New Citizen FAQ - READ FIRST!

New Citizen FAQ

Welcome to eRepublik, and welcome to eCanada! You are a very important part of our future, and for this reason we want to make your transition into our society as seamless as possible. We're here to answer any questions you might have. You've done this first and most important step: signed up on the forums.

Please use this FAQ as a reference, and read it before asking any new questions if possible. Bookmark the page and come back to it if you're confused, and if you don't get the answer you're looking for, ask it!. Either PM Dade Pendwyn on the forums or on eRepublik and he'll get you an answer and perhaps put the question on the FAQ.

Similarly, veteran players please feel free to send suggestions on improvements to the FAQ. This is, and always will be, a work in progress, so send me questions to add.

1. The Basics
1A. What is eRepublik?
1B. Is this game for me?
1C. What should I be doing as a beginner?
1D. How should I spend my money as a beginner?
1E. Why can’t I use any of my items?
1F. What are gifts?
1G. How can I level up faster?
1H. How long do I have to wait until I can really get involved in eRepublik?
1I. Do I have to pay real money to be an influential person in eCanada?
1J. What is wellness?
1K. Why is high wellness a good thing?
1L. What’s the point of living in a specific region?
1M. I’m level 3 but I can’t get a skill 3 job!?
1N. I’m bored and I feel like I have no influence in eCanada.
1O. How do I choose what quality food to eat?
2. Fighting and the Military
2A. Do I have to be in the CAF to fight?
2B. What does fighting involve?
2C. Why should I join the CAF if I can fight on my own?
2D. I don’t understand the war module
2E. I want to fight right now! How can I do it?
2F. I'm a just-born boomer. Should I join the CAF?
2G. How do I join the CAF?
2H. How do I use hospitals?
2I. I have more questions about the CAF that haven't been answered here.
3. Economics
3A. What’s the difference between Gold and CAD?
3B. How can I buy foreign currency?
3C. Is it good to have a CAD with a high value?
3D. What do the different taxes mean?
3E. Where do the taxes go?
3F. How do I play the monetary market?
4. Politics and Administration
4A. How powerful is eCanada?
4B. How is the government structured?
4C. When are elections?
4D. Can I run for congress?
The Glossary - arranged alphabetically at end of FAQ.

1. The Basics

1A. What is eRepublik?
Essentially eRepublik is a global social/political/economic/military simulator. Some like to think of it like a 70,000 person game of Risk, but the reality is that you can choose to find prominence in the world through a bevy of different career paths. Essentially, eRepublik (and eCanada in this case) is what you make it!

1B. Is this game for me?
If you like politics, economics, writing, or fighting, then you can find something for you in eCanada.

1C. What should I be doing as a beginner?
Work and train every day until you get up to level 5 when you can fight and gain experience even faster. Until then, get involved in the forums. It’s the most important thing you can do as a new player!

1D. How should I spend my money as a beginner?
As a new player you won’t have much to spend. Try to buy Q2 food to keep your wellness up and keep working to get your skill (see question on difference between skill level and experience level) so you can get more money.

1E. Why can’t I use any of my items?
Items aren’t used in the way you might think. Houses are never used, they simply give you a wellness equal to their quality every night. Food does the same, except one food is used up every night to give you that wellness. Make sure you always have food in your inventory or you will lose wellness quickly! Weapons are used only when fighting, and moving tickets when you move. All other items are either raw materials or are ones you can’t have in your inventory.

1F. What are gifts?
Gifts are good ways to get wellness. The only problem is, you can't give it to yourself. You can gift another player and give that person the wellness and ask for them to do the same for you. Or, you could donate (donating is different than gifting) them the gift and ask that person to gift it back to you so you can receive the wellness.

1G. How can I level up faster?
If you really want to get into the action you can unlock all features and buy gold from eRepublik using real money. However, most people choose to wait. Up until level 5 there is no way to make extra experience other than a few ways: uploading an avatar (2), getting your first job (5), eating food (1/day), working (1/day), and training (1/day).

1H. How long do I have to wait until I can really get involved in eRepublik?
If you train, work and eat food every day it should take you about a week before you can fight in eRepublik, at which point you can level up faster due to the 2EP per fight you receive. However, you can (and should!) get involved in eCanadian society as soon as you join! This means going on IRC and chatting it up with citizens, reading/commenting on newspaper articles, posting on the forums, or taking eCanada university courses (you can usually get a grant to pay for the fee).

