feel pressure to adapt and somehow change my gameplay stile...
With more battles and less players in the eWorld, the opportunities for, both you and your competition, for catching the BH and SH medals have opened as now often there are more battle rounds than active players online. And those who are stronger are taking and getting more medals from the ones who are weaker... Because, why to take only one medal if you could take more? Even on other player's account...
In that case, having a larger Energy Center storage, being permanent or temporary, can be a significant advantage... Beside, having a higher energy pool and more energy centers means you could sleep longer without wasting any energy points and it could give you an advantage at the start line of every Weekly Challenge, enabling you to get deeper in the reward stash pile early enough...
So for me, after discovering their value and adapting my playing style, energy centers might be now more worthy than for those who already bought them a long time ago... Although I haven't bought any yet... I am waiting for the eRepublik Anniversary as I heard that might be a good opportunity for a discount on Energy Centers, which might come in exactly 49 days according to my calculations... Until then I am trying to collect and raise some gold to be able to buy them...
TL; DR
Energy Center Importance:
1. Hunting BH, SH & CH Medals easier with larger energy pool
2. Sleep longer without wasting Enery Points
3. Advantage at Weekly Challenge
Total House Value Estimates
If we sum this all up, we get the following ranges of values:
House Q1: 73.86 + 0.894 (or + 1.96) Gold
House Q2: 73.86 + 1.430 (or + 3.14) Gold
House Q3: 73.86 + 1.788 (or + 3.92) Gold
House Q4: 73.86 + 2.682 (or + 5.88 ) Gold
House Q5: 73.86 + 3.576 (or + 7.84) Gold.
So now we can calculate the estimates for total house values as follows:
House Q1: 74.75 - 75.82 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +100 EC)
House Q2: 75.29 - 77.00 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +160 EC)
House Q3: 75.65 - 77.78 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +200 EC)
House Q4: 76.54 - 79.74 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +300 EC)
House Q5: 77.44 - 81.70 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +400 EC)
And which values to choose? The lower end values, the higher end values, or the average ones, or something in between?
If you are an older player with more than 5 years of experience, you could go with the lowes ones.
If you are a new player and started a year ago or so, you could take the higer end values.
And if you are an average player with 1.5 - 2.5 years of experience under your belt, you could take the average values.
It's totally up to you... However, which ever values you take, it's not much of a difference. The difference is in the range of 1.1 - 4.3 gold or 1.43% - 5.55%, which is basically a difference at the level of a statistical error.
I mean, there is also the issue of decreasing returns and increasing costs, so it might be justified to take an even higher price for it, but not the value...
Total House Values
Since I don't know where you stand, I'll take the average values of the lower and the higher ends.
House Q1: 75.29 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +100 EC)
House Q2: 76.15 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +160 EC)
House Q3: 76.72 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +200 EC)
House Q4: 78.14 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +300 EC)
House Q5: 79.57 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +400 EC)
What you can notice is that the values of Houses Q1 - Q5 for the player, estimated in this way, are relatively close together, within only 5.68% of a difference in the value, which is not much...
And the prices of the Houses Q1 - Q5 on the market are as follows:
Q1: 16,599.99 CC (or 16.60 Gold)
Q2: 36,249.99 CC (or 36.25 Gold)
Q3: 73,695.00 CC (or 73.70 Gold)
Q4: 146,110.00 CC (or 146.11 Gold)
Q5: 198,000.00 CC (or 198.00 Gold)
The prices can vary from market to a market, from day to a day, and from hour to an hour, but its mostly in this ballpark.. And you can always take a trip to a better market to buy a cheaper house if the round trip price makes it still worth it...
It is even worse if you compare the cost of production for Houses Q1 - Q5.
Q1: 18,244.33 CC (or 18.24 Gold)
Q2: 36,319.60 CC (or 36.32 Gold)
Q3: 72,639.20 CC (or 72.64 Gold)
Q4: 145,278.40 CC (or 145.28 Gold)
Q5: 217,917.60 CC (or 217.92 Gold)
You can see that Houses Q1, Q2 and Q5 are being sold for less than the price of their costs... Which doesn't make a good business case and reflects higher supply than their demand... It could also be a sign of Price undercutting, but I don't believe in that, I think most of the eRepublik players are not financial experts... Although there could be some speculative trade, but then the prices would be higher, rather than lower... It could also be altruism, but I would not buy that... I believe it merely shows desperation of House producers trying to make a sale in a low demand market, or just lack of calculations and not taking a stand, but instead, selling with a loss...
eRepublik Real Estates - A Buyer's Market
So for you as a player it makes sense to buy the houses that have higher value for you than its price.
Which makes it clear why players mostly buy Q1 and Q2 houses, and those who are better off also take a Q3 House, although the values of the energy recovered and the values of the energy centers were not that obvious to most players, I believe...
Obviously, Q4 and Q5 houses are overpriced for their values to players...
Not only overpriced, but also out of reach and beyond the purchasing power for most of the players, I believe, at least in a sustainable way, on a week to week basis...
However, there might be one more thing and question to consider...
Should I Buy All of the Houses Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 Together?
Since Q1 and Q2 are significantly undervalued compared to their total estimated value, and Q3 only slightly undervalued, it could be a valid question of the combined values of Houses Q1 - Q4 compared to their prices... Does it make sense, do the costs cover these values combined?
Value of Q1 + Q2 + Q3 + Q4: 306.30 Gold
Price of Q1 + Q2 + Q3 + Q4: 272.66 Gold
Well, surprisingly (or not), yes. The underpricing of Q1, Q2 and Q3 covers the value of Q4 if you decide to buy Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 together... It doesn't make sense to skip any of the Houses Q1 - Q3 in order to buy Q4 instead. However, it does make sense to buy all of the Houses Q1 - Q4.
And What about Q5? Should I buy it?
No. With its value of 79.57 Gold and its price of 198.00 Gold it is more than 100 gold overpriced, that's simply too much to make it worth it. Better to save up some more gold and buy a permanent Energy Center if you have any more left to buy.
If not, well, it's your gold... You can do with it whatever you want, even buy a Q5 house... Although, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it under these assumptions and conditions... Unless you have an excesive surplus of ingame currency and it's only the matter of status, prestige and displaying Conspicuous Consumption.
Actually, I did exactly that... Well, it was mostly out of curiosity and I had a lot of currency on my accunt (and other excuses when it's hard to admit your mistake that you later regret).
So I bought a Q5 House a few weeks ago. I bought them all... Trying to see how much it would help me with my first Weekly Challenge. I gave my best... Well, it didn't help much... Then I did some calculations... And now you are reading this article... Perhaps it helps someone, perhaps it helps someone at least by not repeating my mistakes... Or not... It's just a game... So, let's play it...
The Difference
So, how come there is so much difference between the value of the houses for the players and their prices?
Is it the greediness of the House producers? Well, no. They are selling the houses with profit negative or insignificant profit margins ranging from -9.14% to 1.45%:
House Q1: -9.01%
House Q2: -0.19%
House Q3: 1.45%
House Q4: 0.57%
House Q5: -9.14%
So what is the problem?
The problem is in that that eRepublik as a game is not well designed in the sense that it is not well balanced. As a professional programmer and a game developer who worked on more than a dozen published titles in the last over a decade, and who, beside my programming tasks, designed an economic and/or trading system in a game or two, so I know what I am talking about...
The Fixes
And it would take only relatively small tweaks in the design to make it right and fix the economy of the Houses or the economy of the Raw Materials... Especially the Food and Weapon Raw Materials...
The houses could be fixed if they offered more energy proportionally to their costs and values or if they offered proportionally more Energy Center storage, or if the materials needed for their production would be proportionally reduces or adjusted...
