Improvements to the Military Module **Updated**
New Faustian Man
Give it a read and tell me what you think below.
+++ TYPES OF MILITARY UNITS & A REGION'S TERRAIN AS DETERMINING THEIR EFFECTIVENESS +++
This idea’s twofold. The first part is to do with the nature of Military Units, specifically with how Military Units fall under no military branch, and by military branch I mean it in the broadest sense i.e. Navy, Infantry, Special Forces etc. This means someone can establish a Military Unit and call it an infantry unit, a special forces unit etc. all of which has no bearing on how it operates or how effective it is relative to where its fighting. The second part is a suggestion: a means to make each Unit relevant to a certain type of region -- in other words a certain type of terrain -- and give them a very particular purpose. This can be done by introducing terrain, whereby each region of each country is either a plain, mountainous, desert, adjacent to the coast, frozen/snowbound etc.
***Introducing different 'terrain' would only effect Hit bonuses for each of the types of Units, nothing more. Everything else would stay the same, including the present Battle Module. I'm not suggesting a return to the V2 battle mod, just different Hit bonuses for different types of MU based on the region/terrain they're deployed to. The current Battle Module would remain.***
How this would work: When you found a Military Unit in a particular region, the region has an explicit effect on the particular military branch the Unit will fall under. And this would remain the case until you disbanded the Unit. So for example, you found a Unit in Florida, Florida is beside the sea, so you have a choice of making it a) a Navy unit or b) a regular Infantry unit. Or you found a Unit in Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland, a mountainous region, and you have the option of making it a regular Infantry unit, or a specialized ‘Light’ infantry/mountainous Unit better able to operate in mountainous regions.
Consequently each type of Military Unit will have certain strengths and weaknesses when deployed to a particular region.
For example:
-- Infantry Military Unit:
This is the standard Unit capable of deployment to any region in the New World. Its soldiers will operate in the regular Army and will work under the Army’s ranking system.
All infantry Unit soldiers have a standard (+15
😵Hit bonus, this doesn’t change whether they’re fighting in a coastal region, plain, desert, etc. As such infantry Units should be the most populous Units in any army as they’re the most flexible Units there are.
*
-- Naval Military Unit:
These can only be created in a coastal region. Its soldiers will operate in the Navy and will work under the Navy's ranking system.
All Naval Unit soldiers have a marked advantage –- 30% Hit bonus –- over regular Units when fighting in other coastal regions both at home and abroad. Conversely the operational capability of naval Units is greatly reduced (-45% Hit Bonus) when deployed out of their natural environment.
Note: As some countries are landlocked and possess no coastal regions, they won’t have the ability to found Naval Military Units. My own preference would be they be permanently barred from creating a Navy, but another option is if they can take another country’s coastal region and hold it for something like 3 congresses then the ability to start a navy will be triggered. I have my reservations here though. Forcing countries to co-operate so that one branch of their military compliments a branch of another country’s makes for a much more interesting game.
*
-- Mountain Unit/Light Infantry Unit:
These can only be created in a mountainous region. Its soldiers will operate under the regular Army and will work under the Army’s ranking system.
Mountain/Light Infantry Unit fight best (i.e. have a 30% HIT advantage) in regions determined hilly/mountainous. Conversely the operational capability of Light Infantry Units is greatly reduced (-45% Hit Bonus) when deployed out of their natural environment.
*
-- Special Forces:
Suited to extreme regions, i.e. frozen, desert, Resistance Wars, and operating as the last line of defense to defend the nation’s capital. Special forces Units operate under the regular Army and will work under the Army’s ranking system.
Special forces Units fight best (i.e. have a 30% HIT advantage) in regions determined to be desert/frozen or a nation’s Capital. Conversely the operational capability of Special forces Units is greatly reduced (-45% off each Hit) when deployed out of their natural environment.
*
-- Armoure
😛
Suited to regions designated as ‘plains’ i.e. flat terrain, armoured regions in real life are normally composed of tank and artillery troops. Armoured soldiers will operate under the regular Army and will work under the Army’s ranking system.
