NationStates Jolt Archive

I have only been playing NS for about nine weeks now, but I have noticed a disturbing trend when some resolutions are brought out for a vote to try to crunch numbers. In short, I've seen a tendency toward metagaming.

Take the current resolution, UN Peace Prize, as an example. I am personally for this resolution, however, there are some solid arguments against it. One argument I particularly dislike, however, is the "OMFG my statz!!!!111"

Why not a simple "my nation doesn't believe in disarmament" or "we are currently the target of aggression from outside the UN"? At least try to make the debate center around the issues rather than the numbers, especially since the game impact isn't completely known. Or else metagame completely. For example, here are Krioval's stats:

Administration 11%
Welfare 9%
Healthcare 11%
Education 7%
Spirituality 2%
Military* 7%
Law and Order 20%
Commerce 28%
Public Transport 7%
Environment 0%
Social Equality 0%

Tax Rate 44% (flat)

So says the XML, anyway. If I were to take that as Gospel AND assume that a mild Global Disarmament would reduce Military spending by 2 points, I would expect that Commerce and Law & Order would each gain a point to balance at 100% money allocated, and my taxes would drop to 42%. Am I honestly supposed to be shackled to the belief that I just forced my Military budget to be slashed by 24% from its previous level?

Goodness, I hope not! Otherwise every issue I select in the game is like a miniature revolution. The stats are, in my view, there to allow people to have an idea of the effect of their issue selection. I frankly don't bother looking at the XML of a nation very often - I'll go by economic rating to a degree, but even that has its limits.

Looking again at my stats, now adding Krioval's "history" to the mix, one would realize that police and military funding are practically indistinguishable. Further, "Commerce" includes things like subsidies to arms manufacturers, and some trade ships I have are armed. So when my Military budget is "OMG destroyed!", I am essentially one click away from redistributing that money (or not) into the system for more defensive purposes; my level of arms manufacturing doesn't fall, and neither does my economy. Further, if I leave the tax cut in place, that extra 2% is going to move around the Kriovalian economy ("Frightening", by the way), maintaining it.

From a strict numbers perspective, it looks like I'm doomed to mothball a quarter of my armed forces. From a common sense perspective, taking into account the numbers plus Krioval's RP history, and how I've designed that society to act, it's not going to affect anything but offensive mobilization, which will certainly be restricted - which is how the resolution was designed.

At some point, the game model is going to be constrained by its designers. For example, if looser gun laws are interpreted by the game engine to raise crime, then it goes up, regardless of how or why the gun laws are relaxed. Yet I don't doubt DLE when I'm told that having every citizen heavily armed can, under those specific circumstances, actually reduce crime. Similarly, I allow myself and other players a lot of latitude with the numbers. Let's try to keep the discussions away from purely metagame topics in the UN.

OOC: I don't think I've ever looked at my stats to decide how to vote on a UN issue - I work entirely within the philosophy of my nation. If there's an effect a resolution has on my stats I don't like, I know I can reverse it later thorugh decisions. So stats don't play any part in this.

Heck, in the DoM resolution telegrams, role play played a good part in getting votes from several of the smaller nations - far more then "what will this do to my stats?". I don't think I was ever asked about that.

I've heard the term used to describe "voting to improve stats" as statwanking. I've never done this with UN resolutions, because they really come by so infrequently, but when I've wanted to simulate a move towards a war economy, I've guessed at which daily issues would build up my police forces and restrict civil freedoms.

Surprisingly when I analyzed the results of the previous round of UNA "How much do you support UN {X} resolutions" polls and compared the results against the actual voting records for various proposal categories, I found that there was a hint of statwanking in the poll results that was *not* reflected in the ensemble voting records.

I think that statwanking goes on, but that many players only engage in it, when they've been dealt some "blah" daily issues and really want to just get in the neighborhood of a certain set of goals. I don't think most players are peaking at the XML codes that frequently, but I do think that the statwanking that does happen tends to favour "Human Rights" and "Free Trade" types of resolutions.

