NationStates Jolt Archive

I cannot begin to count how many rp's that I have joined that have degenerated into uber-technological nightmares, or war dog-piles, or shouting matches between players.

The community of Nationstates is badly in need of some realism.

Exhibit A. Some nation comes along and declares publicly that it is going to execute a famous poet for dissent against the state government. This is indeed a horrible event, to be sure. But look a few posts later, and you'll probably see MASSIVE naval task forces from five or six different nations converging on the one offending nation. Then the nukes start flying as the target nation retaliates with the only weapon that seems to have the potential to match the awesome forces arrayed against it. Then usually the rp devolves into some type of discussion with the players cursing at each other.

This is a highly unrealistic state of affairs. Nations do not usually go to war over a small thing. Heck, the Soviet Union put many people to death for dissent against the state. It did not compel every nation on Earth to attack them for a variety of reasons. Individuals are not often the driving force behind wars. There are, of course, exceptions. The death of the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, for example, set off an entirely improbable chain of events that led to World War 1. But even in this improbability, there was something resembling cause and effect. Nations got involved in World War 1 because they had strategic and diplomatic interests that were at stake. Diplomacy and war are often linked; Otto von Bismarck of Germany fought many wars and became known as "the Iron Chancellor". Yet he never moved his military pieces until he had achieved the diplomatic successes to support his military strategy. Diplomacy in Nationstates is largely a joke, a pretext used to provide a flimsy justification for launching one's country into yet another war that, in many cases, it shouldn't be ready for. I have seen countries who have literally been nuked back to the Stone Age come back in full force the next day, ready for combat again. It's unrealistic, and people (myself included) need to work a little harder before we get to the really radical warmongering stuff. There needs to be a sense of just when and where a modern nation would choose force.

Well said, and this is something I abide by.

However, most find diplomacy "boring" and the like. I don't personally agree with this sentiment. My observations of NationStates has given rise to the term I use to describe most nations here: "Hyper-Interventionist." For example, these constant declarations of war against Communism are an attempt to get something going rather than setting up a more realistic scenario which could blossom into a series of linked and intricate roleplays, instead favouring a few massive dogpile-esque battles.

I will forgo discussion of military tactics, strategy, and technology in NationStates, as it is generally so screwed with that I can only blink in astonishment. Hundreds of thousands of "top of the line" curiously designed tanks employed en-masse on what is often a flat field or desert plain. No tactics whatsoever and the only strategic principle (or tactical principle, to think of it) applied is that of "Mass."

Personally, I roleplay realistically. The one major combat I am involved in is off-site and a civil war which seems to have petered out, that I became involved in because it is less than 350 kilometres from the North-Western segment of my shoreline. On-site, I am fighting in Estonavia on a much smaller, sub-divisional scale, although I currently am fielding a "Brigaded Regiment." But that just launches into another explanation of reality.

Clausewitz said that war is an extension of political policy. So in some sense, the massively aggressive and hyperinterventionist governments here are realistic following *only* that single principle of Clausewitz's.

I often see economics brought up, but only in the sense that "You can't possibly have that many ships, divisions, aviation squadrons, because you don't have enough X, Y, or Z." Et cetera. However, what I do not see is "How the Hell are you launching this war without massive civil discontent and poverty on a domestic level after concluding a massive war not a week ago?" Wars are fucking hugely expensive things. If America, arguably the world's strongest economy, decided to start picking fights like most nations here do, then they would be more of a backwards shithole than Ethiopia or Somalia.

Following this arguement is the: Well, NationStates is massively scaled compared to actual real-world nations.
This is true. However, this does not give you carte blanche to randomly attack, so on so forth. You simply re-scale real-world policies to represent realism in the realm of NationStates.

Summa summarum:

You can play NationStates rather realistically. This requires players who are willing to play for the sake of storytelling and enjoyment rather than winning through mass or godmoding or whichever particular dumbass treat they trot out on that particular day, that particular engagement. But in the end, NationStates is a free-form wide-ranging game that enables you to play it pretty well however you please, realism be damned or enshrined.

The difference here and with reality (well, there are many and this argument has been had too many times to count, but the difference between what you are talking about and NS) is repercussions. Repercussions in the NSWorld are minimal. If you are on the "good side" then there are generally enough allies to be had that you are safe from retaliation. Also, the world is big enough that there are no economic problems that arise and if you don't want, you don't ever have to deal with the offending nation again.

In reality, if Norway decided to attack the Soviet Union, they would get owned and blah, blah, blah. Hell, if the US attacked there would be serious damage done... NS is just different.

The answer to your question as to why such things happen is that most NS players shouldn't be allowed to run a lemonade stand, much less a country.

Another answer is that people who's sole reason to play this game is to puff their military to ludicrous sizes don't like not being able to use it.

Anyways the solution to these problems is to make use of closed RPs to keep the undesirables in the peanut gallery in the OOC thread where they belong.

The answer to your question as to why such things happen is that most NS players shouldn't be allowed to run a lemonade stand, much less a country.

Another answer is that people who's sole reason to play this game is to puff their military to ludicrous sizes don't like not being able to use it.

Anyways the solution to these problems is to make use of closed RPs to keep the undesirables in the peanut gallery in the OOC thread where they belong.
And your standard for who constitutes these "undesirables" is... exactly? Do remember what the NationStates link at the top says, "Because sometimes even national leaders want to just hang out," which is the whole purpose of this forum in all its sub-versions.
Quite simply, I'm a NationStates player who comes here to roleplay his main NationStates nation; and although it is one's right to call it "unrealistic" for many known reasons all essentially equalling concerns about "twinking," I do not appreciate implied imprecations on my or others' skills simply because we don't declare our XML-derived stats unfit for anything but storefronts or wikis, while deriving wholly proprietary economies on the side. As long as we don't godmod or flame or spam, what difference does it make if we want to play the nations we've got?:confused:
Those who go into the excruciating proprietary details, arguably forum-centered players who only happen to have an NS nation, have a right to be that way of course; but please stop implying those of us more casual about the matter do not have an equal right to skip "your" level of detail in favor of relying on third-party economic calculators that generous players coded very hard (as in :headbang:) to provide for us and make even remotely believable. Both types of players, those who roleplay the logistics in detail and those who simply indicate the existence of a logistical system in theater, have a right to feel welcome in a war RP; just as casual players who try to run a different sort of leftist state deserve better than to be labeled stereotypical "bread-line economies" and dismissed out of hand, when their issues stances would logically lead to at least as good an economy as any so-called "C4p1t4l1zt!" power.
In short, although I agree with the mechanics of your suggestion, keeping RPs logically-sized and allowing liberal OOC threads, I wonder how n00bs are supposed to improve if they're perpetually shunned to the "peanut gallery" as you suggest. I'm inclined to help them get better by showing them that both a) the details exist and b) you don't have to kill yourself over them so long as you acknowledge a) and roleplay that fact. How's that approach for bringing n00bs up to better standards, eh?

2Wagdog:

Are you sure you aren't beating the straw man? I haven't noticed Axis Nova mention the economy calculator or even the "official" nations stats at all, even in passing, in this post.

Besides, from myself I'd add that 90% of these undesirables are not noobs. Noobs don't have huge militaries. They are ones who get kicked by them.


