How to Build a Region

[Sedgistan]

II. Growing your new region

A. How do I get people to join my region?

Some regions are based around national statistics or political viewpoints, and accept only nations of a given WA category or categories (e.g., only Democratic Socialist nations, or only Dictatorships). Others are based around real life places, interests, or belief systems. Sometimes regions are created with nothing more than the goal of becoming the biggest and best region in NationStates. Whatever your goal for your region, however, you will need to recruit other nations to join you. Only very rarely will new nations stumble into your region on their own.

Most older players in NationStates already have a regional home. Newer players are therefore the most likely to join your region. However, new players are also bombarded with many recruitment offers. You will need to show how your region is unique or outstanding in order to attract new nations.


B. Where am I allowed to recruit?

You may recruit nations either in the Gameplay forum or in the game-created regions of NationStates. The game-created regions are:

The Pacific
The North Pacific
The South Pacific
The East Pacific
The West Pacific
The Rejected Realms
Lazarus
Balder
Osiris
Warzone Africa
Warzone Airspace
Warzone Asia
Warzone Australia
Warzone Europe
Warzone Sandbox

You may also post a recruitment message on the Regional Message Board (RMB) of any region with the "Recruiter Friendly" tag. You may not send recruitment telegrams to nations in those regions, however.

IMPORTANT: You are not allowed to recruit for your region anywhere else on the NationStates site.


C. What is the best way to recruit new nations?

There are two basic recruiting methods. One is to post an advertisement ("adspam") once every 24 hours on the Regional Message Board (RMB) of a game-created region, or in the Gameplay forum. This method is popular with newer regions because it requires little effort, but it is also extremely ineffective. In addition, it tends to upset the permanent residents of the game-created regions, because it makes it difficult for them to hold a conversation on their own Regional Message Board.

The second method is the one used by all major regions in NationStates. This is to send recruitment telegrams to newly-created nations. There are several things to keep in mind:

1) You may only telegram nations in the game-created regions (listed above).
2) Each region may only send one recruitment telegram to each nation. That means you must find a way of keeping track of which nations you and your friends have telegrammed, so you do not end up telegramming the same nation twice.
3) You can find newly created nations by checking the Regional Happenings in the feeders - the game-created regions in which new nations are "born". The list of all nations in each feeder can be sorted by length of residency, so that the nations which have just been created will appear at the end of the list. The feeders are:

The Pacific
The North Pacific
The South Pacific
The East Pacific
The West Pacific

Alternatively, you can also find new nations by using a tool called NS Pipes.

For more information on recruiting, see this post by Animal House Recruiter.


D. How do you get a World Assembly Delegate?

In order to have a World Assembly (WA) Delegate, you must have at least two WA member nations in your region, one of whom is endorsing the other. The nation with the most endorsements will become the WA Delegate within 12 hours.

In order to endorse a WA nation, your nation must be a member of the WA as well, and must be located in the same region. You can then endorse the other nation by clicking on the "Endorse @@NATION@@" button that appears on their nation page above the telegram box.

IMPORTANT: Each player may have only one nation in the World Assembly at a time. (You may have as many non-WA member nations as you like.)

For more information on electing a WA Delegate, see Military Gameplay: Election.


E. Help! My region's nations are disappearing!

Nations usually disappear from your region for one of two reasons:

1) They have moved to another region.
2) They have been deleted for 28 days or more of inactivity.

Both of these processes are natural events in the life-cycle of any region. There is no way to prevent your regional population from dwindling except by recruiting more nations to make up for those which move or cease to exist.

How do i send a recruitment telegram?

[ImAGoofyGooberYea]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but if the founder of the region i'm in is both the founder and the regional delegate, what would happen to the region i'm in?

[Tim-Opolis]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but if the founder of the region i'm in is both the founder and the regional delegate, what would happen to the region i'm in?

Nothing. That's totally allowed.

Since the Founder is the Founder, he still has full control over the region. All this means is that he also acts as WA Delegate.

[ImAGoofyGooberYea]

Then what would happen to the region if the founder/delegate ceases to exist? I'm just curious since he is both.

[Bears Armed]

Then what would happen to the region if the founder/delegate ceases to exist? I'm just curious since he is both.