Ultimately NationStates is largely what you make out of it. With that in mind, if a human rights boost is something you need, and a resolution that you are sitting on the fence pops up, go ahead and let your stats be the deciding factor. In the real world, the current state of affairs, sometimes is a factor in deciding things ... for example, if the economy is kinda tanking, taxes aren't that likely to go _far_ down. And while everybody likes a tax break, more people will tighten the belts on government spending a bit, and not because they don't favor say "Social Justice" ideas, but because they are looking for a fix. With that in mind, "Metagaming" really does sound like a much better way to describe this sort of behavior, and I don't have a problem with it.

(But I do think we should be aware of it. Interesting post!)

After reflecting on my words and others' for a few hours, I think my bigger complaint lies with players who paint a given picture of their nation but then statwank in the opposite direction out of the blue. A lot of this might just be my perception, but if there's no justification given for the 180 except numbers or allusions to numbers, it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth (typing hands?).

I think metagaming on some level is unavoidable. I have a certain vision for Krioval, and a "Frightening" economy is part of it. So some economic issues I would decide based on what I figured the stat effect might be, but I stuck with the results in terms of RP, and I think that's important. Krioval started out as a "Civil Rights Lovefest" in January. Now we're a "Capitalist Paradise". Somewhere between then and now, the government of Krioval (I) decided to push economics up and let political freedoms slide. Suddenly I drooled at the prospect of Free Trade resolutions and came to despise Social Justice ones.

This brought me to an interesting dilemma when both the ULC and the UNWODC came to vote. I had been an unabashed supporter of both, and yet they *killed* my economy. The solution was to play the role of an economic superpower suddenly being forced to support social equality - cut it somewhere else, fast, and until the downturn reversed itself. But ultimately, I try to project that "aura" if one will, of incredible ambition and an almost single-minded utilitarian focus of Krioval's government in nearly everything I post. To me, it'd be dishonest to do otherwise (unless I RP'd a revolution or reasonably big change in my government and then stuck with *that* for a while).

I guess it's a matter of personal taste, but I'd really wish that arguments on UN resolutions wouldn't involve numbers being dragged into the discussion. Killing off a few one-line "this sucks" type of comments wouldn't hurt either.

OOC: Krioval, you don't need to read every post - and you're free to ignore those you like, simply by ignoring their existance.

OOC: Krioval, you don't need to read every post - and you're free to ignore those you like, simply by ignoring their existance.

I agree that that's a potential way to deal with it, and it's something I do on an RP forum, but when it's a UN vote, it rubs me the wrong way. Not a huge deal, mind you, but one I feel like bitching about right now just because it's something I see way more than I feel I should. Like I said, it's probably more me than something wrong with the game, but I wonder if others feel the same way.

OOC: Honestly? I read those that argue, kid, all sorts of things. But the "it suxxxs!" get ignored as "irrelevant", as do the "but this will raise your business stat!" ones. Makes it more fun for me.

Remember - you don't have to convert anyone, you only are here to entertain yourself. If others are doing their own thing, you're free to do yours. And I guarantee they are.

OOC: Honestly? I read those that argue, kid, all sorts of things. But the "it suxxxs!" get ignored as "irrelevant", as do the "but this will raise your business stat!" ones. Makes it more fun for me.

Remember - you don't have to convert anyone, you only are here to entertain yourself. If others are doing their own thing, you're free to do yours. And I guarantee they are.

Point of Parliamentary Inquiry:

Is it then acceptable to threaten war in a thread designed to discuss a global disarmament resolution in the idea of demonstrating the total ineffectiveness of the dissenters' current militaries - restricted to those I personally (IC) dislike?

OOC: Lets see... Vastiva has been bribed to vote certain ways. We've threatened nuclear war. We've invaded. We've stepped up our military. We've unleashed smallpox on several nations... so I would say "Yes", though stopping before war is usual. You can always rattle sabers.

