NationStates

Unibot III wrote:This suffers very badly from largely preparing people how to invade and not focusing on any specifics about how to liberate or run a defense - the underlying language of the text assumes you're "targeting" or occupying or "destroying" regions. It also severely complicates the military gameplay experience - it's not approaching it right. It lists things in a non-intuitive order and plunks it down for people to interpret. When you teach someone how to run a mission, you start with the generalities and you work to the specifics.

I think it would benefit from an author who ... ahem, defends and liberates.

I also have to disagree with Sedgistan - the text as it is is already stuffed full of unnecessary ramblings of gameplay philosophy (like the atrocious section about how RPers should just go play ball somewhere else and how Gameplay is "necessary"). A guide really isn't the place for philosophy and at the very least it should be labelled that those sections reflect the opinion of the author - they certainly don't reflect the opinion of half of Gameplay.

Well, to be honest, I was trying to avoid completely rewriting a new guide and adapted it from my raiding guide I wrote awhile back.

I agree with you (for the most part), and will be working on reworking each chapter this week, completely from scratch- that seems to be the only way to fix the underlying problems, and it's what I should have done in the first place.

Just to clarify, are there any specific points you wish to add on the topic of liberations or defending, or would you just rather I make a completely separate chapter for it?

I would add a section on defender sleepers.
Nations that look like natives and can be used to boost endos from the inside on a lib.

I logged on in my semi-annual guilt-trip re: not updating old stickies, and found this!

Very informative thread. You've covered a lot of the raiding tactics I was too much of a defender to want to spread around. And raiding since the API started including the regional update order is something that I barely got a taste of while playing; your discussion is very enlightening. There are certain details, though, that make me want to ask for a citation - e.g., 0.031 seconds per nation for update (always?), what happens in the case of a tie (is that a tie that doesn't include the current Delegate? did we finally figure that out?), and that bit in the same section about the order that nations update being based on how long they've been in the region (which makes a lot of sense, but I've never checked the data for it). And as a usability point for newbies and those of us who are API-ignorant: some instruction on what exactly you need to do to get a list of nations from Afforess's code would be super helpful. Finally, although this is hypocritical of me in the extreme given the post I'm about to leave for you, try to speak as concisely and precisely as you can. There are a few posts that repeat information from earlier in the thread. You could fix that and cut down on your word count by cross-referencing posts with links to tagged sections of your other posts - unless you really don't expect anyone to try to read this guide straight through. Repetition will strain the patience of readers who are trying to pay attention to the whole thing.

If I have one overarching comment or content suggestion, it's from the perspective of someone who always enjoyed the rhetorical, political side of the game more than the actual military play. A number of the terms you use, the definitions you provide, and the ideologies and groupings you discuss are things that have taken a long time in-game to develop. They may be commonly accepted among players now, but I worry that defining them in a guide like this may encourage additional fossilization of the political side of Gameplay. If there's a stickied thread proclaiming once and for all what counts as a native, or that defenders must never put their organization name in a liberated or detagged region's WFE or be considered raiders, newer players may never realize that all of these things are merely player conventions and should be questioned, subverted, and contested whenever the Gameplay world starts to feel too hidebound or too boring.

It's hard to find a balance between informing people about conventions and stating them as facts, I know. But I would encourage you to err on the side of less detail when it comes to things that aren't hard-coded into the game, so that newer players feel as if there is more scope for interpretation and innovation. Sometimes the most interesting battles are not between opposing WA nations, but over NS etiquette - which behaviors are encouraged or deplored, what actions are accepted as a matter of course or forbidden - and how those ethical codes can be made to change over time. Plus, discussing conventions as if they are eternal truths often leads to people on "opposite sides" shouting and sniping at each other in a most unpleasant fashion.