You've been really beating a straw man, or a misrepresentation of the argument. The problem is completely irrelevant of that. It's people who see the point of the game in getting the biggest army and showing it off. And, I'll add, these people don't play big militaries because they have them in NS gameplay, but rather twist their NS gameplay to get pointless numbers out of trackers (pointless because anything above 20% GDP will go back into civilian use - most of any high GDP is the service sector).

I find that people to often have this idea that a 500 000 man expiditionary force is hard to maintain. MEanwhile they have an army of 100 million out of 1 billion (Plus reseves the navy, airforce, logistics and intelligence) so i total they have around 150 million people in the army.

On planet Earth I belive the total count of all combat millitary personel (Without logistics & not counting militants I mean professional soldiers ex:Germany, USA, China, Russia and all them) is something around 50 million.

I justlike war because 49% of my budget goes into it and I plan on damn well using it.

2Wagdog:

Are you sure you aren't beating the straw man? I haven't noticed Axis Nova mention the economy calculator or even the "official" nations stats at all, even in passing, in this post.


Besides, from myself I'd add that 90% of these undesirables are not noobs. Noobs don't have huge militaries. They are ones who get kicked by them.
OK perhaps maybe I was :headbang:, but Axis Nova's bit about "...most NS players shouldn't be allowed to run a lemonade stand, much less a country" struck me as awfully similar to the comments I've gotten from certain others (not to be named so as not to flame) impugning roleplay based on your nation's XML-based stats as borderline-noobish because a player can conceivably twink that way. I don't; and as an example I'm waiting all the time for "issue zero" to get back so I can impose compulsory voting in my factbook as well as the game, and go back to my original full constitution that a brief period of true dictatorship after a "whatever" moment of mine wrecked. But until that time, I write my factbook according to those issue stances I can remember at least. "Play the nation you've got," as I say.
My apologies to Axis and any scarecrows or other effigies harmed in my prior post. A thicker skin is always useful, but I just sensed an implied insult in that remark which I've heard before ad nauseam; such as when nations ignore me in business RPs when I clearly state in my factbook that my market is as free as any avowedly "socialist" nation is going to get, tax breaks for profitable state industries and wage benefits for unionization notwithstanding. If that's not good enough for business, fine. But I appreciate an actual acknowledgement and denial of my request, rather than an IGNORE based on a stereotypical belief that "Market Socialism doesn't exist" or suchlike (IMHO) rubbish. You feel me, anyone? That sort of spirit is what I detected in the "...lemonade stand..." bit, even if wrongly so.

On planet Earth I belive the total count of all combat millitary personel (Without logistics & not counting militants I mean professional soldiers ex:Germany, USA, China, Russia and all them) is something around 50 million.
The total count with logistics is about 20 million. Out of them, 15 millions are in hands of the top 30 nations, which also account for 5.5 billion of the Earth's population.

Without logistics, there are maybe 3-4 million. These figures include air force and navy. And the number of ground soldiers is maybe 2 million or so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_active_troops


I justlike war because 49% of my budget goes into it and I plan on damn well using it.
And I hope you understand that industry sector, for instance, in USA accounts for just 20% of the GDP. Out of these, over a half is industry cycle: machines to maintain the industry. A half of what's rest is needed for civilians to live and work.
So, no matter how high the taxes and military budget are, a nation with US-like per capita GDP can only spend 5% of GDP on military equipment. And that's throwing everything the nation can give towards the war, putting the people into poverty and dooming the future; the wartime-only short-term production capacity. Because 80% of the GDP are services, and 15% go to industry cycle and population support.

Your nation isn't as developed as USA, and so your industry sector would be around 30-36%. So you could spend about 8% of your GDP on military equipment. Not more. Just keep that in mind.

I'm a PMT-FT nation, and I like realism about as much as one can expect from a nation with a starfleet. Which is to say, technological sort of, but other things heck yes. The reason I interject is because I've been looking for some new people to play with, and if y'all are not all "I've been looking for an excuse to kill stuff with extreme prejudice lately," perhaps I can have a game with one or two of you. Not to derail the topic too much, but... any takers? (We can work out details after someone expresses interest.)

I agree. I've seen some wars start, and it goes something along the lines of:
"Massively strong tanks appear out of nowhere and blow up your Capital!"
Right now, i'm actually defending a country against another country that invaded it....because it banned cigarettes. I've even seen one guy go to Defcon 4 at the very start of a war.

Join Date: May 2004

Many of us were making fun of International Incidents for its lack of realism for months before you joined, Shalrirorchia. The term "n00ks for n00bs" comes to mind.

This has been an OOC post.

Very much agreed with you, Shalrirorchia.

However, not all II players don't have realism, and I've seen some pretty fine players do so. Haraki is one, though he frequents the other NS boards more often, and so is Pacitalia.

Then again however, some prefer to let realism slide to tell a good story, but I will agree with you, and I do expect at least a basic modicum of respectable realism going on about in role-plays. Too bad there's a huge deficit in it when it comes to many nation's foreign policies...appears they need to take a lesson in International Relations, but then again, if it's to tell a good story, then I can excuse that.

I very much agree, the recent incident in Zanski is a good example. Democratic nation announces it killed 100 protesters, five communist nations react and deploy fleets. People from the liberal and capitalist side rush to defend issuing warnings that they have no right, some individual resort to name calling like TWSP who thinks its cool for government officials to speak like a chav. Then it gets even better! Some people see my OOC message in the ACTO thread to mean that everyone's going to war and proceed to attack us IC'ly, which is beyond belief.

On the subject of economics, I think its best to RP it, calculators are useful for those starting off.

Hey V10, I thought the 5% rule was set in stone as the absolute maximum for any nation type, that's right isn't it?

I mean from communist conscripts to citizens militia somehow almost any nation could get that 5%, if they were willing to deal with the consequences.

I do agree though, the way every nation around here goes, war, war, war without much effect on their economy or social status annoys me.

I hate the massive tech-wank more then anything. I just don't ahve the time, knowledge or inclination to make up five different small-arms, a few MBTs and assorted jets and ships, so I just use Soviet bloc gear. It's got flavor, dammit.

this discussion hits the nail on the head as to why you haven't seen cameroi participating in rollplay on here. the only thing i would greatly love to do. but having read real litterary science fiction for decades, espcialy during the 70s and 80s, i too find suspension of disbelief the better part of sense of wonder.

one thing i believe cannot be stressed enough, and a number of real world "leaders" seem to be no longer "getting it" either, is that if you militarily attack anyone without a real and present, over riding and unambiguous NEED to do so, not just some sort of trumped up "justification", you ARE the "bad" guys. whatever idiology you do or do not pay lip service to.

a tyranny, by my personal deffinician, is any time, place or circumstance where it takes an act of heroism to be honest. being a rich and industrialized nation, with an austensably "democratic" form of government, does NOT preclude becoming, or even BEING tyrannical. in the real world to day there is one VERY glaring and predominant example of this. and if i have to name names, you must have been sleeping under a rock for the past six years at least. or getting you news from the propiganda mechanisms of corporate media.

now that's one thing. there's another thing about future tec. earth, unless your nation is on some other planet, one where anywhere you poke it with a pin, oil comes up, has, at the outside another 40 years worth of economicly extractable 'sweet crude'. and another, at most 200 of coal, and it's guestimated arround 70 of natural gas.