Particularly in the "Under this proposal, you x. I decide to y, by which you can't z and I declare war" manner of "educating through events".

The solution was to play the role of an economic superpower suddenly being forced to support social equality - cut it somewhere else, fast, and until the downturn reversed itself. But ultimately, I try to project that "aura" if one will, of incredible ambition and an almost single-minded utilitarian focus of Krioval's government in nearly everything I post. To me, it'd be dishonest to do otherwise (unless I RP'd a revolution or reasonably big change in my government and then stuck with *that* for a while).

I guess it's a matter of personal taste, but I'd really wish that arguments on UN resolutions wouldn't involve numbers being dragged into the discussion. Killing off a few one-line "this sucks" type of comments wouldn't hurt either.

Many players ignore the game stats. For example, sometimes you'll find relatively young nations (like a fall 2004 nation) claiming to be powerful aliens or something like that. The game stats will always favor the older nations, given everything else equal, but this doesn't reflect the technology levels players impose upon themselves.

As for numbers being brought into UN resolutions, I think there is a time and place for everything. I think it is equally as bad for a poorly timed, "Well, in my STAR EMPIRE, we have nanites that remove the desire to kill, unless the QUEEN decides we need more warrior drones and flips the "kill, maime, destroy" switch. (This type of arguement is OK a few times, but a moderator recently was warning against "techwanking" in UN resolution debates and was pointing out that just inventing RP and talking about your nation too much drives players away.)

A good way to bring numbers into UN resolution debates is to point to pre-existing roleplays or statements. This weekend while I was on the Texan boards (worth checking out BTW), I noticed that one player has written government "white papers" talking about the negative impacts of UN resolutions on his economy. If another resolution came up, I think instead of just pointing to numbers, if his ambassador pointed to this white paper (which is based on the numbers), that he will have combined roleplaying with metagaming and done so in a very interesting way.

Anyways, there are ways to do this ... but when your nation is young, you are subject to some serious ups and downs. Eventually at 2 issues per day, your nation will tend to find a "zone" of stats that will be much more stable from day to day.

I'm too busy statwanking right now to reply, but I will soon... ;)

Actually, I feel like I have to reply - not necessarily in contradiction of Krioval's complaint - because I think I'm the one who set him off...

Tonight, if I can...

As for numbers being brought into UN resolutions, I think there is a time and place for everything. I think it is equally as bad for a poorly timed, "Well, in my STAR EMPIRE, we have nanites that remove the desire to kill, unless the QUEEN decides we need more warrior drones and flips the "kill, maime, destroy" switch. (This type of arguement is OK a few times, but a moderator recently was warning against "techwanking" in UN resolution debates and was pointing out that just inventing RP and talking about your nation too much drives players away.)

I believe I was involved in that particular conversation. Granted, I'm a future-tech nation, which makes a lot of RP difficult to say the least. At the same time, I think there are positive and negative ways to wield technology, and the "I have uber-tech and like blowing everything up" is definitely a negative. I actually like to interact with MT nations a lot, so I had to set up a backstory that would let me - and then adhere to it without going off the deep end. So I try to show restraint. Puppetwank really drives me nuts, though, and I can't help but wonder if that's a factor on the resolution debate threads, where most of the one-line snarky posts are from people with fewer than 10 posts. But that's a topic for a different thread, ultimately.

A good way to bring numbers into UN resolution debates is to point to pre-existing roleplays or statements. This weekend while I was on the Texan boards (worth checking out BTW), I noticed that one player has written government "white papers" talking about the negative impacts of UN resolutions on his economy. If another resolution came up, I think instead of just pointing to numbers, if his ambassador pointed to this white paper (which is based on the numbers), that he will have combined roleplaying with metagaming and done so in a very interesting way.

