Firstly, I must give full credit to SD, as this is actually all his work. This is an old guide he wrote, and I’m sure he won’t mind my using it. All I have done is post it here, and edit a couple of things to make it relevant to Taijitu. Anyway, here goes:
Daily DecisionsThis is the heart of NS game play, but by no means all there is to it. The problem with many the daily decisions is that they are seemingly irrelevant when you first look at them, but later, you may find out that a single decision totally screwed up whatever it was you were trying to accomplish.
There are a few ways though that I've learned to try to help guide you to whatever it is your trying to accomplish. You can't figure out where you’re going if you don’t know where you are, so a good place to start is to at least be aware of the NSTracker.
Click Here for NSTrackerIf you click on the above link, you will be taken to NSTracker. All you have to do is, in the "Enter Nation Name" Field, type the name of your nation. (No need to put the full title of your nation, just the name.)
Once you have done that, you'll see your nation stats displayed both in numerical, and pie chart format. This is useful to see current trends in your nation’s budget, and an indispensable tool for Role Play (or else how are you going to have any idea as to how many nukes you can afford?)
By checking this every day, you can get a feeling for how the decisions you make effect your nation.
Another way you can get a feel for things is to read a decision carefully for nuances.
Here's an example:
A few weeks ago, I had a Issue presented on the legalization of Polygamy (having multiple wives) one of the options said something along the lines of "Well, if you legalize polygamy, you may as well legalize gay marriage and, for that matter, make it legal to marry pets." Now, when I read this, my natural tendency was to approve it, as being a libertarian I feel that whatever you do is your own business, and that the government has no business legislating morality. However, I would never condone....uh... the pet thing. But that's got to be a joke, I thought, or perhaps some comparative metaphor. I was wrong. Next thing I know, my national description includes a line about people marrying cats or something like that.
The above was merely to state that you can pretty much expect your decisions to be portrayed in the most ludicrous light. Sometimes though, if you overall goal is to have your economy go in a certain direction, more military spending for example you can approach your decisions from the standpoint of, "sure, I'd never approve research on building a star ship, but, I need more of a military budget for Role Play." If that's the case, you may want to actually approve some of the more rediculous legislation, as a means to an end.
For all its seeming idiocy, the NS system does do a fairly good job of representing real life dynamics as far as national funds allocation is concerned. It will give you a crash course in real life politics really quick. For example, say your a left leaning individual, you want to provide and care for your nations "less privileged" and curb the influence of mega-corporations who only serve to oppress the workers. You have business heavily regulated, you increase funding for social programs, health programs, social equality programs... what you will have soon is a 100% tax rate, with an economic sector that is so weak from the regulation that it cannot generate the required revenue. Remember, in real life, to have something, you have to give up something. This applies in Nation States as well.
To sum up the above paragraph,
every new government program you pass in an issue will mean higher taxes, so keep an eye on your rates!Still, many of the issues, no matter how hard you try, will be so confusing you wont know what to do with them, all of the options suck. This brings me to another major point.....
When in doubt, DISMISS!!! This option is your friend, use it whenever you either can't make up your mind, all options will have an undesired result, or if you just plain don't feel a particular topic is worth your time.
The United NationsThe United Nations is another aspect of game play which is deceptively simple. Fortunately, though, like most of the game, you don't have to fully understand it to use it.
Your decision to join the UN is a fairly major one, but also a reversible one if you don't feel it's your thing. If you are active in your Region (which is hopefully Taijitu if your reading this LOL) you may find it a necessity to be a UN member to for fill Regional obligations.
The UN will pass resolutions according to majority vote, and the laws of your nation will be altered automatically to comply. You can also "endorse" other nations, giving them more authority in the region. Every region has a "delegate" who is essentially the Head of State for the region. Whatever region you are a member of will most likely ask you to endorse the delegate, as it helps secure the region against invasion (that aspect is very complicated, so more on that later).
There is a practice called "tarting" or "endo whoring/swapping". This is a fairly common practice in which a nation will endorse many other nations in their region, in the hopes of being endorsed in return. This is not something which is generally frowned upon, unless of course, you are doing it with the intent of "overthrowing" your regional delegate.
If you find yourself needing a nation in the UN to for fill regional obligations, but can't stand the idea of the UN imposing insane laws on your nation every time your turn around (can you tell I’m biased?) you can always create another nation, as a secondary, and let THAT nation be a UN member, thus freeing your original nation from being subject from the UN's laws. One thing on that though, if that is what you decide to do; BE SURE to RESIGN the original nation from the UN, BEFORE you sign the New nation up. Here's an example.
You create Nation "A". You join a region, everything’s great, and going fine. You get involved in your regions politics, and become a UN member. As time a progress, the UN passes several resolutions that you just can not stand. Here is what you do.
Resign Nation "A" from the UN.
Create a New Nation, Nation "B".
Enroll nation "B" in the UN.
There you go, everyone's happy.
When you sign a nation up for the UN, be sure that you have given your email address to NS (you can do this under the "settings" option in the menu on the left hand side of the screen)
If you have a particularly restrictive provider, such as AOL, you will want to first create an email account with Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail, before you try to sign up for the UN, otherwise you will never get the UN confirmation that you must acknowledge before you are considered a member.
If you have any queries/questions/suggestions, please PM me (Akka-Wakka) or post them here.