that doesn't mean tecnology is going to come to anything like a screatching hault at that time. but it does mean you're not going to find roadside gas stations profitably vending petrolium based motor fuels.

and nuclear isn't a magic wand either. its fuel has to be mined, refined, its depleted fuel disposed of, which is at present one of two biggest problems with it, the other being that nuclear weapons are a scare word and that means keeping nuclear fuel out of the hands of someone sufficiently militarily disgruntled with the actual knowledge of how to make weapons grade material out of it. (never mind that such persons are actualy EXTREMELY few and far between). none the less, nuclear is NOT a "renewable" source of energy.

and as pointed out, unless your population is entirely robotic, they still need to eat and be sheltered from the winter wind. and even if they are, they still need lubricants and sources of energy.

ok, so deplomacy gets complex and tedius to rollplay, granted, but to anyone over the mental age of ten, so does endless warefare.

how about the real challanges of life to nations. we get plenty of inspiration for that with the issues that come up. isn't that what the're there for? as being a, if not the, major part of the game.

they only have so many options in the automatic part of the game, but there's no reason more creative solutions cannot be rollplayed. and how about the core values of the cultures of our nations? does anyone even consider realisticly rollplaying them, and the factors that influence them?

like the subtle messages, not neccessarily intentional propiganda, but those intrinsic to priorities and perceptions which perpetuate them, intrinsicly defacto implied in purely 'innocent' and or 'profit motivated' story telling itself?

how about distribution of food and energy, commuting and migration. the infrastructures which make this possible are litteraly the life blood of any nation. hell for that matter, even the question of realisticly dealing with military logistics.

how do those super powerful space dreadnoghts never run out of fuel or 'photon torpedoes', without some sort of resupply network? and how is that protected from 'resistence movements' or even simple piracy?

i've yet to see a hell of a lot of attention even payed to that.

i come to the net with rollplay in mind, when i do, looking to rollplay the immagineering of envronmentaly harmonious and sustainable infrastructure.

needless to say, this isn't the only place i haven't found it. by why couldn't it be? i mean, there is something i don't understand about the cultural values that drive most roll play, and that is why isn't there more interest in addressing such real challanges as that?

is it because people are too lazy to do their homework and immagine they can just have endless wars without having too?

=^^=
.../\...

IMO, the problem is that war is considered "fun". Nothing wrong with that, and in the RealWorld (tm), war is very common, and not always fought for good reasons. However, in the RealWorld, war has consequences, whether military, political, or economic. In NS, those consequences are all too often overlooked. Which is odd because the core of the games (the issues) is all about consequences.

Hey V10, I thought the 5% rule was set in stone as the absolute maximum for any nation type, that's right isn't it?
I mean from communist conscripts to citizens militia somehow almost any nation could get that 5%, if they were willing to deal with the consequences.
I don't think that's so fixed, but generally 5% is a good rule of thumb.

This may change as there's extremely strong correlation between nation's GDP and percentage of service sector. I know some players could claim otherwise; but just check that - the correlation is very strong with only minimal tolerance. Only small nations are sometimes shifted, but the larger the nation, the closer it fits the curve.
So, while USA ($40k per capita) has 20% of GDP in the manufacturing, Luxembourg ($66k) has 13% - even being a micronation with major steel industry. On the other hand, nations with $10k-15k tend to have 30-35% in manufacturing. Basically normal nations top at 35% - below they fall into agriculture. BTW, compared to other developed nations, US are actually pretty industrialized; though I guess we all know that; unlike others, US maintain a certain degree of isolationism.

There are countries that reach more, particularly China with 48% GDP in manufacturing, but it is not the real figure, since China has only 25% of population in the industry. In reality, as with any non-Western style country, the real GDP of China is grossly underestimated. GDP measurements don't take into account services rendered without money transaction, like free healthcare or education, and even state-issued flats or private-built homes. Independent analysis puts the equivalent GDP of China at over double the official figure, which puts it all back in line: 25% of population in the industry produce 24% of the GDP, the normal figure for $14k country.
Besides, even that was a product for the entire world massively investing into Chinese industry, and, as China grows up, the service sector grows as well. Hong-Kong already has just 9% in manufacturing and over 90% in services. China today accounts for over 35% of world's products (by price - or over 50% by quantity) and is expanding into the service sector.


Well, I just hope these data will help the players to make a better picture of what GDP stands for.
Back to our business, the limit of what USA could produce is, as said, about 5% of GDP - and that's if all industries were refitted beforehand and everyone focused on military. Weaker nations have more percentage in the industry; however, since the absolute figure is lower, they also have to spend more percent of GDP supporting their populations and less as "net output". Generally I would expect a highly industrialized country with $10-15k per capita to pull out up to 8%, but with major damage to all other aspects. Without dooming the future, probably 5% would still stay a better rule of thumb. However, a rich nation would rather have less than 5%.


It still doesn't mean the military budget over 5% means nothing. First of all, obviously a nation would have to be a completely totalitarian one to throw all the useful industry output into military, leaving people with literally nothing but a bunk bed, a stove and a latrine. Well, and maybe a cheap TV set to brainwash them better; all on "one small room per family" principle. People lived that way in collapsed economies (with a radio instead of TV), and lived that way before the XX century (with religion instead of TV or radio).
Second, in a better economy, while military production wouldn't exceed 2-3%, soldiers usually receive some pay, and the army is serviced massively by the civil sector. Food is agriculture and all the payment to soldiers or service contractors belongs to the service sector. Army, if used in dual-role (self-servicing), being a non-producing entity, would resemble the country's consumption - for instance, $4 in service for each $1 in equipment, ammunition or replacement parts. If the army focuses on training (for instance, their barracks are built by civilians, not soldiers), their service/product consumption ratio would grow more, up to 10:1.
That's why fully meaningful military budgets extend up to 15% of GDP, and higher ones up to 30% indicate more personnel and more service involvement. Both these figures assume 3% GDP military equipment production and purchase, for a moderately developed nation.

Most nations on these boards cannot claim to be totally realistic including myself. I have seen players with massive PTM militarise, billions in population living in a nation that could not support a small city. It is all about telling a story and role playing. It should not be about who can put more troops in the field but the story of conflict.
I have also found that everything from peace negotiations to relief efforts can also make good and interesting role play. I do not find that aspect of the game boring. In fact I have seen some of these threads to be more interesting then some of the wars I have seen lately. If you want realism, most nations should be playing these later two categories more then the war scenarios.

Most nations on these boards cannot claim to be totally realistic including myself. I have seen players with massive PTM militarise, billions in population living in a nation that could not support a small city. It is all about telling a story and role playing. It should not be about who can put more troops in the field but the story of conflict.
I have also found that everything from peace negotiations to relief efforts can also make good and interesting role play. I do not find that aspect of the game boring. In fact I have seen some of these threads to be more interesting then some of the wars I have seen lately. If you want realism, most nations should be playing these later two categories more then the war scenarios.
Agreed.:) That's why I at least look at every embassy exchange I see, and try to help out in every refugee or OP-mentioned "intellectual on death row" crisis; like what Kravania (and numerous others I'm sure...:rolleyes:) tried to pull before I convinced him sending the guy my way was the least bad of the options by far. As soon as Vetaka can get the anti-slavery conference up again, I'm all over that too since I'm an occupying power in the country that occassioned that incident and the multiple wars and near-wars springing from it.
Now if only I could just get in on a good business RP. Even refusal is fine; I just want to know about it up front and businesslike, rather than getting a reputation as some kind of "thread killer" b/c people start ignoring a Socialist country for trying to be sustainable rather than becoming a dystopian hellhole as some seem to think it has some metaphysical "obligation" to. Isn't entrepeneurial practice about taking a risk anyway, such as investing in a socialist-leaning mixed economy if they honestly try to play fair with you?

