NationStates Jolt Archive

Is there some way to make economic sanctions more effective in RPing? Because if anyone tried to impose sanctions on a country that has commited violations, the violating country could just easily say "WeLL I cAN jUsT iMPorT fr0m An0THeR c0unTRY L0L 0MG nUKe!11"

It would help the game out A LOT if economic sanctions actually did hurt the sanctioned country's economy. Wars could be averted (Big example: the Feminany situation).

This probably is more appropriate in Gameplay forum, but I intentionally put it here, because I assume it'll get a lot more exposure. Anyway, I hope you guys have ideas. Thanks for listening.

Well its a good idea but foolish. Most NS nations such as my own are self sufficant, which means sanctions will do squat. Who says you need to import from another nation, just steal what you need through spies then build it.

Sanctions = useless

If sanctions directly affected the in-game economy rating, then this would destroy a player's ability to ignore them in RPing, as they would become concrete. If, for example, a nation that one ignores decides to impose sanctions for insane reasons, or out of spite, then the nation who ignores the imposing nation would be unjustly punished for another's spiteful action.

Hm... actually I have enacted trade embargoes just to point out to my allies that a nation isn't worth dealing with. Oddly enough this influence is actually quite powerful because if they are snubbed by a number of nations they will have trouble when they get serious.

However, going to war is personally seen as much more anoying for me as a player... it's more fun to be diplomatic about it and then leave the nation to it's vices.

Nations who go to war over another nations internal laws are generally disliked by Iuthia... we will make a point of telling our allies of such violent nations so they will have bad reputations among our allies, who are serious role-players.

If sanctions directly affected the in-game economy rating, then this would destroy a player's ability to ignore them in RPing, as they would become concrete. If, for example, a nation that one ignores decides to impose sanctions for insane reasons, or out of spite, then the nation who ignores the imposing nation would be unjustly punished for another's spiteful action.

It shouldn't affect the game's economy rating, just the forum RPing. I'm saying there should be a rule saying a nation can't just shrug off economic sanctions; they should RP it as if they're losing productivity in manufacturing or something.

It shouldn't affect the game's economy rating, just the forum RPing. I'm saying there should be a rule saying a nation can't just shrug off economic sanctions; they should RP it as if they're losing productivity in manufacturing or something.

Imposing rules like that on free form RPing is the worst thing anyone can do. This destroys the whole purpose of free form. You do not have to be reasonable, but if someone is unreasonable, you can ignore them for it.

Also, there are many self-sufficient nations, and there are many nations in the world to trade with, so a few imposing economic sanctions really do not do anything important. A blockade is a different story.

alright. i guess economic sanctions are just impossible to rp in a place were so many nations exist and resources are unlimited.

If a country doesn't have any relations with a particular country or has never even heard of another country, sanctions aren't going to be worth anything unless the country that's facing the sanctions RPs that it has an effect. Trying to impose an effect is making the free-form RP less free form.

I've seen posts where people try to encourage you to use tools like sanctions or embargoes or severing diplomatic ties, but those don't work well in NS if the country involved doesn't acknowledge them.

My way around that is to say in an RP that we don't have relations and we're not going to work to build any.

Sanctions are like that. The affected nations can import from other nations - that's why sanctions are useless if you want to destroy their economy. If you want nothing to do with the other nation, they're fine. If you want to cripple them, embargo them.

I agree: at least for NS 1 (there might be provisions for this sort of thing in NS 2; I don't know) this is a matter for RP, and most decent RP'ers will be able to depict and roleplay the negative effects trade embargoes would impose. Depending on how long they've been playing the game and how savvy they are with the issues and how they work, they might even be able to engage in a spate of selective issue manipulation to swat their UN economy ranking down.

My nation is a net importer of most raw materials, and a significant amount of food is imported. Xikuang is a member of certain highly supportive and effective, but restrictive, trade alliances (we are CACE members, and so by extension IFTA members). I also ignore my stated population in favour of the geographical location I've chosen to RP in company with others: my nation can only support a population of about 3 million, so that's about how many people we have.

Were we to do something that invoked the wrath of the CACE and the IFTA such that trade embargoes were placed against us, we'd be royally screwed. We wouldn't be able to trade with our nearest neighbours, so anything we imported would carry large transport costs as well. Our whole trade infrastructure would collapse, requiring major overhaul at considerable expense to get it running again. Vast swathes of the people would be unemployed and requiring benefits. So, while the nation might remain, technically, at an economic power level the UN considers 'frightening', on a practical level, all of that economic power would be: useless, as we'd have the money but nothing to buy; undervalued, as we'd have to pay many times the value of basic products to get them from far-flung nations; or sunk into domestic economic restructuring and social relief, and so unavailable for other projects. I would probably decide issues based on what I thought I could afford: I might start cutting public transportation and education in favour of social welfare, impose tight strictures on immigration, cut military spending, that sort of thing.

That's how I'd RP it, anyway, all well within game parameters.

I like Xikuang's approach, but he's also a better RPer than most, and honorable to boot, a rare quality in the forums. There's really no way to make people play along in an RP. After all, they could just refuse to read that thread.

Also, the big problem with economic sanctioning is that it operates on the assumption that said nation actually trades. If a nation were wholly self-sufficient, which is unlikely, but worse things happen in RP, then they'd have little reason to care.

Another problem is that it relies, as much of this game does, on the assumption that the nation is a capitalist country and as such runs an economy based on consumerism and would need to import consumer goods or be manufacturing such goods for sale. But if you're like me (just plain contrary) then you're probably RPing a non-capitalist economy. I even take it to an extreme by RPing a completely anarchic nation with an economic structure based on syndicalism, drawing much of my inspiration from Ursula Leguin's
The Dispossessed . In such a society, in which the people lived and worked communally, in relative harmony, and without a central government, there is no culture of consumerism, there isn't private property, there isn't public property. There's just no ownership.

