Amateurs are people too

There was a country that was ruled by a bunch of amateurs: an architect, an artist, a philosopher, a wine merchant, and a pilot with a couple of warriors. But all of a sudden, under certain circumstances, this “historical misunderstanding” caused the business so much that the whole world had to take a sip of “amateur soup”. This event showed us that neglecting talents, which are able to organize complete strangers against someone else, is simply dangerous to health. Fortunately, these days we have learned (after all, we have learned, right?) To recognize such matters in their very bud, and now we avoid “sharp corners”.

But with the development of social networks, we again got the opportunity to satisfy our “what if” curiosity of interaction of a large number of people in ways that are safe for their health. Without knowing it themselves, a handful of moderately Krivorukov programmers from Bucharest created a nutrient medium for this. Several times I have already written superficial reviews of the original game project eRepublik, today, if you don't mind, after two years of participation I would like to present a more thorough analysis of the interaction of several hundred thousand people from different cultural backgrounds, people from all over the world with different religions nationality, skin color, age and worldview. I hope you will be interested.

Perhaps it will look naive on my part, but I would like to immediately warn you - this is not an advertising article. I will describe all the advantages and disadvantages of a particular project to the best of my “subjective objectivity” as a direct participant for more than two years now.
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In order not to tease anyone inadvertently, but also to satisfy the curiosity of those who wish - I will not indicate any references until the end of the article .

Ingeniously simple decision of the creators was the selection of four key elements necessary to create artificial communities such as "state". Market (resources, money, enterprises, labor, goods, licenses, import, export, taxes, foreign exchange market), war (attack, battle, occupation, surrender of territories, uprisings, armament, mutual pacts and peace treaties), hierarchy (elections , president, parliament, party) and communication / socialization (citizenship, press, social network). All other elements of the anthill created himself. He organized the wholesale trading platforms not covered by mechanics, the army with its entire complex structure (the evolution of this organization deserves a separate article), whole international military-political and trade-economic blocs, ministries of defense, foreign affairs, propaganda, state treasuries, budget, strategic reserves and much more, which is characteristic of the real world, is necessary for modeling.

The main feature and indisputable advantage of this conditional society is that everything happens very quickly in it. For one “real” month, events take place here as much as four years would happen in real life. Therefore, one conditional gaming year there is approximately one week. All is short. Monthly elect leaders, deputies, leaders of parties, alliances. Much is riveted to the cycle of one month. Within a month, under certain circumstances (a sharp influx of participants), the microcommunity of modest Poland turned into one of the superpowers. Within a month, three leaders could have changed in Russia (alternately discarded by new old state coups, they changed faster than delegations from allied states congratulated them).

As you probably guessed, eWorld is a map of the real world with the presence of all key states except the central / southern part of the African continent, a number of countries in Asia and Oceania, not counting Albania and a number of European micro-states. All virtual states are divided into regions, each of which, by sea or land, borders with neighboring countries and has at its disposal one (of about a dozen types of two main groups) resource, which gives a certain bonus (to the citizens of a country having a region) in mining / producing some then produce. Production volumes everywhere with demand, taxation and the level of wages form the price in the domestic market and competitiveness in the external. Goods can be sold at retail for local currency in this market (rubles, US dollars, pounds, etc.) or be sold wholesale to a person or organization to bypass taxation for the same currency or gold (which in turn is regarded as the world currency). It is not difficult to guess that the creators prudently implemented the equivalent of the Bretton Woods system, fearing to entrust the floating rate to “hamsters”. Nevertheless, the so-called “monetary market” is a rather lively and popular place among speculators.

Wars, therefore, would have to begin on the basis of the desire to maximize the benefits of a single state by occupying territories rich in missing resources. But, as in real life, e-civilization is not distinguished by a special rationality of behavior, and often acts more based on emotions, prejudices and other “little joys” than on common sense approaches. The main cause of most conflicts invariably turned out to be purely subjective.



All states are divided into blocks. A few months ago, there were two such alliances called Phoenix GC (PHX) and EDEN. The course and policy of these were determined by “world locomotives” - Hungary, Serbia and Brazil in the first, Romania, Poland, the USA, respectively, in the second. But quarrels, unsatisfied ambitions, a number of external factors (a sharp upsurge of "fertility" in Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia), strengthening China's position in Asia, a gradual weakening of Indonesia and a number of other former "local giants" led to the dissolution of the first bloc, and, in fact, depriving the second of all the strongest participants. For about a month there was a lull. The old wars were silenced and continued purely by inertia; nobody hurried to extend the existing mutual aid pacts. Quite suddenly for me (and then I was helping the guys from the Russian Foreign Ministry, who was in Phoenix GC), the creation of a fundamentally new VPB was announced, which was conditionally called the NWO (New World Order) for the first time. The fact is that, as it turned out, all this time of peace, the five strongest world states were discussing the creation of a new force that, with a small number of participants and good coordination, could have quietly cut the rest of the world. Following the results were the same Serbia, Poland, Hungary, Indonesia and Iran. After some time, Macedonia joined their ranks. Later, unable to withstand the temptation to be among the "bend" - Sweden left EDEN and also joined the NWO. All this time, Russia, traditionally having warm relations with Serbia, was sure that soon it would also join their number (by that time the Russians were still neutral).