The Food and Raw Materials production problem could be solved if the work tax minimum could be adjusted to 0% or decimal percentage like 0.2% instead of 1% being the minimum and let the amount of work tax be decided by the parliament members more precisely... Or increasing the production amounts to be proportionally higher, above the work tax values...
The House and Aircraft Weapon Raw Materials production economy could be fixed by letting it be produced as Work as Manager, or by re-introducing skills and by specialization, just like in battles, where you need to decide between Air and Ground and you can't be specializing fastest and equally quickly in both...
Plato, Fix the eEconomy
Plato needing to fix the eEconomy is an old problem...
Here is the Petition for Plato to fix the Economy! from 10 years ago, and here is an ironic article about Plato "fixing" the economy: [eJSF Comics] Plato fixed economy from 9 years ago (too bad that the images links are not working anymore so we could all laugh)...
Back To Life, Back To Reality
Soul II Soul - Back To Life (However Do You Want Me) (Official Music Video) Click on the image to play the video and listen to the song...
Plato is not listening... He hasn't been listening to us for years, for over a decade... So he is not going to listen to us now either...
As I heard from players that are more informed about the state of eRepublik Labs, the game studio behind eRepublik, is in a survival mode with a very cheap and relatively small labor force, maintaining the game in the cold standby regime.
As you can see, there is not much activity here and I don't think there is any active development of the game. There are no open roles on their website.
Broken Economy?
So, if economy is broken, why hasn't it already fallen apart? How does it all still work somehow?
Well, they had a game with a great potential and a lot of players, and then they screwed it up and basically ruined it by choosing a greedy business strategy and neglecting the gameplay and its mechanics, all the different modules that have been attracting the players and parallelly introducing the Prepaid Packs.
Plato Saved the Economy? Thank You Plato!
Or did Plato perhaps already solve the problem, just nobody told me how that works...? Am I the only one who didn't know it?
And OK, it's their game and their choice. So, let's play that game!
Moving Tickets Fix
Oh yes, I almost forgot about the moving tickets...
Well, there are some Moving Tickets in a Weekly Challenge. And when I remember that we had Moving Ticket factories earlier... But Weekly Challenge can fix it... It's like Deus ex Machina...
Food Raw Material Fix
If you are an average player, with Energy Recovery rate between +10 and +20 at the beginning of the Weekly Challenge and the Energy Recovery rate around +40 at the end of the Weekly Challenge, and you probably solve Daily Challenge at least partially. You spend between 2400 or 4800 and 9600 Energy per day, with an average Energy Consumption a bit bellow 5000 Energy Points per day. And you get 25 Food Raw Material as a daily reward. 1 Food Raw Material produces 100 Food (any Q, but equivalent to Q1) so you get enough Food Raw Material to produce 2500 Food Q1 (or 1250 Food Q2 and so on...) which is enough to recover those 5000 Energy Points per day. If you also produce some more FRM just to complete the daily mission Produce 10 Food Raw Material, you have more than enough and are good to go...
Weapon Raw Material - No Need To Fix
You also get 25 Weapon Raw Material and that is enough to produce 12.5 Q7 Weapons, but there are still some profitable Weapon Raw Material production facilities so it's not a problem to produce as much as needed and some more...
If someone is stupid enough to produce with loss, even better, the sooner they'll need to buy some packs...
Houses & House Raw Material - If It Still Works, Don't Fix It
Houses production works for low quality as part of the Daily Challenge, so there is enough Q1 houses for everyone x7 (or x3, if every 2nd player does it...) HRM you get only one per day, which is insufficient, but people need to work somewhere, so why not there...
Aircraft Weapons - Each Product, Even A Rocket, Finds Its Buyer
Aircraft Weapons rarely anyone uses as it's prices are sky-rocket-high, except Americans and a few other rich guys, they like to blow things up... It's spending fast and then some more gold or Game Tokens needs to be bought... It's good for Plato's economy and his cashflow...
Events - Controling the Consumption
And if the economy is too low and the game is oversaturated with products on the market, there is always an event, perhaps a Weekly Challenge, where they can tweak the number of items that are in the rewards and a lot of energy, food and weapons gets destroyed in 24/7 battles.
Market Bots? Nobody Ever Seen Them...
Perhaps also a bot on the market that buys off the products, as I heard... But that's only rumors... Nobody knows who is the buyer of your products... Unless they say so...
And yet, somehow it all still works...
And yet, somehow it works...
eRepublik - Pay To Win
And how much does it take to win this game?
If you want to win a Weekly Challenge without much sweat, just buy a Power Pack. Easy. €14.90 per month. The whole year? Sure... Price? A bargain... Only €178.80 and you can collect Sky Hero and other medals all year long.
If you want to make your companies in eRepublik profitable, you just need to make your companies more productive by buying a Tycoon Pack. Productivity 220%? No problem. Price? A bargain... €9.90.
You want to become a millionaire in eRepublik over night?
Easy. Just buy Game Tokens and sell them for CC. Price? A bargain... Only €9.90.
The formula is simple:
€10.00 = 100 Game Tokens = 1,500,000.00 CC = 1500 Gold. (OK, minus 5% provision, so called anti-inflation fee, it's still 1,425,000.00 CC.)
That's only 150 SH medals or 300 BH medals, if you catch at least one every day, that's 5-10 months of BH hunting.
And I you are just lucky to catch 10 per day?
That's only 2 - 4 weeks of intense medal hunting 5 - 10 times a day.
Or if you have a Q7 Weapon factory?
That's only a bit less than 4 years of daily weapon profits for Q7 factory.
If you have 10 of Q7 Weapon factories, you could earn it in less than 5 months... Just don't know where you got the capital to create or buy these 10 Q7 Weapon factories... You would need only 12,300.00 Gold to start in order to earn 1500 additional Gold in months.
Power Levels
So the leverage is not in production.
Power Level x1
To make money through production it takes years.
Power Level x12
To make money through battle hunting it takes months or weeks, if you are strong enough.
Power Level x5000
If you buy a pack, it takes a day.
Perhaps a Week, if you are new to this.
Tops.
The greatest intellectual discovery of this generation is that the real cause of problems is solutions. by Eric Sevareid, 1968.
The Problem?
However, you can't create a successful free-to-play game without attracting and retaining the players who play for free. And with such an imbalance in power between the ones who play for free and those who pay to win it's just a rigged game.
So the players who play for free after they figure it out don't want to play it anymore and leave... And when they leave, the players who pay to win after a while get bored... Nobody likes to play alone... And nobody is there to see how much more successful they are... And then they leave, too... It's basic human psychology... And they have been exploiting it for a long time... And they still do...
They have made a money-making machine, not a very good one, considering its initial potential, but still an addictive money-making machine... They sold it to Stillfront and moved on...
Here are the (other) games they made:
WAR AND PEACE: CIVIL WAR
Choose a side, train a massive army and explore the Civil War military history!
Test your history knowledge in the most addictive strategy MMO with a realistic American Civil War theme! TRAIN massive armies of Civil War cannons, go to war with thousands of REAL players, form powerful alliances and develop YOUR OWN military strategies. Enjoy a worldwide connection, play with different nationalities while taking pride in your own!
WORLD AT WAR: WW2 STRATEGY MMO
Roll out the tanks, load the weapons and win WW2! This is your duty, commander!
Become a general in the greatest war the world has ever seen! TRAIN massive armies of tanks and aircraft, go to war with thousands of REAL players, form great alliances, and develop your own strategic center of operations. Join the largest WW2 strategy MMO in the world!
AGE OF LORDS
Many can Rule, but few can be TRUE LORDS.
Age of Lords is a free to play multiplayer strategy game. As a mighty lord you will build a grand castle, forge alliances and train massive armies to defeat from the other real players from your kingdom. There are many strategic or diplomatic choices to be made! Create your own path! Age of Lords is a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online – Role Playing Game) set in a medieval world. Join the war and test yourself against real life players worldwide.
