Gameplay Advice Thread - We're here to help!

[Memmingin]

Can somebody explain to me what is going on in the political landscape of this game? I have tried to get into that, but I can't figure it out. What is going on with the various flavors of The Pacific? and what is the whole Lazarus thing? What is the obsession with raiders and stuff?

[United Massachusetts]

Need you have an endorsement to *maintain* the Delegacy?

[Sarakart]

Can somebody explain to me what is going on in the political landscape of this game? I have tried to get into that, but I can't figure it out. What is going on with the various flavors of The Pacific? and what is the whole Lazarus thing? What is the obsession with raiders and stuff?

The Pacifics are all feeders. That means they are the regions where players first go when their nation is created. In addition to being the universal birthplace for all nations, they are also coherent governments with their own leaders and cultures. You can participate or leave for another region, of which there are many. They all have large, active communities.

Lazarus is a "sinker", meaning it is one of three regions (along with Osiris and Balder) where old, dead nations go when they are revived by their owner. There is also The Rejected Realm, also classified as a sinker, where all nations which are banned from a region go. One cannot be banned from The Rejected Realms. These regions, like the feeders, although smaller, have relatively active communities of varying size.

All of these are called "Game Created Regions", or GCRs, distinguished from UCRs, or User Created regions. Unlike UCRs, they have players constantly joining them automatically, and also unlike UCRs, are all automatically founderless. This means their delegacies are executive, making them extremely important and powerful, and it also means that they are incentivized to form governments to make a base of support, laws, and customs around who can hold the delegacy, how, and what their powers are. Sometimes, however, this system breaks down, such as in Lazarus, where a significant portion of the government of Lazarus accused the legally elected delegate, Funkadelia, of subverting the laws of the region soon after the election by bringing in large numbers of new voters that supported him, which they alleged were foreign supporters from other regions.

In response to what he argued was an attempt at a coup and the anti-delegate portion of the government contended was within the legal bounds of the region, Funkadelia ejected and banned those he saw as involved in the coup plot. Since then, there have been parallel systems of government, one in Lazarus supporting Funkadelia (and now the Wolfist Revolution, which transitioned from Funk when he resigned and was replaced by Aleister as delegate only a few weeks abgo) and another called the Lazarene Exiles, opposed to Funkadelia. Both sides have had a level of foreign support, and the arguments have continued since the initiating incident in July of 2017.

Underpinning all of this is the understanding that who controls the delegacy controls the region (well, it's more complicated, and doesn't apply to regions with founders, but that's the simplest answer). Raiding is a form of extremely aggressive regional immigration, where those who want to take over a region (usually one without a founder) specifically time an invasion before one of the daily updates, pour their endorsements into a raider of their choosing. This is usually a "sleeper" nation, to take advantage of the fact that every action in a region costs "influence", a point system that only accrues over time by being in a region and accrues faster the more endorsements you have. Sleepers can stay in a region for years surreptitiously before revealing themselves.

If you want to ban someone from the region, you need influence, meaning that raiding without influence makes a conquest incomplete, because the ultimate goal of an occupying raid (rather than a "tagging" raid, where they simply change the appearance and world factbook entry of the region to their banner and use it as advertising, and then move on) is to eliminate everyone residing in that region and take it as a trophy for the raiders. You cannot kick someone from a region who has more influence than you, and the more influence they have the more expensive the kick.

Opposing raiders are defenders, who try to look for the signs of raiders using scripts, spies, and scouts, who will alert them to raider activity as it happens. Defenders will flood into a region to defend it from raiders, by endorsing the existing WA delegate. Natives are also not helpless- they can try and kick raiders out of the region, put up passwords, and so on. However, raiders tend to rely on either an element of surprise or force of numbers, usually a combination of the two, and use sleepers to ensure that they can take over the region rapidly and remove the former delegate, defenders, and anyone else standing in their way. A successful occupying raid will usually result in a region being stripped of its former inhabitants as everyone except the raiders are kicked out, a new password is enacted to prevent defenders and natives from retaking the region, and the region is "tagged" with the raider insignia of the group that took it.