1I. Do I have to pay real money to be an influential person in eCanada?
Absolutely not! While buying gold or unlocking features can certainly give you a step up, it is by no means necessary. In actuality, the best way to get involved in the game is to socialize. Getting to know your fellow players and getting involved in the community will do far more than buying gold, and it’s both free and fun!

1J. What is wellness?
Wellness represents the general health of your character. The quality of food you eat, and the quality of your house governs how much wellness you gain each day (Q2 house plus Q3 food = 5 wellness gained per day).

1K. Why is high wellness a good thing?
You must have 40 wellness or higher to fight in a battle. As well, if your wellness is high you are more productive at work and your employer will value you more as an employee. For soldiers, high wellness means you do more damage in battle.

1L. What’s the point of living in a specific region?
You vote for congressmen based on the region you’re living in. You can only create companies in regions where you are living (and certain regions have bonuses for certain raw materials like wood or oil) unless you use an organization to create the company. Also, if you’re living in a region that is attacked you won’t have to move to fight, you can immediately join the battle.

1M. I’m level 3 but I can’t get a skill 3 job!?
Your experience level is different than your skill level. Your skill level goes up in one of three categories (manufacturing, land, or construction) every time you work. Your skill will only go up in the category of work that you do (if you work for a lumber company, your land skill will increase every day).

1N. I’m bored and I feel like I have no influence in eCanada.
No matter what anybody tells you, YOU are the most important part of our future. eCanadian’s average stats are much lower than most countries – this means we have more new players that leave the game before getting fully involved. This means if Canada is to become a TRUE world power we need YOU to get involved. Trust me, if you get emphatically involved in the community you will very quickly be widely recognized and in no time you’ll be an integral part of the way our nation is run!

1O. How do I choose what quality food to eat?
Unfortunately, you can't choose. Your highest quality food will be eaten every night. Similarly, your highest quality gift will be gifted if you have more than one.

2. Fighting and the Military

2A. Do I have to be in the CAF to fight?
No. You can move to a place where a conflict is taking place (using a moving ticket) and you can partake in any battle once there. You will, however, have to pay for your own supplies when fighting outside the CAF.

2B. What does fighting involve?
When in a region where a conflict is occurring, or when you are defending your country or a country with an MPP (see glossary) you can go to the active battle screen and fight. As of right now, fighting includes no interaction aside from clicking the button, and no variability. The admins will likely introduce a more interactive form of warfare (like a minigame perhaps) in the future.

2C. Why should I join the CAF if I can fight on my own?
The CAF is an organization of Canada’s fighting forces. Essentially this gives Canada a unified voice in martial matters, instead of being a country of various mercenaries. It allows Canada to strike as one. Additionally, the CAF is funded by the government, meaning they will supply you with guns, moving tickets and gifts, therefore making battles essentially free for the Canadian soldier.

2D. I don’t understand the war module
The left side (red) is attacking and the green side (right) is defending. The green side has a “wall” which is determined by the quality of defense system (if any) in the defending region as well as from force done by the defending soldiers. All the force from defending players adds health to the wall, while force done by the attackers removes health from the wall (hence they have negative forces). If the red in the middle picture reaches to the underground and time runs out, the attackers conquer the region. If the red is at the top when time runs out, the defenders keep the region. If it is in the middle when time runs out, the battle continues until the wall is destroyed or fully restored.

2E. I want to fight right now! How can I do it?
If you want to fight without waiting for CAF move orders, you can do so as long as you use your own equipment (i.e. not the guns/tickets supplied to you by CAF). And unless you want to make some Canadians upset, you’ll want to fight on the side of ATLANTIS countries (see ATLANTIS in glossary).

2F. I'm a just-born boomer. Should I join the CAF?
Yes! The CAF is always looking for recruits, and you don't have to be a tank (see glossary) to join.

2G. How do I join the CAF?
You must currently be strength 4.5 to join the CAF. If you meet this requirement, simply fill out this form. Then make sure to check the Training Platoon Roster here.

2H. How do I use hospitals?
Hospitals can only be used after a fight, and if you are in a region that has a hospital. A hospital will heal you 10x its quality (i.e. Q4 hospital gives you 40 wellness). Hospitals are free to use, and can give you more wellness than you lost in a fight (i.e. fight once for 10 wellness loss, use Q5 hospital for 50 wellness gain). However, they can only be used once per day.

2I. I have more questions about the CAF that haven't been answered here.
Please check out the CAF Training Center found here and ask any questions you might still have about fighting or the CAF.