TWIN SHOOTER - INVADERS
Shoot. Kill. Die. BOOM!
Welcome to Twin Shooter, the old school space shmup where YOU CAN SHOOT YOURSELF!
Fight increasingly difficult waves of invaders controlling two starships that are facing each other. Shoot enemies before they get you... but beware, because your ships can also shoot each other! Try conquering the high scores by yourself or bring a friend and play on the same device with the 2 player cooperative mode. This is a real shooty game. Twin Shooter distills the experience of the explosive action of arcade machines such as Space Invaders or Defender and brings it to your phone, but with a new twist - you control two starships at the same time! Have fun with friends - 2 Players can play at the same time on the same device! Are you ready for the next level in arcade shooters? How many waves are you going to last before obliterating into millions of pieces? Are you going to be shot... or are you going to shoot yourself?
What do they all have in common? They repeat the same recipe as with eRepublik, only in different worlds and story settings and they moved from browser based games to mobile games...
And for players in Croatia and the ones who are familiar with Game Development industry in general, it might be interesting to know that eRepublik Labs and Nanobit are now in the same basket, owned by the same Stillfront company group.
And I would say Nanobit does a much better job than eRepublik Labs.
And the Stillfront group? They collect money-making machines and some game development studios just so they have the people who would maintain those money-making machines...
You Always Have a Choice
So, what are the options?
What can you do?
You always have a choice...
Harvey Specter - You always have a choice. [Suits]
In this case you have at least 3 choices... (or 146)
Choice #1 - The Big Picture
In order to show you a big picture and give you an easy way out...
If you are really interested in economy and want to be (even) more successful, perhaps you should think about investing in this...
And here is the Report for Q2 2023 with all the data and numbers...
Although the overall trends are in steady decline for the last 3 years or so, it's still profitable and probably bringing dividends, so that's still the best company of eRepublik to invest in...
Choice #2 - Fixing eRepublik Economy
If you are interested in eRepublik, the game itself and how to fix its economy...
I have to tell you the truth.
Nobody is going to fix it for us...
Unless we fix it ourselves...
And here is an idea on how to fix the Houses.
Idea to Fix eRepublik House Q1 - Q5 Production
Here is a model on how to build Houses as community, but still getting a decent salary every day. The idea is to simulate Work As Manager for Houses, but as a partnership or a team. It takes this many times to work in order to produce HRM and build a house from scratch, depending on its Quality:
Q1: 6 (3+3)
Q2: 11 (5+6)
Q3: 20 (9+11)
Q4: 38 (17+21)
Q5: 56 (25+31)
The numbers in brackets are the number of times it takes to produce the total house raw material and the other number if the number of times to work to complete building the house.
And then you could chose:
1. To continue working for a 4150 CC salary as you have been working so far.
2. Or to work for a (A x 4150 HRK + B x 100)/(A + B ) CC salary, where A is a number of regular work according to market price and B a number of working for houses at a price of 100 CC, which is approximately 3 times more than the Work Tax.
Since there are quite a lot of overtimes and work capacities for Houses are usually not much used, this is how we could fix it.
Choice #3 - Rebuilding the New eWorld
If you are creative and believe eRepublik is beyond repair, we could organize and create a new game, just better and in such a way as the gaming community always wanted it to be and of course, you could transfer all your progress and skills to it... In that case, just let me know... If there is enough people interested and willing to put efforts, we just might pull it off...
And it wouldn't be the first time...
Frustration over a screwed up game with a great potential could be a very strong motivator...
Perhaps some of you are familiar with a game called Arma 3, and then another one derived from it, called Day Z, and then perhaps with another one called SCUM, which was inspired by Day Z, by some of the players' frustrations and turned out to be a great success. I was a part of that success as well...
Or Life is a game. This is your strategy guide
Sincerely Yours
Janko Fran
P.S. I know the article is long, but if you read it carefully, I hope you'll find something interesting or useful...
If you've made it this far, congratulations, you've made it!
If it's for any consolation to you, it took me longer to write it than for you to read it...
If you like the article, please, spread the word...
Feel free to copy-paste and shout:
Complete eRepublik Economy - Quo Vadis, Plato?
erepublik.com/en/article/2772582
P.P.S. No ChatGPT has been used in writing this article and no animals nor bots have been used nor harmed...
As I can't please everybody, unfortunately, I can't guarantee that any feelings would not be hurt by reading or interpreting this article... In that case, I apologize in advance, that wasn't my intention... It was just to clarify how eRepublik Economy looks from my perspective... Please, correct me if I'm wrong... We could discuss it in the comments...
o7
Dear eRepublikans,
If you have been wondering what is the current state of the eRepublik economy, you are not alone...
I have been wondering as well... I have been wondering about which types of companies are, or at least which companies could be, profitable at this point, and which not?
They say an image is worth a 1000 words, so let me show you:
Food Raw Material Production Profitability
Weapon Raw Material Production Profitability
House Raw Material Production Profitability
Aircraft Weapon Raw Material Production Profitability
Companies Production Profitability
The companies marked with a red X are those that are not profitable.
Hm, I can see here more red X's than on America's Got Talent...
4 Red X's After an Undisclosed Bad Performance on America's Got Talent
And by not profitable, I don't mean in the sense they are not profitable enough or just breaking even. No, I mean, they produce loss!
Factory Blues - The more you produce, the more you lose...
Here is such a use case, from music industry...
New Order – Blue Monday. Click on the image to play the video and listen to the song.
Unlike in eRepublik, a business operating when the price is less than average variable cost is rarely found in the real world. One cherished example, however, comes from 1983 from the celebrated record label Factory, which agreed to produce a single, Blue Monday by New Order, in an extremely expensive laser-cut sleeve.
Blue Monday is the biggest selling 12” single of all time. The sleeve was designed by renowned Factory Records designer Peter Saville, and was made to resemble a 5¼" floppy disc. The sleeve was so expensive to produce that the label actually lost money for each copy that was sold.
A lot of copies of the first edition were sold and so Factory lost a large amount overall, taking greater losses the more it sold. The single if often regarded as a classic, both in music and design, but Factory is never cited as a positive example in business textbooks!
Plato on America's Got Talent
Not good, Plato! Not good!...
Why?
Well, for Food Raw Material production Q1-Q5 and for Weapon Raw Material production Q1-Q2 the Work Tax and (and also Import Tax on top of that, if you are exporting) take more than the product value on the market.
For House Raw Material production Q1-Q5 and Aircraft Weapon Raw Material production the Salaries to produce material are higher than the product value on the market.
For Weapon production Q1 and Q2, for House production Q1, Q2 and Q5 as well as for Aircraft Weapon production Q1-Q4 it's the combination of the previous two reasons...
Current State of the eRepublik economy
So, what is the state of the eRepublik economy?
Out of 44 different types of companies, 25 types, so more than half, are nonprofitable, that is, only producing losses, which means dead!
So 56% of all branches of eRepublik industry is dead.
If you are more visual type, imagine this...
If Plato was a player playing a video game, and actually, Plato is a player of this video game, and he doesn't seem to be doing that well...
Here is his profile:
And if the health state of the eRepublik industry would be shown as Plato's nutrients, stamina and a health bar, this is how it would look like:
Plato's Nutrition Bar - Raw Industry Health Bar
Plato's Stamina Bar - Factory Industry Health Bar
Plato's Health Bar - Total eRepublik Industry Health Bar
Plato, you don't look well... Plato, what are you doing?
Where are you going, Plato?
Plato, you'd need to do something, you are not doing well...
Plato, you'd need a diagnosis...
Perhaps you should get some medical kit for your economy's health...
Diagnosis of eRepublik Economy
Here are the numbers:
And here are detailed calculations with maximal (or near maximal) bonuses for each type of the industry.