An unsuccessful raid will see the raiders ejected and banned from the region by the defenders and sitting delegate and the region protected. Often, however, defenders try to prevent raids before they happen, by gathering intelligence that lets them warn regions they are being targeted ahead of time, placing their own sleepers in the region, rooting out raider sleepers, and suggesting to natives they place a password. In the aftermath of a successful raider occupation where the raiders set up a password, the defenders also have the chance to recoup their losses, prepare a counter-offensive, and pass a "liberation" through the security council, lifting the region's password and allowing defenders to re-enter it to retake the region from raiders.

This whole system, of which I am probably leaving out many parts or potentially making a mistake about at some point or another, is what is generally referred to as R/D gameplay, or "raider/defender" gameplay, and encompasses a significant portion of the "gameplay" of nationstates. Much of the rest is the internal and regional politicking of user and game-created regions, as a great deal goes on behind the scenes and you shouldn't make the mistake that r/d is the be all and end all of nationstates gameplay. It is, however, the most prominent part.

[BritishGentlemen]

Hello.

I recently started a region (The Union of True Gentlemen), but I have no idea how to grow it into a flourishing place. I have sent out recruitment telegrams, posted a recruitment thread, but I still only have three new members.

I was wondering what I could do next, as I do not know an effective recruitment method.

Thank you.

[Pain Dealer]

Hello.

I recently started a region (The Union of True Gentlemen), but I have no idea how to grow it into a flourishing place. I have sent out recruitment telegrams, posted a recruitment thread, but I still only have three new members.

I was wondering what I could do next, as I do not know an effective recruitment method.

Thank you.

Just wait and keep sending out recruitment messages. Eventually, you will start to grow.

[Fauxia]

Need you have an endorsement to *maintain* the Delegacy?

At update, yes. Between updates, no, as long as you are still in the WA

[Tinhampton]

Are the headlines in the newspapers we see after our decision on an issue dependent on our choice? I usually see headlines that seem completely unrelated to the issue.
I also saw a headline about teens achieving high in school after I made a decision that, even after expanding the consequences to see the more detailed report, did not increase Intelligence or Public Education. Do our stats play a role in the headlines?

No. Your stats may change, but the headlines are always the same. If fifty different nations pick the same option for the same issue, even if their stats will all vary differently, they will always see the same headline. Headlines are often extremely twisted corruptions of the line that the speaker's banging on about in the issue text.

[Despuoso]

So I've got a region going. Its got a nice core userbase of my close friends, we all have our nations and such. But recently participation in the region has been falling off. We don't have a shortage writing options. You can write news stories, write individual narratives, plan covert ops, and we can even research technology. I just don't know how to reinvigorate the playerbase. The people who have stuck around are friends of mine but everytime we get fresh blood the newbies post maybe once and then drop off the map. Any suggestions? Need anymore details?

[Verisnaut]

So I want to do an RP session, there is this image thing that looks like this , how do I use it to put up my images?

[Flanderlion]

So I want to do an RP session, there is this image thing that looks like this , how do I use it to put up my images?

[img]yourURLgoeshere[./img] with the url to the actual image (if you're unsure if its the actual image, right click on the picture, and click 'open image in new tab' then copy the url). Also remove the . in the [./img] tag.

[Dark Soulosius]

Could this be an idea for the economic tab under a person’s nations have more graphs? Like one for each sector. Like the government already has one, but for private and black market industries, could they each have another (separate) pie chart that shows what is being sold in the respectave areas. So if a nation has a high cheese output, then when they open up the private industry tab, they will see how much of their private economy is the cheese trade?

[Fauxia]

Could this be an idea for the economic tab under a person’s nations have more graphs? Like one for each sector. Like the government already has one, but for private and black market industries, could they each have another (separate) pie chart that shows what is being sold in the respectave areas. So if a nation has a high cheese output, then when they open up the private industry tab, they will see how much of their private economy is the cheese trade?