The economics are pretty wild in this game. ;) According to the calculator, Shalrirorchia's military budget is $22,091,059,306,576 (I can't load the conversion from dollars to shalars presently). Or 23% of Shalrirorchia's budget.

That's higher than it used to be, but then again Shalrirorchia used to be in a region where it was the largest and most powerful nation. The other nations in the region were afraid of it, and constantly banded together in military-diplomatic alliances to contain Shalrirorchia. THAT is the type of cause and effect system I like to see.

I fully agree. I've noticed that the vast majority of II nations simply go around deploying massive fleets and armies at a moment's notice, which implies that they'd have to be in a constant state of maximum readiness. Which means, even in the most advanced countries, we're looking at a WWII style economy -- everything is rationed, the people have to be kept in check by propaganda, and heaven help us if that winning streak turns sour. In less advanced countries, it'd be another North Korea.

(People frequently claim that NS nations and economies are larger than those of RL, and therefore they should be able to support it. However, NS militaries are also proportionally larger, so it comes out to the same net effect.)

Also, the calculators are nowhere near realistic. According to NSTracker, Catalasia, for instance, has a 100% tax rate, and a military budget of sixty-three per cent of its GDP. Despite this, however, it still has a GDP per capita of almost $40,000. This is impossible, as any economics student can tell you within four seconds (I'm too lazy to explain why it's impossible).

In my own RPs (which are few and far between) I'm a stickler for realism. Deploying a fleet of ships with the speed most NS nations claim, for instance, takes a lot of work and can be quite difficult, and thus there may be malfunctions or other problems once the fleet actually gets out. Longer deployments, lasting for a week or two for instance, mean better co-ordination -- but by that time, the war's usually already over. In addition, we usually use all-out war only as a last resort.

by the way, if anyone is MT (or early PMT) and interested in a realistic roleplay, TG me.

For anyone "playing the home game" and just coming in on this thread now, I think it's safe to say that the general concensus is not that you need to be able to explain your military technology or economic system in minute detail (I can do that for the former, but that's because I'm apparently fucked in the head and derive some kind of enjoyment out of it), but rather that a decent application of consequences would greatly improve practically ANY storyline, roleplay, or suchlike.

Some good examples of this have already been mentioned.


(People frequently claim that NS nations and economies are larger than those of RL, and therefore they should be able to support it. However, NS militaries are also proportionally larger, so it comes out to the same net effect.)


Well said, damn it. If you don't mind, I'll be using that quote in the future if there's ever an unfortunate instance where I end up in some kind of situation explaining economics to a military opponent...

On a related note, there's a sticky on Genocide and what it'll do in terms of consequences per your civilian and political sectors, which also translates into how it affects the military. Killing PoWs is much the same - what the Hell is the point of killing PoWs besides increasing resolve of whomever's troops you just massacred?

For anyone "playing the home game" and just coming in on this thread now, I think it's safe to say that the general concensus is not that you need to be able to explain your military technology or economic system in minute detail (I can do that for the former, but that's because I'm apparently fucked in the head and derive some kind of enjoyment out of it), but rather that a decent application of consequences would greatly improve practically ANY storyline, roleplay, or suchlike.
Exactly. I point to nations that have been glassed over and invaded many times with no visible effect on the people's morale, nations whose populations stay fanatically loyal no matter what crazy thing the government does (and literally never experience dissent from more than a very small number of people), nations whose new leaders always seem to act and talk exactly the same way as the old ones, nations whose economies only grow stronger with the more wars they wage, and other unrealistic consequences engendered mainly by the poster's desire to "RAWR SMAAAAAAAASH!"


Well said, damn it. If you don't mind, I'll be using that quote in the future if there's ever an unfortunate instance where I end up in some kind of situation explaining economics to a military opponent...
That's fine, I think I'm just codifying in writing what a lot of people have been saying for the past three or four years anyway.

I think it's safe to say that the general concensus is not that you need to be able to explain your military technology or economic system in minute detail (I can do that for the former, but that's because I'm apparently fucked in the head and derive some kind of enjoyment out of it), but rather that a decent application of consequences would greatly improve practically ANY storyline, roleplay, or suchlike.

Unfortunately, in about 24% of the cases the effect of custom designs is only damaging to the storyline and roleplay.
In the 75% there's no effect at all as nobody bothers to read them.

To respond to an earlier post, I classify undesirables as those people who will deploy massive invasion forces in situations that do not call for it, and pile into threads where other people are doing the same, for no real reason.

I agree with many previous posters here that NS is not realistic. However, when looking at NS realism you must look at some factors.

One: The game mechanics of NS are not realistic. Nations with populations of, say, 6 billion people, an amazing economy, great quality of life, and which spend 50% of their nation's budget on defence cannot exist in our world. For one, because on an Earth-sized world it would be (and is) impossible to maintain 5 billion people at an American lower middle class level (say, two jobs, one car, two kids, small house). Numerous reasons for this: For example, the environment. Already an issue in real life with 6.5 billion people worldwide, more than half of whom live in what we in the first world consider extreme poverty. I like to portray my nation as environmentally-conscious, and I can still admit that my nation ALONE would cause enough global warming that it would do more damage to the planet than all of human civilization in real life.

Two: The forums, and the RPing, is based on the NS World. This is a world where nothing matters. There are no reasonable consequences for actions. Having ten billion Hummers in your nation doesn't cause global warming, for instance. You don't need to worry about agricultural output. Hell, if you can tweak your defence budget to 100%, despite it being physically impossible in real life (unless you use some roundabout logic about everyone in your country being in the military or something), you can go to the storefronts and buy millions of aircraft carriers, where in real life your people would all starve to death in a month. The NS World is infinitely large, contains infinite amounts of resources, never suffers environmental consequences, etc. New nations appear on a daily basis, magically breaking off from an unnamed oppressive colonial overlord on some magically uncharted island in the Pacific big enough to hold five million people. This is a world where your population can double over the course of a war. This world is NOT realistic, and there is no way you should try and pretend it is.

Three: People don't RP internal politics/dissent. I've mentioned this before, but I did it in a bad way and it pissed off the people I was talking to. So I'll put it like this: Democracies (on NS) have it tougher than everyone else. Or rather, they don't, but they should. Dictatorships should, too. Everyone should have it tougher than they do. The reason for this is as follows. With some notable exceptions, no players roleplay internal dissent, differing opinions, etc within their nation. Yes, I understand that you're roleplaying the government that's in power, so it makes sense to only speak for that part of it. However, that doesn't mean the rest of your population are meek losers. Look at America, for example. The Republicans are in power, nominally, given the presidency and the powers of the President. But the Democrats hold Congress, which gives them limited power of checks and balances against the President. On NS, you never see the President of a country make a speech denouncing something and promising aid, only to have to repeal his words because the vote didn't pass in the elected legislature. This is because if a player wants to do something, they do it. Hell, I'm as guilty of this as the next person. If I want to get involved in an RP, I get involved. If I don't, but I want to comment, I might post something like a bill moving for intervention getting shot down by opposition parties, or internal splits in parliament to do with the bill.