Click on the image to see it in its full size.
What Does this mean?
Ok, let me give you some tips...
Tips:
1. First, definitely don't invest your hard earned money (no matter if gold, or CC) in eRepublik industry, it's not worth it, you'll probably lose money.
2. Second, If you have to invest some money in eRepublik industry, don't invest it in Food Raw Material or House Raw Material production, you'll definitely lose money and the more you produce, the more you lose, they are producing with a loss, no matter what quality, what bonuses and what taxes are in place...
3. Third, Aircraft Raw Material production is volatile, quite risky depending on the price of Aircraft Raw Material, quite expensive and its profitability is limited only to Neodymium Mines, so better to avoid...
4. Fourth, if you have to invest in Raw Material production, then Saltpeter Mines (Q4) are still the most profitable among all the industires, although not as profitable as earlier. So if you would invest today 8500 CC (or 8.5 g) in getting a Saltpeter Mine and the prices stayed the same, you would see your money back in 7 months and 7 days or so... However, with the ever lowering prices of Weapon Raw Material, having Saltpeter Mines has become riskier in case of overproduction and prices dropping bellow it's profitability breaking point. So, don't tell me I haven't warned you. In that case the Rubber Plantation would become the only choice for Weapon Raw Material production. And if you would invest today 35 g in getting a shiny black Rubber Plantation and the prices stayed the same, you would see your money back in 16 months and 16 days...
5. Food production, yes, that's the safest bet, you'll need food and everyone needs food, the Food Raw Material is relatively cheap, you can produce tons of food and you can't go wrong with investing in the Food Production, no matter the quality. It's not the most profitable option, but it's the safest option. Regarding the quality, Q2 has the fastest rate of return on your investment (ROI). You invest today 30 g and you'll see your money again in 15 months and 5 days. Or if you wait for the next Black Friday offer in exactly 2 months from today and you might get 30% discount on company upgrades. In that case, you'd save 6 gold on upgrade from Q1 to Q2 and you'll see your 24 gold investment in 364 days, just in time for the Black Friday a year later. Unless, of course, a lot of people does the same until then...
6. Sixth, if you invest in Weapon production, then invest only in the best - Q7 Weapon production is key to your success as everyone who can afford it, including the big tank players only fight and buy the highest quality weapon on the market. And there is never enough of Q7 weapons, no matter how much you produce, there is always a battle where more damage is needed or at least where someone needs a bit more damage than their competition, which is strong as ever... And it's the matter of prestige, after all...
The price? A bargain... Only 1230 gold (or 864 gold on Black Friday most probably).
7. Seventh, Aircraft Weapon production, as with Weapon production, only the best for your clients, in this case Aircraft Weapon Factory Q5. (I wouldn't hold my breath on Aircraft Weapon Factories Q6 and Q7 being introduced...)
Good thing, the entering bar is lower at only 380 gold, or 269 on BF. The problem? Your company probably won't work in full capacity as you are probably not going to sell that many Q5 Aircraft Weapons. There are not many players who could afford buying it often or at least there are not many of them who think it might be worthy to buy it. However, never underestimate the impulse buy in the heat of a battle. The US market sells decently well compared to other ones that I tested, although I haven't tested that many... So, I might be missing something... Feel free to enlighten me in the comments if you feel there is a market in dire need for more Q5 Aircraft Weapons...
8. Eighth... Houses... Oh, houses, houses...
Quo Vadis, Plato?
That could be the topic for a whole new article, but let's see...
Just after a break, as I need one... Probably you, too...
Pop Tops - Mammy Blue
Pop Tops - Mammy Blue
Welcome back!
In short, no, don't invest now in House production.
Or let's just say, hold on with investments in House production as at the moment the market is saturated with Q1 and Q2 houses due to the daily challenges, as the lowest quality houses are the cheapest to produce, so if you are buying some Q1 and/or Q2 houses, now is a good time and you'll probably get it for a bargain, definitely for under their cost of production.
Q3 and Q4 house production is good on paper, as the prices are higher than their production costs, but the demand for them is low as not many players can afford them and will buy them and the costs of production are quite high and the time needed for their production is rather high...
Q5 house production - just no, at least not at the current level of salaries and House Raw Material prices... Everything that holds for Q3 and Q4 House production holds for Q5 as well, only worse in costs and time for production and except that Q5 House production is also not profitable, that is, it produces with a loss. So, no!
Unless...
Unless we reevaluate the whole eRepublik real estate market...
So, the next question is...
How Much is a House Worth?
How Much is a House Worth, what is its value to the player?
Let's see what we get for them...
Q1: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +100 EC
Q2: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +160 EC
Q3: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +200 EC
Q4: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +300 EC
Q5: +20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +400 EC
And all that for a week... 7 days or 8.4 days if you happen to have a residence in a region that is not too crowded... But, let's stay with 7 days...
So how much is the value of all this?
Let's calculate it one by one...
Energy Value
A week of +20 E/h is 3360 Energy points in total.
If 10 Double Energy Bars (or 20 regular energy bars, in any case 2000 Energy points) on sale with 30% discount costed 27.3 gold, then at that price it would be equivalent to 33.6 Energy Bars (regular), which would make it worth to an equivalent of 45.86 gold. It would be released over a week though, not in less than an hour or within minutes like with Energy Bars, but still, let's say it's worth that much...
3360 Energy points = 45.86 Gold (45860 CC)
Overtime Work Points Value
+1 Overtime Work Point/h over a week is 7 daily salaries. Let's assume that the net salary that you get is around 4100 CC, which makes 28700 CC or 28.7 gold of value for you.
168 Overtime Work Point = 28.7 Gold (28700 CC)
Temporary Energy Center Values
Calculating the Temporary Energy Center Values is a bit trickier as there is not such a good comparison, at least that I know of... (Please, let me know if you do...)
However, there are permanent Energy Centers in the Gold Store. I still haven't bought most of them, so perhaps you could help me... This is what I see at the moment...
And this is what it reads on eRepublik Wiki page on Energy center.
So, for a reference point, let's assume the best possible scenario in which you bought these centers as soon as they appeared at the most affordable price so you have been using them for years now...
So...
220 Energy Center (2018 anniversary event) - 225 GOLD
240 Energy Center (2019 anniversary event) - 245 GOLD
260 Energy Center (2020 anniversary event) - 265 GOLD
280 Energy Center (2021 anniversary event) - no information on the price on eRepublik Wiki, so I'll disregard this Energy Center for now and base my calculations on the first 3... (And if I had to, I'd assume its price to be 285 Gold, please, correct me if I am wrong...)
The first one has been on the market for about 5 years (or 260 weeks),
the second one for 4 years (or 204 weeks),
the third one for 3 yers (or 156 weeks), the fourth one for 2 years (104 weeks).
So the prices according to that would be:
220 EC: 0.87 Gold/Week
240 EC: 1.20 Gold/Week
260 EC: 1.70 Gold/Week
280 EC: 2.69 Gold/Week
And if you bought them first three of them last year at the anniversary event, that would have costed you 735 gold for the total of 720 Energy Center storage for the last 52 weeks. Or if we average it, that would be 240 EC for 245 gold for 52 weeks.
240 EC: 4.71 Gold/Week (52 weeks)
If we calculate the price per 100 EC storage points, that would give us the following prices:
220 EC (2018 ): 0.40 Gold/Week (per 100 EC)
240 EC (2019): 0.50 Gold/Week (per 100 EC)
260 EC (2020): 0.65 Gold/Week (per 100 EC)
280 EC (2021): 0.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) - Extrapolated
240 EC (2022): 1.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) - Averaged over a year
That gives an average price of 0.894 Gold/Week and maximal price of 1.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) if you calculate it against the long term value for at least a year. Unfortunately, your temporary Energy Center from the house will last only for a single Weekly Challenge... But let's assume the value to be an average of 0.894 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) for older players and the maximal price to be 1.96 Gold/Week (per 100 EC) for the newer players, depending how long you have those Energy Centers.