It was then that funny patterns surfaced. This, of course, is purely my assumptions, but I believe that the Serbs (being rather ambitious and clutched in the "grip of the Balkan worldview" nation) did not withstand the burden of the opportunities suddenly dropped on them in this project. Burning out at first in senseless conflicts with Croatia, and joining the bloc of the strongest states - they, without the slightest doubt, at the very first ultimatum of Poland agreed to completely stop all contacts with Russia. And what is more surprising for me is that in a rather short time they have found many reasons to justify themselves, and to form among their fellow citizens an image of “brazen and incorrigible” Russia. It’s not that the latter has any flaws at all, but they only paid attention to them at this moment. As a result - the decisive, last nail in the coffin of the former "fraternal" relations was the rapprochement of Russia with the United States, which finally untied the hands of the Serbian government. As a result, Russia became a member of the new bloc, which in the end included the United States, Russia itself, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, France, Portugal, Japan and Germany.

As expected, a fundamentally new situation has arisen. This is a very instructive fact that is unlikely to be realized in life - the creation of a multi-vector, non-bipolar world. For ideological reasons, the states that emerged from the enemy blocs could not afford to go over to their opponents (at least this applies to most of them). In the end, this was the reason why, next to the NWO and EDEN, the contradictory TERRA appeared. But time has put everything in its place. Alternately exterminated by twice superior enemy forces - EDEN and TERRA were soon forced to cooperate. This meant that everything again came down to bipolarity. I dare to assume that with some probability this applies to our realities. As a result, fragmentation caused a number of defeats, as the old accounts of some states of each of the parties did not allow complete merging into a single whole. Another problem remained defeatist moods and attempts to maintain friendly relations with individual representatives of the enemy bloc. One way or another, nothing good for us could end this.

It turned out to be extremely important for me that, contrary to popular opinions and convincing arguments, in every way possible dispelling the myths about specific features characteristic of a certain nation and people - I finally became convinced that we are all completely different. Let me be called xenophobe, racist or something else - it will be very difficult to convince me of this. Although at once I would like to emphasize that the features very often did not coincide with the general stereotypes, and sometimes even contradicted them. So, for example, for me it was a great discovery that the best and most reliable allies, who find a common language incredibly quickly, are precisely those who are considered enemies in our realities. If we talk about specific features and phenomena, it is enough to take into account the aforementioned alliance of the USA and Russia, which ended for the last entry into the initially Pan-American bloc. Probably, the reason for this was the absence of any complexes of a “small country” among the parties that were not obliged to prove something to themselves, or to assert themselves at the expense of the aggression being poured out. I was in no way ready to see the calls of US citizens to rush to help defending Moscow. What is even more interesting - such initiatives came equally from both the “top” and the “proletariat”.

Of course, in everyday life, in the era of individualists, collective interests are largely inferior to personal interests. No less curiously unfolded this eternal dilemma in this project, where each state has developed a certain reputation over time. I do not dare to draw parallels with reality, but the most unreliable and impermanent were the citizens of Italy (which is still a surprise), the UK and (much more unusual) of Japan. The latter managed to be in one alliance in a short time - to allow enemy American troops to land in Asia, and then (already in alliance with the Americans, who were desperately fighting the invaders on their territory) - they let the state from the NWO into Asia. This could have been attributed to the old enmity of China and Japan, or simply the playful “ololo”, but with the closest contact, I saw firsthand how the Japanese themselves, unconditionally confident in the legality of their actions, proved their correctness.

Interesting can be called and the relationship of Ukraine and Russia. Traditionally having complex, experiencing cool feelings for a neighbor — the governments of these were in permanent secret struggle, which in its time ended with the temporary occupation of Ukraine. Russia, being a capricious country, not without a bit of arrogance and imperial ambitions - tried to impose "fraternal love" with carrot, whip, or support for the pro-Russian wing in the Ukrainian parliament. But as time passed, all the power in Ukraine eventually received the right-wing, nationalist parties. The most interesting thing is that at the very moment when Russia reconciled with the existence of the enemy on its western border, the relationship became “warm”. Soon this was helped by a factor such as the Turkish threat. It is relations built on equality and recognition of the right to independence, awareness of the fact that it is useless and meaningless to impose friendly relations that led to the fact that today Ukraine, ruled by nationalists, is an ally and friend of Russia. Perhaps this experience is also applicable in real life?

