NationStates Jolt Archive

Hey guys, this thread is being placed here for further discussion about the structure and status of Earth II. As RomeW has stated the number of massive alliances we have limits us greatly. Perhaps non-war RPs, etc. and so on and so fourth are ideas.

Elephantum has mentioned that the MESC could provide a sort of OPEC and further expand RP'ing. We're keeping the UN discussion in the UN discussion thread.

This is for other ideas. Perhaps RomeW can explain it better, I am not feeling that well right now.

Well, I think there are too many alliances, and many people are in more than one (I'm in Pacifinesia and the NPTO), and that keeps anything big from happening. So if we want to have a big Earth II World War, we need to un-tangle the alliance system. We need two major groupings of roughly equal strength, and then KABAM!!! :sniper: :mp5: :gundge: we can start a huge war.

You do realize, that there are other kinds of RP, because you know, war RPs are the one thing dragging EII down. That, and everybody is concerned with land.

land, that is a big problem. i have an idea, tell me if you like it, the answer is probably no. Lets wipe the land chart clean, and start e2 againish. we can have people group their lands instead of having land spread out across the world. we can re do the alliances that way. we would appropriate the land by population or by start date, or a mix. what do you think? eh?

Wiping the slate clean doesn't sound very fun to me. Alot of countries have worked incredibly hard to get where they are today(including myself. I have already been practically banished EII when, in the original EII, I was wiped out and whenever I tried to create a new claim on EII It was wiped out by the Generic Empire, the Borman Empire, or the Parthians. It took me months to get back in, and then months to build up my current Empire).

Also, on the topic of war:

War is not "dragging us down". In fact, it's the lack of war that's dragging us down. All these alliances and what-not have, in effect, made it impossible to declare war on over 80% of the nations in EII. In the original EII, there were massive wars every other day. One county got nuked here, another had genocide commited against it there, one was set on fire over there. Of course, that led to it's own problems(mainly the fact that everyone was getting pwned before they could establish a sizeable empire), but at least it was interesting, no?

i am working with other members on the MESC oil production, as well as on a constitution. I tried to make it able to punish offensive nations without all out inter alliance warfare. But, with the help of a few members, we can start wars if needed. Also, most of the allainces are small or dead, NATO, the RC, the MESC, the NAANP, and the OA being the only ones really active. the MESC isnt a defensive alliance, but more of an economic one. Perhaps a couple of alliances could attack each other, thin out the numbers a bit.

Well, considering this was "my" suggestion, this is what I think (and it may answer your posts):

Now, as many of you already know, Earth II is home to many alliances, many of which have members in two or more different alliances. As such, many of us are caught in a tangled web of allegiances that connect one to several different blocs, and because of that, it’s impossible to get that “polarizing” affect that is necessary for a huge global conflict (such as the one we tried to do). To put it bluntly, our political organizations just don’t allow an “us vs. them” to appear, because some of “us” will be allied with “them” and vice versa.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m not going to suggest for one second that the alliance structures need to be taken down, because some of us (like myself) worked very hard to create those alliances and we don’t want to see that go for naught. What this does mean is that we have to realize the structures that we’ve put ourselves in and go from there.

There are two things that I think Earth II should be doing RP-wise. First of all, we need to realize that as nations we’re more apt to ally ourselves than to make enemies, which I think is a wise move (because who really wants enemies in the first place?). Thus, part of our RP focus should involve how we interact within our alliances- for example, how would an alliance act if a member suddenly fell into internal political turmoil, or raised a leader who seeks ultimate power in the alliance? How about a drought (or any other economic problem)? Or, lastly, what about a nascent social movement that could revolutionize the entire alliance appeared in a member nation? Since alliances are usually connected structures, problems in one state usually ripple to other alliance members and will thus have an effect there too. Also, depending on the scope of the problem, other alliances themselves may also become affected, either because they’re close by or because some members have interests in the troubled alliance. It’s also important that the biggest of the alliances to exert whatever influence they can on the rest of the world, although, because of the interconnectedness of the whole Earth II alliance system, such “grander influence” may be limited.