Armoured Units fight best (i.e. have a 30% HIT advantage) in regions determined to be plains. Conversely the operational capability of armoured Units is greatly reduced (-45% Hit Bonus) when deployed out of their natural environment.
*
–- Air Force:
Air Force Units can only be created in a single region in each country. If this region is invaded it knocks out the Hit bonus of all Air Force Units, the idea being that this region represents the country’s ‘lone airfield’ and knocking it out terminates the potential of any long-range attacks. Air Force soldiers will operate under the Air Force and will work under the Air Force’s ranking system.
Air Force Units fight best (i.e. have a 30% HIT advantage) in original regions of other countries, regardless of terrain. Conversely the operational capability of Air Force Units is greatly reduced (-45
😵when deployed out of their natural environment.
*
-– Mercenary:
Attached to no particular region nor terrain, soldiers like these are equally adept fighting (i.e. have a 30% HIT advantage) in Resistance Wars in any region/terrain. Conversely they're effectiveness is greatly reduced (-45% Hit Bonus) when deployed out of their natural environment.
Note: As each Unit would be operating under a particular branch, and rank would be determined by the scale of the branch in question, leaving one Unit to join another in a different branch would also result in you losing whatever rank you'd earned. The 'recruit' rank you earn when first joining an MU could be extended so that you have to complete 7 Direct Orders before you're an actual member -- instead of just 10 kills; and the Damage you do whilst a recruit is 10% of your normal Q7 Hit. This would act as a preventative against people Unit jumping in tight battles.
*
The strategic implications for introducing terrain-specific Units is massive! It means genuine, staggered conflicts taking place first between, for example, navy units, i.e. coastal and sea-bound engagements, only when this war is won can the invading force build a bridgehead and move into the interior, at which point non-Navy units will be deployed to fight in regions designated ‘plains’, ‘mountainous’, ‘frozen’ etc.
Building an effective army of terrain-specific Units would demand huge long-term, multi-term tactical planning from those overseeing a country’s military. If you possess a coast, developing a naval branch of your military becomes a necessity; build one strong enough and your country (albeit with a few other pluses on their side) could become near impregnable, and this despite the fact that in every other facet your military may be much weaker than the country attacking you.
The centre of power between nations of relative strength would hinge on the kind of planning each is willing to put into its military. Sure, having a larger population is still going to be a huge benefit and by far and away the main ingredient why wars are won or lost, but with enough planning the days of easy wipes are gone. And the potential for the smaller to mid-sized nations taking on and defeating larger nations in wars over single regions is a distinct possibility if they have the Units that can carry out a war that suits their own strengths and takes advantage of their opponent’s weaknesses.
Establishing alliances also becomes increasingly strategic in nature. Landlocked countries will have no Navy, and will be at a heavy disadvantage in all coastal conflicts, so any offensive war against a country with a developed navy is going to require the assistance of an ally with an equally strong navy, and so on.
Ultimately the objective should be reaching balance between the various branches of your nation’s military, but for short-term gains the advantage will almost always lie in stacking your chips all in one branch and developing it to the exclusion of all else. This kind of strategy could conceivably allow you to hunt bonuses in particular terrains and take on and defeat numerically superior country’s that have much less developed Armoured units, or Light Infantry units etc.
+++ NEW MILITARY RANK ABILITIES +++
The second subject I wish to say something about is the dissonance between your Military Rank and your role in your MU. The problem as I see it: With no logical connection between Military rank and the position you hold within the Military Unit your part of, so that you can be God of War but only a ‘member’ of your MU, makes the ‘military rank’ increasingly meaningless. A situation only acerbated by the fact the higher ranks are more easy to attain than ever because of the high-powered weapons and perks available.
What we need is a military module which actively rewards promotions to higher ranks, encourages us to continue fighting, and links the military Rank feature with Military Units.
Presently with a Rank promotion, the most valuable reward is the 5 Gold you receive. Whatever the promotion is it has zero bearing on your standing within your Military Unit, like I say above: there is no connection between Rank and the military formations we actually belong to.
