Q: Can I get in trouble if I have more than one nation in NationStates? Can I put more than one nation into the UN?A: You can have multiple nations, and many people do. Just remember that only ONE nation is allowed to be in the UN. That means one UN nation per IP address. So if someone else who lives with you also plays NationStates, only one of you can have a nation in the UN. Since you're both logging in from the same IP address, the game admin has no way of knowing whether those nations are owned by one person or 12 people - people aren't necessarily truthful about it. The good thing is that there are still plenty of things that you can participate in that don't require you to have a UN nation. For more information about the UN and how to join it, go
here.
Q: Does the region my nation resides in affect my nation in any way?A: No, not at all.
Q: What effect do the decisions I make on my national issues have on my game?A: The game gives exaggerated results from every decision that you make. Once you've made a decision on an issue, you see some changes to your nation sometime within the next 12 hours. A line in the description of your nation may have changed to show what's changed to reflect it. You might also see a rise or drop in the categories of Civil Rights, Economy, or Political Freedoms. Another change can sometimes be that your government type becomes something else.
Q: I made a bad decision on an issue and now I'm seeing an undesirable effect on my nation. How do I fix it?A: Not to worry, that happens, and nothing has to be permanent unless you want it to be. To fix something you don't like, just watch for an issue to come along where you can counteract whatever you didn't like. If it caused your economy to become worse, for instance, watch for an issue that has an optional answer that looks like it will improve it.
Q: Why do some have have titles preceding the nation name that aren't on my dropdown list?A: Once your nation has a population of 500 million or more, you can write your own custom title.
Q: What can I do to get my nation to have the UN category that I want?A: The UN category is determined by your nation's levels of civil rights, economy, and political freedoms. Since your decisions on your national issues affects those, you can experiment a bit and try to get a specific category that way. And if you want to set up a nation to have a specific one right at the start, read this
spoiler on what to answer each question. But remember, that UN category may change as you make decisions on your issues after that.
Q: How do I increase my nation's population?A: Your population will raise naturally over time. The longer you've had that nation, the higher the population will be. There are some issues that can provide a very small increase or decrease, but the effect is so small that it's hard to spot. A basic rule of thumb is that you'll have 1 billion people for every 6 months that your nation has been in existence.
Q: What is the UN, and does it really matter whether I join it or not?A: It's completely your choice whether you want to join the UN or not. Two things that happen when your nation is in the UN is that you can cast votes on issues proposed in the UN, and you can give and receive endorsements with other nations in your own region. Casting votes on UN issues won't affect your nation the way that your decisions on your national issues do. From time to time, you might receive a telegram saying that your nation's laws have been changed in order to bring them into compliance with the UN, but the effect of this is generally small and far less noticeable than the decisions you make on your national issues. For more information about the UN and how to join it,
read this.
Q: On those UN issues, does it matter whether I vote the same way as my nation's delegate?A: No it does not. You're free to vote as you choose, regardless of how your delegate votes. The difference is that yours is counted as an individual vote, while a delegate's vote is counted according to the of the endorsements he has.
Q: What are endorsements and how do they work?A: When someone endorses another nation, it basically means that they approve of that nation for one reason or another. Only nations that are in the UN and are located in the same region can endorse each other. Sometimes people swap (or trade) endorsements, which is just a term meaning two nations endorsing each other. It really makes no difference whether you have a lot of endorsements or none at all, as far as gameplay goes. If you become a member of the United Nations and want to submit a resolution, you'll need two or more endorsements before you can do that.
The only people that -need- those endorsements are the Delegate and Vice Delegate of each region. For anyone else, endorsements give no real advantages in terms of gameplay. In fact, if you end up gathering -too- many endorsements, your home region is likely to become suspicious that you're trying to take over the delegacy, and may take action against you. For more information on that, see the sections here about war and raiding.
Q: What about war? Can I go to war against another nation? Can I ally with another nation?A: The game mechanics are not set up for nations to go to war against each other. But you can role play it, if you like. Most regional forums have Role Play areas where nations can battle it out, although of course it has no real effect on anyone's game. Regions do wage war against each other sometimes, and you can participate by joining your region's armed forces. The effect that regional war has on the game is that it can change a region's delegate. The same goes for national allies. The closest thing you can do, other than just role playing as allies, is to endorse each other's nations.
Q: How does regional war work? And what does 'raiding' and 'defending' mean?A: The goal in a regional war is for control of a region's delegacy. Raiding is an attempt by one region to take over another's delegacy. Defending is what we call the attempt to prevent such a raid from being successful, or to return control to the region by taking it back out of the hands of the invaders. The precise way that it is done is a bit too complicated to explain here, but the basic premise is that whoever has the most endorsements in a region is considered its delegate by game mechanics. Raiders and defenders move their nations into the target region and endorse a specific nation for the purpose of controlling the delegacy that way. There are some regions that specialize in either raiding or defending, and others that are neutral.
Q: What are 'userites' and 'feederites'? What is a 'sink'?A: When a nation is created, it's born into one of the game-created feeder regions, also known as 'feederites'. 'Userites' are user-created regions, also known as founder regions. 'Sinks' are also game-created regions, but new nations are not born into them. The Rejected Realms is one such region. Any nation that is ejected from a region ends up there. Lazarus is another. When a player decides to resurrect a nation that previously ceased to exist, it is revived there.
Q: What are founders?A: A founder is the person who is in possession of the founder nation in the region. In some cases, such as Taijitu, access to the founder nation is shared by a group of people. Founders have the power to eject nations. Being a founder doesn't necessarily mean the person has any other power or position in the government.
Q: What's an endocap?A: Some regions use endocaps as a way of legislating how many endorsements a nation is allowed to have. It's a way of securing the Delegacy against accidental or purposeful takeovers. (See the question on 'How does regional war work?') If a nation goes over that limit, they might be ejected from the region and banned for a period to ensure that they'll have lost those endorsements when they come back.
Q: What's endo-tarting?A: Delegates and Vice Delegates need to have the most endorsements of any nation in the region, in order to maintain the security of their seats. Endo-tarting is the practice of actively seeking as many endorsements as possible.
Q: Is there some sort of acronym list?A: You bet.
Right here.Q: Are there other places where I can learn more about NationStates?A: Here are some other links that might come in handy:
What is NationStates?The Euroslavia Series of Helpful HintsThe One-Stop Rules ShopNationStates WikiNationStates Influence