But this problem goes beyond government decisions. I cannot count on my fingers and toes the number of times I have seen a genocidal regime carry on murdering people day after day for no good reason, then suddenly when people decide to stop them an internal coup happens and the dictator is deposed. Sure, great, you, uh, roleplayed internal dissent? No, you used it as an excuse to get away from a mess you got yourself into. If it was so damned easy to coup your leader, why didn't it happen earlier? Beyond even this problem, people ship their young men and women off to war ('I mobilize one million reserves') without thinking that those reserves all had jobs, which means one million seats across your country are now empty. One million families are hugging their relatives goodbye, half a million families are cursing the government for sending off their children to a war. But this doesn't happen, because to the player, he wants to fight a war, and so he sends troops. When those million troops are destroyed in a freak ambush, you don't see the player roleplaying internal dissent from a million people dying, you don't see newspaper articles about crying parents holding pictures of their children up in front of the President's house. You don't see people talking about ending the war. Because people don't model internal dissent in their nation.

I could go on with further examples, but I think you get the point. In most cases, democracies don't model the internal (democratic) affairs of the country. Things that would make the people unhappy, and therefore unwilling to re-elect the government, don't. In dictatorships, you don't see overthrowals of the government, because apparently everyone in the country is perfectly happy with the system as is, being oppressed and beaten down.

Four: The right to ignore has shot realism to hell. I've been around since April '03, and I can remember 2003 fairly clearly. Despite all the horrible RPing that was so prolific around the forums, the storylines had continuity. My favourite quote to showcase this aspect of my argument is this: "Perrier, you're dead. Stay in character." Perrier had been obliterated by a nuclear barrage, which was an IC action as a consequence to IC actions taken by Perrier. When he acted like his nation was unaffected by the death of everyone in it, we all proceeded to ignore his RPing, because we respected that IC actions have IC consequences. Nowadays, there's things like 'I ignore you because I don't like you'. Iran doesn't like America. If America invades, will Iran say 'Sorry, go away. I don't like you so I'll ignore you'? No. There's 'I don't have time for this because I'm already fighting five wars of aggression, so I ignore your war in retaliation to my wanton imperialism'. While I respect the restrictions of time, people should be willing to accept consequences to their actions. Ignoring legitimate IC actions, to me, is the worst thing on NS and the worst killer of realism. If you don't like someone, actually ignore them, and tell them so before they try and invade you. If you're strapped for time, tell people that, and make all the wars go slower IC so you can fit them all in.

In the real world, every action has a consequence, be it good or bad. On NS, with the right to ignore, this does not exist, because you can just ignore someone no matter what, without a legitimate reason. If I attacked someone (without going through it with them OOC first), I wouldn't expect to be able to keep their allies out of the war. That would be pretentious and arrogant of me. If I ignored the thirty allies of a nation, and just attacked it, I'd be an asshole. If I OOC agreed beforehand with the nation that we would do the entire war without allies, that would be different. I think you all understand what I'm saying, so I'll leave it at that.

Five: This won't change, so we might as well get used to it. People are here for fun. I have no problem with that. The game's all about fun (it's a game). That's what matters. To me, fun on NS is about enjoyable mutual roleplays, keeping them as realistic as possible. To others, making tech stats and using defence budgets to bludgeon each other to death is fun. I like roleplaying my internal politics because I find it sort of interesting, and I like to keep it real. Some people just want to war without consequence. I'm fine with that, but I tend not to mingle in those circles, and those people tend not to mingle in mine. Not because of some unspoken prejudice, but simply because we enjoy different things. Yes, realism is gone and has always been dead in NS. But hell, it's a game.

When this starts conflicting is when the different types of players start to mix. If I'm intervening in a conflict with one carrier and three brigades of troops, expecting to use strategy, tactics, RP, and the fact that I have some damn fine troops, to defeat my opponent, that's fine. What isn't good is if my intervention force is on the same side as another 'intervention force' of a hundred carriers, two hundred battleships, and three million troops, or if I'm opposing a force that big. There we start running into problems.

Also, I'm opposed to the 'number=win' style of RP. People who expect their army to win because it's bigger than their opponent's army are, in my mind, slightly misguided. I wrote something else very big about that a while back, I won't even try and paraphrase it here.



So, how do I RP? I noticed my name dropped by SEA as an example of an RPer who 'prioritizes realism'. No, I don't deny that my nation is 5-6 billion people. I fully admit that in RPing. But that doesn't mean I have to have an army the size of the United States. I maintain about 35 divisions of 10,000 troops each and a sizable navy. Because this is NS, my 350,000 troops are very well trained. IC, I've had four years to make my training top notch, and with such a small army and a big defence budget, I can give them the best equipment available. No, I don't bother listing what kinds of assault rifles and tanks they use. I prefer to be more abstract. I RP my troops as very high quality, to make up for my potential opponents' quantity. I have a couple million reserves (semi-professional soldiers, I call the good ones) but I never mobilize them except in extreme cases, since if I did I would RP the internal dissent present from that, as well as the damage to my economy from a couple million people leaving their jobs.

In domestic affairs, I roleplay a lot of problems in parliament. Harakians are fickle politically, and for many, their allegiance changes quickly. I like to imagine (and describe) my parliament as an untidy, tense place. There are not only several large parties, including the majority Social Democrat party, but also smaller parties whose alliance shifts from bill to bill, and support fluctuates for all these parties. I like to RP the political manoeuvring in my nation. I find it interesting, and it's a nice setting for character drama. I like using the different characters from the different parties to provide different viewpoints. Though I focus on the reigning Social Democrats, their ministers, and their Prime Minister, I like the power plays and the cojflicts between the parties.

I haven't been in a large war in many months, and refused to enter wars for months after that one finished (though it was very small) because I was RPing the lack of public support for any new wars.

Just an example. I don't expect everyone to be like me. It's a game, and a lot of people take it a lot less seriously than I do. I don't have a problem with that.

So yes, realism on NS is dead. But here's a better point:

Realism on NS never existed. The game itself is based on unrealistic premises and an unrealistic engine to an unrealistic online game. And we love it.

In defense of the ignoring, we would have times less ignores if people didn't wank. I don't mean small wank, I mean proud prowankers and others following their example sometimes. If people could at least for a minute accept the thought that their custom equipment (usually 10-15 random numbers they pulled out of nowhere, plus a phrase "is much better than any other") isn't the very best in the world and isn't invulnerable, and that their big army doesn't smash all others automatically, and, surprisingly, they even can take more than symbolic losses.


Actually (though I'm probably not revealing a secret) I'm also among the people roleplaying conflicts inside the nation, in my case corporate relations, opinions and relations of people inside them, and so on. For external, I try as I can to avoid ignoring players, but sometimes one is trying to wank right into your eyes and it's really not what I would enjoy. I even accept The Phoenix Militia designs, when people don't push their wanked out stats into your eyes. But sometimes one is so determined on winning at any cost that he wanks left and right, making nonsense dominate.

