NationStates Jolt Archive

Many of you may know the fabled world at war series which I have hosted since World War IX. Indeed, perhaps some of the most well known, and most underestimated, role players have participated in the world at war series at one time or another. These include Armacor, New Empire, Largent, Tahar Joblis, Agnosticum, Malatose, and ever more. However, as of late the series has been lagging, and about a month ago I dropped out of it and it was been since then technically dead, although sporadic posts still mark the forums. There is an obvious problem which plagues the world at war, and that is the amount of players who are actually active.

Consequently, before the crafting of another one, I wish to open it up to the entire NationStates community and have a discussion over it on how to improve it so that it's member base widens. The basic tenets of world at war are these:

One player chooses a single real world country, regardless of territorial size, and stuff his/her entire NationStates population into said territory - whether it is Russia or it is the Vatican. Under this system a three billion person nation can fit all three billion people in the smallest country on Earth, the Vatican, or even on Pacific Islands. Although there has been discussion on changing this none of the long time players agree, and thus this idea will remain the same.

Technology is considered modern, however, most role players will call it post-modern. We accept technology from the stone age to 2010, and we hold several exceptions, such as rail guns, ETCs, and such. However, in any new world at war game I would rule plasma weaponry out. We do have a team of weapon specialist who would rule on the feasibility of any system, and we also have members who know several engineers and can talk to them about it, such as myself.

The combat takes place entirely on Earth, meaning space combat is left out, save reconaissance sattelites and other type of modern sattelites, as well as ASAT missiles and such. However, we do not accept orbital artillery, referred to as Ortillery by most of the role playing community on NationStates. This was decided after it got out of hand in WWIX.

Also, there are no NBC ordnance in the game, meaning that the game sees mostly wars, and less 'real' politics. Ergo, no nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads at all.

The economy, although you role play with the natural resources of your real life nation is totally based of NationStates - seriously, how could a four billion nation support its population in Spain with Spain's economy - tis' would be impossible! So, we use NationStates populations.

There is no ignoring in "world at war". Ignoring leads to rather bad RPing, and to lost role plays, meaning that this game will be full of ignore fests and will die in an augmenting fashion. Nations which attempt to ignore will be told by the moderators of the game that ignoring is an established illegality, and will be forced to RP on. This was a rule since WWIX. Also since WWIX - here is no flaming allowed. Flaming also results in horrible RPing, and ruins the world war experience. Flaming includes cussing out other players, increasingly whining, posting just OOC messages, and the such. I think we all have a pretty clear idea of what flaming is. OOC and IC in the same post is ok, and OOC for good reasons, such as explinations is perfect.

Any nation that signs up gets immunity from attack for 5 RL days. In this time, they are expected to build up a decent military, read the rules, and start interacting with fellow nations in order to learn the game. However, there are exceptions to the rule. Should a newly signed up nation attack another nation, or should they willingly allow any other nations military forces onto their territory, or invite them (the invite has to be accepted for this to count), then immunity is off. Any nation that attacks a nation with immunity will have that attack ruled invalid, and will receive a warning.

The world at war community stresses realism and thus we have tight rules concerning logistics of which I have a thread which explains said logistics. This includes at least a 7:1 logistical ratio for nations who want an army as well trained and as well prepared as the army of the United States.

So, other than those who are obviously interested - that is the normal world at war community - who else would be interested? And how do you think we could improve on the game so that it doesn't go down the hole?

-Mac

[bump]

Mandatory kicking of players after thirty days of inactivity, thus freeing up nations that are controlled by inactive players.

Links to sites that contain information about military tactics, army organization, mechanized infantry/cavalry types and techs, and so forth.

Incentives to attack other countries, like being able to move ground troops through unoccupied nations as long as those nations were not claimed by the person mobiizing through them. This would be forcibly stopped if/when said nation became occupied.

Incentives to be a part of the community.

Now, I am a member of W@W as it stands currently. I would like it to pick up and not die off, as I am forming some interesting plans that are under wraps for the time being. Any suggestions on how to save this one?

But, if a new one MUST be restarted, please notify all the members of this one via telegram, PM, or email.

Makes sense, I can assure that these policies are undertaken. Any re-start would not be any time soon.