The other thing that we really have to do is develop our own nations. This is something I would say about not just Earth II but of the rest of NationStates, because I think most nations get obsessed with “war! War! War!” that none of them (I don’t think) understand just how a nation works. This is the chief reason why I created the RP guide in the first place, because nations are a lot more complex than one might imagine. Depending on how nationalistic your nation is, your people will not necessarily be ready to accept the rest of the nations on Earth II, and we need to understand that. We also need to understand that each of our peoples have differing worldviews because each of us have differing values- for example, my people would love to see millions of democracies all over Earth II. Plus, I see a lot of potential conflicts and struggles in the ways we’ve shaped our own nations (because no national system is perfect) and we need to RP those breakdowns.

In short, Earth II is full of unique and interesting nations- now would be the time to express that uniqueness.

Hey Star, in all seriousness, if you want to go mano a mano, I'm all for it. No alliances, no WMDs, just clean mean fighting.

Let's face it, most political and peacetime RPing sucks and is boring. It's cool to do peacetime talks, joint mining or projects, and all the important stuff, but that kind of thing only happens to often. And, being that most of us are teenagers who just want to blow people up with their gazillion-man armies, I can't think of how there could be too many wars. Granted, having wars and nothing else would be dumb, which is why we value those who choose to do peaceful, yet interesting RPs.

Thus, the issue of massive uber-alliances is brought forth. Yeah, they suck. Smaller nations banding together for safety is one thing. Larger nations banding together for unquestionable superiority and dominance is ridiculous. It makes sense, but it isn't fun. You can't go to war with anyone, as has been pointed out, for fear of being missiled into the dust by their x-amount of allies. And not to make myself sound like a twelve-year old n00b and warmonger, but I do love a good war. In fact, it's the reason why I spent hours revamping my army. What good is that when no one can go to war? Gone are the days of honorable countries settling their differences one-on-one (granted, killing thousands of innocents and butchering many times that number of enemy soldiers).

As for land, I'd be open for both ideas. Wiping the proverbial slate clean would be fine, but I agree that it isn't fair for the guys who worked hard to set themselves up. Myself, I haven't paid much attention to my own land, nor made an effort to get more. No place on earth could support my population, the same is true for a lot of you guys. No sense in owning three-quarters of the planet just to be realistic, might as well just turn a blind eye to that particular issue.

And might I raise a mug of ale to what Rome said. Egad, the man is right - again! I've already developed my nation over the past years, at least background-wise, but I haven't posted any of that. Some non-war development would be cool.

But don't pay me any attention, because it's way too late and the thing that's talking right now is caffine and not logic. I know I was several degrees of a hypocrit in this post, but I suppose they could all be seen as valid views...just not intelligent ones. Cheers, I'm off to get some shuteye.

Let's face it, most political and peacetime RPing sucks and is boring. It's cool to do peacetime talks, joint mining or projects, and all the important stuff, but that kind of thing only happens to often. And, being that most of us are teenagers who just want to blow people up with their gazillion-man armies, I can't think of how there could be too many wars. Granted, having wars and nothing else would be dumb, which is why we value those who choose to do peaceful, yet interesting RPs.

Thus, the issue of massive uber-alliances is brought forth. Yeah, they suck. Smaller nations banding together for safety is one thing. Larger nations banding together for unquestionable superiority and dominance is ridiculous. It makes sense, but it isn't fun. You can't go to war with anyone, as has been pointed out, for fear of being missiled into the dust by their x-amount of allies. And not to make myself sound like a twelve-year old n00b and warmonger, but I do love a good war. In fact, it's the reason why I spent hours revamping my army. What good is that when no one can go to war? Gone are the days of honorable countries settling their differences one-on-one (granted, killing thousands of innocents and butchering many times that number of enemy soldiers).

As for land, I'd be open for both ideas. Wiping the proverbial slate clean would be fine, but I agree that it isn't fair for the guys who worked hard to set themselves up. Myself, I haven't paid much attention to my own land, nor made an effort to get more. No place on earth could support my population, the same is true for a lot of you guys. No sense in owning three-quarters of the planet just to be realistic, might as well just turn a blind eye to that particular issue.

And might I raise a mug of ale to what Rome said. Egad, the man is right - again! I've already developed my nation over the past years, at least background-wise, but I haven't posted any of that. Some non-war development would be cool.

Thank you Torian Dominion. Make that ale a Guiness and you raise even more points. :D

Anyway, allow me to address what you've just said:

I personally disagree that peaceful RP's can't be entertaining- I think it all boils down to the writer. I also think that this group has plenty of potential here to produce some pretty diverse and interesting RP's (i.e., not just war) and I think we need to tap into that.

