NationStates Jolt Archive

Hi. Still new to the inner mechanics of NS, still learning, but I like what I know so far. I've got a few questions, did my best to browse around the stickies and other threads, but either I overlooked any answers or they aren't there, so here goes.

1. When buying equipment from a market that is specifically labelled as "Police", "Law Enforcement", etc., do I consider these funds as coming from my Law Enforcement budget, or is Defense the sole statistic used when buying, regardless?

2. I'm not too savvy with html and making my own webpages and all that, so...is it common, uncommon, outlandish, or whatever, to make a thread somewhere in the NS forums, a thread which only I would post in, the existence of which is to basically keep an updated list of the arsenals for my various nations? It occurs to me that this may be dumb, since anyone will be able to see what I and my allies have, but I'd like to have this information on hand, with dates and sources of purchase, so that if I ever decide to go to war, I can prove to any opponents what I've got and there's no question of god-moding. Suggestions?

3. Regarding going to war... (and forgive me if this question has been answered, I've been absorbing a lot of info): what is the best way to begin a war? Does the other party have to agree? What if you send a telegram stating "We want your nation as part of our territory. Join our region willingly or we will invade." What happens at this point? Is the other player free to say "Nah.", and the would-be invader is basically done, not able to officially begin an invasion? Or can further action ensue? I'm no stranger to RP battling, but I have to admit that I've never been in this particular venue.

4. About the seperate Earths (again, if this is a necroquestion, apologies): I understand the concept just fine, but as a new player that has not specified as being from another planet, is it ok to just say my empire is somewhere within good ol' Earth 1.0? And regarding geography as a whole, what is an acceptable way to determine where I may be, versus anyone else? For example, if I decide I want to invade the nation of Elbonia, how do I know how far away they are, any bodies of water between us, if they are even on my planet, etc? I am tentatively assuming that this is something that would be worked out in RP, before (or during the scant beginning of) the war.

Hopefully, none of my questions are too vague, and I appreciate any pointers or suggestions that come my way.:)

Welcome to the game! All of your questions are role-play related, so I'll give you some of the general rules/guidelines for role-play, although your imagination mostly governs role-play.

1. Defence is usually the sole statistic, but as I said, you can do pretty much whatever you want in role-play.

2. A blog would be ideal for those purposes. On www.blogger.com, one does not absolutely need html understanding, but it could come in handy with regard to editing your links list and such. The help section is very imformative, so you should have little trouble.

3. Well, it would be no fun to role-play a war if your opponent didn't participate, now would it? The only way they are going to participate is if they want to. You should get their consent before actually starting the war.

4. There is no real way to determine those; you just have to use your imagination.

4. About the seperate Earths (again, if this is a necroquestion, apologies): I understand the concept just fine, but as a new player that has not specified as being from another planet, is it ok to just say my empire is somewhere within good ol' Earth 1.0? And regarding geography as a whole, what is an acceptable way to determine where I may be, versus anyone else? For example, if I decide I want to invade the nation of Elbonia, how do I know how far away they are, any bodies of water between us, if they are even on my planet, etc? I am tentatively assuming that this is something that would be worked out in RP, before (or during the scant beginning of) the war.
4. There is no real way to determine those; you just have to use your imagination.

Some regions have developed maps showing their members' relative locations, so you could try to find an opponent in one of those regions and move your nation to join it there...

Hey, i'll try to pull out a few answers.

1. I'm not positive, but I have ntoiced people usually use defense for everything, at least i do.

2. I've never heard of or seen anyone do that, but i personnally keep that kind of stuff in a Microsoft Notepad document, for my own personnal use. but if you want somwhere you can referr them to so they can't say you made it up, try one of the free website services, they are easy to use, even if you have never even heard of html code. Try searching for "atfreeforum", or "invisionfree", both good services.

3. When you want to go to war with someone, you just post your intentions in a thread, and write Attn:nationiminvading, to catch their eye. If they don't go on the forums much, or you just want to make sure they get the declaration of war, send them a telegram with a link to the thread you declare war in. They shouldn't ignore you, as this is part of the game and if they want to get out of fighting you they will have to give into something. If they do ignore you, well, to my knowledge there's not much you can do. Mabey (i don't know) you could get a mod to help you, but mabey not. The only reason they can have to rightfully ignore you is if you're really extrravagant and flame in your post, otherwise, they should fight you.

4. The only "seperate Earths" thing i've heard about has to do with the series of RP games intitled "Earth." They all set up there nations on a version of earth and play out what happens for awhile, before ending the game and starting a new "earth" game. I believe they are up to "earth 5" now. Generally NS Earth is said to be jupitor sized, and many people who developed pace travel have their nations on seperate planets. And when it comes to juding distance and terrain, usually the owner of the nation will decide what the terrain is, are there any oceans, ext. and you will be smart about travalling there. by smart i mean you can only neighbor so many nations and you can't be near everyone. Sometimes you'll have to RP troops travelling long distances and supply lines getting streched out. Its all part of the game.

There is no such thing as a stupid question and don't let anyone yell at you for asking questions that might have been answered in some obscure and lengthy sticky that no one has read anyways. have fun playing the game, hope you like it here. :)

You know you could use freewebs.com they have an easy set up program with no HTML needed

3. When you want to go to war with someone, you just post your intentions in a thread, and write Attn:nationiminvading, to catch their eye. If they don't go on the forums much, or you just want to make sure they get the declaration of war, send them a telegram with a link to the thread you declare war in. They shouldn't ignore you, as this is part of the game and if they want to get out of fighting you they will have to give into something. If they do ignore you, well, to my knowledge there's not much you can do. Mabey (i don't know) you could get a mod to help you, but mabey not. The only reason they can have to rightfully ignore you is if you're really extrravagant and flame in your post, otherwise, they should fight you.