There's a lot of ignoring, but that's a consequence of tremendous amounts of wanking and tremendous inequality between nations. An alternative to ignoring particularly aggressive prowankers is forming closed RP or "Earths", closed worlds. However, if we all agree to reduce the amount of wanking and warmongering in the open MT timeline, ignoring will also naturally fall out of favor.


P.S.
Hell, if you can tweak your defence budget to 100%, despite it being physically impossible in real life (unless you use some roundabout logic about everyone in your country being in the military or something), You can. That's easy. Just declare everyone a part of the army, and voila, you have 100% defense budget.
They won't need to change anything, just tomorrow they'll go to work knowing they are now privates and officers and go to serve.

Join Date: May 2004

Many of us were making fun of International Incidents for its lack of realism for months before you joined, Shalrirorchia. The term "n00ks for n00bs" comes to mind.

This has been an OOC post.

((ooc: If I recall correctly, International Incidents was actually the more 'respectable' forum way back in the day. I remember my first post -- something about aeroflyers -- was in II, which I had chosen because of the excessive amount of n00k threads in NS. At some point, I don't recall exactly when, it seems like most of the 'realistic' roleplayers (AMW notably excluded) jumped forums. I'd wildly guess that was around fall 2003 / winter 2004.

Pedantic points about NS history aside, I've always been a big fan of 'live and let live'. I have my own opinions about nations like the OP mentioned, but they're my opinions. If that sort of play gives them enjoyment, more power to them. The beauty of free-form roleplay is that it does not have to conform to any one person's conception of how the game ought to be played. I prefer in-depth character-driven roleplay; other people prefer detailed military spreadsheets; some people only play NS so they can participate in the World Cup; and still other people prefer committing genocide to see how many people they can get to come squash them. Find a group of people who have similar interests to you and start interacting with them. If someone posts in your thread and you'd rather they not, for whatever reason, politely inform them that this is a closed roleplay between you and Player X (or that they are otherwise not welcome).

Hoping this helps you find more enjoyment in your NS experiance soon,

Ian))

So, how do I RP? I noticed my name dropped by SEA as an example of an RPer who 'prioritizes realism'. No, I don't deny that my nation is 5-6 billion people. I fully admit that in RPing. But that doesn't mean I have to have an army the size of the United States. I maintain about 35 divisions of 10,000 troops each and a sizable navy. Because this is NS, my 350,000 troops are very well trained. IC, I've had four years to make my training top notch, and with such a small army and a big defence budget, I can give them the best equipment available. No, I don't bother listing what kinds of assault rifles and tanks they use. I prefer to be more abstract. I RP my troops as very high quality, to make up for my potential opponents' quantity. I have a couple million reserves (semi-professional soldiers, I call the good ones) but I never mobilize them except in extreme cases, since if I did I would RP the internal dissent present from that, as well as the damage to my economy from a couple million people leaving their jobs.

In domestic affairs, I roleplay a lot of problems in parliament. Harakians are fickle politically, and for many, their allegiance changes quickly. I like to imagine (and describe) my parliament as an untidy, tense place. There are not only several large parties, including the majority Social Democrat party, but also smaller parties whose alliance shifts from bill to bill, and support fluctuates for all these parties. I like to RP the political manoeuvring in my nation. I find it interesting, and it's a nice setting for character drama. I like using the different characters from the different parties to provide different viewpoints. Though I focus on the reigning Social Democrats, their ministers, and their Prime Minister, I like the power plays and the cojflicts between the parties.

I haven't been in a large war in many months, and refused to enter wars for months after that one finished (though it was very small) because I was RPing the lack of public support for any new wars.

Just an example. I don't expect everyone to be like me. It's a game, and a lot of people take it a lot less seriously than I do. I don't have a problem with that.

So yes, realism on NS is dead. But here's a better point:

Realism on NS never existed. The game itself is based on unrealistic premises and an unrealistic engine to an unrealistic online game. And we love it.
Well, thanks mate. And Haraki, while I understand the merits of your position, I do feel that to state that realism doesn't exist or is dead or never existed in the first place is a bit harsh. It technically would be realistic for a nation with a large ethnicity in a democratic society not to fall apart easily in spite of size, and sorry to use a political example, but look at Iraq. The Sunni and the Shi'ite tribes, whose ancient rivalry may cause civil war that can rip countries into separate states. Ethnic/racial tensions being a low problem can help national stability, and for example, the United Kingdom of Oceania, an NS country, was once called "Azazia" but changed its name to create a new national identity as to not assert Azazian national dominance over the other parts of the country (Juristan, Kingsland, etc), and to prevent Novikov from seceding thanks to animosities. The player behind the said NS country did a brilliant job of portraying a highly realistic scenario. So does your fellow Gholgoth buddy, Samtonia...capable of realism, and very well at that.

So there. Realism on NS is rare, and may not have "truly" existed, but there are those who do care.

By the way, as an addendum, Goobergunchia, most or all people here pay little to no attention to what those who spend more time idling on IRC and less time actually RPing think.

Besides, from myself I'd add that 90% of these undesirables are not noobs. Noobs don't have huge militaries. They are ones who get kicked by them.

*Psssst* You're thinking of NEWBS. See, th thing is:

Newb - New player who may be excused for rping ability.

N00b - Idiot who should not rp at all

Anyway realism in it's truest is... dare I say... boring. Yes, we could have commities and treaties and etc. etc. ... yet why? Things wouldn't be as fun. I understand if your saying "i hate godmoders who ruin rps!", me too. But we gotta just ignore them if they just do that.

Well, yes. But still I have seen more troubles and mess coming out of older players with oversized armies, constantly running around to show how big they are, rather than out of n00bs who quickly get ignored.

It's just like that. You have to live with things the way they are, because in the end those who you have problems with make up the majority of it, and it won't be changing unless there's a massive overhaul to NS, which will never happen.

Although I understand that you find this quite an issue, in the end it might be better to set a good example for those people and trust in your own small circle of friends rather than simply play with people you find unreasonable.

In fact, there are not so few of us who find that NS quality standards should be held higher. And there's a lot of people who can be convinced the proper way.

So we can, on our own initiative, just voluntarily set our standards higher. Decide to play on a more serious level. I have made that decision quite a while ago; I'm not the only one who has done so.
Well, and, while I agree with you that it's better to play with the circle of people who are reasonable, I'd like to emphasize one point: that isn't a small circle. And we can extend it. I see a lot of people who don't want NS to turn into random nonsense, who want NS to stay serious RP. We just need to realize that and act at this level, regardless of surroundings, to both give an example to others and allow for roleplay in the circle of people who are interested in it.

I have to say it's very hard to find anyone realistically RPing an army on here. When one nation goes to war they send over millions of troops and thousands of tanks; in real life this just doesn't happen.
Take for example the UK, they have one of the strongest navies in the world and they only have TWO aircraft carriers, on here you're lucky if you aren't fighting against 500.
At times it gets beyond a joke, and so I find myself just withdrawing from most conflicts on the board. If I send in 2000 men my enemy always has to send in 50,000. It makes for a highly undesirable atmosphere on the boards.
I tend to RP that 3% of my Population is in the Armed forces, my Government's main problems are Defence and Law Enforcement so this, to me, seemed like a fair number to me; of the 3% that is in the army I further reduce the number to make up for men on leave and people who aren't directly used for combat(such as engineers/admin). My tank to human ratio(when over-seas) is about 55-1. Of-course, most of the tanks will be left in shelters on army bases never to be used unless for a homeland crisis.

