I am writing this article because I realize that many of our citizens do not know how a country is run or what it entails. I will therefore attempt to give you a clearer overview of the subject, while keeping the discussion general. For further details, you should head over to Discord where it is easier to share information and where our enemies aren't listening in.
First of all our interests are not unique: there are the interests of our country and the interests of our alliance. The two are inseparable as one could not exist without the other. Every alliance comprises members who contribute their own distinct strengths. Some are major economic powers capable of channeling funds to where they are most needed and financing the use of costlier equipment, while others are military forces and so on. As for Belgium, our key assets are our strike capability and our organization. We are not an economic power so we need to defend our allies who are and to protect their interests as well.
That is the theory. In practice however, putting it all together requires calculations, coordination, and organization involving many players. This is what I call the "behind-the-scenes" work. Aspects not visible to everyone and I would like to give you a glimpse of them.
I will use our vacation in the Balkans to illustrate what this entails.
Alliances also maintain different relationships with one another. This operation required members of our government to consult with their counterparts from our alliance nations to determine objectives and priorities regarding the various conflicts across the globe in order to reach a consensus and then implement it. We then had to repeat this process with The Olive Union alliance and all its members to ensure the plan aligned with their interests as well, ultimately resulting in a plan approved by everyone.
At that stage, we hadn't even moved beyond our own borders yet but I leave it to you to imagine the time and effort this demanded of our members. That is how we managed to make our way to our enemies.
The Time of Battles
First and foremost our members assess our combat potential, as well as that of our allies and opponents, alongside our short, medium, and long term objectives. For instance while we have data on the average damage output of various units, that alone isn't enough. We also track the percentage of players in war mode at any given moment to gauge the actual current potential of each country in our alliance, including our own. This information gives us an estimate of our capabilities which we then allocate based on the alliance's strategic priorities. This potential can fluctuate significantly, influencing our actions when the majority of players switch to eco mode for example.
We haven't launched an attack yet but you can easily appreciate the time and organization involved.
The game features a mechanic where attacks cannot be launched at just any time: instead specific countries are prioritized within limited time windows. Players employ various tactics to leverage this mechanic either to buy time or to delay a battle. Now multiply this and the necessary timing calculations by the number of countries involved and you’ll get some idea of the planning challenges we faced during our wars in the Balkans. The constraints were such that some members even had to stand watch or wake up in the middle of the night to execute specific actions.
But that only applies if everything goes according to the initial plan... At any moment an event can intervene and upend all the work and organization that had been planned, forcing you to start over. You might face blocki,g situations, shifting objectives and so on.
And that’s without even touching on other aspects: like the economics and logistics of transferring and allocating the funds needed for war, or passing legislation within a specific timeframe to advance a plan. There are so many other facets that deserve further explanation.
But you can see that these decisions and actions aren't made impulsively: they require a great deal of activity, game knowledge, strategic thinking, consultation, time and effort from players like you. That’s also why a tool like Discord is essential: the process is already challenging enough and trying to manage it via the limited IG chat would be a nightmare, not to mention the spies lurking in those IG chats...
Thank you for taking the time to read my article: I hope it has shed some light on what goes on behind the scenes. I am a relatively new player and this is the first time I’ve held a role that allows me to see the inner workings of things. I wasn't aware of this before, which is exactly why I wrote this article. A big thank you by the way to the members of the government for what they do.
PS: If you want to discuss specific events, please don’t do it here in the article comments: ideally do it on our Discord. Once again, walls have ears...
PS 2: I realize that an article without illustrations can be a bit of a dry read so here is a short video.