Why are the Energy Centers Important?
Personally, I play this game for more than 13 years with some breaks between, the last one being for 5 years until February this year, and I don't own any of the mentioned energy centers yet. As my playing style was focused mostly on production and journalism and not so much on fighting, so I haven't had so much need for energy centers.
Now, when the eRepublik economy is in ruins and the global eRepublik players' and readers' community is reduced from 235000 in 2009 or 368000 players in 2010 down to 10% of these numbers or less, with today's number of 34,319 players in the eWorld, I feel pressure to adapt and somehow change my gameplay stile...
With more battles and less players in the eWorld, the opportunities for, both you and your competition, for catching the BH and SH medals have opened as now often there are more battle rounds than active players online. And those who are stronger are taking and getting more medals from the ones who are weaker... Because, why to take only one medal if you could take more? Even on other player's account...
In that case, having a larger Energy Center storage, being permanent or temporary, can be a significant advantage... Beside, having a higher energy pool and more energy centers means you could sleep longer without wasting any energy points and it could give you an advantage at the start line of every Weekly Challenge, enabling you to get deeper in the reward stash pile early enough...
So for me, after discovering their value and adapting my playing style, energy centers might be now more worthy than for those who already bought them a long time ago... Although I haven't bought any yet... I am waiting for the eRepublik Anniversary as I heard that might be a good opportunity for a discount on Energy Centers, which might come in exactly 49 days according to my calculations... Until then I am trying to collect and raise some gold to be able to buy them...
TL; DR
Energy Center Importance:
1. Hunting BH, SH & CH Medals easier with larger energy pool
2. Sleep longer without wasting Enery Points
3. Advantage at Weekly Challenge
Total House Value Estimates
If we sum this all up, we get the following ranges of values:
House Q1: 73.86 + 0.894 (or + 1.96) Gold
House Q2: 73.86 + 1.430 (or + 3.14) Gold
House Q3: 73.86 + 1.788 (or + 3.92) Gold
House Q4: 73.86 + 2.682 (or + 5.88 ) Gold
House Q5: 73.86 + 3.576 (or + 7.84) Gold.
So now we can calculate the estimates for total house values as follows:
House Q1: 74.75 - 75.82 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +100 EC)
House Q2: 75.29 - 77.00 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +160 EC)
House Q3: 75.65 - 77.78 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +200 EC)
House Q4: 76.54 - 79.74 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +300 EC)
House Q5: 77.44 - 81.70 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +400 EC)
And which values to choose? The lower end values, the higher end values, or the average ones, or something in between?
If you are an older player with more than 5 years of experience, you could go with the lowes ones.
If you are a new player and started a year ago or so, you could take the higer end values.
And if you are an average player with 1.5 - 2.5 years of experience under your belt, you could take the average values.
It's totally up to you... However, which ever values you take, it's not much of a difference. The difference is in the range of 1.1 - 4.3 gold or 1.43% - 5.55%, which is basically a difference at the level of a statistical error.
I mean, there is also the issue of decreasing returns and increasing costs, so it might be justified to take an even higher price for it, but not the value...
Total House Values
Since I don't know where you stand, I'll take the average values of the lower and the higher ends.
House Q1: 75.29 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +100 EC)
House Q2: 76.15 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +160 EC)
House Q3: 76.72 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +200 EC)
House Q4: 78.14 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +300 EC)
House Q5: 79.57 Gold (+20 E/h, +1 Work Point/h, +400 EC)
What you can notice is that the values of Houses Q1 - Q5 for the player, estimated in this way, are relatively close together, within only 5.68% of a difference in the value, which is not much...
And the prices of the Houses Q1 - Q5 on the market are as follows:
Q1: 16,599.99 CC (or 16.60 Gold)
Q2: 36,249.99 CC (or 36.25 Gold)
Q3: 73,695.00 CC (or 73.70 Gold)
Q4: 146,110.00 CC (or 146.11 Gold)
Q5: 198,000.00 CC (or 198.00 Gold)
The prices can vary from market to a market, from day to a day, and from hour to an hour, but its mostly in this ballpark.. And you can always take a trip to a better market to buy a cheaper house if the round trip price makes it still worth it...
It is even worse if you compare the cost of production for Houses Q1 - Q5.
Q1: 18,244.33 CC (or 18.24 Gold)
Q2: 36,319.60 CC (or 36.32 Gold)
Q3: 72,639.20 CC (or 72.64 Gold)
Q4: 145,278.40 CC (or 145.28 Gold)
Q5: 217,917.60 CC (or 217.92 Gold)
You can see that Houses Q1, Q2 and Q5 are being sold for less than the price of their costs... Which doesn't make a good business case and reflects higher supply than their demand... It could also be a sign of Price undercutting, but I don't believe in that, I think most of the eRepublik players are not financial experts... Although there could be some speculative trade, but then the prices would be higher, rather than lower... It could also be altruism, but I would not buy that... I believe it merely shows desperation of House producers trying to make a sale in a low demand market, or just lack of calculations and not taking a stand, but instead, selling with a loss...
eRepublik Real Estates - A Buyer's Market
So for you as a player it makes sense to buy the houses that have higher value for you than its price.
Which makes it clear why players mostly buy Q1 and Q2 houses, and those who are better off also take a Q3 House, although the values of the energy recovered and the values of the energy centers were not that obvious to most players, I believe...
Obviously, Q4 and Q5 houses are overpriced for their values to players...
Not only overpriced, but also out of reach and beyond the purchasing power for most of the players, I believe, at least in a sustainable way, on a week to week basis...
However, there might be one more thing and question to consider...
Should I Buy All of the Houses Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 Together?
Since Q1 and Q2 are significantly undervalued compared to their total estimated value, and Q3 only slightly undervalued, it could be a valid question of the combined values of Houses Q1 - Q4 compared to their prices... Does it make sense, do the costs cover these values combined?
Value of Q1 + Q2 + Q3 + Q4: 306.30 Gold
Price of Q1 + Q2 + Q3 + Q4: 272.66 Gold
Well, surprisingly (or not), yes. The underpricing of Q1, Q2 and Q3 covers the value of Q4 if you decide to buy Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 together... It doesn't make sense to skip any of the Houses Q1 - Q3 in order to buy Q4 instead. However, it does make sense to buy all of the Houses Q1 - Q4.
And What about Q5? Should I buy it?
No. With its value of 79.57 Gold and its price of 198.00 Gold it is more than 100 gold overpriced, that's simply too much to make it worth it. Better to save up some more gold and buy a permanent Energy Center if you have any more left to buy.
If not, well, it's your gold... You can do with it whatever you want, even buy a Q5 house... Although, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it under these assumptions and conditions... Unless you have an excesive surplus of ingame currency and it's only the matter of status, prestige and displaying Conspicuous Consumption.
Actually, I did exactly that... Well, it was mostly out of curiosity and I had a lot of currency on my accunt (and other excuses when it's hard to admit your mistake that you later regret).
So I bought a Q5 House a few weeks ago. I bought them all... Trying to see how much it would help me with my first Weekly Challenge. I gave my best... Well, it didn't help much... Then I did some calculations... And now you are reading this article... Perhaps it helps someone, perhaps it helps someone at least by not repeating my mistakes... Or not... It's just a game... So, let's play it...
The Difference
So, how come there is so much difference between the value of the houses for the players and their prices?
Is it the greediness of the House producers? Well, no. They are selling the houses with profit negative or insignificant profit margins ranging from -9.14% to 1.45%:
House Q1: -9.01%
House Q2: -0.19%
House Q3: 1.45%
House Q4: 0.57%
House Q5: -9.14%
So what is the problem?