Absolutely! That would be great! Combining the two aspects of the game is fine - who doesn't do that at some point. For example, I can accept the argument "this resolution will force me to disband some of my military and I don't want to", as I can respond as I wish to it. But the argument "this will slash my 'defense' spending 40%", to me, is asinine, as the smallest units the game can work with are whole absolute percentage points. So ICly, it makes no sense for all the smaller countries to be complaining about horrendous cuts in military expenditures, especially when they're otherwise pacifist, while larger countries take it in stride. Maybe the UN school will take care of some of that sort of thing.

Anyways, there are ways to do this ... but when your nation is young, you are subject to some serious ups and downs. Eventually at 2 issues per day, your nation will tend to find a "zone" of stats that will be much more stable from day to day.

Well, considering that I'm a pretty religious person, my Religion and Spirituality category was once taking 15-20% of my budget - until I realized that what the game considered part of religion didn't really match up with how I wanted to RP it, and for me, the story wins over the numbers.

I'm too busy statwanking right now to reply, but I will soon... ;)

Actually, I feel like I have to reply - not necessarily in contradiction of Krioval's complaint - because I think I'm the one who set him off...

Tonight, if I can...

Eh. I'm not pissed off at you. Really. At the time, it was the "perfect storm", though. You had recently RP'd your first nuclear test, just passed a resolution that I'd defended a few times, and there was a lot of nastiness on this resolution's debate thread when I got to your post. Combine that with a lot of idiocy on some of the RP forums, and I'm completely unsurprised that I exploded. That's not to say I was necessarily right or wrong to do so - I'm still working that part out.

The primary issue I have, as I mentioned in my post to Mikitivity, is that I find a lot of arguments (in general) preposterous from an IC persepective and totally lacking in evidence from and OOC perspective. Since, to me, one can generate all the "evidence" for something through IC "sources", I demand consistency in such a case, and while you're certainly not a prime offender, some are, and it annoys me when someone uses such tactics to pass or defeat a resolution. So I get irritated when someone makes a statement like "I believe in peace, which is why I keep military spending low" followed up by "that's why you can't cut military funding across the board". That makes little IC sense - pacifist countries should support global disarmament unless there is an insanely compelling reason not to - and even then, not every country is facing that insanely compelling reason at the same time.

Another example would be the Smallpox resolution, where people made the specious argument that having a 100% tax rate and passing the resolution would cause the tax rate to become greater than 100%. That demonstrates a lack of understanding as to how a government would deal with that problem, and while I don't mind if it's someone's first experience with the issue, once I've addressed it twice, I expect people to pick up on how that problem is dealt with.

The primary issue I have, as I mentioned in my post to Mikitivity, is that I find a lot of arguments (in general) preposterous from an IC persepective and totally lacking in evidence from and OOC perspective. Since, to me, one can generate all the "evidence" for something through IC "sources", I demand consistency in such a case, and while you're certainly not a prime offender, some are, and it annoys me when someone uses such tactics to pass or defeat a resolution. So I get irritated when someone makes a statement like "I believe in peace, which is why I keep military spending low" followed up by "that's why you can't cut military funding across the board". That makes little IC sense - pacifist countries should support global disarmament unless there is an insanely compelling reason not to - and even then, not every country is facing that insanely compelling reason at the same time.


I have little to add here, other than I completely agree with your logic and your frustration.

When I complain about techwanking and puppetwanking, it isn't that I mind future tech nations rubbing elbows with modern tech, magic tech, or primative tech nations.

The issue really eventually goes back to godmode. Roleplaying is much more than just creating a consistent universe in which you want to live, but it also entails interacting with other players and doing so in a way that they feel as though they have some degree to express themselves.