Another conclusion that I really appreciate, and which I managed to do for myself during this time, is to accept as a fact that in any confrontation, conflict and dispute both parties, both decisions are by definition initially qualitatively equal and correct. Numerous dilemmas in the spirit of choosing a foreign policy course, defining the format of relations between the parliament and the president, discussing the feasibility of transferring the country to the “rails of authoritarianism” or whatever else there is - in all these dilemmas efficiency, the effectiveness of the final decision depends mostly not directly on the choice, but it is on the quality of its implementation. There is evidence in the form of completely different in style of management of the states built in this project, models of the army hierarchy, financing of the army itself and approaches to the formation of the budget. I want to emphasize that we are talking about approaches, and not specific numbers (for example, this principle is unlikely to work during tax discussions, or other issues where, all other things being equal and having sufficient information, you can choose the only optimal solution). So, discussing whether it makes sense to send help to a deliberately doomed regime in some distant banana republic - the choice of the strategy itself (help or ignoring a request for support) is usually not so important, but how consistently and precisely it is put into action . You can equally successfully sit in silence or to highlight the heroic spiritual impulse in the media, as well as to be accused of inaction or self-interest. Obviously, this applies mainly to those situations where the outcome and consequences depend either only on us or, to a greater extent, on us and our decisions. I do not at all exclude the possibility that I may be mistaken in this, but every day I myself am more and more convinced of the meaninglessness of the search for absolute truth, and, if possible, I keep the averaged compromise middle ground. Largely due to the many artificial situations that are constantly formulated in this project and put such dilemmas more often than in practice, thus being a kind of safe simulator.

Without a doubt, the most complete way you can penetrate the details not in the game itself, which quickly get tired of the inhabitant with monotony and monotony, but in the directly social structures artificially created by the players. These are all communities formed in ministries, armies, and other organizations that are often found at related Skype / IRC conferences, individual forums, and Google communities. With due sociability and basic knowledge of English, absolutely any participant in a short time took any place in any international structure, guided solely by the presence of free time and desire. That is what I recently did when I joined the American community. As a result, a few months later, I not only improved my knowledge of English, but also, without leaving my home, I learned many interesting features that distinguish our communities.

Speaking of the peculiarities inherent in such countries as Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, first of all I would single out the sudden, but all-consuming Russian irremovability of the Russian blues, which is accompanied by such phenomena as “tractor” (yes, even in the virtual space) and “bog” (stagnation, boredom and despondency, which end in an outflow of population), the Ukrainian tendency to search for internal enemies for ever and Belarusian, always stalemate, shaky position on a conditional political map. And if once Russia was “from Vladivostok and back to Vladivostok through the globe,” then, one way or another, now all three states are occupied by Serbia, Turkey, the Balts and the Poles. “What kind of hints ~”

If we talk about the negative aspects - remember, first of all, it’s necessary that, as a game, eRepublika is absolutely sad. Disorderly administration with a number of constant "innovations" with "fitchami, which in no way bugs" - doomed to extinction the consumer category, which often prefers the Second World War and all kinds of "Rulers".

A thin stratum of players who, despite this, invest money in the project and form a caste of mastercards, also does not inspire optimism to newcomers (although, for fairness, I want to note that the prices for these bonuses are incredibly high, as a result of which these players compensate for I think that eRepublic is, first of all, a social project that allows you to teach yourself to communicate with an international audience, improve your language and just chat “in your free time” with interesting people with Despite the desperate attempts of some players to “pump up” tsiferki symbolizing the parameters of his character - the main and most important “skill” can not be interpreted in physical terms and it is impossible to unwind it for an additional fee. :)

At this point I’ll probably finish, since I can talk about this topic for a long time. In case you were not scared by my walls of the text, and I have not discouraged your interest yet - you can register either by my referral link (I do not insist, but I will be grateful), or through the standard traditional form . So to say, join the formation of the sole power worthy of world domination.

To my shame, I have to admit that to be interested in Symbian (the only area in which I considered myself a “guru”, or at least a “Gurik”), I stopped simultaneously with the slide into the abyss of hell, and I’m a little ashamed the fact that before the IT community I can no longer report so often and zealously in this area. And my experience and accumulated knowledge in Symbian 6/7/8/9 is simply obsolete. Not that I was no longer interested in anything, but I also would not like to shine with openly amateurish ideas in something. The only thing I can do to please you is with my observations, which I cite for the last two years in the aforementioned project and try to add up, in some way - systematize. So if someone is interested, I can continue to publish them.

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