The region would then lack a founder, unless & until that nation was revived, but would gain a new delegate at the next update after any other nation within it met the requirements for that postion. In the founder's absence the delegate would automatically have access to the regional controls, even if the founder had previously blocked that possibility.

[Soviet socialist Austor]

I was just wondering if you could have a trade system for recuting like to get a flag for your country you have to join my region.

[Icamera]

I was just wondering if you could have a trade system for recuting like to get a flag for your country you have to join my region.

You could, but it wouldn't be game-coded. (i.e., you'd send out recruitment ads saying that someone from your region will make a flag for any new members)

[Alyekra]

I was just wondering if you could have a trade system for recuting like to get a flag for your country you have to join my region.

You could, but it wouldn't be game-coded. (i.e., you'd send out recruitment ads saying that someone from your region will make a flag for any new members)

Which is actually an good idea if you can follow through with it.

[Naivetry]

How do i send a recruitment telegram?

You send recruitment telegrams the same way that you send any other telegram. When you are logged in and you click on any nation besides your own, there will be a box at the bottom of their page that says "Telegram [nation name]". Simply type your message into the box and hit the "Send" button.

A number of people these days use scripts (player-written programs that usually run inside your web browser) to help them recruit by streamlining various aspects of this process. In order to learn more about those, you will have to find someone who has one they are willing to share.

I'm a weirdo and still prefer 100% manual recruiting. I've outlined below the most streamlined way I've found to do it while still adding a touch of personalization and without being in danger of breaking the rules. It sounds complicated, but it's really not... and if you're using ctrl+C for copy and ctrl+V for paste, it goes extremely fast. (Note: If you are the only person recruiting in your region, you can skip steps 2, 3, and 9. And if you don't care to personalize your telegrams, skip step 7.)

1) Write the recruitment telegram you are going to send and save it in a text or Word file. I like to personalize each telegram with the name of the nation I'm sending it to, so I write "Hello, _____, " at the beginning of the telegram, and copy-paste the nation name into the blank later on (see step 7).

2) Open a forum thread on your regional forum (if you are not the only person who might be recruiting) where you can list the nations you have telegrammed. Post in the thread to say you are recruiting and in which regions before you get started, so everyone else knows not to recruit in those regions at the same time.

3) Create a new text or Word file. This will be a file to list the nations you've recruited so your region-mates know not to recruit them later.

4) Pull up the region page of a feeder (or two or three), and use the "list all nations" button. Sort it by length of residency in the region and go to the last page listed. This will give you a list of all the newest nations in the region.

5) Right-click on each nation name on the page (or all the ones you're interested in recruiting based on name/flag/WA category/motto) and select "open link in new tab", or your browser's equivalent. I do this on several pages of the list, so I have 30-40 tabs open at once.

6) Copy your recruitment telegram from the text file and paste it into the telegram box on each nation's page. If you aren't personalizing the telegrams or keeping a separate file of all the nations you're recruiting, go ahead and send the telegram too, and skip to step 8.

7) In one of your open tabs, copy-paste the nation name from the "Telegram [nationname]" line into the text of your telegram where you want it to be personalized. Insert any other commentary that you would like (e.g. on the nation's name, flag, motto, etc.) as you go. Hit send. The nation name will still be on your clipboard so you won't have to copy it again. Paste it into the text file that you opened to keep a list of the nations you have recruited, and hit enter to move your cursor to the next line.

8 ) Click the "Add [nationname] to your dossier" button and close the tab, which will automatically move you to the next open tab. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until finished with your open tabs, then go back to step 4 if you still feel like doing more recruiting. Now, if you see a nation that is in your dossier, you will know that you already sent them a recruitment message and should not do so again. Theoretically, you could use this technique as a substitute for keeping track of which nations you've recruited on your regional forum, by asking everyone to use only one shared recruiter nation. But that doesn't let you have the same sort of personal contact with new nations.

9) Edit your "I'm recruiting now!" post on your regional forum and copy-paste the list of the nations you've recruited. Count them up if you want to brag or compete. And you're done!

EDIT: I expect this will (thankfully) become obsolete when the new telegram system comes in. But until then, it's the most dirt basic way of getting the job done.

