The Real Cost of War
Judean Princess
Today I have decided to comment on the changing military situation in the New World. Military activity is a popular topic of conversation in eRepublik, but mostly it seems to be focused on the various manoeuvring of countries rather than the overall strategic development of the game. I’ve written in the past about power politics and this week I want to talk about the differences in capabilities between the two big alliances, and the corresponding change in tactics used. I will then go on to discuss the cost-effect of various actions, both potential and actual.
To start with I will begin by limiting my discussion to a number of countries. Firstly I will only be talking about major military powers. Secondly I will only be discussing those powers with access to the Central European theatre of war. Why is this? At the moment Central and South Eastern Europe are the major conflict zones for both alliances, and correspondingly those countries are the ones which are innovating and escalating in their battle to try and overcome the others.
Conflict borders marked in red
So to start with I will discuss the different aspects of both alliances. Collectively EDEN has more citizens, and more citizen damage than Phoenix. It can deliver more in a max-MPPs war. This doesn’t necessarily mean they always win in such a situation- expending gold can pump up Phoenix’s army power and steal a victory. Individually Hungary and Serbia are still strong enough to 1v1 against any of EDEN’s powers, though a direct attack by Poland on Hungary would be difficult for them to survive without MPPs. Serbia is probably the strongest individual nation in Phoenix, and can do over four million damage under pressure, as seen in the recent battle for Lion King against China. The other countries can do varying amounts of damage.
Mobile damage wise, EDEN is stronger than Phoenix. In the Lion King battle Croatia, Spain, Romania and Poland all did over 500k mobile damage for China. USA did over 1 million mobile damage, an incredible achievement. On the other hand no Phoenix country did over 500k damage. This is perhaps because of other wars which Phoenix was defending, however on the whole EDEN countries often deliver more damage to 1v1 wars such as that one than Phoenix ones do. This means that with the noticeable exception of Lion King Phoenix are mostly limited to their home regions, as a 1v1 war is hard for them to win.
Phoenix World Map
EDEN World Map
Looking at the map from a tactical perspective, some countries have the opportunity to expand and others don’t. South-East Europe is tied up in a cats cradle of balanced powers. Poland and Spain can expand over Germany and France with little worry other than MPP damage. Canada and the USA are virtually free from any chance of invasion, only bordering the UK and Portugal, neither of which is a serious threat. They are free to fight in Asia because of alliances with China and India. Of all the Phoenix countries, the only ones with a realistic chance of expansion are Brazil, Argentina and Indonesia. Their target countries are the soft underbelly of Asia and South Africa. However these countries have strong MPPs at their disposal. So a stalemate exists here.
At the minute both EDEN and Phoenix appear to be focused on a war of annihilation against the others superpowers, with the USA focusing on taking out high iron regions in Asia. Croatia and Romania recently invaded and almost crushed Hungary. Slovenia is still partially occupied. Bulgaria is being attacked. Croatia and Romania have powerful MPPs activated against them. Both alliances are spending incredible amounts of gold, but for what? The original regions of these countries are mostly worthless. Bulgaria has medium grain, and nothing else except thousands of angry Bulgarians. Yet the EDEN alliance is determined to conquer it. Similarly Croatia holds two medium grain regions of Slovenia for no reason. I can understand spending thousands of gold on taking high regions (to a certain extent) but this inter-country war in SE Asia is simply draining the gold of both alliances for no reason.
Finally I want to move onto cost-effectiveness of the major attacks we’ve seen of late. This is of course incredibly difficult to measure. However we must consider three things to make even a perfunctory guess. Firstly the rough cost of the attack, including the DoW (if necessary), the direct attack, all distractions/secondary attacks, and the cost of tanking. In many cases an attack costing a thousand gold requires up to nine thousand golds worth of ancillary manoeuvres and tanking.