Here’s a potential solution: Fully-automated Soldiers. With each advance in military rank (after a thorough overhaul of the rankings system that equalises everyone back down to Private -- but retains each individual's accumulated Strength) you are able to progressively hire more, what I term, ‘Soldiers’ to your MU. Soldiers will be like Plato or Lana, not ‘real people’, but basically just soldiers who appear in whatever Military Unit we belong to, with more popping up whenever we get a promotion, and that we can either train and feed (no weapons needed) and order to fight wherever we wish, or be ignored and/or deleted.
Example: You are promoted from Captain*** to Major, so as well as the standard 5 Gold reward you are allocated 10 Soldiers. From then on you have overall command of these Soldiers, they will operate as part of you’re personal platoon within the MU your part of.
Each soldier starts at a basic level, feeding them and training them increases their Strength and their own unique military rank scale ensuring they’re more effective on the battlefield.
You can also 'order' them to fight in a specific battle in much the same manner as an MU commander sets the battle order for the whole MU, but in this instance you can give specific orders to individual soldiers or your platoon as a whole, and they then fight automatically. Each Soldier’s profile (not the same as a citizen profile) could be visible under a special tab, and it would be in your power to add an avatar if you wished, showing that he’s part of your platoon/Military Unit.
With each military Rank promotion more Soldiers would be allocated to your platoon. They wouldn’t be able to vote, nor would they be factored into the political party member count, so would have no effect on the Top 5 party list. Their only relevance would be on the battlefield -- whilst also giving military advancement a real value. When you leave a Military Unit your soldiers would too, transferring into the next Unit you join.
Fin
This game is basically just a war game at this point, so adding as much depth as possible to the actual war module should be admins objective.
I’ve sent in a revised version of this article as a suggestion to admins. I’ll update things when I get word back.
And thanks for taking the time to read
NFM
Comments
V
I think economy needs changed before anything, but cool ideas. Voted.
Cool ideas but you didn't address what would prevent soldiers jumping from one unit to another depending on what type of region is attacked/defended, i.e. navy going to armored if fighting is in plains.
Having your own bots to feed and arm would definitely help the economy.
Noo Not rising again.... different military units and terrian is a nightmare. Turn based hexes... never ever again should their be turns on this site. It sounds nice but doesnt work out and is completely unbalanced. One type of terrain will best as with units. Everything and everyone else will lose. If they were to change the military mod.. why not re-add hospitals and defense systems. Talk about re-adding community and strategy. Ya know this is a strategy game. Why I started playing
samdoo,
He's not talking about hexes and taking turns, just dmg bonus on different types of terrain.
v
v
I like the concept.
I'd disagree slightly on the special forces, as, to the best of my knowledge, they prepare for any terrain. I'd suggest that they have a bonus reflecting their elite status, but that they are heavily limited on membership, to also reflect that not just anyone can become a Special Ops soldier.
@Milan - Ah yes, that'd be a major problem lol. However as each Unit would be operating under a particular branch, and rank would be determined by the scale of the branch in question would mean leaving one Unit to join another in a different branch would also result in you losing whatever rank you'd earned. So there would be consequences here, but its possibly not a good enough preventative in tight battles. The 'recruit' rank you earn when first joining an MU could be extended so that you have to complete 7 Direct Orders before you're an actual member -- instead of just 10 kills; and the Damage you do whilst a recruit is 10% of your normal Q7 Hit. This would definitely give people second thoughts about jumping Units and branches.
@samdoo - I'm not suggesting any of that. A 'terrain' would only effect Hit bonuses of each of the types of Units, nothing more. Everything else would stay the same, including the present battle module. And re-adding strategy is the whole point, the current system 99% of the time sees the biggest countries (Poland,Serbia) steamroll everyone else. By adding different terrains potentially forces them out of their comfort zone. And the long-term planning required to create a successful and balanced military and the strategy involved to successfully deploy it would be huge!
