by Max Barry

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Trading Cards Season Two: Special Preview!

by Max Barry
Thu, 28 Nov 2019

Almost a year ago, we launched the first season of NationStates Trading Cards. Now it's time for Season Two! Yes, soon you'll be finding sleek new-season cards when you open packs.

For the next five days, you can get a sneak peek at what the cards look like. And, during this time only, you can update your card before it becomes permanently inscribed!

To update your card:

  1. Set your nation's flag, slogan, etc, just the way you like in your Settings.

  2. Go to Your Deck and click View Card: (Your nation). It's on the right-hand side of the page, near the top.

  3. If you're looking at your own Season Two card, just above it, you'll see a special Season Two Preview notice that invites you to inscribe the card using your nation's current state. Do that!

Only nations that existed at the time of the preview have Season Two cards—if you temporarily exited the world, you won't have a card for this season.

At the end of the preview period, all newly opened packs will contain Season Two cards. Almost all packs, anyway. You never know when an old card might find its way into production through some manufacturing snafu. But like 99% of the time: new cards.

Update (December 3, 2019): Season Two is upon us! Cards can no longer be inscribed.

World Census Rankings Changes

by Max Barry
Mon, 18 Nov 2019

As previously mentioned, the World Census occasionally changes the way it measures things—usually because of flaws discovered in the old methodology, as revealed by a few extreme cases.

These recalibrations are posted for public preview ahead of implementation on the World Census Beta page, so that nations can provide feedback. A batch have completed this process, and will go live in the next few days!

Most nations won't notice any change. But you might, especially if your nation is very unusual. In those cases, you will see an abrupt change in some of your World Census ranking scales as the new system is adopted.

If you're interested in what might be coming down the pipeline, a new round of betas has also just been made public! Previews are now available for:

  • Beta 012 affecting Tourism

  • Beta 014 introducing a new ranking, Generosity

  • Beta 017 affecting Civil Rights

  • Beta 019 introducing a new ranking, Patriotism

  • Beta 020 introducing a new ranking, Hunger

  • Beta 021 introducing a new ranking, Food Quality

  • Beta 022 introducing a new ranking, Ease of Commute

Z-Day8: Aftermath

by Max Barry
Fri, 01 Nov 2019

Whew! I know I say this every year, but this was one of the most lethal zombie apocalypses yet. A mere 15.8% of the global population survived, with corpse numbers waaaay up on last year. I'm not sure what that says about the world we live in today. That there are a lot of dead people in it, I guess.

Survivors

107.9 trillion

15.8%

Infected

181.5 trillion

26.7%

Dead

392.7 trillion

57.6%

Final standings from the Z-Day Tally Board:

And on the individual scales:

Thank you for doing your part to rid/fill the world of/with zombies. Happy Halloween!

N-Day4: The Aftermath

by Max Barry
Thu, 31 Oct 2019

Hey, guess what? We finally got our N-Day4 results back. Remember N-Day4? With the nuclear launches and whatnot? Well, somehow the final tally got caught up in some red tape, and anyway, the point is, you would not believe how fast rampaging zombie hordes cut through red tape.

So if you can take a moment from your current desperate struggle to survive, here's a wrap-up of what went down during N-Day4!

Final Leaderboard

Two-time reigning N-Day champs Augustin Alliance went in looking to make it three in a row, and boy, they put up a hell of a fight. It's not easy to be the champ. Everyone is looking to nuke you. And this time, the 500 or so plucky AA nations had to settle for third.

The new dominant faction was Horsemen of the Apocalypse from Hell, who pancaked all challengers en route to racking up a truly massive score of 332,564—almost double the previous record! I'm given to understand that the Horsemen maintained a solid lead throughout most of N-Day, then cemented their position by backstabbing partner faction UPPERCUTS in the most brutal, radioactive way possible.

FactionScoreNationsRegion
1.Horsemen of the Apocalypse332,5643,730 NationsHell
2.Canopy64,2861,774 NationsForest
3.Augustin Alliance54,869581 NationsAugustin Alliance
4.The Minotaurs18,629219 NationsThe Labyrinth
5.Fuster Cluck Coalition12,184200 NationsNorthern Ocean
6.IRMA Alliance5,20411 NationsMelayu Archipelago
7.The E Team3,35227 NationsEquilism
8.Mars Colonies - School Class Region2,59433 NationsFederation of Martian Colonies
9.Ousted Regions Against Liberals1,31332 NationsNew Yellow Empire
10.Warschauer Pakt1,08238 NationsWarschauer Pakt

In global nuclear stats:

  • 574 factions were created.

