NationStates Jolt Archive

Hi everyone! We're all a little new at this, so please bear with us. We started the War in Cobrakov thread so region members could get a little practice with RP posting before moving onto scenarios involving the wider community. We welcome comments and constructive criticism, but we're trying to keep the main thread in-character and, hopefully, somewhat entertaining. So please post any OOC comments here.

It amazes me that, in this forum with it's maze of threads, that some loon has the time to make a snide comment in a RP thread!!!

I welcome constructive criticism too... ok, I welcome helpful suggestions, but "puppet wanking", give me a break!

BTW, WTF is this icon :gundge: supposed to signify???

And what's wrong with a little puppet wanking anyway? I like it, and I'm a puppet! Or am I the master... hmmmmm.... ;)

It looks like that green bio-gun thing from Unreal Tournament. I'm wondering what this one is supposed to be: :p . It looks like he's enjoying a blowjob.

HA! Good one Andelar! I hope it's not because he's enjoying the 2 happy faces smootching below him!

:fluffle:

that's mildly disturbing....

Does nobody have anything to say about the war? I am wondering if NeoKurassier would like to add anything before I post the effects of the chemical-fusion strike.

Also, this guy is valiantly fighting off the never-ending stream of locusts that are lunging for his face: :gundge:

Alright guys..

:gundge: is one of those icons that can mean lots of things. Grenades. Magic. Whatever. Icons are for making some sort of "umph" comment on top of your post.

:p is a raspberry. You know, a "nyah!" or "pbbbbttttthhhhh!"

"Puppetwanking" is having two or more nations which you directly control in a conflict. It's much like playing Risk where you get five armies and the other guy gets one - it makes the game unfair, and hence is illegal as per the mods (see the stickies). It's also not fun. Being found to be puppetwanking will usually earn you mass IGNOREs by many players.

There's nothing wrong with owning many nations. Just don't use them together. Make sense?

And welcome to NS.

Okay, I have a question then. Let me preface it by saying I understand by NS game definition the puppet regime is still a puppet of the creating player, and combining them in a conflict is absolutely verboten.

Suppose you had one nation that was, for backstory purposes, created as a puppet regime of another nation, both in the same region. As time has progressed they have evolved differently and the once-puppet has achieved de-facto independence. (Again, this is all in the backstory.)

In the event of a conflict involving the whole region how could one give voice to the former puppet without "puppet wanking"?

give a post of support, and stay out.

Preferably, puppets should be in different regions to avoid this sort of thing. A charge of "puppetwanking" is usually sufficient to permanently close doors with many gamers, as its out and out cheating.


The neutron bomb strikes are most certainly n00bish - rarely does anyone resort to any sort of nuclear weapon, as both sides begin firing rapidly after that - along with all their allies. This gets very messy very quickly.

The use of nuclear weapons also removes the capability of keeping the area in any sort of useful position for some time to come - which makes their use limited anyway.

You do not post the other guys losses - you post what you do, he posts what happens.

See the stickies in the forums

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=357975 [guide to NS]

Work out the composition of your armies. I prefer the thinkgeek calculator http://nseconomy.thirdgeek.com/nseconomy.php?nation=[your nation here]

Remember that you should only use 20-40% of your defence budget on new procurements. (gotta pay those troops and fuel those engines!)
Start here for a good overview of US and world weapon systems.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/
As for the RP itself, remember to check spelling and grammar!

There's a good thread on Logistics here as well. A read should give you an excellent idea of how a military works.

Thanks for the help, fellas.

I wonder why Cisalpia knows so much. Even I have had more posts than him.

Thanks Vastavia & Cisalpia for taking the time to try to straighten us out.

It's interesting and apparently unusual that, this case, "puppet wank" finally made this game fun, gave the folks in our region something to do and stuff to post.

