II. Growing your new region A. How do I get people to join my region? You will need to recruit other nations to join your region if you want it to grow. Only very rarely will new nations stumble into your region on their own.
There are two basic recruiting methods. One is to post a general advertisement ("adspam") for your region in one of the places where regional advertisements are permitted (see below). This method is popular with newer regions because it requires little effort, but it is also extremely ineffective.
The second method is the one used by all major regions in NationStates. This is to send recruitment telegrams to individual nations. There are several different ways to send telegrams. For more information about each of them, see below.
B. Where can I post recruitment messages? You may post a general recruitment messsage or advertisement ("adspam") for your region once every 24 hours in each of the following places:
1) In the
Gameplay forum. All of your recruitment messages in the Gameplay forum must go in a single thread you have created for that purpose.
2) On the Regional Message Board (RMB) of any
region with the "Recruiter Friendly" tag.
3) On the Regional Message Board (RMB) of any game-created region (
feeders,
sinkers, and
warzones). 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 Although you are allowed to post adspam in these regions, the delegates of these regions are also allowed to suppress your posts as they see fit. Adspam 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. You may want to avoid posting adspam, therefore, if you would like to form a friendly diplomatic relationship with a game-created region.
C. Which nations should I recruit?You are allowed to send a recruitment telegram to any nation in the game. There are several things to keep in mind, however:
1) New nations are the ones most likely to join your region, since they have not yet chosen a regional home.2) Refounded nations (nations which have ceased to exist due to inactivity and which are refounded in Lazarus, Balder, or Osiris when they become active again) are less likely to join your region than new nations, since refounded nations may still think of their previous region as home. Some refounded nations, however, are not very attached to their previous region and may be open to moving to yours.3) Nations that are located in user-created regions are not very likely to join yours, since they have already made a choice to move to their current region. Keep in mind that although recruiting from user-created regions is legal, a number of regions disapprove of it and consider it to be "poaching." You may want to avoid recruiting nations from a user-created region, therefore, if you would like to form a friendly diplomatic relationship with that region.4) Nations that have been located in any one region for a long period of time are not likely to join yours, since if they have not already moved after months of other recruitment telegrams, they have probably made a commitment to stay. This is especially true if the nation holds a prominent position in their region already (such as Founder, WA Delegate, or government officer).Historical note: before the telegram system was redesigned in February 2013, you were only allowed to send recruitment telegrams to nations located in the game-created regions. In addition, you had to manually keep track of which nations you and your friends had telegrammed, so your region did not end up telegramming the same nation twice.D. How do I send recruitment telegrams (with that nifty button at the bottom)?Regional recruitment telegrams automatically come with a special "Move %NATION% to %REGION%" button at the bottom. There are three basic ways to create and send such recruitment telegrams:
1) Manually (
with or
without a
template)
2) Using telegram stamps
3) Through the NationStates API (Application Programming Interface)
Each method has benefits and drawbacks. Briefly:
Manual recruitment:
+ Allows you to choose which nations to recruit on an individual basis + Allows you to send unique, personal telegrams + Telegrams are more likely to be received* - Takes the most time and energy Telegram stamps:
+ Contact many nations quickly and automatically + Low effort (no need to remain logged in) - Limited customization of telegrams - Small cost to purchase stamps API:
+ Contact many nations automatically + May allow you to choose which nations to recruit based on a set of detailed criteria - Telegrams sent at very slow rate (one every three minutes) - Requires either programming skills or access to pre-existing script/application * Manual telegrams are more likely to be received because of the way they are treated in the telegram delivery queue. This distinction is due to user feedback on how the new telegram system was affecting regional recruitment, which led the administrators to try to balance the way different kinds of recruitment telegrams were distributed to nations. This change was implemented on Feb 6, 2014.E. How do I send recruitment telegrams manually?In manual recruitment, you choose which nations you want to telegram on an individual basis. Manual recruitment takes time and effort, but can be one of the most effective ways to reach new nations.
1. How do I find new nations to send telegrams to?You can see a list of nations as they are being founded or refounded here:
http://www.nationstates.net/page=activi ... r=founding You can also 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 (from longest to shortest), 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 To generate a similar list for any other region, click on the link on the region page which says "%REGION% contains (number of nations)....". From there, you will see an option to "Sort by." Click on "Length of Residency." The nations that have been in the region for the longest will be listed first. The nations which have just moved in, and which therefore may be easier to convince to move somewhere else, will be listed at the end. You can also copy and paste the following link into your web browser, inserting the region name where appropriate:
- Code: Select all
http://www.nationstates.net/page=list_nations/region=REGION_NAME_HERE/sort=residency
2. Can I send a telegram to multiple nations at once?Yes! Even without using telegram stamps (see below), you can send a mass telegram to as many as eight (8) nations at once. Simply enter the nation names in the "To:" box, separated from each other by commas.