The problem is in that that eRepublik as a game is not well designed in the sense that it is not well balanced. As a professional programmer and a game developer who worked on more than a dozen published titles in the last over a decade, and who, beside my programming tasks, designed an economic and/or trading system in a game or two, so I know what I am talking about...
The Fixes
And it would take only relatively small tweaks in the design to make it right and fix the economy of the Houses or the economy of the Raw Materials... Especially the Food and Weapon Raw Materials...
The houses could be fixed if they offered more energy proportionally to their costs and values or if they offered proportionally more Energy Center storage, or if the materials needed for their production would be proportionally reduces or adjusted...
The Food and Raw Materials production problem could be solved if the work tax minimum could be adjusted to 0% or decimal percentage like 0.2% instead of 1% being the minimum and let the amount of work tax be decided by the parliament members more precisely... Or increasing the production amounts to be proportionally higher, above the work tax values...
The House and Aircraft Weapon Raw Materials production economy could be fixed by letting it be produced as Work as Manager, or by re-introducing skills and by specialization, just like in battles, where you need to decide between Air and Ground and you can't be specializing fastest and equally quickly in both...
Plato, Fix the eEconomy
Plato needing to fix the eEconomy is an old problem...
Here is the Petition for Plato to fix the Economy! from 10 years ago, and here is an ironic article about Plato "fixing" the economy: [eJSF Comics] Plato fixed economy from 9 years ago (too bad that the images links are not working anymore so we could all laugh)...
Back To Life, Back To Reality
Soul II Soul - Back To Life (However Do You Want Me) (Official Music Video) Click on the image to play the video and listen to the song...
Plato is not listening... He hasn't been listening to us for years, for over a decade... So he is not going to listen to us now either...
As I heard from players that are more informed about the state of eRepublik Labs, the game studio behind eRepublik, is in a survival mode with a very cheap and relatively small labor force, maintaining the game in the cold standby regime.
As you can see, there is not much activity here and I don't think there is any active development of the game. There are no open roles on their website.
Broken Economy?
So, if economy is broken, why hasn't it already fallen apart? How does it all still work somehow?
Well, they had a game with a great potential and a lot of players, and then they screwed it up and basically ruined it by choosing a greedy business strategy and neglecting the gameplay and its mechanics, all the different modules that have been attracting the players and parallelly introducing the Prepaid Packs.
Plato Saved the Economy? Thank You Plato!
Or did Plato perhaps already solve the problem, just nobody told me how that works...? Am I the only one who didn't know it?
And OK, it's their game and their choice. So, let's play that game!
Moving Tickets Fix
Oh yes, I almost forgot about the moving tickets...
Well, there are some Moving Tickets in a Weekly Challenge. And when I remember that we had Moving Ticket factories earlier... But Weekly Challenge can fix it... It's like Deus ex Machina...
Food Raw Material Fix
If you are an average player, with Energy Recovery rate between +10 and +20 at the beginning of the Weekly Challenge and the Energy Recovery rate around +40 at the end of the Weekly Challenge, and you probably solve Daily Challenge at least partially. You spend between 2400 or 4800 and 9600 Energy per day, with an average Energy Consumption a bit bellow 5000 Energy Points per day. And you get 25 Food Raw Material as a daily reward. 1 Food Raw Material produces 100 Food (any Q, but equivalent to Q1) so you get enough Food Raw Material to produce 2500 Food Q1 (or 1250 Food Q2 and so on...) which is enough to recover those 5000 Energy Points per day. If you also produce some more FRM just to complete the daily mission Produce 10 Food Raw Material, you have more than enough and are good to go...
Weapon Raw Material - No Need To Fix
You also get 25 Weapon Raw Material and that is enough to produce 12.5 Q7 Weapons, but there are still some profitable Weapon Raw Material production facilities so it's not a problem to produce as much as needed and some more...
If someone is stupid enough to produce with loss, even better, the sooner they'll need to buy some packs...
Houses & House Raw Material - If It Still Works, Don't Fix It
Houses production works for low quality as part of the Daily Challenge, so there is enough Q1 houses for everyone x7 (or x3, if every 2nd player does it...) HRM you get only one per day, which is insufficient, but people need to work somewhere, so why not there...
Aircraft Weapons - Each Product, Even A Rocket, Finds Its Buyer
Aircraft Weapons rarely anyone uses as it's prices are sky-rocket-high, except Americans and a few other rich guys, they like to blow things up... It's spending fast and then some more gold or Game Tokens needs to be bought... It's good for Plato's economy and his cashflow...
Events - Controling the Consumption
And if the economy is too low and the game is oversaturated with products on the market, there is always an event, perhaps a Weekly Challenge, where they can tweak the number of items that are in the rewards and a lot of energy, food and weapons gets destroyed in 24/7 battles.
Market Bots? Nobody Ever Seen Them...
Perhaps also a bot on the market that buys off the products, as I heard... But that's only rumors... Nobody knows who is the buyer of your products... Unless they say so...
And yet, somehow it all still works...
And yet, somehow it works...
eRepublik - Pay To Win
And how much does it take to win this game?
If you want to win a Weekly Challenge without much sweat, just buy a Power Pack. Easy. €14.90 per month. The whole year? Sure... Price? A bargain... Only €178.80 and you can collect Sky Hero and other medals all year long.
If you want to make your companies in eRepublik profitable, you just need to make your companies more productive by buying a Tycoon Pack. Productivity 220%? No problem. Price? A bargain... €9.90.
You want to become a millionaire in eRepublik over night?
Easy. Just buy Game Tokens and sell them for CC. Price? A bargain... Only €9.90.
The formula is simple:
€10.00 = 100 Game Tokens = 1,500,000.00 CC = 1500 Gold. (OK, minus 5% provision, so called anti-inflation fee, it's still 1,425,000.00 CC.)
That's only 150 SH medals or 300 BH medals, if you catch at least one every day, that's 5-10 months of BH hunting.
And I you are just lucky to catch 10 per day?
That's only 2 - 4 weeks of intense medal hunting 5 - 10 times a day.
Or if you have a Q7 Weapon factory?
That's only a bit less than 4 years of daily weapon profits for Q7 factory.
If you have 10 of Q7 Weapon factories, you could earn it in less than 5 months... Just don't know where you got the capital to create or buy these 10 Q7 Weapon factories... You would need only 12,300.00 Gold to start in order to earn 1500 additional Gold in months.
Power Levels
So the leverage is not in production.
Power Level x1
To make money through production it takes years.
Power Level x12
To make money through battle hunting it takes months or weeks, if you are strong enough.
Power Level x5000
If you buy a pack, it takes a day.
Perhaps a Week, if you are new to this.
Tops.
The greatest intellectual discovery of this generation is that the real cause of problems is solutions. by Eric Sevareid, 1968.
The Problem?
However, you can't create a successful free-to-play game without attracting and retaining the players who play for free. And with such an imbalance in power between the ones who play for free and those who pay to win it's just a rigged game.
So the players who play for free after they figure it out don't want to play it anymore and leave... And when they leave, the players who pay to win after a while get bored... Nobody likes to play alone... And nobody is there to see how much more successful they are... And then they leave, too... It's basic human psychology... And they have been exploiting it for a long time... And they still do...
They have made a money-making machine, not a very good one, considering its initial potential, but still an addictive money-making machine... They sold it to Stillfront and moved on...
Here are the (other) games they made:
WAR AND PEACE: CIVIL WAR
Choose a side, train a massive army and explore the Civil War military history!
Test your history knowledge in the most addictive strategy MMO with a realistic American Civil War theme! TRAIN massive armies of Civil War cannons, go to war with thousands of REAL players, form powerful alliances and develop YOUR OWN military strategies. Enjoy a worldwide connection, play with different nationalities while taking pride in your own!