IMO, the best and most unique part of your thread is the detailed and practical info on tactics - which is also the part that will be most sensitive to coding (and possibly hardware) changes. I wonder if it might make your (in-progress?) rewrite easier if you didn't assume total ignorance of military gameplay, but instead treated this more as an Advanced Tactics thread that covers all the juicy info that the Basics thread leaves out - things like spies, target selection, practical methods of rapid puppet switching, how triggers work, etc. If you want to turn this into a complete replacement for the Basics of Military Gameplay thread, by all means, go ahead - I'm not trying to say that sticky needs to stay! It is awfully neglected. But I think a separate, detailed how-to guide in the way you've written sections IV, V, the second half of VI, and VII through X (especially VII!) would also be incredibly valuable - and less work for you in terms of rewriting and organization. It would also let prospective readers decide how much detail they really wanted - so people who just want to know what all these R/D people are talking about can skim through the Basics thread and be done, and all the questions about current "best practices" in military gameplay could come here. Treating it as a "how-to" might also deal with some of the criticisms about this being one-sided. Instead of trying to balance the rhetoric, you could simply write different sections on how to run a raid, how to run a tagging operation, etc., and then you or someone else (e.g., an interested defender) could write other sections on how to run a defense, how to run a liberation, etc.

Just a thought from the retired lady with the knitting needles, waking up momentarily from her rocker. Please do feel free to ignore and continue with your (excellent) work!

Nephmir wrote:First, you must go to the daily dumps (Region Dumps)

I'm not sure why my tool was linked, it is only tangentally related - it is a piece of software that converts the compressed XML daily dumps into a database that developers can easily query from. I think it would be best to link to the NS API page on daily dumps instead: https://www.nationstates.net/pages/api.html#dumps

Thank you, Naivetry. I will take your points into consideration during the rewriting process, which is still taking place.

Sseroffa wrote:

Nephmir wrote:First, you must go to the daily dumps (Region Dumps)

I'm not sure why my tool was linked, it is only tangentally related - it is a piece of software that converts the compressed XML daily dumps into a database that developers can easily query from. I think it would be best to link to the NS API page on daily dumps instead: https://www.nationstates.net/pages/api.html#dumps

Not sure how that happened. At any rate, I shall fix it right away, thank you for pointing that out.

Naivetry wrote:There are certain details, though, that make me want to ask for a citation - e.g., 0.031 seconds per nation for update (always?)

Just to tackle this one - nope, it varies.

For the record, I've de-stickied Nai's old thread, and this one will remain the permanent sticky on military gameplay, providing it remains up-to-date.

Thank you, I shall keep it updated frequently. Much obliged!

So how do you build a strong military, is it just with the Issues ?

Nordeniya wrote:So how do you build a strong military, is it just with the Issues?

Military Gameplay is different from your nation stats. Your nation stats have no effect on military gameplay, because military gameplay is out-of-character, where nations become just individual players and regions, in a sense, become the "nation".

It is a game based on game mechanics (delegate election, endorsing other nations, regional influence, etc.), not on answering issues, nation stats, or role play.

If that doesn't make sense feel free to ask further questions in the Gameplay Advice Thread, as this guide doesn't have anything to do with nation management.

---

Also while I'm posting, might as well post an update: I have made a ton of updates on the first half of the guide. "Update Operations" has been separated into two chapters, one for defending and another for raiding (though the raiding one is currently unavailable as I am still working on it), and the rest of the guide will be updated by November, when the dispatch version available in the OP will be completed.

All updates/recent changes will be posted in the OP as they take place. Questions, comments, suggestions, and criticism welcome.

A new year!

Some updates I plan to work on early this year:
» Adding a chapter on coups (need more research and experience with this before I can add it. This will likely take the longest to implement, however I may add a basic overview in the upcoming months)
» Compiling all of NS' tools and guides into the "Tools" chapter, and updating it
» Glossary and Quick Index
» More images to display examples
» Finishing the dispatch version
» Adding a couple tools of my own; a basic (manual) update tool and a basic influence calculator
» Extending the "Regional Destruction" chapter to accommodate an advanced influence section and more in-depth details

Keep an eye out for these!

Edit: more details in OP.

Nephmir wrote:Pipes
http://youtu.be/CGgOr4SUS60
Tutorial to advanced tools links below. Please watch first!
http://pipes.yahoo.com/redfleet/nutcracker2
(explained in video)
http://moruna.comoj.com/delegate14.html
(explained in video)
This tool, known as "Pipes", can calculate the update times accurately, even towards the latter half of the update. It involves more work to calculate the times, since basic math is involved, but the extra work can prove to be rewarding!