3. What is a template and why should I use one?A template is a way of storing the text of a recruitment message so that you can easily reuse it. Templates are the most convenient way to recruit manually. There are several advantages to using a template:
1) You can easily store the text of a recruitment telegram and reuse it over and over.
2) You don't have to remember to flag your telegram as a recruitment message every time.
3) You can move the nation you are recruiting with to another region, but continue recruiting for your first region.
4) Delivery Reports: You can see lists and statistics for which nations did not receive your message and why, which nations received your message, which nations read your message, and which nations moved to join your region as a result.
4. How do I send recruitment telegrams using a template?First, you'll need to create a template to use, if you don't have one already.
1) Compose a
new telegram. In the "To:" line, write
tag: template.
2) Make sure the box next to "This is a [recruitment] telegram" is checked. If the checkbox is not showing on your page, open the Advanced Options by clicking on the "▼" next to the box that says "To:".
3) Write the message you want to send in the body of the telegram. Helpful hint: you can personalize your message by adding
%Nation% wherever you want someone's nation name to appear. This will automatically fill in the name of the nation that receives the telegram.
4) Hit send. You will receive a message that says, "Your telegram template has been created!" and gives you a link to view the template. In addition, it will give you a code that looks like this:
%TEMPLATE-0000000%
Save this code where you can find it again. Whenever you want to view your template or its delivery report, you can find the template telegram in your sent items folder and click on it to find the link to its page. Alternatively, you can simply take that string of numbers (the TGID) from your template code and fill them in where the 0's are in this URL:
http://www.nationstates.net/page=tg/tgid=0000000When you want to use your template, fill in the names of the nations you want to send your message to in the "To:" line. Then paste the
%TEMPLATE-0000000% code into the body of your message and hit send. You're done!
Note: Even if you have your template's code, you will only be able to view or use your template when you are logged in to the nation that created it.
5. How do I send recruitment telegrams without a template?The main reason not to use a template is if you want to write a very different (e.g., highly personalized) message to each nation you recruit. If you are going to recruit manually without using a template, there are two things to keep in mind:
1) Every recruitment telegram you send must be tagged as a recruitment telegram. This means you must make sure the box next to "This is a [recruitment] telegram" is checked and your region name is selected every time before you hit send. Your nation may be warned or deleted if you break this rule.
If the checkbox is not showing on your
compose telegram page, click on the "▼" next to the box that says "To:".
2) If you are not using a template, your nation must be located within a given region in order to send recruitment telegrams for that region. Every new recruitment telegram generates a button at the bottom that says, "Move %NATION% to %REGION%". The region named in the button will be the region where your nation is located when you successfully press Send. (If you change regions while composing a recruitment telegram and press Send, you will get a warning message before you can press Send again.)
F. How do I send recruitment telegrams using telegram stamps?Telegram stamps are used to send telegrams to more than 8 people at a time. They can be purchased in the
NationStates Store. You can either write a new telegram or use a template, as described above (
section II.E.4). You will have access to a Delivery Report for your telegram either way.
There are two ways to use telegram stamps:
1) You can put a long list of nation names into the "To:" box, separated by commas. This allows you to select individual nations based on whatever criteria you would like, and send the same telegram to them all immediately, at a cost of one stamp per nation after the first eight nations in the list.
2) You can select groups of nations to send your telegram to. This costs one stamp per nation in the group. The most useful options for recruiters are the New (number) category and the Refounded (number) category. These put your telegram into a queue to be sent to the next (number) of nations either created or refounded. You then do not need to be stay logged in or online in order for your telegrams to be sent. NationStates
controls the rate at which new nations receive telegrams through this method, so that new nations do not receive a flood of recruitment telegrams all at once. Because many regions recruit this way, however, your telegram may or may not end up being read. This will still use up one of your stamps, regardless.
For more information on how recruiting with telegram stamps works, see the
FAQ.
G. How do I send recruitment telegrams using the API?If you know how to write code, you can look at the
full documentation on the NationStates API for sending telegrams. General discussion of the API, bug reporting, and feature requests take place in
the API thread in the Technical forum.
If you do not know how to write code but are willing to deal with some technical information in order to make use of other people's programs, there are a few recruitment tools that have been posted publicly:
These tools have been independently developed by players. NationStates administrators do not offer support or help for users trying to work with them. If you are having trouble making use of the API or tools built on it, you can try asking for help in the
Technical forum.
H. Okay, but how do I get people to want to join my region?TO BE ADDED.
Some helpful hints can be found in
this post by Animal House Recruiter.
I. 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.
EDIT: Massive rewrite to account for telegram system overhaul.