This is an optional, purely roleplayed aspect of the game, and those nations that don't want to get involved in it are perfectly free to ignore declarations of war without having to "give into something"... Some people only log in for long enough to do their daily issues & check their updated stats, some people have nations purely so that they can post in the 'general' forum, some people are primarily interested in the gameplay-based form of 'invasions' rather than in role-played ones, some people are primarily into roleplaying interactions with other members of their own regions rather than with outsiders, some people are primarily interested in the political side of the UN... and all of those are equally allowable approaches to the game.

4. The only "seperate Earths" thing i've heard about has to do with the series of RP games intitled "Earth." They all set up there nations on a version of earth and play out what happens for awhile, before ending the game and starting a new "earth" game. I believe they are up to "earth 5" now. Generally NS Earth is said to be jupitor sized, and many people who developed pace travel have their nations on seperate planets. And when it comes to juding distance and terrain, usually the owner of the nation will decide what the terrain is, are there any oceans, ext. and you will be smart about travalling there. by smart i mean you can only neighbor so many nations and you can't be near everyone. Sometimes you'll have to RP troops travelling long distances and supply lines getting streched out. Its all part of the game.

I know a number of players who have specified that their nations are on different versions of Earth (or in Outer Space, or in various 'fantasy' settings such as 'Middle Earth'), for roleplaying purposes or because they want to claim territories with the same locations on Earth that other nations have already claimed or simply to get around how gigantic a single world would have to be to hold everyone... You can't just assume that all nations that aren't specifically on other planets are accessible to invasions from all other nations.

This is an optional, purely roleplayed aspect of the game, and those nations that don't want to get involved in it are perfectly free to ignore declarations of war without having to "give into something"... Some people only log in for long enough to do their daily issues & check their updated stats, some people have nations purely so that they can post in the 'general' forum, some people are primarily interested in the gameplay-based form of 'invasions' rather than in role-played ones, some people are primarily into roleplaying interactions with other members of their own regions rather than with outsiders, some people are primarily interested in the political side of the UN... and all of those are equally allowable approaches to the game.
Sorry, I should have specified. I was referring to the people that are active on the forums (in the International Incidents section), as they have chosen to open themselves to conflict, they can't just pick and choose what they want to be involved with.

Posting on II does not necessarily mean you want to or have to RP wars, either.

I have said since I started on NS that my UN nation has a Magical, Godmoded, Impenetrable, Indestructible Dome that engulfs it the minute anyone makes any belligerent move against it. This has not prevented me from taking part (in II) in diplomatic and cultural exchanges, RPing peace talks, finding individual members of my nation caught up in wars (they get the hell out as fast as possible, usually), exploring, joining a regional space program, blitzing another nation with propaganda, having my ambassadors expelled, trading, commercial finagling ... IT'S NOT ALL WAR!

Thing is, the player behind the nation can pick and choose who they want to be involved with. It is polite to invite when you want someone to RP with you. This doesn't mean that your military has to ask their military if it's willing to go to war. Real people talk to real people, Out Of Character (OOC). Characters talk to other characters, In Character (IC).

If some nation went to the mods asking them to make some other nation go to war, it would be a bit like a little kid going to a slightly bigger kid in the schoolyard and insisting that they make some other little kids play with them and like them. Lame, and about as much chance of success.

That said, if you do want to RP wars, the major points of dispute seem to be
(a) people saying they possess military capability far beyond the limits of their population or their economy and (b) people refusing to accept losses when logic demands that they must have suffered them. There are stickies about this and no doubt some of the expert war-capable nations will help you learn.

If you want a place to keep the details of your nation, updating them as RPs, UN resolutions, etc, affect you, NS Wiki (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) seems to work for many.

Even if a nation IS into wars, there are valid reasons he might not want to accept a specific challenge. Maybe the other plaayer has a reputation as a godmodder. Maybe the two nations have different tech levels. Or maybe the player behind the nation being challenged is packing for a two week vacation.

Mabey that is how you play, but I personally will respond to any interaction with my nation, even if it means certain death for my nation and finding some way to weasel out of it would be much smarter. But it is my experience that nations that continually ingnore invitations to fight, or god-mod some way they can never be attacked, become unpopular among the other players and recieve less and less chances to play the game. Bottom line, if you ignore someone and keep denying them the chance to fight your nation, they will come to dislike you and stop offering you chances to rp with them. So, if you want to keep your options open, it's not a bad idea to play ever part of the game, otherwise people might stop offering you chances to play the game all together.

Well, I've never had any trouble finding playmates, and I've been around since 2004. Certainly I don't get invitations to RP war, but since I've made it clear that I don't want to RP war, that's not a problem.

However, since Astygia is just starting out, DT's advice to keep all options open is good. Eventually, everyone finds out where they're comfortable.

It helps if you have a reasonably clear idea of what your nation is and what you want it to do, and make sure your partners have, too. NS is a big enough game for players to find takers for all styles of RP.

Astygia, if your concept is in any way quirky, you might find it useful to have some sort of Miscellaneous department. I've got a Secretary for Situations LIke This, Omigodtheykilledkenny's got a Ministry (I think it's a Ministry) of Creative Solutions, others have simply Administration or Public Service. Comes in handy occasionally.