[NationStates] I'm building us a planet

[LightTwig]

I do get what Gaby is saying. If in the event that there was going to be a "world wipe" or something similar, I'd probably play a city-state like nation like Singapore, or something similar. Diplomacy and economy to me is more fun than straight up blobbing.

 

[Lord_Sinclair]

I have nothing against Praelidium, Kindar and all the new nations, it's just that I find awkward to suddenly having to acknowledge a bit of Sincronia suddenly not Sincronia, and for no reason in RP xD

I agree in theory, but it is very much possible to make an RP reason for Praelidium's existence where it is.

The region where Praelidium is was formerly part of the Laktenfor region of Sincronia, which was notorious for resenting Sincronian rule. It makes sense, to me, that Praelidium would be the result of a diplomatic break-up in which a section of the Laktenfor region was granted independence. Coincidentally, Praelidium has a high agriculture stat, which would make perfect sense if it was a break-away nation from the also agriculturally gifted Sincronia.

Furthermore, all policies in Praelidium can be attributed to either the Praelidians wanting to become as different from Sincronia as possible, now that they're independent, or to the Praelidians following in some policies similar to Sincronian policy. I have a feeling the former reasoning is more true, in most cases, as Praelidium's decision to ally with Duskilor would make perfect sense to try and make Praelidium as independent of Sincronia as possible.

In my opinion, if we get too much people, and we have to continue partitionning big people OOCly without any roleplay reason, I think we should find a reason to establish a new world including everyone in a roleplay-legitimate manner, and make it so you can't join the proper world map when it's established.

While it's entirely up to the whole HW nation states community, I'd be happy with "resetting" with a new map and new rules. One such rule would be allocating populations to your state, rather than following the highly unrealistic N'S population system. And perhaps a planning phase before the rp starts? I'm getting ahead of myself, but thems my opinions.

I'd like to point out right now that in real life, the nations with the most political power have next to no land, and miniscule populations. our current world puts the largest countries as the most powerful, and the smallest countries as insignificant, which to me is failing to acknowledge the complex forces at work.

First, to address Gaby's point on small nations holding the most political power, this is somewhat true and somewhat not true, but mostly not true in the case of Nation States.

In RL, most small nations with political power gain their power from possessing some strategic advantage, whether it be their location or resources within their borders. In Nation States, it is much more difficult to assess who has what strategic advantages, and most such advantages come from a compilation of stats over time, thus granting most such advantages to larger nations. Fair or not, it's hard to give smaller nations the strategic advantages necessary to put them on the same level with everyone else.

Now, to address how to fairly go about a reset, if we were to go about one...

Idea #1
Everyone starts new nations from scratch to put everyone on a level playing field.

Larger nations may balk at losing months, sometimes years, of answering issues, but this is by far the fairest option available. Besides, you don't have to delete former nations; you can use them to RP in an alternate region in your off-time, if you really want to keep using them.

One of the great benefits of this idea is that it would wipe the Scientific Advancement Level stats. We could then take this opportunity to better regulate what era of technology every nation is in, as every nation would have an almost equal SAL. If nations proceed to gain a significant SAL advantage after the wipe (I'm talking about you, Mechanica), then they would be entitled to more advanced tech as they would clearly be focusing on scientific advancement for their nation.

Idea #2
Gradual colonization.

This idea would split the map into hundreds of small geographic regions, similar to how Europa Universalis is set up. Each nation would then start in one geographic region and proceed to expand from there.

All nations would begin with generally equal amounts of land, but larger nations would still hold an advantage in starting stats, such as defense forces. This method would likely result in a map similar in proportions to our current one, but it would allow for RP along the way and technically be fair game.

A benefit of this idea would be that it would take time to fill the entire map, thus giving new nations a much better chance of securing non-intrusive placement on the map. Also, since the map would not be completely filled by player nations, all those issues regarding "Bigtopia" and such would make much more sense.

A downside to this idea would be that larger nations would still have stat advantages over smaller nations. If we're going to eliminate stats from the equation, we may as well go with Idea #1.

My Pick
I say we go with both ideas at once.

We should have everyone restart from scratch on all fronts. If we still keep the old nations around long enough to get a general idea of the subtle advantages each nation would hold (Mechanica would start with a slight tech edge, Arcturix with a slight military edge, Sincronia with a slight cultural edge, Volopia with a slight industrial edge, etc), then it shouldn't take long for the former political atmosphere to reappear. However, by doing this, nations that are currently small and insignificant would have the opportunity to show how they would act if they had as much opportunity to succeed as the current world superpowers.