Personally, I prefer RP's that are more about the national character (e.g., ones about social issues, economic developments, etc.) than ones that are just about war. One of the things I've always loved about history (which is what I'm studying) is learning how wars came about and why nations work or don't work, so I love a good character-development RP. I don't mind reading about a war that's actually well-developed, coming off after years and years of tension and genuine hate between two countries, or from an imperialist campaign where the imperial hopeful has a grand design about how they want the world to look like. In short, don't just "blow things up"- tell me why it's happening!

Also, I'd like to say that I'm of the personal belief that a lot of nations saw "alliance" and hit the "join" button without thinking if their nation would actually ally themselves with the nations they've just allied themselves to. So far, the only problem here is that it's prevented us from doing the World War, but that doesn't mean that we can't have conflicts. What we have to do is first find some reason why we've entered all these alliances, and after we figure out that, we need to figure out how we'll ICly work in the alliance. Not all of us will get along all the time so we need to RP that, as well as RP how the alliance affects our nations' thinking. Also, I think some of us need to understand better that we actually are in alliances and don't need to rely solely on ourselves.

In short, we have this alliance system- let's see how we can make it work.

Ok, what im hearing is there are too many alliances with tooo many people in each.
Heres what im going to do
I want everyone to go here and put down the alliances that they are apart of, what makes them apart of taht alliance, their pop size, and on a scale of 1-10, (1 least, 10 best), how attached they are to that alliance and why.
After everyone does that, i will make a list and do some rearangeing. ill then present the list to you guys and you tell me what you think.

Link:
Earth II Aliances (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=9126107)

A few shots in the dark:

-The Middle East Stability Coalition has the potential to be the strongest alliance in Earth II, because it controls our oil supply and has some pretty powerful nations propping it up (myself, The Lightning Star, Cotland). Thus, the MESC really needs to develop that potential.

-Us "Major Powers" (generally agreed upon to be myself, Layarteb, The Lightning Star, Cotland and North Germania, who are the biggest and most active Earth II members) need to start throwing our weight around a little. We ARE the most influential nations in Earth II, so we might as well use it.

-We need an active separatist movement, somewhere, somehow. Some areas have been transfered at a breakneck pace and that just might inspire some good old nationalism so that the people don't feel like pawns in some international chess game. Also, several areas on Earth II- such as Quebec, North-West Italy, Palestine, etc.- have active separatist movements in RL that we should at least recognize (the other side would be to create other "active" separatist movements in order to rethink our entire cultural makeups, but this may be harder to visualize).

-We might also want to think about how we visualize the regional cultures and ties, which are sometimes a lot more deep than the national ones. Geography tends to "create" mini-nations, and we need to see that.

Just some ideas. If I get more I'll post them.

I already have an idea on how to make a new World War. How's about the MESC starts really, really raising oil prices (like 20-fold) and start embargoing oil to some people. Those people get really mad, we all rally together, and we've got ourselves a full-scale world war with two sides that actually has some story and objective behind it.

Kreynoria']I already have an idea on how to make a new World War. How's about the MESC starts really, really raising oil prices (like 20-fold) and start embargoing oil to some people. Those people get really mad, we all rally together, and we've got ourselves a full-scale world war with two sides that actually has some story and objective behind it.

I'm not sure if that would work. The MESC controls most- if not all- of the world's oil supply, and if the MESC gets involved in a confrontation, it can close the taps and effectively end the war before it even starts (because without oil you can't operate the war machinery). Nice idea though.

well, that in itself provides an interesting idea, if a little extreme. If we (the MESC) completely cut off oil supplies, other countries would have to develop alternative fuels fast, as all remaining oil would need to be diverted to essential functions. Cars would be abandoned, as would many planes and vehicles, especially if they failed to get a working alternative to oil. While electricity would be available (coal, nuclear, wind plants), those who could not get an alternative would be sent into technological stagnation or regression. While it would make for a fun story, with the oil holding countries ruling over the backward countries who could not develop alternative fuels, and the countries who rely on fuel cells and solar panels leading an effort against them, it doesnt make a fun RP, especially if you didnt develop an alternative.

Eh, tag?

In my opinion, more emphasis should be put on diplomatic RPs, state banquets, national holidays, internal political discussions (not in terms of coups or suchlike) and foriegn diplomatic agreements among others. Perhaps we could develop our nations more in terms of character development and nation establishment. Give them a third dimension, if you will.