In the United Nations, techwanking is pretty much what you've described ... somebody is generating (via their "odd" technology level) a work around to somebody else's arguement. For example, in the Ban Whaling resolution, the techwanked solution (which a player really posted) was that his nation had the ability to clone every whale type and would simply make whales no longer endangered by cloning as many of them as necessary. This arguement was in fact used to counter factual posts presenting information on the quality of whale meat over the years. Not only was the post an attempt to to derail a well researched position, but there had NEVER been any hint on any of the forums of this nation cloning millions of whales before. Techwanking 101. :(

There are milder forms of it as well. For that same resolution, a number of players, whom have not once talked about their economies, suddenly got up and decided that whaling was their "number one" industry. This isn't a future tech issue ... but it is rather odd that a number of nations that were not newbies and were active in the UN forum suddenly decided to reveal to the world that whaling was their largest industry, one of their most important food sources, and a reason to go on the war path.

I can understand a new nation still forming out its "world view" (i.e. backstory) in the middle of a resolution. But I find it very frustrating to watch nations that __change__ their backstories and histories to accomidate taking a position for or against a particular resolution on a fairly regular basis.

Ultimately I too feel that some degree of consistency should be strived for. Not 100% consistency. We move around regions, our allies change, and most importantly our opinions change. Players shouldn't be held accountable for every single action and statement they've made. But I do feel they should be held accountable for "the balance" of their roleplay and behavior.

And I've not even touched your other point, which is "do these positions make sense?" ... i.e. the pacifist now advocating strongly in favour of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). I believe that is your point at least. :)

OOC: I don't think I've ever looked at my stats to decide how to vote on a UN issue - I work entirely within the philosophy of my nation. If there's an effect a resolution has on my stats I don't like, I know I can reverse it later thorugh decisions. So stats don't play any part in this.

Heck, in the DoM resolution telegrams, role play played a good part in getting votes from several of the smaller nations - far more then "what will this do to my stats?". I don't think I was ever asked about that.
OOC: this is how i play it too. as it says in the help and info section: you cant really win or loose. so you have x amount of your currency in this sector, or you have x value in that sector, it really means jack. i vote with how i believe, or in the case of the UN how that particular nation believe, and how i feel about the issue or proposal. an example: in the current proposal, we are going against it. our belief is that while in the real world, with roughly 180 - 200 nations, it is relevant, where as in the realm of nationstates, with 3000+ in the UN and 12000+ over all, it kind of gets lost. some one brought up the fact that it would affect their millitary budget through disarmament because of the stats setting, and we just shrugged it off.

I think that you face a basic problem in this game when it comes to stats: because the underlying economic model is slightly absurd and the stats are quite coarse, you can't let the stats be a straightjacket. That's especially true when it comes to third-party sources like NSEconomy. Yet to discard the stats is an invitation to just make it all up, and that leads to godmoding.

Believe me, I'm no fan of the school of thought that says that you need to account for every dime of military hardware you have, preferably by buying your stuff through a storefront. But the numbers do mean something and ought to be respected.

Rather early on in Allemande's history, I chose to get involved in an effort to resolve a growing conflict in Greater Harlack. I sent three or four warships and a few support vessels, a company of special forces personnel, and a mechanized infantry brigade. I was immediately assailed by someone who insisted that my country was too young to do this. My response was to point out that, with a population (at the time) of 50,000,000 people, a GDP per capita in excess of $20,000, and over $90 billion in defense spending, my nation compared favorably to Italy in the year 2000. I reasoned that I could therefore claim to have about the same force levels and technology as Italy possessed at that time, especially because my GDP had been constant at that level for 15-20 years (2-3 weeks) and my levels of defense spending had been equally stable as a share of GDP for 10-15 years (1 1/2 to 2 weeks). IOW, the stats were my friend, in that they helpes establish that the modest effort was mounting was not beyond the capacity of "such a young nation".

OTOH, I'm not willing to be a slave to the numbers. When I was arguing in favor of U.N. Resolution #98, I had an opportunity to cut defense spending to lower my taxes. I didn't expect that the issue in question would eliminate defense spending, however - which it did. Now, at that point I had several small deployments in place within Greater Harlack. I could have said, "Oops, budget crisis, gotta go!" Instead, I just figured that I could keep up my overseas deployments for a while as long as I didn't extend them or increase them in magnitude.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm willing to completely ignore a U.N. mandate that I don't like - especially when I'm already technically over the line in considering myself to have any overseas military at all (the nuclear program, BTW, is funded out of my science and energy budget). And as I pointed out earlier, while some societies might be able to get away with considering Law & Order spending "military", I can't see that in a nation that's supposed to be a typical late 20th or early 21st Century Atlantic industrial democracy ("Allemande" is French for "Germany", so what do you think "The United States of Allemande" is supposed to be?).