WORLD AT WAR: WW2 STRATEGY MMO
Roll out the tanks, load the weapons and win WW2! This is your duty, commander!
Become a general in the greatest war the world has ever seen! TRAIN massive armies of tanks and aircraft, go to war with thousands of REAL players, form great alliances, and develop your own strategic center of operations. Join the largest WW2 strategy MMO in the world!
AGE OF LORDS
Many can Rule, but few can be TRUE LORDS.
Age of Lords is a free to play multiplayer strategy game. As a mighty lord you will build a grand castle, forge alliances and train massive armies to defeat from the other real players from your kingdom. There are many strategic or diplomatic choices to be made! Create your own path! Age of Lords is a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online – Role Playing Game) set in a medieval world. Join the war and test yourself against real life players worldwide.
TWIN SHOOTER - INVADERS
Shoot. Kill. Die. BOOM!
Welcome to Twin Shooter, the old school space shmup where YOU CAN SHOOT YOURSELF!
Fight increasingly difficult waves of invaders controlling two starships that are facing each other. Shoot enemies before they get you... but beware, because your ships can also shoot each other! Try conquering the high scores by yourself or bring a friend and play on the same device with the 2 player cooperative mode. This is a real shooty game. Twin Shooter distills the experience of the explosive action of arcade machines such as Space Invaders or Defender and brings it to your phone, but with a new twist - you control two starships at the same time! Have fun with friends - 2 Players can play at the same time on the same device! Are you ready for the next level in arcade shooters? How many waves are you going to last before obliterating into millions of pieces? Are you going to be shot... or are you going to shoot yourself?
What do they all have in common? They repeat the same recipe as with eRepublik, only in different worlds and story settings and they moved from browser based games to mobile games...
And for players in Croatia and the ones who are familiar with Game Development industry in general, it might be interesting to know that eRepublik Labs and Nanobit are now in the same basket, owned by the same Stillfront company group.
And I would say Nanobit does a much better job than eRepublik Labs.
And the Stillfront group? They collect money-making machines and some game development studios just so they have the people who would maintain those money-making machines...
You Always Have a Choice
So, what are the options?
What can you do?
You always have a choice...
Harvey Specter - You always have a choice. [Suits]
In this case you have at least 3 choices... (or 146)
Choice #1 - The Big Picture
In order to show you a big picture and give you an easy way out...
If you are really interested in economy and want to be (even) more successful, perhaps you should think about investing in this...
And here is the Report for Q2 2023 with all the data and numbers...
Although the overall trends are in steady decline for the last 3 years or so, it's still profitable and probably bringing dividends, so that's still the best company of eRepublik to invest in...
Choice #2 - Fixing eRepublik Economy
If you are interested in eRepublik, the game itself and how to fix its economy...
I have to tell you the truth.
Nobody is going to fix it for us...
Unless we fix it ourselves...
And here is an idea on how to fix the Houses.
Idea to Fix eRepublik House Q1 - Q5 Production
Here is a model on how to build Houses as community, but still getting a decent salary every day. The idea is to simulate Work As Manager for Houses, but as a partnership or a team. It takes this many times to work in order to produce HRM and build a house from scratch, depending on its Quality:
Q1: 6 (3+3)
Q2: 11 (5+6)
Q3: 20 (9+11)
Q4: 38 (17+21)
Q5: 56 (25+31)
The numbers in brackets are the number of times it takes to produce the total house raw material and the other number if the number of times to work to complete building the house.
And then you could chose:
1. To continue working for a 4150 CC salary as you have been working so far.
2. Or to work for a (A x 4150 HRK + B x 100)/(A + B ) CC salary, where A is a number of regular work according to market price and B a number of working for houses at a price of 100 CC, which is approximately 3 times more than the Work Tax.
Since there are quite a lot of overtimes and work capacities for Houses are usually not much used, this is how we could fix it.
Choice #3 - Rebuilding the New eWorld
If you are creative and believe eRepublik is beyond repair, we could organize and create a new game, just better and in such a way as the gaming community always wanted it to be and of course, you could transfer all your progress and skills to it... In that case, just let me know... If there is enough people interested and willing to put efforts, we just might pull it off...
And it wouldn't be the first time...
Frustration over a screwed up game with a great potential could be a very strong motivator...
Perhaps some of you are familiar with a game called Arma 3, and then another one derived from it, called Day Z, and then perhaps with another one called SCUM, which was inspired by Day Z, by some of the players' frustrations and turned out to be a great success. I was a part of that success as well...
Or Life is a game. This is your strategy guide
Sincerely Yours
Janko Fran
P.S. I know the article is long, but if you read it carefully, I hope you'll find something interesting or useful...
If you've made it this far, congratulations, you've made it!
😊
If it's for any consolation to you, it took me longer to write it than for you to read it...
If you like the article, please, spread the word...
Feel free to copy-paste and shout:
Complete eRepublik Economy - Quo Vadis, Plato?
erepublik.com/en/article/2772582
P.P.S. No ChatGPT has been used in writing this article and no animals nor bots have been used nor harmed...
As I can't please everybody, unfortunately, I can't guarantee that any feelings would not be hurt by reading or interpreting this article... In that case, I apologize in advance, that wasn't my intention... It was just to clarify how eRepublik Economy looks from my perspective... Please, correct me if I'm wrong... We could discuss it in the comments...
o7
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Comments
Odličan članak, vidi se da je uloženo puno truda ali obuhvatio si sve. Svaka čast, to mi je trebalo.
e da je vise ovakvih clanaka, igra bi polako licila na nesto
ovoliko ni Platon ne ulozi vremena u ovu igru vise 😃
Proizvodim hrane dovoljno da bi preživio i sa +60 reg
a nisam 2 godne proizveo ni jednu sirovinu
-rudniki jelena su netaknuti
1 zaposlenik za 5 cc, moćni međed Silver kojeg deplojam u tvornici kuća q1 i q2
Međed pawaaa
\\\\ /
Great article!!
Thank you for your time and efforts invested in this analysis!
Coffee mine 🙂
https://i.imgur.com/UgAhIql.jpg
Wow, pa ima još friških info! Svaka ti čast, Janko!
Svaka čast. Vrhunski članak 🙂
Hvala. Nije još gotov.
Wow! Simply amazing.
Voted and shared!
Thanks for sharing... And sometimes spam is needed...
And Now for Something Completely Different - Let 3 - Mama ŠČ [Update]
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/and-now-for-something-completely-different-let-3-mama-update--2763967/1/20
This song is at fault for me returning to eRepublik... I just wanted to express myself and write about it... You have been warned... 😉
great read. confirms my math as to why it doesn't seem worth it to work.
A really interesting, thanks for pulling all this together into an article o/
Thanks! Please, spread the word...
Great article. This needs more coverage.
My newspaper pledges its support to yours.
eerte, I like your avatar logo... 🙂
And Now for Something Completely Different - Let 3 - Mama ŠČ [Update]
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/and-now-for-something-completely-different-let-3-mama-update--2763967/1/20
Thanks, I appreciate it...
Great article vs o7
Thanks. Please, share...
eRepublik Economy - Quo Vadis, Plato?
erepublik.com/en/article/2772582
Daj mi broj račun da ti platim dnevnicu za ovaj članak
o7
I hope people read this article and stop asking for discount 😛
I know the article is long, but if you read it carefully, I hope you find something interesting or useful...
If you've made it this far, congratulations, you made it! 😊
If it's for any consolation to you, it took me longer to write it than for you to read it...
If you like the article, please, spread the word...
Feel free to copy-paste and shout:
Complete eRepublik Economy - Quo Vadis, Plato?
erepublik.com/en/article/2772582
Deserves Plato endorsement!! And also his attention to the problems and perhaps fixe some of them 🙂
Voted !