It all came about when 2 Nations (controlled by the same player) in our region ceased to exist due to neglect... I created the rebellion scenario to explain why the nations disappeared, and thusly I also created the "rebel" nation that arose from the ashes. This gave us something to role play. No harm, cheat, foul, etc. was ever intended.... In fact a couple of people in our region have been trying to recruit someone to "play" the new rebel nation. Nobody was being treated unfairly or being ganged-up upon... it was all theatre.

Don't hate us... this wanking was good and fun ;) but we won't do it again as we (well, I should just speak for myself) were unaware that it was such a social faux-pas!

Andelar, NeoK doesn't give a rip what you post because I've mostly (but not always) been posting as NeoK. If nobody steps up to take it over, it will soon cease to exist as it's RP value is rapidy declining.

Thanks for the replies and the links. I'd like to echo Novoslobovia's sentiments. We certainly never intended to give offense or gain unfair advantage over anyone.

I knew the nukes were way over the top, which is why I edited my original post to include the "tactical" notation. I did not mean to imply more than a handful of battlefield-level warheads. I know that's still too extreme for most situations involving actual players, but, as Novoslobovia has explained, that was not the case here. That's also why I reported the casualties. I know you're not supposed to, but there was no one on the other end to reply.

The whole exercise probably seems a little self-indulgent to you more experienced players, but, speaking for myself anyway, it was a useful practice run.

Thanks again

I do have another question though. Given that the option to build orbital weapons platforms is available as an issue, what would be considered acceptable armament for them? I'm looking for a realistic tech level here. Something that could conceivably be built with existing RW tech.

Do you have to declare all of your combat forces at once, before the battle, or can you just note how much resources you should have and then announce a new unit when you want to introduce it, effectively "building" it as you think of it?

Perhaps we should find a similarly sized region to pick a fight with. We can agree to an RP where there is bloody conflict over a chain of islands or common border or something, and then finally each side has so many weapons that Mutally Assured Destruction is developed, and the war then kind of peters out.

Thanks for the replies and the links. I'd like to echo Novoslobovia's sentiments. We certainly never intended to give offense or gain unfair advantage over anyone.

I knew the nukes were way over the top, which is why I edited my original post to include the "tactical" notation. I did not mean to imply more than a handful of battlefield-level warheads. I know that's still too extreme for most situations involving actual players, but, as Novoslobovia has explained, that was not the case here. That's also why I reported the casualties. I know you're not supposed to, but there was no one on the other end to reply.

The whole exercise probably seems a little self-indulgent to you more experienced players, but, speaking for myself anyway, it was a useful practice run.

Thanks again

Actually, the battlefield level nuclear exchange might have been accepted by most players - against troops. Levelling cities is a bit harsh.

Rule of thumb - Justify, justify, justify.

I do have another question though. Given that the option to build orbital weapons platforms is available as an issue, what would be considered acceptable armament for them? I'm looking for a realistic tech level here. Something that could conceivably be built with existing RW tech.

Kinetic-kill weapons are used against ground targets ("Thor'sHammer"). Most weapons fired from space can't affect ground units, though they can flame high level planes or ICBMs.

If you own space, you can see everything, and you can screw with the other guys communications.

Do you have to declare all of your combat forces at once, before the battle, or can you just note how much resources you should have and then announce a new unit when you want to introduce it, effectively "building" it as you think of it?

This really depends on who you are playing with. "Normally", everything has been declared at some point in an OOC thread, including reinforcements; from there, you can have units "appear" on the IC thread, as the other guy already knows they exist.

Then there's the question of how units are declared. I've stated "Vastiva sends a wolf-pack fleet of 60 subs into the Gulf of Sidra". As the subs didn't play a major part in anything, they didn't need to be declared as any particular sort.

I've also used a sub fleet to fire cruise missiles - as such, I stated how many subs were cruise missile submarines, but the rest remained unstated. Note, when you declare, you declare ALL of a type, even if they're not used in that action. If I fire one cruise missile from a fleet of 30 subs, I'll say that 18 subs are SSGNs.



Perhaps we should find a similarly sized region to pick a fight with. We can agree to an RP where there is bloody conflict over a chain of islands or common border or something, and then finally each side has so many weapons that Mutally Assured Destruction is developed, and the war then kind of peters out.

