NationStates Jolt Archive

I've read all of the stickies. Honestly. Even given that, I'm not sure what all the forums are for, but this seemed to be my best bet for this sort of thing. Even if it's not, I hope I can just get a quick answer and leave this ragged bloody roadkill of a topic to rot.

I have, as I say, got all stickied up and ready to go, and also read Pacitalia's excellent thread on Factbooks. I'd like to make a Factbook for my nation. And I now know how to. My problem is: what do I put as my population? (I appreciate putting this question in the topic title might have got some more helpful interest. But what the fuck.)

Given that I'm new here, it's about 7 or 8 million. Which is pretty puny. Furthermore, it, as populations of normal countries (Sweden not being 'normal') tend to, will grow. Every day. So I'd have to update it every day. Now, I think I'm going to like this game. But updating a Factbook every day? No no no.

Furthermore, I don't really see my country as being a 7 or 8 million type place. More as a sort of 100 million type place. So...

If I put 100 million as my pop., will I get a string of 'Godmoding wanker' abuse? Will I be unable to walk the streets for fear of old ladies spitting at me, darkly muttering 'every time you lie about your population, God kills a kitten'? Will I one day wake up in bed and throw back the covers, only to find the severed...ok, you get the idea. I mean, more seriously, what is the decorum? Checking a couple, I noticed they had seemed to put in their actual game populations - these were in the billions, and to me thus seemed ridiculous.

Or, do I wait until my population gets to 100 million, and only then publish my Factbook?

Or, finally, do I have to put my real population, and update every day?

I know I don't 'have to' do anything: I'm really more looking for advice from people who have more experience of this place than me.

I've known some people who make factbooks and just don't put their population or anything that changes lots. They just give information about the government, the history of the nation, and other things that don't change. If you want my advice, make a factbook but leave out the population.

Ok. To a certain extent: yes, thank you, great. I will submit my factbook with history and so on, and that's all fine and dandy and I'll go guzzle a lollipop.

However: quite a lot of Factbook data is dependent on accurate population data. Chiefly, all eocnomic data is going to be related to this. It makes no sense for me to claim so many hectares of cotton fields if 7 million people would have to work 7,000 hour weeks to farm that amount. How do I produce reliabel stats about my military if I don't have a clue how many soldiers I have?

I agree that up to a point, it's not a problem. Trouble is, I'm the sort of wanker who laughs in the face of that point, and stomps on regardless. Anyone else have any ideas? All I really want is for someone to say 'yes, you must use your actual data', or 'no, you can be reasonable'.

This, I know, realize, is also going to apply to economic data. Ok, the calculators are unofficial, so I can basically ignore them, so long as I come up with vaguely reasonable figures for GDP etc. But do I have to model my economic data on the Economy rating of my country? Should I be presenting my budget as being allocated in the exact ratios shown in the XML feed? Is there a God?

Quite simply put, no-one cares if you screw up your stats. If you RP well, with an army that seems reasonable for a nation your size, no-one will complain.

My stats, government policy, army size, whatever, change constantly depending on how I'm feeling, if I want to fit a certain RP...

I mean, look at it like this. When people are reading your factbook, they won't read "I have blah blah 70000 tanks, and 770458 hectares of arable land"

However, "President Cancan was involved in a scandal comprised of a cult, which priozitized hanging people up by their feet", is something that gets read. Your NSeconomy is a vague guide to your nation. If you have 10 million people and a "Basket Case" economy, yet are highly militarized, you'll have lots of soldiers with crappy weapons.

Oh, and leave your population as it is. Never try in change it in an RP, because as soon as you do, the cries of "Godmodder", "Noob", "Newblet", come flying into your threads faster than you can say "Oh, crap, I overestimated my population"

You could call your NSPopulation number the amount of people registered so far for a census or another ongoing venture. Then you could say "as of ____" with the date being the last time you edited it. That way you wouldn't actually be saying that that is your pop., while still listing your NSNumber, without having to update it all of the time.

Or just update your population more realistically.

When I created Czardas, it had a population of 5 million, but IC it was 72 million.

Now, it's got 800+ million, but IC it's only 83 million.

However, the census idea is good, and I recommend it. Or you can just give yourself a fixed population of, say 100 million, or just write <200 million.

Czardas: thank you. What you have done seems to be exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the advice.

Czardas: thank you. What you have done seems to be exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the advice.No problem. Always glad to help. Giving advice makes me look cool :cool:


(j/k, lol)