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MARIA (Orbis 26 April 1999) — After careful consideration, the Council of Supervisors and the Council of Ministers have agreed to a major initiative to reconfigure the national energy production system from coal-base to wind-base. In February of 1999, the Council of Supervisors instructed the Department of Energy (DOE) within the Ministry of Infrastructure to conduct a thorough study of the effects of continued utilization of coal-based power, and to investigate the possible utilization of alternative forms of energy. At the end of March 1999, the DOE’s Office of Special Projects (OSP) completed the study and investigation, issuing a report recommending the reconfiguration of the nation’s power-production system from coal-base to wind-base, citing greater advantages than disadvantages in doing so. Pollution can be easily seen rising from the Magdalena City Coal Power Plant. Coal-based power currently accounts for 100% of Athretvari's energy needs. The OSP noted that coal-based power generation requires at minimum 2 city-improvement slots for every 500-infra of energy generation—one slot for a coal-powered plant, and one for a coal mine to support the power plant. The coal-powered plant and the coal mine together contribute 14 pollution points and cost overall $1600 per day to operate. In contrast, wind-based power generation for every 500-infra also requires 2 city-improvement slots, one for each wind-based power plant capable of powering up to 250-infra. However, the wind-based power plants contribute zero points to pollution and cost overall only $1000 per day to operate. OSP noted that the primary disadvantage of wind-based power generation versus coal-based lie almost exclusively in wind’s much higher upfront investment cost, being $24,000 and 25 aluminum higher than building a coal-based power plant and its associated coal mine. The OSP also noted that wind-based power plants permitted more flexible energy generation extendability. For example, in order for the capital city of Maria to grow it requires an expansion of its current power infrastructure. If coal is selected over wind, it will require the city to purchase a minimum of 200-infrastructure to acquire 4 city-improvement slots in order to make the expansion immediately meaningful. Two slots would be needed solely for a new coal-based power plant and a new coal mine. Whereas if the city decided to utilize wind, it would only need to purchase 100-infrastructure to acquire 2 city-improvement slots, using one slot for a new wind-based power plant, leaving one slot open for another type of improvement. In the capital city of MARIA, the OSP recommends the closure of the Capital City Coal Power Plant, the Monarch Coal Mine, and the Jeanne d’Arc Coal Mine to create 3 open city-improvement slots. The OSP report further recommends the reconfiguration of the 3 open city-improvement slots to 2 wind-based power plants and 1 supermarket for a total cost of $65000 and 50 aluminum. OSP notes that by choosing wind over coal the capital city of Maria will decrease its pollution by 20 points, gain a 4% increase in commerce, and save $400 per day in operational costs. In the city of MAGDALENA, the OSP recommends the closure of the Magdalena City Coal Power Plant and the Irt District Supermarket to create 2 open city-improvement slots to be used for the installation of 2 wind-based power plants for a total cost of $60000 and 50 aluminum. By choosing wind over coal, Magdalena will decrease its pollution by 8 points and save $800 per day in operational costs. However, it will also experience a 4% decrease in commerce. Overall, by choosing wind over coal, Athretvari will decrease pollution by 28 points and lower operational costs by $1200 per day while having a minimal effect on the nation’s economy. Total costs for the reconfiguration are $125000 direct investment, plus 100 aluminum @ $1930 each for a grand total of $318000, being 154.25 infrastructure @ current price of $2061.50 each, or just over 3 city-improvement slots at current price. The reconfiguration of Maria and Magdalena will be completed concurrently with the construction of Gloria, Athretvari’s third great city later this year. — RCBC

Khevin currently uses 100% coal, but it is not an issue due to our incredible pollution control.

The OSP researched the nuclear option, but the high initial cost of investment (considerable for a small nation like Athretvari), and the lack of native uranium resources made it a less attractive option in the near term. It is still a viable option for future expansion.

Hey guys, I guess I just wanted to throw up a blog post to let you all know about what I've got coming for you soon. There's a few things that are in-progress, and that I'm excited about. First, however, I'd just like to let you all know where I am at in life. It's college, the end of the semester, and finals start (today.) I'll be pretty busy the next week or so, and then I'm going home a couple days before Christmas (ridiculous our semester goes so late) and will be spending some family time of course. So for the next 7-10 days, I really doubt I'll be doing much/anything constructive on the game other than general management things. I apologize for this, but I've got some more important stuff in my life at the moment. That said, after Christmas time I'll have a few weeks of free time between semesters where I'll be putting in overtime on game development. There are a number of things that I'd like to bring to you in the near future, first and foremost: perks. Perks are still being developed fully before they're introduced to the test server. Right now you can get a taste at https://politicsandwar.com/nation/military/perks/ What I'm thinking about doing is giving each perk tiers of 5 or 6 that scale the benefits up. For example, when you choose a perk, you'll immediately face the full resource costs, but only a fraction (1/5 or 1/6) of the benefit. You'll be able to spend more perk points to upgrade each thing to it's fully benefit, but of course that takes away from the opportunity cost of potentially unlocking additional perks. I think that'll be the best system, and it's going to take me some time to fully implement it on the test server for testing, but I think I've got a pretty clear plan in mind. The next thing I'm going to have to clear up is Colors/Treasures. This will likely be postponed until after Christmas as well, but I'm thinking about just adding the extra colors I proposed, as with no Color Stock Bonus it doesn't really matter how many colors we have. Changing colors means I'll have to change some of the treasures as well. I'm thinking about perhaps making all treasures a 3% Nation Bonus (some are 6% and 9%) and making each one Color dependent. 30 isn't divisible by 13, so I'll throw the extra treasures on the less popular colors (according to the polls) to encourage more use of them. Another thing I'm planning on doing is getting rid of the pre-approval for national anthems and backgrounds, and letting players choose their own in-game portraits (without pre-approval.) This will cut down on my daily workload significantly, so long as it's not heavily abused. With that reduced workload, what I'd like to do is allow players to buy credits with Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Litecoin. I've become more interested in Cryptocurrencies lately, and I think this would be a great way to promote them and give you all (the players) more options to donate. I know there have been complaints about PayPal in the past. This will probably take manual confirmation, and won't be instant like PayPal (but I'll try to do it within 24 hours.) Oh! And lastly, I'm working on reforming our admin/mod team. Malone is being removed as an administrator, and he's been pretty busy with RL stuff lately, but I expect he'll return as a player at some point. We've talked about it and he said he's fine with being removed. You should all thank him for how much he helped the game and community this summer, his efforts were truly invaluable. With our moderators, I'm planning on trimming down the team that we do have, and then adding some new moderators. I'm also looking at tightening down on how moderators operate, and implementing a system like needing agreement by at least one other mod when warning points are issued, threads are locked, etc. I'm looking forward to bringing a better experience to you guys on the forums. Magicboyd25 has also stepped up to be a moderator of /r/politicsnwar and if you're interested in being a part of the game's subreddit, I suggest you check it out. There's not much on there now, but hopefully we can make some use of it. Thanks everyone, and happy holidays!