Go for it! Best way to learn. Just work with the base rule - it's a game. Don't get emotionally connected to beating the hell out of the other guy. Yes, you can enjoy it, but remember - he's there to have fun too. ;)

Oops! Taking out a city was the exact opposite of what I intended. Sorry to give that impression. I was writing under the premise of a tactical strike on a military target outside the city. It was an attack designed to kill as many terrorists as quickly as possible while minimizing damage to the surrounding area so the airborne forces could move in and take as much of it intact as possible.

The conflicting viewpoints expressed later undoubtedly added to the confusion. The Commissar was being euphemistic and the reporter deliberately inflammatory.

Guess my technique needs some work. I'll strive to be much clearer in the future.

For clarity, you can add an OOC line under a post, particularly if you post confusion. That way, the OpFor doesn't get the wrong idea. Telegrams are also a good idea.

OpFor - opposing forces. "The other guy".

Theres an offer of someone who wants a battle, why not take it?

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=364197

I'm sure a "region vs nation" battle could be epic.

Looks like we missed the boat on that conflict. I don't think most of us are quite ready to go anyway, what with one thing and another. Speaking personally I'd like to get a more concrete OB nailed down before I go into anything else. Which, of course, brings me to another question.

It seems to me that in the above conflict Exetonia Minor has posted an awfully large military for a nation of 23 million (as of today). Taking that as an example, if I have over 10 times the population and almost 10 times the budget allocation (according to the NS Economy site) is it legit for me to have 10 times as many forces as that overall? Seems like those kind of numbers would put me pretty far out in fantasy-land.

I know NS is a bit of an exaggeration in many ways, but I'd like to keep my force levels close to plausible RW numbers.

Looks like we missed the boat on that conflict. I don't think most of us are quite ready to go anyway, what with one thing and another. Speaking personally I'd like to get a more concrete OB nailed down before I go into anything else. Which, of course, brings me to another question.

It seems to me that in the above conflict Exetonia Minor has posted an awfully large military for a nation of 23 million (as of today). Taking that as an example, if I have over 10 times the population and almost 10 times the budget allocation (according to the NS Economy site) is it legit for me to have 10 times as many forces as that overall? Seems like those kind of numbers would put me pretty far out in fantasy-land.

I know NS is a bit of an exaggeration in many ways, but I'd like to keep my force levels close to plausible RW numbers.

The usual level of military is around 0.4%, with those nations with mandatory conscription going up to 0.7%. A war footing can put you up to 5%, with a "horrific invasion" going to 10% though this does bad things to your economy.

Do remember your logistics! Vastiva, for example, has a current 1.1% military as its involved in "peacekeeping missions" and has been for some time. Usual level is 0.7%. We maintain a 1:10 ratio, meaning for every combat troop there are 10 in noncombat, support positions. Roughly, that means of our six million man army, 4.8 million are doing the support. This gives 1.2 million combat ready troops.

Now, this also depends on your model. Someone on the Soviet model might run as low as 1:6 - but expect much larger losses, as the Soviets expected to pull out damaged units and replace them with other units, not support and fix.

It also depends what sort of military you are looking at. Someone who is landlocked will have a larger ground force, and little to no navy. I'm coastal, so my navy is far larger then my army, with my air force about midway between.

The Evil Overlord has a wonderful Logistics thread - you might want to do a search and consider it.

Remember, yes you can do whatever you like - including a 50% military if you feel like it. However, if you want to be taken realistically, do the realistic thing. Makes it a bit harder because you have to deal in some numbers - but it also makes arguing with what you have that much harder.

I was figuring on 1% since Scortch is a militaristic police state with compulsory service. I tend to favor the Soviet model for tactics/strategy, but was planning for 1:10 on the logistics end. The Evil Overlord's logistics thread is great. For those who haven't read it yet, it can be found in Euroslavia's Guide to NationStates sticky.

If you want to have a conflict with someone - post a thread and see who nibbles.