NationStates Jolt Archive

I know some FT nations RP with a lot more people than listed on their NationStates page. I am unsure of what to do with my nation and want someone to convince me which option is better: RPing with my listed population or making up a population.

You can RP with either, but I'd advise using your NS pop for calculating military and economic stuff.

I'd say listed pop. No reason to have a gargantuan population to start off with, it's fun to have to work your way up from nearly nothing. I started with a fleet of nothing but frigates and fighters, and it was fun as hell. My first carrier was my pride and joy at the time. If you start with a trillion people, you miss out on all the fun of having to work your way up the ladder.

You don't need to state a population. I use relative terms to talk about mine ICly. Just acknowledge that your nation is bigger/smaller than the nation you are RPing with and it's all good. This allows for you to RP more than one planet, several cities, etc. when you are small without claiming undue power. Just remember to keep your military and economic structure consistent with your NS pop.

Well, to me thar be a few differnet ways to do it.

-RP with your listed pop, and use your listed pop for military size.
-RP with made-up pop, and use your listed pop for military size.
-Rp with made-up pop, and use a made-up military size.(This option most of us dislike, and might land you on alot of people's ignore lists.)

I'd say listed pop. No reason to have a gargantuan population to start off with, it's fun to have to work your way up from nearly nothing. I started with a fleet of nothing but frigates and fighters, and it was fun as hell. My first carrier was my pride and joy at the time. If you start with a trillion people, you miss out on all the fun of having to work your way up the ladder.

Indeed. Of course, you could do what I am doing, which is having a very low population but with advanced enough ships that a small number of people can administer a small, but effective, navy.

Also, you're set up Abyssian Legion, to have crazy-fun with ships. After all, you can get to make a hodge-podge navy straight up from the beginning. Like what Otagia said, a small navy = a lot of fun.

Actually, if you want to have my advice, make several dozen-or-so fighters with a few "carriers" (IE: Ore Freighters converted with hangarbays and over-powered mass-drivers), and have that your fleet. Add in a few scouting probes, troop transports, specialty strike craft, etc, and you can have a lot of fun with a "homeguard" fleet.

Plus, you can always make allies with greater ease...

Do what you want man... personally I'm not really an established FT player, but I'm concidering a reduction in my population from my listed front page population so Iuthia makes more sense.

Hell, I'm also concidering the idea of lifting my normal limitations on dealing with FT nation who claim additional populations on the assumption that the people I chose to RP with aren't just playing to pwn other nations, but that everything is plot driven and with reason. So long as people don't throw thousands of super-advanced spaceships at me or otherwise abuse their space empire I don't see why there should be a problem. I've always said NS shouldn't be a competative game and I think it's time I started to fully respect that and lift my restrictions some more.

So do what you like, you can have a space nation with normal or even less people then you currently have in your nation (I know one that uses 10% of his actual population) just don't abuse the freeform environment of nationstation.

I use my NS pop for the effective population. I.E. what's left after you subtract beings unsuitable for military service. (like robots, broadband telepaths, and specialist A.I.s)

This is the big question from the start for anyone delving into FT. It depends mostly on your backstory.

What are you? A small confederation of systems? A race making its first space colony? An ancient empire, older than memory? (that one is a very popular one, almost generic IMO) A civilization in decline? A civilization attempting to come back from decline, but is still nowhere near out of the woods? (that's me ^_^)



Once you know who and what you are, you have a decent idea of how many of you there are. I am 4 inhabited (and multiple uninhabited) systems in a decently sized patch of barren space on the outer rim. As such, I'm RPing with my NS pop right now, and will continue to until I can come up with a good stable number.