[Borderwall]

Thank you for the excellent guide! I just want to clarify this point for myself: does a region's founder have to be involved in the WA?

If I'm reading this correctly, it sounds like, so long as there's no WA delegate, the region isn't involved in the WA at all - is this correct? I'm thinking of creating a region as the sort of personal playspace for me and a couple friends I dragged over to NS, and, so far at least, none of us is interested in the WA wackiness; we just like seeing what happens to our individual nations when we answer A, B, or C to the various issues.

Worse comes to worst, we'll just continue to hang in the feeder region we're in; our own little region isn't necessary, but I thought it'd be fun. I just don't want the additional responsibility of dealing with the WA.

[Frisbeeteria]

does a region's founder have to be involved in the WA?

No player or nation is required to do anything in the WA, except limit yourself to one nation in the WA at a time. The founder's abilities are totally independent of it's WA status. If the founder chose to run for (and win) the Delegacy, the only gain would be enhanced ability to participate in the WA. Regional controls would be unaffected, as Founder controls are actually slightly better than the subset that forms Delegate controls.

[Borderwall]

Great, thank you!

[Doranos]

Ok I'm the founder of my region and I read that the founder should avoid other activities beside the administration but I want to still participate in other activities like RPing on this nation and not my other one because I have invested a lot of time into writing fact book entries for the background of my nation and I'm curious as to what would you do if you were in my situation. Help?

[Bears Armed]

Ok I'm the founder of my region and I read that the founder should avoid other activities beside the administration

Read where? That's certainly not an official rule.

[Jamie Anumia]

Ok I'm the founder of my region and I read that the founder should avoid other activities beside the administration but I want to still participate in other activities like RPing on this nation and not my other one because I have invested a lot of time into writing fact book entries for the background of my nation and I'm curious as to what would you do if you were in my situation. Help?

Founders aren't restricted from participating in different activities in NationStates. They are free to do so. And like BA said, that's not a rule.

[Doranos]

I read it in the keeping your region safe portion and I do understand that it is not a rule but since I am new to this all I was wondering if it is advisable to follow it or not. I was really just asking if other more experienced nations would or have done the same thing I am wanting to do to help me make a decision on whether or not I should use my other nation for RPing or not. thank you for helping me out

[Chreest]

What power do you have as a regional founder?

[Jamie Anumia]

I read it in the keeping your region safe portion and I do understand that it is not a rule but since I am new to this all I was wondering if it is advisable to follow it or not. I was really just asking if other more experienced nations would or have done the same thing I am wanting to do to help me make a decision on whether or not I should use my other nation for RPing or not. thank you for helping me out

I see your point. It's more a warning to be careful if using the founder nations for activities outside of region control. Since if the founder ever was deleted, it would put the region at risk of invasion. If you do want to be safe, it's advisable to make another nation to perform other activities with. Or you could risk it, but then obviously you put the security of the region at risk in the event your nation was ever deleted - I'd personally advise using another nation for activities.

[Doranos]

Oh ok thank you for the help Jamie Anumia I will take it into consideration and as a founder I am a powerbroker

[Strafford]

Thanks for the Help!

[Naivetry]

What power do you have as a regional founder?

If that was a question for everyone, you can find the answer here in the section about WA Delegates:

viewtopic.php?p=4941650#delegate

Basically, Founders have access to Regional Control at all times, and do not have to expend Influence in order to eject or ban nations. See the thread I linked if you want more nuanced information.

[Jamie Anumia]

Just a few suggestions in regards to the new TG rules. In light of the recent change in regards to recruitment in UCR's, you may want to note that UCR recruitment is now legal*. The other change would be that recruitment telegrams now have to be 'marked' as recruitment telegrams but ticking the 'this is a recruitment telegram' box, or not doing so can result in moderator action. You might also want to include mention of the telegram templates that can be used to help recruitment too and/or the use of stamps, as mentioned in the news release.

* This has now come into effect, as per this news post.

[Naivetry]

Yeah. I'll write up a final version when I have time. Putting a notification up in the meantime. Thanks for the links.

[Bobbylogan]

Thanks Guys...have removed so many doubts i had....thanks for sharing the views!!

[El Me]

I have tried recruitment telegrams and still no one is moving to my region Woodvile
What else can i do?