/2pennies

Nations do not usually go to war over a small thing.

Of course not! There has never been a war in history that has been begun on a whim! On wait - the Second World War?

Heck, the Soviet Union put many people to death for dissent against the state. It did not compel every nation on Earth to attack them for a variety of reasons.

The situation is radically different. In NationStates going to war with another nation normally does not mean that the world will be turned into a massive pile of death and destruction.

Diplomacy in Nationstates is largely a joke, a pretext used to provide a flimsy justification for launching one's country into yet another war that, in many cases, it shouldn't be ready for.

Well, nothing different from, say, Roman politics. The political situation in NationStates is completely different from that of the real world. Given the fact that most nations are run by young people who have ambitions and like history and like war it would only be obvious that what interested us was imperialism and war - so we follow a historical pattern which we like.


There needs to be a sense of just when and where a modern nation would choose force.

I agree with a lot you have said, but it would be a mistake to consider the average NS nation as 'modern' in the European sense of the word. Our politics are not the same - we do not strive for 'peace in Europe'.

I know that FT isn't exactly rife in realism, but what about stuff that defies even conventional logic? Ri-an and its setup? The Scandinvans and their Eternals? Gaian Ascendacy? Chronosia and its Chaos Gods? Even the Necrons and their C'tan?

How do those who deal with simpler sci-fi address such sci-fantasy conceits?

There are no needs for an overall guide to when to and not to go to war (other than that already spoken about in guides, im sure they mention warmongering).

Wars can happen for no/little reason, i'd say the Iraq war happened for very little reason seeing as all the "evidence" of WMD's has been said to be prefabricated by some people.

Lets take Gulf war no.1- Iraq invades Kuwait. There was no real reason it it other than imperialism, there are many reasons for war, although i do agree some wars happen too quickly. That said if its planned that an invasion will take place(e.g. i start a thread invading Kanami) due to our history then thats quite different.

Reasons and diplomacy are good, but on NS, as in RL, not always necessary.

I'm almost certain that this discussion is better placed in General than in II, but since it's here...


The reason why people do stupid stuff and ignore realism is because there is no real incentive to do so.

Paraphasing exhibit A somewhat:

Person 1 intends to kill Person 2. Person 2 calls on allies. Allies call in their allies. Person 1 sees the whole mafia and calls in his gang to help him kill Person 2. They call their allies. What started as one man's attempt at murder turns into an all-out gang-war. And the best thing about it is that after they've killed everyone, they raise up from the dead and started arguing about how they died. After they've agreed - after having died - that going to war was a bad idea, they resurrect themselves and ignore the whole deal ever happened... until Person 1 decides to try Person 3.

Three things wrong with this scenario and how they affect the realism factor:


1 - Person 1 shouldn't want to kill Person 2 without a really good reason. Maybe Person 2 raped Person 1 or killed Person 1's kids - maybe they're old archrivals from Sicily. I don't know, but simply arbitrarily saying "Person 2 is going to die" is not realistic. Besides that, even if Person 2 did some really bad things to Person 1, there are restraints to his action [unless you want to go the old vigilante style cowboy wars, where there is no law - in which case, carry on!]. Person 1 can try other "diplomatic" alternatives [trade embargo, diplomatic embargo, heck, even try the same things that Person 2 did to Person 1]. Nearly every war strategist has claimed that war is the "final solution" [pardon the analogy], so simply going about to kill Person 2 - "just because" - is not legitimate and thus deserves Person 2 gang's to kill Person 1.

2 - Person 2's allies should evaluate the situation before helping him. Person 2 may have done something really bad, so it's right for him to weather the storm [unless you dig that stuff]. Alliances are not made for cleaning up messes - they are made for mutual security, and quite frankly, mutual security does not mean that you will have 15 people who will go to war with you if you so desire it. Every person has his own interest, and if keeping their interests means making you suffer for your actions, then so be it. The same does for the allies of Person 1; because not everyone should want to kill each other because that means losses for them.

3 - Person 1 and Person 2 should not be able to automatically kill each other without even trying. If this were some magic contest, both of them dying in an instant is boring, and thoughtless. Same application, killing a person who tries to struggle should not be a cake walk [to quote Napoleon]. And how you kill a person does not depend on the weapon you use; an unarmed man can be more dangerous than a man with ten thousand nukes, so long as he knows how to dispose himself.

This is probably going to pass some wind in the trees, but if you fix these three perceptions, you'll see a change in how people act and RP. Because war will mean nothing to them who not perceive its horrors. When you realize the consequences - independent of their own volition to have such a consequence and dependent on the mode of their action - you will see that they are less willing to have a war than to not have it. Conflict may be fun, but unless you like to live the life of a thousand kings, shielded from the truth of war, you'll avoid it.

I suppose the main problem with realism is that NS is not real life.

In real life mobilisations take weeks. Wars last for years. On NS you might have two hours between classes to mobilise troops, and the war could last five RL days. It therefore stands to reason that there will simply be not enough time to post a totally realistic account of everything: the trains full of troops arriving from their homes at the military bases, where they greet their friends and comrades, pack up their weapons and equipment, file aboard troop transports while their logistical backups repaint the supercarrier and fix a broken elevator, etc. down to the actual war, where an advance that takes months is only signified by someone noting in their post "Three months later..."

People don't come to NS to spend their lives writing roleplay posts. They come to have fun. Therefore, frequently, important details are overlooked or left out. When you're writing a 1500 word war post you don't usually have the time or inclination to write a 1500 word political-dissatisfaction-at-home post. Of course, there's the fact that some people don't even make that effort and stick to 2003-esque one-liners. But that's another point altogether.

I have to say it's very hard to find anyone realistically RPing an army on here. When one nation goes to war they send over millions of troops and thousands of tanks; in real life this just doesn't happen.
Take for example the UK, they have one of the strongest navies in the world and they only have TWO aircraft carriers, on here you're lucky if you aren't fighting against 500.
At times it gets beyond a joke, and so I find myself just withdrawing from most conflicts on the board. If I send in 2000 men my enemy always has to send in 50,000. It makes for a highly undesirable atmosphere on the boards.


And maybe that's because NS is a lot larger than real life? Point of comparison, I've got about 2.2 billion people. RL UK has 60 million. Even just extrapolating from the UK, that's 72 carriers. My actual fleet is 222 nuclear powered fleet carriers (plus escorts) taking into account various differences, like spending a lot more money on defense than the UK does.

And maybe that's because NS is a lot larger than real life? Point of comparison, I've got about 2.2 billion people. RL UK has 60 million. Even just extrapolating from the UK, that's 72 carriers. My actual fleet is 222 nuclear powered fleet carriers (plus escorts) taking into account various differences, like spending a lot more money on defense than the UK does.

As I've already mentioned in this thread:

Of course NS nations are larger than RL nations, and so on. Thus their militaries are proportionally bigger. But to have a military proportional to that of the US's, for instance, you also need to have a similar society and economy to the US's, and spend a similar amount on the military (and thus with the same kind of disapproval from your people, and frequent congressional calls for reduction in defence spending). You get the picture, I hope.

And maybe that's because NS is a lot larger than real life? Point of comparison, I've got about 2.2 billion people. RL UK has 60 million. Even just extrapolating from the UK, that's 72 carriers. My actual fleet is 222 nuclear powered fleet carriers (plus escorts) taking into account various differences, like spending a lot more money on defense than the UK does.