As you can imagine this can quickly build up. A co-ordinated campaign to take a high resource region can cost thousands of gold, and without alliance support can quickly drain a countries ability to press a war. I sometimes wonder whether when generals plan wars they consider costs at all. Many times thousands of gold are spent to secure a region which is worth only fifty to sixty gold a day, and is lost a few weeks later. Not a cost-effective decision.
Secondly we must consider the value of the region, both to the current occupier and the country which hopes to take it. 100g less for the country being conquered and 50g more a day for the occupier is a relative gain of 150g for the winner. So spending 5000g taking the region is a cost-effective in the long term, as it reduces the strength of the enemy and improves ones own position. In calculating this we must also consider the income change as a percentage of the countries income. This is important because of the base spending rule. All countries have a base spending which is dependent on fixed costs such as MPPs.
If a country maintains 8 MPPs then it has a fixed monthly cost of 800g. If it has an income of 5000g a month then you’re talking roughly 1/6 of its income being diverted into MPPs alone. On top of this we must consider wage costs for army units, RM costs, any government investments and so on. This means the actual income of a 5000g a month country could be more like 3500g. However if that countries income was reduced by say 50g a day to 3500g a month, it would still have the same base costs. So losing 50g a day effectively halves the disposable income of a country. So the cost-effectiveness of the attack is much greater.
Thirdly, and finally, we must consider the longevity of the attack. If a country takes a valuable region, it is likely they will themselves come under attack at some point. A country which spends a great deal of gold securing a region must be certain that it can hold the region afterwards, at least long enough to recoup any costs of taking it.
In conclusion countries in both alliances need to rethink their strategies. Many of the wars which are supposedly meant to weaken opponents or strengthen allies in fact do the opposite, opening hostile MPPs and costing thousands of gold which won’t be reclaimed. In this age of 1 million plus walls and countries delivering millions of damage, conventional tactics need to be rethought. Both alliances are literally spending all their income every day, and all the gold flooding out of the countries isn’t being adequately replaced. Despite all of the swapping and hundreds of thousands of gold being spent in the last 2 months alliance incomes are fairly similar as proportions of one another to what they were then. So really all that gold was wasted.
I’m not saying we should have no war. I’m saying that we need to rethink war. It isn’t an end in itself, it must be a means to either secure resources or otherwise strategically position to secure resources in the future. Fighting for the sake of it is wasteful and poor strategy. Worse, it can give your opponent the fuel for a baby boom, and sow the seeds of your own destruction. We need to stop calculating the value of war based on trolling, on hatreds, and start basing it on money. We need to put the economists in charge.
On a side note: Congratulations to everyone in my new home of South Africa for their valiant effort of reclaiming Limpopo and finally reunifying South Africa! An especially big thank you to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amun Nefer for rallying so many allies of South Africa in the wee hours of the morning. eSouth Africa owes you a great thank you Amun.
🙂Thank you to the Country president and other ministers who helped as well.
Comments
Voted
Subpole and voted!
Third. Wuff you ma'am :3
good point of view, voted
Good article.
[removed]
very interesting!
nice article! tnx
True statement is true. War hinders the economy.For war-torn contries like my own it is almost impossible to maintain a good economy.
v 🙂
▂ ▃ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ I ♥ Judean Princess █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▃ ▂
Great article and I agree, but I also accept war for the sake of war as rising tensions must naturally be dissipated due to populist demands...
Q5 Article!
v + s
Excellent article!
well said
Voted
This newspaper is one of my favourite. Moar frequent articles!
"Many of the wars which are supposedly meant to weaken opponents...in fact do the opposite, opening hostile MPPs and costing thousands of gold..."
America has learned this the hard way, now the way we are conducting our military affairs is all based off the lessons we learned from the North American invasion.
true story
Always a good read... I wonder if the superpowers will ever figure out how to wage a cost-effective war?
very nice point of view
however, there is a value of all wars that outweighs money
thats amusement - most players play the game solely because of wars
75% of the population of the balkan countries are in the game for the reason they can shoot at each other, thats why i joined 🙂
Quality > Quantity I'd much rather read great articles like this every few weeks than read inferior articles every few days. Here's hoping you keep up the good work.