Nations that want to remain small economic centers could simply choose not to expand, and more passive nations would undoubtedly expand far less than aggressive nations, like Arcturix. I doubt the political climate would change all that much, except in the fact that everyone would be on a fairer playing field stats wise, which I think benefits everyone.

 

[LightTwig]

I think if there is a restart, we should firstly nail down the geography of the world before people make their nations. Create an "Africa", create a "Europe", and so on, that way people will be able to properly flesh out their nations, plus it'll give the council a little more diversity. Additionally, a shared/global history could be cool, ie. some nations are the former colonial nations of others, then again, this could make it hard for new players to join in if everyone is already tied up with one another. Thoughts?

 

[Lord_Sinclair]

I think if there is a restart, we should firstly nail down the geography of the world before people make their nations. Create an "Africa", create a "Europe", and so on, that way people will be able to properly flesh out their nations, plus it'll give the council a little more diversity. Additionally, a shared/global history could be cool, ie. some nations are the former colonial nations of others, then again, this could make it hard for new players to join in if everyone is already tied up with one another. Thoughts?

I absolutely agree that we should settle on a map and the details of said map before we just jump into it.

I've actually been randomly generating maps for a while, now, and saving some of the ones I thought might be good fits. If we do restart, I'll start a thread and poll for us to pick which map we think best suits our region.

As for nations being colonies of other nations, that seems fine by me, though I think political alliances and political marriages would be more appropriate and serve basically the same purpose. And again, so long as we don't expand our nations and fill the map within a week, I don't think we'll deter new nations from joining in.

To clarify on how the expansion would occur, each nation would have one territory to begin. Each time a nation gets an issue saying "invade Bigtopia", or whatever, they can claim another territory next to them. Nations could also RP with other nations to determine territorial boundaries. All in all, this expansion should take a long, long time as each nation would pretty much have to wait until an issue comes around giving them an excuse to claim more land or take the time to RP with fellow player nations to try and claim more land.

Also, nations probably wouldn't want to expand too, too much under this method. If every nation resets their stats, then most nations will have comparable Defense Forces stats. Even if one nation has a significant military advantage one-on-one, if they expand and border multiple nations, that one-on-one advantage counts for nothing if the bordering nations all decide to attack at once. Just look at Rome to see how that sort of scenario plays out.

 

[Raith]

I agree in theory, but it is very much possible to make an RP reason for Praelidium's existence where it is.

The region where Praelidium is was formerly part of the Laktenfor region of Sincronia, which was notorious for resenting Sincronian rule. It makes sense, to me, that Praelidium would be the result of a diplomatic break-up in which a section of the Laktenfor region was granted independence. Coincidentally, Praelidium has a high agriculture stat, which would make perfect sense if it was a break-away nation from the also agriculturally gifted Sincronia.

Furthermore, all policies in Praelidium can be attributed to either the Praelidians wanting to become as different from Sincronia as possible, now that they're independent, or to the Praelidians following in some policies similar to Sincronian policy. I have a feeling the former reasoning is more true, in most cases, as Praelidium's decision to ally with Duskilor would make perfect sense to try and make Praelidium as independent of Sincronia as possible.



First, to address Gaby's point on small nations holding the most political power, this is somewhat true and somewhat not true, but mostly not true in the case of Nation States.

In RL, most small nations with political power gain their power from possessing some strategic advantage, whether it be their location or resources within their borders. In Nation States, it is much more difficult to assess who has what strategic advantages, and most such advantages come from a compilation of stats over time, thus granting most such advantages to larger nations. Fair or not, it's hard to give smaller nations the strategic advantages necessary to put them on the same level with everyone else.

Now, to address how to fairly go about a reset, if we were to go about one...

Idea #1
Everyone starts new nations from scratch to put everyone on a level playing field.

Larger nations may balk at losing months, sometimes years, of answering issues, but this is by far the fairest option available. Besides, you don't have to delete former nations; you can use them to RP in an alternate region in your off-time, if you really want to keep using them.

One of the great benefits of this idea is that it would wipe the Scientific Advancement Level stats. We could then take this opportunity to better regulate what era of technology every nation is in, as every nation would have an almost equal SAL. If nations proceed to gain a significant SAL advantage after the wipe (I'm talking about you, Mechanica), then they would be entitled to more advanced tech as they would clearly be focusing on scientific advancement for their nation.

Idea #2
Gradual colonization.

This idea would split the map into hundreds of small geographic regions, similar to how Europa Universalis is set up. Each nation would then start in one geographic region and proceed to expand from there.

All nations would begin with generally equal amounts of land, but larger nations would still hold an advantage in starting stats, such as defense forces. This method would likely result in a map similar in proportions to our current one, but it would allow for RP along the way and technically be fair game.

