NationStates Jolt Archive

The griping about how wars are becoming impossible with billion + sized nations in 'The Theory of GDODAD' thread (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=140559) and my discussions with others about the population of nations to RL geography has given me an idea, however I am not sure if it is possible:

An option in settings of “Realistic Size”. This option would not change the growth or the “real” population numbers instead it would display the something like the population divided by five and some text would be added to the spotlight page (E.G. This nation has chosen the realistic size option.)

Ex:
The Imperial Confederation of Patoxia is a huge, economically powerful nation, remarkable for its absence of drug laws. Its compassionate, hard-working, intelligent population of 977 million live in a state of perpetual fear, as a complete breakdown of social order has led to the rise of order through biker gangs.
The Imperial Confederation of Patoxia is a huge, economically powerful nation, remarkable for its absence of drug laws. Its compassionate, hard-working, intelligent population of 195.4 million (this nation has chosen the realistic size option.) live in a state of perpetual fear, as a complete breakdown of social order has led to the rise of order through biker gangs.

I believe that this is possible since on the XML feed (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/nationdata.cgi/nation=patoxia) the population is given as a number like 977 or 2275 and the page alters the population display for billions.


The reason I feel that this option would be useful is that it would make for more realistic role-plays, make war more possible and fair (number gaps would be less of a problem), and bring the nation populations more in-line with real nations (E.X. a 500 million nation would be 100 million (~Mexico), a billion sized nation would be 200 million (~ Brazil)and the 2.5 billion behemoths would be about 500 million (or about half the size of China)).

Since people use their national spotlight as a base and it could be agreed upon by RP participants to use the “Realistic Size” option in RPs, making the RP more realistic and better since there is a reference on an agreed upon base. In fact I believe that this is almost necessary to prolong the life of NS RP as soon we will have a number of nations half the size of the RL Earth's population running around.

I say again that this would be an optional choice in setting and would not affect the numbers only how they are displayed.

Not a role player so totally out of my element. However, won't this same problem arise with constantly growing populations. Maybe you need a scale of nation sizes related to the proportion of the total life of the game that a nation has existed.

I hope you understand what I mean, I'm not sure I do.

Not a role player so totally out of my element. However, won't this same problem arise with constantly growing populations. Maybe you need a scale of nation sizes related to the proportion of the total life of the game that a nation has existed.

I hope you understand what I mean, I'm not sure I do.

Yes but under this system (Pop/5) it would take over a year to get a display of a 500 million(Which is larger than most RL nation except for China and India making the problem more more manageable and people who have been here for a long time (if this game last years) will truly deserve their large "Realistic Size" display size.

Lots of us have been here for well over a year (my age is broken due to death, resurrection, death and resurrection).

I haven't got a problem with your idea, I was just thinking of a longer term solution. A year ago none of us thought we'd still be playing a year later.

Lots of us have been here for well over a year (my age is broken due to death, resurrection, death and resurrection).

I haven't got a problem with your idea, I was just thinking of a longer term solution. A year ago none of us thought we'd still be playing a year later.

Aye, that's why the Pop would be divided by five as it would take about five years to reach our current (Or normal display size) levels thus prolonging the NS's RP life for a very long period. The reason I suggest the adjusted size instead of your scale idea is because it would require much less coding and achieve almost the same effect, although I think your idea is good, this idea has a better shot of being implemented (IMHO).

5 real life years? I'm sorry...that plan is stupid.

There is nothing wrong with nations getting bigger in general. Change isn't always bad. Personally I love my population and fail to see how getting 3 billion+ sized nations hurts RP.

I play a space empire...each of my puppets is a planet....so having huge populations actually makes them more realistic.

If you want a smaller population, make a new nation.

5 real life years? I'm sorry...that plan is stupid.

There is nothing wrong with nations getting bigger in general. Change isn't always bad. Personally I love my population and fail to see how getting 3 billion+ sized nations hurts RP.

I play a space empire...each of my puppets is a planet....so having huge populations actually makes them more realistic.

If you want a smaller population, make a new nation.

Seconded. The 1.792 billion population of Nanakaland is nothing. Nanakaland has colonies on the moon, in other places on the earth, and in other places in space. If you stress realism, Patoxia, then high populations for old and well developed nations is realistic.

Perhaps during the preliminary planning stages of roleplaying, when players should consult with one another, the realistic size population could be discussed and decided on.

Now, don't shoot me or anything, but it's just RP! You're making up everything else about your nations already, why are you letting yourselves feel so limited by the concept of a huge population? Make that up too.

I don't understand why anyone would want their populations to be smaller than what they are....

To each his own, I guess...

Could the particiapants not agree to manually divide their pop.
I know it would mean an awful lot of work, but Im pretty sure it would take Sal more work to alter the code. :wink:

It should be a manual option, but population growth should also be realistic and be very slow changing into very fast.

5 real life years? I'm sorry...that plan is stupid.

There is nothing wrong with nations getting bigger in general. Change isn't always bad. Personally I love my population and fail to see how getting 3 billion+ sized nations hurts RP.

I play a space empire...each of my puppets is a planet....so having huge populations actually makes them more realistic.

If you want a smaller population, make a new nation.

Seconded. The 1.792 billion population of Nanakaland is nothing. Nanakaland has colonies on the moon, in other places on the earth, and in other places in space. If you stress realism, Patoxia, then high populations for old and well developed nations is realistic.

Aye, but you have space colonies and I was suggesting this for modern-tech earth-only players where the four billion-sized nations are a bit unrealistic.

Steel Butterfly & Unfree People:
Part of the reason for posting this was to see if anyone else was a bit unnerved at the growth of their country's pop as I was and I have been considering making a set pop for my nation.

Siswai Aman:
Aye, but the Idea was to create a standard that even newbies could use and be encouraged in modern-tech earth-only players.

I'm Modern and Future Tech.

I'm Modern and Future Tech.

Nanakaland, I know. That's not the point. The idea is to offer an alternative slower growth pop system.

Anyway, maybe this idea was fairly pointless but I thought it might help to breathe some new life into the game by bringing the numbers to a level that would be more realistic for RL countries.

Perhaps something could be made so that I can continue to grow as I am...but you could set your population as you want it.

Say if I have 2 billion people, then I can set my population to anything 2 billion and under. The maximum I could set it would grow each day, but if I wanted to I could keep it at like 100 million forever.

They changed the way we named our nations' titles...perhaps they could do this.

Then again...they'll probably say "wait for NS2" and hope that you waste money on it: a game with no graphics that would be like hundreds of other games out there, yet you have to pay monthly for it.

Perhaps something could be made so that I can continue to grow as I am...but you could set your population as you want it.

Say if I have 2 billion people, then I can set my population to anything 2 billion and under. The maximum I could set it would grow each day, but if I wanted to I could keep it at like 100 million forever.

They changed the way we named our nations' titles...perhaps they could do this.

Then again...they'll probably say "wait for NS2" and hope that you waste money on it: a game with no graphics that would be like hundreds of other games out there, yet you have to pay monthly for it.

Strange I was just thinking about suggesting that too. It shouldn't really be a problem since the input box could be made to take integers only and the worst way someone could possibly abuse it would be to set their population display to 69 million.

Although off-topic: I worry that NS2 might not work since it would have a engine which would take out a lot of the fun of free-form RPing that (aside from the invader part of the game which is also going to be taken out in NS2 I believe) has made NS such a success.

*eyes glaze over*

NS2 is gonna have forums, so you can still RP. And isn't the structure you suggest thats going to be added that you belive will damage RP almost exactly like this problem with the population thing, which could very easily be got around by simply... ignoring it?