Does anyone else feel smaller regions don't stand a chance?

[Lodgi]

I am the Vice Delegate of Bozarkia. I have been on NationStates for nearly two years now. I have never felt that massive regions like The Pacifics were my forte, the constant activity and the fact you don't have that feeling of community. I feel Bozarkia has achieved a community, we all know who is who and that is great!

But I look at other regions of our size who have one or maybe two people keeping the RMB active. Some have been around for a while. Those regions really make me feel sad and glad at the same time. Sad in the fact that they may not ever get the community that other regions get. But glad in the fact that Bozarkia hit the jackpot and found its community.

I know some of the causes, the fact there is no community to begin with, why spend time with just one person after all? I also think that NationStates is shrinking as well, this site has been around for a long time and you will keep the long time players, but the new player base is shrinking. I don't have proof or statistics to back it up so just a gut feeling.

So this isn't a recruitment attempt or anything but more of just an vent and rant I guess.

[Lutare]

Many of the Huge regions are the OG regions, If your region becomes a frontier region it will get bigger.

[Lodgi]

Many of the Huge regions are the OG regions, If your region becomes a frontier region it will get bigger.

It is a frontier. That's the only type of regions I join

But being a frontier is overrated, you get new nations but they are all AFK. The ones who stay on the game for longer just move regions due to the recruitment spam. It is a skill issue on the regional Gov's part, gotta stay realistic.

[Dengist China]

I can relate well.

The region I founded and maintained for a while, Tinga, was almost entirely supported by my own activity, and from when I quit started dying. We're finally disbanding it now, but I do feel your pain. I also don't think the way stamps work helps (given that the most dedicated players with enough money buy stamps to recruit -> those stamps recruit a few people here and there -> other regions who do not have said stamps lose those players -> some players stay back and become dedicated to the game) and the cycle repeats. I do think it'd be helpful if smaller regions were more formal, though. Bozarkia from an outsider perspective seems very stable and democratic, but other small regions are not so much. I'll also note that small regions not at all paying attention to proper foreign relations can also be a reason for their downfall - a lot of the time these regions will get raided by antifash and such as a result.

[Kabran]

I think it's hard but it's quite possible to grow and survive, but it all depends on those who started the region. If you are a small region without ability to get stamps manual recruitment is the best way to grow, but that requires time most players don't have. The advent of frontiers has also come with the problem of some delegates deciding being a frontier solves recruitment problems, but most active players are recruited as new spawns typically CTE or move on. So many frontier end up dying pretty fast as delegates also fail to keep magnetism consistently at the highest. In strongholds stamp recruitments are the most efficient way to grow, which as dengist China pointed out not many can do. Than there is also as dengist China pointed out many small regions pave way for their downfall by not being picky enough with embassies I am guilty of this myself because even successful domestic growth can be ruined by foreign policy, as some many know happen a few days ago in UoNT. I'd say one big reason for regions not having a chance would be the lack of use of critical resources like forums which can be quite useful in developing a region or community.I'll end this post here before it gets too long.

[Wolflandil]

It takes a lot of dedication to keep a community running. As someone who was someone who stayed apart of small regions until Perdition was created, i used to think the same exact thing about large regions. If I didn't already have a decent relationship with many of the members of Perdition, I probably wouldn't have joined a large region myself, even so I found it kinda daunting to stick my head into a GCR.

As for recruitment, Stamps aren't the most effective, as they do have a delay. Not as great of a delay as API, but it is still noticeable. The most effective means of recruitment is manually, but that means having people spend literal hours a day sending telegrams out to new founds.

Who you associate with and how you deal with OOC Problematic issues is a big thing in terms of opening your region to being raided without defenders contesting it. Being complacent in OOC issues is enough to get a Do Not Defend. I've seen regions where regional leadership is even partaking in the OOC issues instead of addressing it immediately.

As for the population decline, I honestly think that NS is in a lull period itself. Same time last year there were 18,627 WA members, compared to today's 16,442.
Not all players maintain a WA nation, and newfound data is hard to sift through with Puppet creation. Hopefully there will be some newer activity once some of the planned updates get rolled out.

[Greater Deutsche]

As an RO of a smaller region (56 nations and only really 7-8 or less are active), I can agree with the statement that most, if not all, of the GCR are much too active for my liking (most specifically TNP) and I often get overstimulated trying to even keep up with all of the posts there (this is also why I hate large discord servers). Everyone in my region knows each other quite a bit and we have a well-woven small community. Despite that, we kind have been at the same size of active members for the past 2 years, with a difference of really 1 person leaving and 1 joining. I like having this small community, although I would also like to see more members, which we can only really get through recruitment since we're not a frontier.

All smaller regions are at a disadvantage compared to the larger regions since that's where new players often gravitate to, rather than smaller communities where everyone already knows each other. New players often don't stay in one region either, and often end up CTE'ing. Mostly all new players nowadays don't stick around for too long.

[Felid Robloxia]

As someone who's a governor of a pretty new, pretty small region, you're defs not alone in this sentiment, and I feel pretty similarly most of the time. It can be really hard to keep up with small regions n' make sure they stay active, and it can be really demotivating to see big GCRs thrive when it feels like they have little to offer, especially in terms of community (because they're extremely large; getting to know everyone would be pretty hard to do). It does feel unfair to an extent, but with there being less new nations now then there were in previous years, and even less of those new nations staying for more then like a month, it starts to make a bit more sense. plus, even if there weren't any GCRs, I feel like things would still be similar, there'd just be bigger and more important UCRs instead of big and important GCRs.
I think the fact that there's so many UCRs has something to do with it too. There's like 30k+ regions out there, that's a lot to choose from and a LOT of competition

I really hope that more new nations + frequent players start coming, otherwise things'll probs stay the same and/or even get worse.
I think as long as ur region is unique enough, and you have a lot of determination, you have the ability to do well. maybe not too well and it's certainly not guaranteed, but if you put effort into growing ur region you should get something back. Recruitment TGs and hope should be ur mantra X3.

I really do wish that things were different, but alas, it is what it is

Many of the Huge regions are the OG regions, If your region becomes a frontier region it will get bigger.

being a Frontier really isn't a good idea if you care about regional security. Plus, even though you get new nations, those nations aren't guaranteed to be active or stick around

As for recruitment, Stamps aren't the most effective, as they do have a delay. Not as great of a delay as API, but it is still noticeable. The most effective means of recruitment is manually, but that means having people spend literal hours a day sending telegrams out to new founds.

That makes sense. Noted

Also, I get that this is more of a discussion thread but do any of y'all have an idea of how foreign affairs stuff works? I feel like embassies + who you associate with matters a lot when it comes to building a new region, and I'm not really good at that stuff. Social anxiety definitely doesn't help XP.

[Adriatic Democratic Empire]

being the Governor of a medium sized region (50 Nations) on Nagorathia. Yeah this is definitely an issue.

it doesn't help that many of the major players only see Issues as the function of NS. tbf I also played it that way for a while.

Also Feeder's spawn rate needs to be nerfed. because Frontier's spawns are also rlly bad cuz like 90% of the time they're alts that move immediately

[1918 Armenia]

It's grossly unfair because the giant regions dominate the WA and Events

[Tanzaka]

It's grossly unfair because the giant regions dominate the WA and Events

The WA doesn't have anything to do with it, because by growing your region you get more influence. The biggest problem for smaller regions is again recruitment which takes lots of time especially because the website isn't having as much new nations as it used too. The second biggest threat is allure of frontiers its like a angler fish you take it and your region dies quick. Regions are best started with groups of friends as a base so it can last a little bit without recruiting than grow through recruiting later.