In summary, I agree with Krioval that RP is extremely important - but I think that respect for your nation's underlying stats is needed as both a necessary brake, a reality check, and corroboration of that RP vision.

I'm not sure if Krioval meant to say this, but if "statwanking" is choosing a position on an issue or a U.N. vote just because it has thus-and-such an effect on your stats, that's not what I was doing with the U.N. Peace Prize proposal. I oppose the proposal anyway because I believe that it's unnecessary: Freedonia (as I argued in the thread) could create their own Peace Prize (maybe with Groucho Marx on the medal) and award it in accordance with whatever scheme they wished, much as the Nobel Peace Prize is funded by Swedish money and not the (RL) U.N. The cut is military spending is gratuitous.

That said, I do sometimes choose positions based on their effect on my stats - but in RL leaders sometimes compromise because something they might otherwise want will have adverse effects that make it less desirable than they had hoped. In RL politics this is called "pragmatism". If that's "statwanking", well, maybe it's not all bad.

I think you need to do a little bit of each of these things in NS to be successful: know when to watch your stats and when to ignore them, know when to exaggerate and when to be realistic (I feel a chorus of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" coming on...).

I think that you face a basic problem in this game when it comes to stats: because the underlying economic model is slightly absurd and the stats are quite coarse, you can't let the stats be a straightjacket. That's especially true when it comes to third-party sources like NSEconomy. Yet to discard the stats is an invitation to just make it all up, and that leads to godmoding.

I don't think it's quite that extreme. The stats are at best, to me, a vague guideline, as one can typically manipulate the issues list to make it do whatever one feels like doing. Personally, if a person RPs a nation that's balanced, I'm going to have far less a problem than if someone's claiming all manner of absurdity. It's about as silly (to me) as using the "economic" indicator as a be-all end-all of whether a person can field a given military. And yes, I finally managed to metagame myself to a "Frightening" economy, and I practically run from issues that look like they could damage that rating. But I RP that almost everywhere I go. I'd hazard to say that a third of my non-social-RP posts involve concerns over international trade. Many involve me trying to start or avoid wars based on economic factors. Thus, if I slipped back to "All-Consuming", I'm not going to RP the economic hit unless there's an IC reason for it.

...IOW, the stats were my friend, in that they helpes establish that the modest effort was mounting was not beyond the capacity of "such a young nation".

And that's fine, because it was RP'd well. And in my prideful opinion, people who automatically judge another nation by the economic factor is acting like a twit. The (RL) USSR managed to field quite an impressive military despite having a terrible economy - they just didn't do much else. But the issues don't let one emulate such a system very well. I subscribe to the philosophy on these forums that whether something is considered "cool" or not should depend directly on two factors: realism and story enhancement. And if it's a mutual type of story, realism becomes relative. But even if it's not a constrained storyline, realism is in the eyes of the beholders. Is it "realistic" for Krioval to produce space fighters? Some would say yes, and others no.

How this applies to the UN is that the stats will do one thing while the resolution will do something subtly different. Education resolutions, for example, don't actually affect education. But one can RP as if it does, or can use an issue to effect the desired change.

OTOH, I'm not willing to be a slave to the numbers. When I was arguing in favor of U.N. Resolution #98, I had an opportunity to cut defense spending to lower my taxes. I didn't expect that the issue in question would eliminate defense spending, however - which it did. Now, at that point I had several small deployments in place within Greater Harlack. I could have said, "Oops, budget crisis, gotta go!" Instead, I just figured that I could keep up my overseas deployments for a while as long as I didn't extend them or increase them in magnitude.

