War in the eRepublik

eRepublik is now officially out of Beta and at v1. This also means that the war module that had been tested as then disabled is now back online and the two big power blocks in the game (ATLANTIS and PEACE) can get back to fisticuffs. Following historic tradition, this involves invading France.

The way war works is, in my opinion, and that of a few others, deeply flawed, and favours uber-Rambos burning gold (and therefore real-life money) to heal up and purchase all-important weapons. Given that Gold can be transferred between players this leads to one-man armies. The number of fights you can participate in is governed by your Wellness and with each fight knocking some off. But with gold purchased wellness packs you can heal more and so fight more fights, getting more experience, and level up and fight better.

Add to this that there are 'bugs' still in the system, and some people have accused the admins of favouritism to the French in this regards, as these bugs, such as not having hospitals enabled, only seem to affect the British. I think its actually just bad luck, but some sort of acknowledgement and refund to people who have used gold\money on a lost cause would have been good.

I'm also not too happy with Britain's military structure as it seems detached from the countries actual military history. The Royal Navy has been set up for newbies in the Reserves and uses Army ranks. The other section of the Reserves is the Royal Guards (the only Royal Guardsmen I know of had a minor hit in the 60s with 'Snoopy vs the Red Baron'), Lieutenants out rank Majors, and organisation, in general, seems pretty limp. This isn't the fault of the game or its designers, but of the eUK's government who have set up the 'armed forces' as a meta-structure on top of the game.

Also, as the war continues, Jingo-ism is starting to creep in with bad taste insults flying in from elements on both sides. It's sort of a strange situation in that I want things to be more real but not that close to real life that the nasty stuff gets carried over.
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