A benefit of this idea would be that it would take time to fill the entire map, thus giving new nations a much better chance of securing non-intrusive placement on the map. Also, since the map would not be completely filled by player nations, all those issues regarding "Bigtopia" and such would make much more sense.

A downside to this idea would be that larger nations would still have stat advantages over smaller nations. If we're going to eliminate stats from the equation, we may as well go with Idea #1.

My Pick
I say we go with both ideas at once.

We should have everyone restart from scratch on all fronts. If we still keep the old nations around long enough to get a general idea of the subtle advantages each nation would hold (Mechanica would start with a slight tech edge, Arcturix with a slight military edge, Sincronia with a slight cultural edge, Volopia with a slight industrial edge, etc), then it shouldn't take long for the former political atmosphere to reappear. However, by doing this, nations that are currently small and insignificant would have the opportunity to show how they would act if they had as much opportunity to succeed as the current world superpowers.

Nations that want to remain small economic centers could simply choose not to expand, and more passive nations would undoubtedly expand far less than aggressive nations, like Arcturix. I doubt the political climate would change all that much, except in the fact that everyone would be on a fairer playing field stats wise, which I think benefits everyone.

I think both ideas would only happen if everyone agreed to it, and those who didn't would probably leave. though this is just a theory on what I think would happen if this was implemented

 

[Valonyx]

thirdly, hating on younger nations and forcing them to play weaklings just because they're new to gameplay is.... kinda elitist, and a bit rude. people should justify their own strength with their issues, with careful research, and with explicit worldbuilding. not with how old their nation is.

no, I absolutely disagree with making everything that comes out of issues legitimate. Claiming something via issue is madness, as everyone could claim to have robots, the moon would be riddled with doomsday nuclear cannons and such, even countries with very low scientific can get those with luck.

Or if we DID claim things out of issues, some issues would have to be globally discarded by everyone, such as all the mad world destruction weapons ones, and the augmented unkillable super-humans aswell, up to a point.

 

[Exosferik]

Hey guys I don´t wish to be an asteroid heading to destroy your world.
And I am not much fan resetting the world or even starting of new nations just because one new nation wants to join.

Remember, when IRL a new country was founded it always had:

A: lot of issues, or
B: diplomatic backup from someone strong, or
C: Short existence

What we are facing is similar to Europe from 1880´to 1918: new states - no place, colonies taken, market opportunities taken. Colonial states were MUCH stronger and much bigger. (and they still are) And small ones needed to struggle or came and ask for protection. I believe it is o.k. for new small countries in NS to start in such position as well, if they don´t RP other way. (problem should be if long-played big nation wanted to join in.)

From Kindarian point of view and the sake of RP it is probably better for me to play a bunch of happy-go-lucky emigrants who, oblivious of global politics, just settled in a wrong place, rather then to pop a sudden revolution on someone, whose stability is good so far. (anyway, Dr.Patriot thanks for willingness)

And one more idea here: I know it would spoil the globe, but what about adding a few hexagons on sides of map to make it a bit bigger if necessary?

Or make a new globe and connect them with stargates? (Don´t take this one too serious I just don't wanna make you reset)

 

[Lord_Sinclair]

And one more idea here: I know it would spoil the globe, but what about adding a few hexagons on sides of map to make it a bit bigger if necessary?

So far as I know, this is not possible. The current map was produced by a computerized generator; we are not able to simply add a few more hexagons to the sides.

It is possible to increase the percentage of land on the map, if Baron still has the world seed, but this would cause far too many problems. It would be far, far better for everyone involved to just make a new map altogether, in this scenario.

 

[Gaby]

no, I absolutely disagree with making everything that comes out of issues legitimate. Claiming something via issue is madness, as everyone could claim to have robots, the moon would be riddled with doomsday nuclear cannons and such, even countries with very low scientific can get those with luck.

Or if we DID claim things out of issues, some issues would have to be globally discarded by everyone, such as all the mad world destruction weapons ones, and the augmented unkillable super-humans aswell, up to a point.

well duh
I didn't mean every single bloody one. so many are completely unreasonable. I was just worried newer players wouldn't be able to interpret nation stats deftly enough to figure out what it actually means for their nation (see also: people using high science to explain away every technology they want to have)

 

[Gaby]

@Lord_Sinclair I feel the need to point out that Senturia is owned by ACU20, who, as far as I remember, has been forum banned for a few months.

@ACU20 announces his presence on the forums by disagreeing with my really old post.
... welcome back?????

 

[Teeke]

Hi I'm new, how do I join?

 

[Gaby]

Hi I'm new, how do I join?

wrong thread my friend.
http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/nationstates-location-location-location.32900/

this is old NS