Nicely done, JP
But the fact here is that the war is for the sake of war. People do war because it is a game, and if they want war they will have war. If we put money first many less wars will occur, naturally, which will not attract many people. So there will be war.
There are other minor factors as well, such as politics, popular pression, and to want a baby boom, such as Spain taking France and Poland taking Germany, respectively.
But otherwise, I find this article extremely interesting. Good work!!
War is good for the economy, it boosts production. You know how many guns I sell when a major battle is occurring? Or how many gifts are sold?
good article
voted 🙂
HAIL PHOENIX
voted as usually
Thank you for a well researched and substantial article.
It is most appreciated.
best regards
~ Angua Whisper
Fine. Subbed. We will see how good are ye lassie.
Now in South Africa, nice. 😛
1v1 war is hard for PH to win,but 1v16.....
Hell yeah!!!
Well done ... Voted!
Nice article , and great analysis , v+s from Poland .
voted and sub 🙂
Good point of view.
But this is not RL where wars are waged because of money.
This is a game where war is waged for the sake of keeping masses entertained.
If we were to pile up gold we wouldn't wage war at all.
V!
War is the only thing why there is an economy. Without war, what could you do in eRepublik? Well, you could move from one region to another. NICE. Or you could gift yourself too 100 Wellness. NICE. You could eat bread. NICE. You could become part of the government and set taxes. NICE. You overthrow the government and piss off the citizens (although you'll certainly just have this pleasure once). And afterwards, you'll abandon your account because you get bored. The only thing economy provides is things for war or for not dying of starvation.
"But this is not RL where wars are waged because of money.
This is a game where war is waged for the sake of keeping masses entertained."
In RL they are waged for both money and "entertainment" for the masses, thats why it aint a pretty world out there...
As for the importance of gold in the eWars... i m prone of thinking that vast amount of gold spent in wars is of dubios origin. When money isnt earned, but given or stolen in a way (multis=cheating=stealing), it loses its value in the eyes and minds of those who have it. And then they launch all out offensives that have low probability chance of being won in the end.
rox article! 😉
@those people who say war fuels the economy: Far more gold leaves an economy than enters it during a war. Higher spending does not equate to a greater infrastructure. Temporarily increased income does not benefit a country, though people think it does.
Also constantly attacking a smaller country achieves little. I can understand why in specific situations it would be advantageous, but in general we don't live in a bipolar world. As @insightz says having 20k gold when your neighbour has 5k gold is good. However if two more neighbours decide to retaliate by attacking you and using your lower-than-normal gold deposits to delete you then you've made an error. Spending thousands of gold with no material gain is foolish.
The first country to funnel all of its gold into Q5 companies and selling the weapons will be true king. 😛
great article. Vote.
>We need to stop calculating the value of war based on trolling, on hatreds, and start basing it on money. We need to put the economists in charge.
Have banksters rule the world like in RL?
Not gonna happen.
A good analysis, except that here money (gold) has little purpose other than to finance war, so there's little incentive in hoarding it.
And you're beautiful in that pic.
@ Iain Keers I never implied that extra income even remotely covers the expenses
You have to look at the bigger picture then direct material gain
Phoenix spent about 40-50k gold to remove Poland from Berlin and RA and received hardly any material gain, but the end result is as if they did receive material gain cause the game in global sense isn't about having a strong economy, it's about having stronger economy then the enemy. Opting to strike his economy instead of improving your own yields similar results as the opposite
@Insightz
Wow dude , aren't you a little subjective about that?
Excellent article. 🙂
This is of course assuming the whole point of this war is to conquer their neighbours. I'm not entirely sure it is.
the picture in your ad was a lie!
voted