3. Economics

3A. What’s the difference between Gold and CAD?
Gold is a fixed (more or less) currency that is essentially an indicator of how much something is worth no matter where you are in the world. CAD is the Canadian currency – this is what you’ll be paid in and how you’ll buy most things from the market. Every country has its own currency. You can turn Gold into CAD and vice versa on the monetary market.

3B. How can I buy foreign currency?
Your citizen can only buy foreign currencies belonging to countries you've visited. After this, you may purchase them on the monetary market.

3C. Is it good to have a CAD with a high value?
It depends who you ask, but most will generally agree that a high CAD is good for Canadians. With a high value CAD we can purchase imported goods cheaper (since our CAD is worth more gold than the exporting nation's currency). However, this can also create problems for Canadian exports. It's safe to say there are differing opinions, but the general consensus seems to be that a more valuble CAD is worth striving for.

3D. What do the different taxes mean?
Income tax is a basic tax on companies and wages, import tax is a tax that applies only to goods imported from other nations (high import taxes can help domestic producers, but may also drive prices up for consumers), and VAT is a Value Added Tax, which is essentially a GST for retail goods.

3E. Where do the taxes go?
The taxes go to the Canadian government which then uses it to do things like fund the CAF, build hospitals and defense systems, and run government companies.

3F. How do I play the monetary market?
Playing the monetary market can bring you a steady source of income, although it's a bit tedious. However, you can easily triple your daily wages in the early stages by playing the market, and it involves little to no risk. The way to do it is to play the difference between the Gold to CAD and CAD to Gold (or whatever currency you're trading). You can only make money by selling currency, and then turning it around and selling it back. It's almost impossible to make good money on the market using a buy-buy scenario. Here's an example: I start with 2 gold, and I sell that gold at 32.19 CAD (that would make it the cheapest offer on the market as of this posting). Then I turn around and sell the 64.38 CAD I have at 0.032 gold (which makes it tied for cheapest on the market, so it will sell eventually) and you end up with 2.06 gold, when you started with 2 gold. The more gold you play with, the more you can make. Also, the bigger the difference between the two rates (in this case it is 1/0.032 = 31.25 ...compared to 32.19 is a difference of 0.94 CAD, which means you make 0.94 CAD per gold per turnaround) the more money you'll make. The only risk is if values of the currency fluctuate during trading. This makes RON a perfect monetary market play because it is always steady at 0.02 gold per RON.

4. Politics and Administration

4A. How powerful is eCanada?
We’re certainly a leading exporter of raw materials as well as a well respected member of ATLANTIS. Currently eCanada’s influence is roughly proportional to RL Canada’s influence, or perhaps slightly greater.

4B. How is the government structured?
Congressmen are elected by region, and propose and pass/reject laws. Congressmen belong to different parties which are under a part president. The president of the country is elected by everyone and obviously holds the most power in the nation.

4C. When are elections?
Elections for the president are on the 5th of every month; elections for party president are on the 15th of every month; elections for congressmen are on the 25th of every month.

4D. Can I run for congress?
Unless you purchase the unlock features from the admins, you’ll have to wait until level 12 (120 EP) to run for congress.

The Glossary

The glossary is arranged alphabetically.

ATLANTIS
Atlantic Treaty of Latin, American, and Nordic Territories for International Security - this is a powerful alliance of many nations that opposes PEACE GC. Canada is a member of ATLANTIS. The United States, Spain and Romania are powerful members of ATLANTIS.

Boomer (or Baby Boomer)
Originally a designation used for a player born during Canada’s “Baby Boom”. Joey Phillips was one of the first to designate it as a "Baby Boom". The period of growth began at around Day 436 of the New World as eRepublik embarked on an advertising campaign. A Boomer is now colloquially referred to as any new player, regardless of when they were born.

CAF
Canadian Armed Forces - the organization of Canada's soldiers.

eRep
Abbreviation for eRepublik.

MPP
Mutual Protection Pact – One country can help defend another if it is attacked.

PEACE GC
People of Earth Associated under Common Excellence: Global Community - This is the alliance that opposes ATLANTIS. Some of its powerful members are Indonesia, Iran and Hungary.

Tank
A tank is a colloquial term for a very powerful soldier. They are no different from normal soldiers except that they deal very large amounts of damage in battle, and are often sponsored by their respective government with gold or wellness packs to keep fighting.

Wellness Pack
A wellness pack costs 2 gold to purchase and instantly gives you a wellness boost of 10. This is used in fighting so a soldier can fight for a very long time without running out of wellness.