Well, that was a silly thing to do, cutting military spending while troops were stationed abroad! But again, your response was acceptable, as would have been posting something about your government forcing the troops to return home. Again, realism and storyline are your friends. Use them accordingly.

And as I pointed out earlier, while some societies might be able to get away with considering Law & Order spending "military", I can't see that in a nation that's supposed to be a typical late 20th or early 21st Century Atlantic industrial democracy

Well, if a global disarmament resolution passed, Krioval would react as follows. First, reservists would be either released from their contracts or converted into police. Arms purchases would be restricted or redirected. Some functions of the military not essential to national security would be privatized. Ultimately, the government would convene the next time a military budged needed to be made, and we'd decide whether to continue in that spirit or whether we needed to beef up military spending again. In the meantime, we'd be careful not to waste money on frivolous things, like Death Stars (which we'd never build anyway, but still). Of course, arms manufacturing is Krioval's top industry, so I could reclassify some of the expense as "Commerce" as well. Anyway, it's not like I'd be just eliminating a quarter of my soldiers from active duty because my budget's numbers changed. I'd simply reroute some of the soldiers to civilian projects.

Well, that was a silly thing to do, cutting military spending while troops were stationed abroad!In retrospect... :-P

My defense budget was 9%, and I had faced the exact same issue the day before in another one of my puppets; there, military spending dropped by 5%. I did the math and realized that, at my population and GDP, 4% military spending would still leave me with as great a defense budget as France and the U.K. combined! IOW, had my guess been on, I could have increased troop levels and still cut spending (which, in the context of the issue, meant cutting taxes, my current RP goal).

Oh, well...

First, reservists would be either released from their contracts or converted into police.Ah, the joys of a volunteer army. As I said, I'm trying to emulate a standard-issue centrist Atlantic industrial democracy (as in "NATO Member"), c. 2000.

Well, issue stats are weird, and I think some effects are population-dependent. For example, when I answered an economic issue when I was a "little" country, I gained two rankings. Later, answering a series of issues in a similar vein was sufficient to raise me only one level - after maybe five issues. Granted, there's a lot of guesswork in determining the actual impact, but my guess is that smaller nations are going to be all over the place until a certain population level is attained, and then things crystallize.

As for the volunteer vs. non-volunteer army issue, I'd think it'd be easier to reassign people in a non-volunteer army. Krioval is unusual in that the military is one of the three ways one can gain measurably in our society, but reassignment is still something that can be done. A soldier can be ordered to work in a hospital, for example, if medical training is part of that soldier's fate. Similarly, patrolling the slums of first-level Torokara can be as useful as some of the best urban warfare simulators (no, we're not exactly proud of this fact, by the way). Ultimately, we have no problem whatsoever telling a would-be soldier what to do, so long as their ultimate goals coincide with Krioval's.

Back to the UN issue, though, I think that the Peace Prize would have passed if it had been categorized otherwise. Thus, to me, the critical issue became a metagame issue. On some level, I think Mik's data sheets from the polling he's done plus the actual tabulation of the resolution votes are going to bear this out. Some categories of resolutions are nearly unsupportable and require a Herculean effort to get them passed.

I don't know ... do we need it to be a "U.N. Peace Prize", or can Freedonia et al. just award a "Freedonian Peace Prize"? It seems to me that this is something that players could just create on their own, without a vote. Would that make it less meaningful?

Krioval's an interesting place. After my elections, let's talk about closer ties...

I don't know ... do we need it to be a "U.N. Peace Prize", or can Freedonia et al. just award a "Freedonian Peace Prize"? It seems to me that this is something that players could just create on their own, without a vote. Would that make it less meaningful?

Actually I think this is a really good suggestion! There is no reason why a nation can't offer up its own peace prize.

Is there an interest in a few of us getting together and scanning the international incidents forum for something that we feel is acceptable?