I already have an idea on how to make a new World War. How's about the MESC starts really, really raising oil prices (like 20-fold) and start embargoing oil to some people. Those people get really mad, we all rally together, and we've got ourselves a full-scale world war with two sides that actually has some story and objective behind it.

This sounds good, as I'm not part of the MESC, but I own Oman. There would definitely be tensions between nations friendly to NG and the MESC over which group gets my support (Note Rome's list of influential players). Also, my allies would be greatly angered by this, and to supply them with oil, I would have to raise prices, which would make them mad at me, thereby creating a separate sides type of situation.

One a separate note, I think I'm going to announce my departure from the Roman Coalition. I don't serve much of a purpose, and Germania doesn't have any interest in being in alliance with most of the members, though there are some obvious exceptions which I don't need to list.

This whole concept is a good idea, and I'll help support it. I've already got some ideas on how to create a "polarized" effect, as Rome stated it.

By limiting my alliances to strictly The October Alliance, that would in itself create a pole, so to speak. As well, I may need to break alliances with nations that I currently am aligned with (which are just too many, thus creating problems).

I'll add more on this at a later time.

To note on the oil control: I have Venezuela, Central America, and easy access to the Caribbean so I have some oil deposits myself.

North Dakota has some oil... Not much... Yeah.


Anyways, hopefully, I'll be a bit more active in EII now, focus more of my attention on it.

I would RP a seperatist movement in Quebec, but I already have one in Russia, and doing two sounds too much like hardwork.

I would RP a seperatist movement in Quebec, but I already have one in Russia, and doing two sounds too much like hardwork.

Perhaps- although realistically if there's already a separatist movement causing havoc for a country, it'd be an opportune time for another one (if one exists) to also spring loose, to take advantage of that havoc. Remember, wannabe separatists don't want to have a strong nation to deal with (because then their likelihood of success plummets), so chaos at another end of the nation would give them an apt time to act.

Perhaps- although realistically if there's already a separatist movement causing havoc for a country, it'd be an opportune time for another one (if one exists) to also spring loose, to take advantage of that havoc. Remember, wannabe separatists don't want to have a strong nation to deal with (because then their likelihood of success plummets), so chaos at another end of the nation would give them an apt time to act.

I guess so :)

Well, at present NeoSuun Zhonghua is busy digesting its new southern citizens and shedding all the old Rosian influence from that region. Once 'true Chinese governance' has been restored, then the Dragon-State will be looking outwards once again.

In other words, expect an RP soon.

Well MESC controls on oil pricing is interesting. This has the potential for a large economic ripple within E II. I have in my possession the North Sea Oil Fields, Norway Oil Fields, and Papua New Guinea Oil Fields. So overall effects on my cost would be minimal, but I could hack the rest of the world off by colluding with MESC to sell for a matching inflated price?

Potential RP's that are out there for us to pursue:

Stock Market Crash in a large country. (economic implications worldwide)
Natural Distasters (super tsunami, category 5 hurricane, etc.)
Regional Drought/Famine
Mad Cow Disease outbreak
Worldwide Computer Virus/Worm infection (shuts down all major networks)
International Cellular Phone system (incorporate all phones to work on one system)
Establish an international set of standards for shipping (chemical and dry cargo)
Widening of the Major Canals (Suez, Panama)
Regional Outbreak of Disease (yellow fever, hepatitis, etc.)
Int. Conference to determine the official language of business transactions
Conference on copyright issues (somebody illegally pirating software)
Conference to force the Metric system on the world
Conference to ban international whaling
Conference to establish international teaching standards in schools
Conference to eliminate all crappy music played in elevators
Conference to establish student exchange programs worldwide
Conference to develop new systems in Agriculture


These are all I can think of at the moment. All these ideas can be expanded quite nicely into fairly decent RP's.


-Hawdawg

Oil, hmm, I have oil in Alberta :D, and maybe Siberia (starts surveying), besides which, very environmentally friendly nations like me don't rely on oil for electricity, instead I use nuclear and renewables. That and strict emission controls means I could survive high price inflations. Admittedly though, most large nations rely heavily on oil for their armies.