@Paddy - True, special forces could conceivably operate in any terrain, but they'd be mostly wasted there, like in large-scale infantry engagements. However your idea of limited membership is definitely an improvement and a better way of operating one, it would allow them to fight anywhere with their Hit bonus intact, plus membership of a Special Forces unit would have that prestige factor returned as a consequence of only admitting the biggest tanks.
Voted and as always a very informative article - and can't help but notice a disturbing lack of the usual babe picture in here : (
pew, pew, pew
Cool idea and I like this. Any change would make this game more funny, you know we;ve been play a boring game for a long time.
1) no vote - useless (at least the way you said it)
2) no vote -the admins propably will make the 'trainins/eating' cost lots of G, so the rich players will gain more advantage, because they will buy gold..... and the ditch just keeps on getting bigger.
My advice - the strenght gaining must be changed. So it is't linear, but so that you earn more strenght at the start and less when you are strong (f.e. 90str whrn your strenght is
NO thats totaly unfair if you compare big countries like USA or Rusia terrains with small ones.
I certainly like your ideas. But there is one thing I believe needs changed. For the military units, you said each one has a -45% hit bonus. It needs to be lowered to -20% to -10%.
These ideas do go back to the older Erepublik and are similar. Unfortunately, I had not joined until today's version. I would like to see these kinds of changes occur.
+Voted and Subscribed.
Good ideas!
But I think that 30% and -45% is unfair compared to the 15% everywhere.
V+S
@Vincenzo - Do you mean its unfair for the infantry or for the other units?
Nice improvements. But keep dreaming! 😛
Nice V&S
V
nice
Good idea....but why not when you kill someone on battlefield his computer in rl get blown up by some electrical overload..or something...
Bring the Economic Skill back.
Thats all.
V 361
But not all ideas seems acceptable.
GOOOD IDEAS!
10/10
v+s
o7 Good Idea
Good ideas, but admins should work on a fairer distributions of regions first. Why is the eUSA the only eCountry which has all its original states like in RL? that's totally f**ked up 🙁
Good stuff
@Daghdha - imo it was a cynical ploy to make the game more attractive to Americans, which mostly hasn't worked. They did something similar with China by making it the most resource rich country.
Daghdha, France also has all its regions like in RL. That is except for the overseas islands and territories.
thx for clarification , guys xd
Wasn't this called 'riding' or 'v2'?
v374
All of those ideas have been proposed or implemented at one time or another, however even if Admin made those changes it would still not be worth buying gold. Until Admin does something to combat citizens who cheat and citizens who stalk other citizens this game will remain a 'what if' failure.
Well, it does sound a lot like the dreaded v2 but it could work
@Ichabod Adams - Haven't you had two accounts (that we know of) perma-banned because of gold-farming through multis? So admins aren't entirely useless in regard to catching the 'cheaters' then?
@Artela/C.K. - I'm not suggesting a return to the V2 battle mod, just different Hit bonuses for different types of MU based on the region/terrain they're deployed to. The current battle mod would remain.
[removed]
Cool ideas.
I like it the whole article, but the -45% is a bit steep maybe bring it to 30%-20% 🙂
I like the idea. I also think that in a war the defensive side should have a bonus in damage something like 5%
This because when you are in war the defense "knows" then environment and take advantage of this.
Also, this will help small countries in game.
nice Ideas, but I think we gotta fix the economy first...at least the military module is playable right now
enjoyed the thought of this, I would like to see this I think.
Voted because Bryci tho lol
We had something similar in V2,It was messed up .Communications and co-ordinations were practicaly impossible.Even movement was hindered greatly.Remember there's more than twenty people trying to fight at the same time,and at other times there may be three. I agree there should be more to the game,but until we all have computers with mega-gigs and processors that run mega-hertz.the processing ability won't be there...
we also need some SG and Jaffa teams.
v
eRep Rising...that's what your describing, ver 2.0
i can see this giving the UK the super powerful navy it deserves
very imaginative and it makes sense, although I suspect Plato has other 'plans'
"we also need some SG and Jaffa teams." +1
> good thing eUSA has the only stargate