So I though to myself...well, what would such a nation need to trade? Most of their physically productive efforts would probably go to improving the communal condition. Better infrastructure, better living conditions, maybe even constructing a national fiber-optic network connected to terminals everywhere in which people can access any information they want, anytime, and discuss anything in forums. So they'd need to manufacture machinery for transportation and mechanized labor and materials for construction. Manufacture electronics, and the usual consumables: medical supplies, the basics for survival. But beyond that, once they've automated much of their production, what else is there? Artistic and intellectual productivity, I suppose. Philosophy, music, sculpture, painting, literature and poetry...even architecture. Build a monument just to build something architecturally artistic.

I also imagine such a society as being very ecologically sound and framing all of its productivity within concepts of environmental sustainability, so it's highly efficient, recyling just about every nonrenewable it can get its hands on and burning the biodegradable stuff for energy. Using biodiesel for it's internal combustion, electricity for trains, maglevs, and other transportations. Electricity is used by renewables wherever possible, refuse burning and breeder reactors everywhere else. They probably wouldn't be using a whole lot of energy per-capita, anyway....

So, my point, is they'd be manufacturing nothing of interest to anyone else, other than maybe military equipment for defense, medical products, and electronics...but most of these would not be produced with export in mind because they don't really have need for money. Maybe they'd need to import rare raw materials...or maybe they'd just find something else to use instead or do without.

Sorry for the length, I'll be brief at this point. If someone slapped trade sanctions on me, I probably wouldn't care that much just because I don't see it really affecting such an economy at all...and there others who RP similar situations, maybe not as extreme as mine, but similar.

I agree. But economic sanctions by Shitsplattia aren't going to effect my nation much. I have a list somewhere (www.freewebs.com/santa_barbara) that tells Santa Barbara's major trading partners. Economic sanctions from any of them would be a fairly serious thing, but let's face it, there are a lot more, and a lot more economically powerful, nations in NS than there are in RL. There's a lot more economic strength in general and I think it would take correspondingly more than usual to dent the major economies. There WOULD also be more opportunities to trade with other partners. And lastly, my economy at least, is pretty self-sufficient, though of course not total autarky by any means.

People ought to simply RP better. If people choose to godmod their way around sanctions then why are you bothering to play with them anyway? It's not a competition, just find some better RP partners.

...Well that was pretty simple.

People ought to simply RP better. If people choose to godmod their way around sanctions then why are you bothering to play with them anyway? It's not a competition, just find some better RP partners.

...Well that was pretty simple.

^^^
What he said.

I've RPed my nation as being totally isolated from the outside world throughout their development, up until recently. So they've HAD to be self-sufficient. I hope one day to make them find alternative materials and equipment that they have to trade for... if, in some rare move (I don't recall seeing a future-techer being sanctioned...), somebody sanctioned/embargoed me, I'd RP it because it'd be fun. I'm probably among the least capable RPers here, but I have a go and have fun. I notice that a lot of nations seem to treat NS as a 'pissing contest', if you excuse my language, rather than a place to RP.

People ought to simply RP better. If people choose to godmod their way around sanctions then why are you bothering to play with them anyway? It's not a competition, just find some better RP partners.

...Well that was pretty simple.

Good point, Imported Lusaka. Anyway, the game is far too big and has far too many nations to be able to keep track of them all, much less RP with them all, and different aspects of the game appeal to different people. Some people play it to build massive armies and have wars, some are mostly in it for character RP... some like setting up realistic domestic policy and ironing out the kinds of difficulties certain situations would create. I tend to emphasise the latter, so I find things like setting up international trade and managing the economy to be quite interesting and fun, and I don't mind making things a bit difficult for myself, because it just makes it more fun, really.

A nation certainly can be generally self-sufficient, like Danarkadia, if they are big enough and have sufficient material resources, and there's no reason one shouldn't RP that you do-- especially if, like Danarkadia, the economy is mostly geared at subsistence, not growth (that is the case for you, isn't it. Danarkadia?). When I created Xikuang I had been reading Water Touching Stone (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099414864/qid=1096132716/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_11_2/026-6077031-8305242) by Eliot Pattison, which is a murder mystery set in Chinese occupied Tibet, and I thought it was a really cool setting, so I based Xikuang on alternative Tibet-like country recently liberated from brutal occupation. Then Celdonia asked if anyone was interested in neighbouring his nation, and the Aperin map (http://www.drnightshade.org.uk/images/aperin/aperinmap.jpg) project took off, and I suddenly found myself with a geography featuring a whole pile of really big mountains, (http://www.drnightshade.org.uk/images/xikuang/xikcities.jpg) just like I wanted, and a whole bunch of defined neighbours equally interested in international trade relations (Mordor Where the Shadows Lie isn't really on the map. That was a joke intended to amuse Cirdanistan). Given the setup, I can't have a lot of material resources, because they just aren't there. I can't grow enough food to sustain even a tiny population. So we have lots of capital goods, and we import lots of material resources from our neighbours and IFTA trade partners. Oh, and we import computer equipment as well. Our IT industry sucks. ;) I was more interested in developing the setting and national character, and the economics really just grew out of that. Organic, this NationStates.

It really just depends on how you want to play it. I think Danarkadia's setup sounds really interesting, at least as it was described in the 4CACE thread... oh, and thank you for the nice compliment, D! I do try. But for the record, I'm a girl, and now you all have cooties!