Correction: Delegate 14 is PHP which parses the data available from the NS Daily Dump - it is not currently set to draw data from the API automatically

Letoilenoir wrote:

Nephmir wrote:Pipes
http://youtu.be/CGgOr4SUS60
Tutorial to advanced tools links below. Please watch first!
http://pipes.yahoo.com/redfleet/nutcracker2
(explained in video)
http://moruna.comoj.com/delegate14.html
(explained in video)
This tool, known as "Pipes", can calculate the update times accurately, even towards the latter half of the update. It involves more work to calculate the times, since basic math is involved, but the extra work can prove to be rewarding!

Correction: Delegate 14 is PHP which parses the data available from the NS Daily Dump - it is not currently set to draw data from the API automatically

Ah, thank you for pointing that out! I'll be replacing these links with something I created soon anyway, that is easier to use and update.

Though I will include a section on the daily data dumps for those that want to take it a step further.

The link for the military organization dose not work for me. I would like to see it so I can help form my region's defense.

Which organisation were you hoping to contact?

Maverica wrote:The link for the military organization dose not work for me. I would like to see it so I can help form my region's defense.

The last two chapters are completely outdated and I am working on replacing them soon.

OP and Introduction have been modified. More to come soon.

A team of dedicated gameplayers has been formed to write this guide! Members of this writing staff include:

• Benevolent Thomas
• Ever-Wandering Souls
• Xoriet
• Severisen
• Cormac Stark
• Funkadelia
• Jakker
• Eluvatar

As a team, I believe we will complete this guide far quicker than myself alone and we'll hopefully be able to eliminate any bias in the text.

Benevolent Thomas wrote:A team of dedicated gameplayers has been formed to write this guide! Members of this writing staff include:

• Benevolent Thomas
• Ever-Wandering Souls
• Xoriet
• Severisen
• Cormac Stark
• Funkadelia
• Jakker
• Eluvatar

As a team, I believe we will complete this guide far quicker than myself alone and we'll hopefully be able to eliminate any bias in the text.

Thank god. This guide is in a definite need of a massive overhaul.

>eluvatar
>dedicated anything

That aside, I'm excited to see what you guys can make of this

how do i invade sum1?? help pls and thx

Will this ever be updated? I mean, I wrote this entire guide minus the changes BT made to the intro, with him and others getting the credit for it. I never wanted my guide to be passed on in the first place- I had thought it would be locked and someone would make a new one, and even requested that in the original discussion (no surprise I was ignored). I would like to be able to copy my original guide into a dispatch and still maintain it there, but I can't do that because I don't have control over it anymore, as the authorship was transferred.

Kinda seems like I was screwed over. Just because the original OP nation was DEATed doesn't mean I lose the guide written through it as well.

King Nephmir II wrote:Will this ever be updated? I mean, I wrote this entire guide minus the changes BT made to the intro, with him and others getting the credit for it. I never wanted my guide to be passed on in the first place- I had thought it would be locked and someone would make a new one, and even requested that in the original discussion (no surprise I was ignored). I would like to be able to copy my original guide into a dispatch and still maintain it there, but I can't do that because I don't have control over it anymore, as the authorship was transferred.

Kinda seems like I was screwed over. Just because the original OP nation was DEATed doesn't mean I lose the guide written through it as well.

You could rewrite it, give them credit for the intro, then include RO's and the new influence rankings - and their uses. I only skimmed the guide, but those jumped out at me.

With the immigration/border history - I'm not too convinced on the NS History as being an effective means of checking a nations history.

The update lasts a little longer than 1hour/1hour and 5 minutes.

I disagree with 4 on Leading an Update Operation - you can switch and hit another region in an update raid in less than a minute.

King Nephmir II wrote:Will this ever be updated? I mean, I wrote this entire guide minus the changes BT made to the intro, with him and others getting the credit for it. I never wanted my guide to be passed on in the first place- I had thought it would be locked and someone would make a new one, and even requested that in the original discussion (no surprise I was ignored). I would like to be able to copy my original guide into a dispatch and still maintain it there, but I can't do that because I don't have control over it anymore, as the authorship was transferred.

Kinda seems like I was screwed over. Just because the original OP nation was DEATed doesn't mean I lose the guide written through it as well.

I've got multiple parts of it completed. I never said I was going to rapidly complete this project. I also took this on as a favor to the GP mods. Having said that, my team and I will complete this. I'll post what I have shortly and we'll get back to work on the rest of it.

Edit: I've added the updated versions of the Introduction and Fundamental Game Mechanics. As you can see, changes have definitely been made to both sections.