Well MESC controls on oil pricing is interesting. This has the potential for a large economic ripple within E II. I have in my possession the North Sea Oil Fields, Norway Oil Fields, and Papua New Guinea Oil Fields. So overall effects on my cost would be minimal, but I could hack the rest of the world off by colluding with MESC to sell for a matching inflated price?

Potential RP's that are out there for us to pursue:

Stock Market Crash in a large country. (economic implications worldwide)
Natural Distasters (super tsunami, category 5 hurricane, etc.)
Regional Drought/Famine
Mad Cow Disease outbreak
Worldwide Computer Virus/Worm infection (shuts down all major networks)
International Cellular Phone system (incorporate all phones to work on one system)
Establish an international set of standards for shipping (chemical and dry cargo)
Widening of the Major Canals (Suez, Panama)
Regional Outbreak of Disease (yellow fever, hepatitis, etc.)
Int. Conference to determine the official language of business transactions
Conference on copyright issues (somebody illegally pirating software)
Conference to force the Metric system on the world
Conference to ban international whaling
Conference to establish international teaching standards in schools
Conference to eliminate all crappy music played in elevators
Conference to establish student exchange programs worldwide
Conference to develop new systems in Agriculture


These are all I can think of at the moment. All these ideas can be expanded quite nicely into fairly decent RP's.


-Hawdawg

Wow talk about someone that has ideas! You know that I think that this is perfect...We need to get this UN started so these things can be discussed...

Conference to eliminate all crappy music played in elevators

Well, the beauty of freeform roleplay is that on Earth II, if we don't want to give Michael Bolton a career, we don't have to :p

Though I like your ideas.

Oil, hmm, I have oil in Alberta , and maybe Siberia (starts surveying), besides which, very environmentally friendly nations like me don't rely on oil for electricity, instead I use nuclear and renewables. That and strict emission controls means I could survive high price inflations. Admittedly though, most large nations rely heavily on oil for their armies.

Just to warn you, that oil in Alberta is not as easily extractable as conventional oil (since it is mixed in the tar sands), although Alberta is working on technology that will make it as extractable as conventional oil.

Also, this might be of interest to you:

Synthetic crude production from oil sands is more energy intensive and has a larger environmental footprint than conventional crude oil production. In particular, such production makes heavy use of water. In-situ processes inject water into the deposit, and surface operations produce tailing deposits and process water inventories that must be impounded, because organic compunds released during processing are toxic until degraded by natural bioloigcal processes that take years. As conventional sources of oil are depleted, non-conventional sources of oil will increasingly be relied upon to make up the difference. Environmental impacts from tar sands oil fields will grow in direct relation to the expected increase of production over the next 20 years.

(Taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Oil_Sands )

Thus, not only will extraction require a lot more energy than conventional oil, it will also raise a snit with your evironmentally-conscious country. So that's something to watch out for.

Wow talk about someone that has ideas! You know that I think that this is perfect...We need to get this UN started so these things can be discussed...

It doesn't seem like you should expand the canal, seeing how you ban every captain and his dog from going through it..

Just to warn you, that oil in Alberta is not as easily extractable as conventional oil (since it is mixed in the tar sands), although Alberta is working on technology that will make it as extractable as conventional oil.

...

Thus, not only will extraction require a lot more energy than conventional oil, it will also raise a snit with your evironmentally-conscious country. So that's something to watch out for.


*Considers environmental protests. Hmm, this technology that makes the oil extractable as conventional oil, will that be as toxic as extracting it as oil sands?

*Considers environmental protests. Hmm, this technology that makes the oil extractable as conventional oil, will that be as toxic as extracting it as oil sands?

I don't know that much about the technology itself, except what I read on Wikipedia and in a Natural Science course on the environment that I took, which talked about the difficulty of extracting that oil. I suggest you read up more about it if you're going to pursue that angle. Wikipedia is a great place to start, and if you want to go deeper check out the sources it provides.

I don't know that much about the technology itself, except what I read on Wikipedia and in a Natural Science course on the environment that I took, which talked about the difficulty of extracting that oil. I suggest you read up more about it if you're going to pursue that angle. Wikipedia is a great place to start, and if you want to go deeper check out the sources it provides.


Will do, when I get back

Okay, let's say we're going to do a massive Earth II Factbook. What information should we request?

Name:
Join Month/Year:
Government Type:
Head of State:
Head of Government:


That's all I have thus far. Any ideas?

Add colors.