The idea has been brought up before. The Technical section of the forums would be the place, but I think there's already a thread

[Independent Carthage]

How do you search for other regions? I want to find a region that I can rp in that fits the theme of my nation.

[Nuclear Wastelands]

How do you become a game moderator?

[The Great Western]

I want to have better civil rights, how do I get them?

[Tinhampton]

I want to have better civil rights, how do I get them?

Decriminalisation of stuff and removing regulations on citizens, for the most part.

[Malphe]

How do you become a game moderator?

Try stalking Max until he gives in.
Throwing creepy notes tied to bricks through windows optional.

[Frisbeeteria]

How do you become a game moderator?

Try stalking Max until he gives in.
Throwing creepy notes tied to bricks through windows optional.

Let's not make suggestions like that, even in fun. Stalking isn't all that humorous, y'know.

[Sapnu puas]

How does one predict how issues’ effects turn out to be?

[Tinhampton]

How does one predict how issues’ effects turn out to be?

Many have tried, most latterly Trotterdam, but there is no perfect solution (that would kill the issues game for every last Tom, Dick and Nebuchadnezzar out there). If you are talking about generic effects, these will often be pretty obvious based on the speaker - a CEO's suggestions will raise economic freedom and related figures, for example.

[Your Elemental Affair]

Hello all! I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but I was wondering if anybody here could help me understand how to navigate the forums? It's kind of confusing for me
Also what's the general type of lingo I should use or would see?
Thanks a bunch!

[Lastinburg]

Need you have an endorsement to *maintain* the Delegacy?

Unfortunately yes you do

[Lastinburg]

Hello all! I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but I was wondering if anybody here could help me understand how to navigate the forums? It's kind of confusing for me
Also what's the general type of lingo I should use or would see?
Thanks a bunch!

Hello there, for starters you have the main form (Board index) which has different categories: https://forum.nationstates.net/index.php

If you read through each of categories each of them is about something different.

1. National and International Roleplaying is the very first one that most people will go to for. It is basically where you will go for roleplaying basically for wars, factbooks, exchanges, diplomatic solutions and trades within nations.

2. World Assembly is mainly for those in the World Assembly. If you are in the World Assembly you will have access to this and participate in discussions, and make proposals to get a chance to have other WA vote whether or not the proposal should be allowed. WA Archives where you can see which proposals have been Passed or Defeated.

3. National and Regional Gameplaying this one you can make issues that you can submit and in the future you might have a chance at getting you issue used in the future, which can help the developers on Nation States not run out of ideas (you do get mentioned on the bottom with the editor). This one you can also get into nation management, regional politics, raider/defender gameplay (it's confusing but it's a smart trick to invade other Regions). Don't get it confused with roleplaying fourm

4. Nuts and Bolts You can give suggestions on how to improve on Nation States, questions on how things meant to work, and bug reports if you find any. The moderators are included as well, which they can help with issues with another nation or someone is misbehaving in a non-friendly way.

5. General Discussion Arts and fiction. This is non-game related where you talk about anything outside of the game. I recommend this form if you like to introduce yourself to the forum https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=82608

6. Fifth Dimension An Extra form was created just for the cards that happened at the start of April. This one is also bit like general but is more relaxing, has some roleplaying and goof off.

7. Forum It is where all the resting-place for threads that might've been lost...


Also mentioning if you have a problem or a situation either search it up on google or look in the area where it can be found if you can't find it, make a thread yourself. There are some threads that will have a lock on them and that means the thread is outdated or the person might've stopped allowing others to write a post on it, you won't be able to write anything.


If other's see I've left something out feel free to add on. Hoped this helped

[Cute Puppies]

I'm trying to make a recruitment telegram for my new region. It's a communist invader region with a humorous atmosphere. Could I have any tips on how to make an eye-catching recruitment telegram that manages to attract the attention of the reader and interest them in joining this kind of region?

[New Aldrin]

Is there anywhere I can search for regions that would fit my nation? I'm new so I have no clue.

My nation is a lunar colony established about 17 years after the Apollo program (instead of a Shuttle program), so any sort of space travel and/or alt history region would be good.