Do you know the Universal Administrator for the site? There have been a few recent applications of nations, such as India, that have gone unanswered as of yet.

Do you know the Universal Administrator for the site? There have been a few recent applications of nations, such as India, that have gone unanswered as of yet.

The Universal Administrator is myself and I'm there to make sure that questions concerning the rules are answered. The process of confirming new players relies on the actual administrators that I chose after I quit which are Iraq, Malatose and Saudi Arabia.

Basque Spain would like to play as spain unless you would consider the autononomus regions of spainish Basque Country to be a real world nation

Ah....well, I do hope that this W@W gets more involved people going to it.

Well, the main problem I've seen in my three W@Ws (W@W, Restart, newest one) have been ridiculously large alliance systems... Moscow Pact, WWTO, EE, CoSEP, the players invariably split into two giant factions all bristling with enormous armies. Since no one wants to risk immolation, the RP ends up dying very quickly, after some initial conflicts.

Honestly, I don't know how to fix this problem, short of mandating that alliances be banned.

Alliences could be severely limited to, say, symbyotic systems with only two nations working in concordance with one another. Take it even further and say that any nation can only be in one alliance at a time or something.

Basque Spain would like to play as spain unless you would consider the autononomus regions of spainish Basque Country to be a real world nation

Hehe, most of the time I'm Spain, and the role play, in any case, would be first come first serve...and that would mandate me getting Spain since I technically would be the first to know! :p

As for the massive alliances, I can agree with you there. However, massive alliances occure inevitably. I could place a cap on a major alliances to around three nations and therefore making it a sort of bloc. However, I do think that the forging of alliances is a charactiristic of good politics and thus cannot be abolished.

Which stumbles upon the next point. Good role playing. I think that further world wars should take the spectrum from wars to the area of politics, meaning that the game wouldn't just be pure invasions which always leads to re-starts and such, but to politics. Meaning that wars are actually preceeded by realistic reasons, not just invasions started on mere whims.

As well as mandatory good role playing, meaning that regardless on your post there should be a mininum amount of wording used which would be around 500 because although there are those who role play well without so many words big posts directly leads to awsome role playing since it stresses embellishment and stresses the development of what you are trying to say.

Hehe, most of the time I'm Spain, and the role play, in any case, would be first come first serve...and that would mandate me getting Spain since I technically would be the first to know! :p

So can i play as basque Country

Have to agree with you there. But wars could still be a part of it. And reasoning could be greed, corruption, seeking glory, or whatever, could it not? Like your idea about alliances.

Now, stressing politics is excellent, a well as actual trading.

Now, about posts and good RPing. I think that RPing should be judged on its merits, rather than sheer volume of words. While requiring a minimum often leads to embellishment and excellent description, sometimes it leads to incoherant filler from someone who doesn't know how to properly RP. So I don't really know.

And I suggested the links to different sites because not all of us are experts in politics and warfare.

So can i play as basque Country

You technically could but I wouldn't be happy about it :p

Yea, I guess a database worth of links to different concepts of politics and the military would be an excellent idea.

I'll sign up as Japan (I was born in and live in Japan, so unlike many people [cough: posers!] on these forums I feel I can realistically portray our culture), if things are kept on a relatively realistic basis.

Here is a thread written by Euroslavia, which I think is a good basis on diplomacy for W@W: Diplomacy in NS (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=368341)

Here is a good sight on Parliamentary Procedure, which could be used to make some things a bit more realistic (not a huge issue, but nice to know all the same): Parlimentary Procedure (http://www.rulesonline.com/)

The Avalon Project contains copies of many historic documents, which is always useful, Avalon (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm)

So how are you coming along with the all-new W@W forum? The reason that I was not activeu ntil now was that I only had five million people when I joined. Now I feel that I have adequate population, as my military now exceeds that number.

The only problem I saw was in the newest one that most people weren't active.

I was Austria and me and Germany had a cool Anschluss alliance type thing. I just wish the Moscow Pact had attacked us..

So how are you coming along with the all-new W@W forum? The reason that I was not activeu ntil now was that I only had five million people when I joined. Now I feel that I have adequate population, as my military now exceeds that number.

I'm waiting to get my own server...which so far hasn't worked.

Well I'd love to join.