My point exactly. In a time of war the UK, though, doesn't send out all of it's troops but I'm guessing if you were even given the slightest hint of you'd get a war you'd send out all 222 of your nuclear powered carriers. That is why I would have no desire to RP with your nation.

My point exactly. In a time of war the UK, though, doesn't send out all of it's troops but I'm guessing if you were even given the slightest hint of you'd get a war you'd send out all 222 of your nuclear powered carriers. That is why I would have no desire to RP with your nation.

I'm sorry, but when did Rosdivan say he would do this? I think you are assuming one too many things.

I'm sorry, but when did Rosdivan say he would do this? I think you are assuming one too many things.

I said I'm guessing he would. Sorry? I take it you're trying to belittle me their.

My point exactly. In a time of war the UK, though, doesn't send out all of it's troops but I'm guessing if you were even given the slightest hint of you'd get a war you'd send out all 222 of your nuclear powered carriers. That is why I would have no desire to RP with your nation.

You know, I had thought of putting in a bit about how 90 of those is about the upper limit for foreign deployment (and even surging for homeland defense would max out at 130), but I didn't think it relevant. Never mind, turns out that you're so bent out of shape that it is relevant. As for RPing with you, were I to do so, I'd send no more than a single CarDiv and a DesRon. Two carriers, a destroyer leader, seven destroyers, and an AOEN. Eleven ships total. That's the smallest my fleets go down to, I'd have to break up the individual divisions and squadrons for less and I don't feel like doing that.

I know that FT isn't exactly rife in realism, but what about stuff that defies even conventional logic? Ri-an and its setup? The Scandinvans and their Eternals? Gaian Ascendacy? Chronosia and its Chaos Gods? Even the Necrons and their C'tan?

How do those who deal with simpler sci-fi address such sci-fantasy conceits?

Just a slight bump to the start, in case it was overlooked in the thrilling discussion ;)

It is really hard to realistic in NS (Points at certain previous posts) but when I RP, I try to be as realistic as possible. I have a relatively new nation (40 million people) and my armed forces makes up 5% of my population, INCLUDING Navy, Air Force, and etc.So that's 2 million people, which is still pretty sizable. Whenever I'm in an RP (I'm in one right now, and I've deployed about 30 people so far) I don't get all my 2 million soldiers Orbitally dropped in one location (I'm a PMT nation) and entirely wipe out whoever I'm fighting against, then Nuke their capital for fun.

This is a game, a game where a countries' population increases by a million people a day. If this would happen in the real world, the economy would screw itself over and global warming would be killing everyone. NS is 'Not made to be like the real world'.

When RPing, I say a nation should try to be as realistic as possible (Such as not magically teleporting 50,000 aircraft carriers to one location and launching billions of Nukes at once), but SOME consequences have to be dropped and not taken into account, like global warming and the like.

I said I'm guessing he would. Sorry? I take it you're trying to belittle me their.

Yes, and I said that you were assuming. Is there a difference, really, within the context of your usage between an assumption and a guess? As I said, you are assuming a little too much.

I know that FT isn't exactly rife in realism, but what about stuff that defies even conventional logic? Ri-an and its setup? The Scandinvans and their Eternals? Gaian Ascendacy? Chronosia and its Chaos Gods? Even the Necrons and their C'tan?

How do those who deal with simpler sci-fi address such sci-fantasy conceits?

I'd actually argue that this discussion isn't about being realistic as it is retaining plausible cause and effect. A nation of 5 million elves that uses a small fighting force of 5,000 guerilla operatives to defend its jungle-covered land is plausible, if not realistic.

I know that FT isn't exactly rife in realism, but what about stuff that defies even conventional logic? Ri-an and its setup? The Scandinvans and their Eternals? Gaian Ascendacy? Chronosia and its Chaos Gods? Even the Necrons and their C'tan?

How do those who deal with simpler sci-fi address such sci-fantasy conceits?

The type of realism you are thinking about doesn't exist... Is it realistic for a country to be made up of sentient and talking animals? Is it realistic for mant NS Nations societies to even exist? The Answer is no...

For me realism in NS boils down to appropriate IC actions in response to an IC action. taken by someone else. a structured approach. Rping is about knowing your nation and how your characters(or your nation) from your nation would react to the situation.

The only way one can have "realistic" RPs in NS is to have some sort of Canon for your nation. Know your strengths your weaknesses, know the mindset of a typical *national adjective here*. But also knowing just how to vary a single character from the Standard mindset so that each character you have is interesting in it's own right yet still recognisably from *nation name here*

I have my fingers in a number of pies, and whenever I create or join an RP I already know how basically my people think about it.

For instance, In one RP dealing with Ri-an, my character thought that he was dreaming for the entire RP. For my nation that was realistic, for some others it would not be. Realism is as good as each individual nation makes it.

I think Xanthal has the best idea I've heard on this thread. Those of us who value realism should play together.

I am probably into realism as much or more than anybody else I've ever met. For that reason, I really can't take the actual NS game very seriously. But I do find it to be mind-blowing that these forums bring together a such a huge number of people who are interested in RPs and nation sims.

I'm hearing from various people on this thread that the main problems are things that are impossible and things that should have consequences, but don't.

I offer a solution. To oversimplify, what is needed is a referee. Or, rather, a game master.

Imagine a world that does not have 2,000 billion people and 100,000 countries. Imagine a world where populations don't grow by millions per day. Imagine a world where there are realistic consequences for every action regardless of whether the player taking the action understands or is willing to accept the consequences. Imagine a world where armies and navies can only exist if they are paid for with money from a realistic economy and manned by soldiers and sailors who have a good reason to fight instead of becoming deserters. Imagine a world where players simply can't godmod. Imagine a world where players can't refuse to accept realistic casualties and other consequences when your troops attack.

Imagine what it would be like to play an RP in that world.

I can give you that world. Or I can give you more than one such world. It's what I do.

I have a huge amount of experience running offline RP games, wargames, economic simulations, etc. I have some experience runing online games and simulations. I have custom software that simulates large scale combat and economics better than anything I've seen anywhere else.

If you want me to, I can create a world or a whole universe where serious RPers can run countries and have fun. I would probably need other game masters to run it with me if very many people want to play, but that's doable, I think. I can create all kinds of simulations and I've done it before. PT? MT? FT? Low tech or high tech, no problem. Historical scenarios? Fantasy worlds? Alternate history scenarios? All of the above in one universe? (or multiverse)? Been there, done that, ready to do it again.

Or, we can do it the easy way. I already have a ridiculously well developed and realistic world where seventeen NS players have already started playing. We've been going for months. At least eight of them are currently active. It is currently rather low-tech, but the plan is for the tech to increase over time.

Shall we play a game?

Here's some links to information on one of my games to show you what I can do:
Website:
http://nationsandempires1.blogspot.com

Forums:
www.naegame.proboards83.com

Here's an absurdly simple RP set in the same world:
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=520810


(In case I'm no longer monitoring this thread by the time you read this, you can send me a telegram or e-mail me at nationsandempires@yahoo.com)

Oh, another thing. If we only invite people to play who are serious about realism, that also solves a lot of problems. So far, that's the only kind I seem to have playing the game I referred to above.