Way too long. Not a single mention of true patriot CC. Power pack costs 9.9 monthly so some 120 for a whole year (not 774). Can also be bought with CC "produced" in-game. Other than that, life's not fair, we're not all equal, some are simply not doing the math (or doing it wrong, to put it politely) 🙂? Take your pick.
PS. There are a lot of real life situations with companies that are not profitable but continue to operate.
on top of that, all ROI math is deeply wrong, thus all investing points are wrong; there is misalignment between using bf/promo prices for one things and not for others, wrong tax basis and many more
this is simply a "hit piece"/"rage bait"/"whatever", i.e an article written from the conclusion up
Yeah, I agree, this article is pure garbage... I am expecting your masterpiece article on the topic...
So, for start, could you please explain how is ROI deeply wrong?
Promo prices I used for relatively more expensive items where savings are significant... I agree that calculations could be more in players' favour if everything was bought on sale...
I am expecting your numbers...
Wrong tax basis? Please, elaborate... Many more? Please, be my guest and enlighten me... It is possible I missed a lot in the last 5 years...
"hit piece"/"rage bait"/"whatever"?
Hm, I wrote the article from my experience point of view, starting with numbers, analyzing my companies, so the numbers are as real as it gets...Could be that there is a mistake somewhere, but you would need to be more concrete... My conclusions have been made based on numbers...
So, please, offer your conclusions...
Otherwise your comment just seems as a poor attempt of discreditation... Or is it denial?
Can't tell based on your short feedback... So I challenge you to share it in more details...
for starters, decide on full price or black friday prices, then you missed that you can dissolve companies and get 50% of the full price back - that means you only have to make up 20% of the price if using bf prices
you are using 34 cc as work tax, but then you claim 4100 avg net salary - that will make the work tax way above 41cc
you are using some imaginary gold/cc rate
as idna told you, you messed up the pack prices A LOT
the math in the game is simple, stick to it, instead of writing about chatgpt and you will get to the facts
for example, I have been making my own q1 houses for the last 3 years and there is profit in both the making and using instead of buying them - sure you can try to time the market and buy them cheaper, but that is a fools errand
math does not lie, but people using math do (that from that what you want) - next time just show the math and the reasoning behind some of the numbers and let the players make their conclusions instead of talking about stock/chatgpt/economics and suggesting changes
Hi idna,
First, tell me how did you like the article... And if not, then why not?
I have just shared my perspective on the economy of the game, which is far from perfect, especially when compared to other, successful games on the market.
Although it's business, taking care of your gaming community is an important aspect of game development industry and business...
Perhaps some other players share my views, perhaps not... In any case I am looking forward to reading an article on your perspective on eRepublik Economy and other aspects of the game. Please, share your experience with us... Also, other players are very welcome to do the same...
Anyway, you have some points here and thanks for the correction...
Yes, the article is too long, so are the books, that's why hardly anyone reads them anymore...
So I wrote a short version of the article for you and other super busy players to read...
eRep Econ 101 | TL😉R
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/erep-econ-101-tl-dr-2772652
True Patriot CC... Well, I believe the main difference is in how we understand what belongs to Economy (module) and what not. The article was supposed to be mostly about company production, productivity and profitability. For me, the medals, or the most important medals at least, mostly belong to the War module.
But I see your point and it could be considered as Economy in a broader sense, since compared to company production there is potential for up to 10x more income. However, War also requires resources and can be quite expensive... So if you take that into account, the profits from fights might not be that profitable as it seems...
Anyway, you might be right in a way and I'll include the analysis of Medals in the article...
However, it won't make it shorter...
So, sorry, I didn't realize that True Patriot is an important part of eRepublik Economy...
Here:
"True Patriot CC - Insignificant."
Or? Am I wrong? Why is it important for you? Need more? OK...
True Patriot Achievement
The achievement will be achieved when you fight for the country of which you have citizenship, in a direct war or a war of resistance.
The reward for each achievement is 1000 CC less tax. Until January 12, 2015, the achievement was worth 5 units of gold.
After 16th Patriot Achievement, you'll keep getting the next 990 CC for each 100,000,000 damage dealth in a battle for your country of citizenship.
https://wiki-erepublik-com.translate.goog/index.php/True_patriot/Hrvatski?_x_tr_sl=hr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Since I am far lower compared to your level of achievements, that will still be a relatively rare and insignificant event in my eRepublik eLife...
About the Powerpack, sorry, my bad, I mistakenly thought it lasts for a week, but it's for 30 days...
Haven't bought any yet, so please forgive me for making this mistake... I'll correct it ASAP...
Life is not fair...
Well, truth to be told, the life is not fair, but that's life, get used to it and adapt...
So perhaps it's just not a good example in this case...
About the games, it's not that simple... If a game is not fair, then why continue playing it?
Many people have very good sense for justice, or better said, to detect injustice... It can ruin a game...
There are plenty of games on the market... It's easy to leave completely or switch to another game that's better...
And did I know the game is not fair for free players compared to pay-to-win players?
Yes, I knew that, I just didn't know how much it's not fair...
The factor of advantage for pay-to-win players compared to free players is in the range from 500X to 5000X in economic power which then translates to both military and economic advantage...
You can't compete with that without paying...
Leaving the game is a logical choice...
Here is an interesting article and some comments from other players confirm what I sai😛
End of CODE? - Interview with the SoFA of CODE alliance!!
erepublik.com/en/article/2772494
The real life? We only have one, and there are no other better alternatives...
This game? Yes, it's an escape, but is it better? I don't think so...
Or someone's real life is really bad. My condolences to those players...
Still, I feel there are better alternatives...
And if eRepublik Labs keeps ignoring it further, I hope in their other games they learned something on eRepublik use case, as what not to do so they don't repeat the same mistakes...
Kind regards,
Janko Fran
idna
There are too many variables
When you have 200+ Q7 Weapon companies and have more than 100 workers, you don't need to worry about profit
Especially if you are Legend XX tanker
Just earn CC from true patriot and buy tycoon pack when you have more than 3 thousands work ticket 🤣
Bravo for ur article! I hope we see a good update one day... if company take us seriusly
My article about that
https://medium.com/@preciusbox/erepublik-indifference-is-not-an-upgrade-9b32794bc482
Svaka čast... bravo 🙂
Janko Fran: a nice long read
Plato's response: It's the economy, stupid!
this is my opinion
there are 2 feature that broke our economy
1. Daily Challenge reward
2. True Patriot reward, because we will get higher strength every day (more strength = more damage = more reward but the requirement is still the same for every medal)
Excellent work and full of figures, you must have reached the character limit
No... Not yet, at least... Is there any for articles? I have published more than 100 News articles, some of them quite long, but haven't met that problem yet... So, something is still good in eRepublik...?
the characters limit is 60k
I reached it here
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-great-erepublik-update-a-tale-of-missing-mayors-and-vanishing-city-budget-2771565/1/20
somewhat impressive. I hit it once because of the amount of image codes. So I had to capture images of the texts to save characters.
asalım
Well done, but really long!
I'll read it later
o7
Very long, like the videos.
Lot of info there will need to read through some more.
Btw New order vid had very low bit rate - not very high quality to copy! The other two would be fine
V + c
The point of the New Order - Blue Monday video was actually in its expensive cover from 1983 which made the band and the Factory label to lose money on every sale and this single is the highest selling single of all time... So that video doesn't show anything else except the cover.
If you want a HD music video version of the New Order - Blue Monday '88 song, this is the one for you:
New Order - Blue Monday '88 (Official Music Video HD Upgrade)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyWeR6S8KD4
[removed]
Btw. Here is a short version 😉:
eRep Econ 101 | TL; DR
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/erep-econ-101-tl-dr-2772652
Fix the game!
Impressive. And extra points for linking to a New Order song!