  • 17,126 nations joined a faction.

  • 1,709,829 nukes were targeted.

  • 1,408,747 nukes were launched.

  • 470,754 nukes were shot down.

  • 938,148 strikes occurred for 774,901 radiation.

Most of these are new all-time records! It's good to know that nuclear warfare is healthier than ever before.

Your Permanent N-Day4 Archive

Z-Day8: The Long Dark Nightmare Is Nearly Over

by Max Barry
Thu, 31 Oct 2019

Good news! The undead have basically run out of live victims and begun starving to death in most regions. On the downside, 85% percent of the global population is either dead or infected. But the number of survivors has stabilized, so if you're still hanging in there, I think you're going to make it!

Unless, you know, some zombie exporter slips into your region at the last minute.

Zombie apocalypse ends in:

As I write this, the Z-Day Tally Board tells me that:

Z-Day8

by Max Barry
Sun, 27 Oct 2019

Wow! It seems like only yesterday that the undead began periodically rising from the grave to feast upon the flesh of the living. But no: Zombie scientists have confirmed that for the eighth time, the world is expected to undergo a horrific apocalypse.

Zombie apocalypse begins in:

You might be like, "Well if these zombie scientists can pinpoint the start time so accurately, maybe they should put a little effort into finding a permanent cure." But that's because you misunderstand the term "zombie scientists." They are literally zombies. They wear little white lab coats and sleep most of the year but once they start to get twitchy, we know the apocalypse is coming.

What You Need to Know

  • The zombie apocalypse will begin (click for local time)

  • It will run for 33 hours, ending

  • Zombies move between nations in the same region. This makes it important to be aware of what your neighbors are doing, as will be difficult for an individual nation to hold out in a heavily infected region. Each region will report its infection rate so that residents can make an informed choice about which are relatively safe and which are basically pools of pandemic-level z-virus.

  • You have three options:

    • Exterminate the zombies with military force. This converts them into dead citizens, who pose no further risk to the living. It is very effective when you have lots of survivors and few zombies, and less effective when your military forces have mostly been eaten.

    • Research a cure, which helps to lower your region's infection rate. Enough nations working together can slow or stop the spread of zombies and even begin to turn infected back into survivors. However, this takes time and is most effective with test subjects and collaboration.

    • Embrace the zombie hordes, becoming part of the problem as you spread zombies all around your region. Eventually, of course, your hordes may run out of food and starve. This option isn't for everyone. But there's always someone.

  • Your nation may also unlock superweapons over time. Once built, they can be manually deployed against targets of your choice by visiting their nation page and hitting the appropriate button.

    • Exterminating zombies develops Tactical Zombie Elimination Squads, who can enter other nations and kill zombies there.

    • Researching a cure develops Cure Missiles, which can be launched at other nations in order to convert zombies into survivors.

    • Embracing the undead develops Hordes, which can surge into other nations and infect their survivors.

    Superweapons can be deployed every 20 seconds. If you take a hit from a superweapon, the resulting chaos makes your own superweapon unavailable for a few minutes.

  • The World Census will maintain some relevant zombie-related ranking scales:

    1. The Most Survivors

    2. The Most Zombies

    3. The Most Dead

    4. The Most Zombified

    (Note: Up to one hour delay is to be expected in the ordering of these scales.)

  • During Z-Day, Founders and Delegates can close their region's borders at no Influence cost, sealing themselves off the from the world, and the plaintative cries of nations seeking refuge. It seems pretty harsh. You're just sitting there watching millions of people die. But zombie apocalypses demand tough choices.

The Z-Day Tally Board will track global progress during Z-Day. Good luck!

N-Day4 Warning

by Eluvatar
Fri, 27 Sep 2019

I have to say, I'm feeling a little, what's the word... Merkwürdigliebe

Not to worry, I think plenty of you love the bomb.

Your regularly scheduled toe-to-toe nuclear combat begins in:

Click/tap here for your local time:

There's a handy manual:

OVERVIEW

N-Day is an opportunity for nations to come together and exchange nuclear weapons in a fiery Armageddon of mutually assured destruction.

To Participate

  1. Once registration opens, you can create or join a Faction. Nations outside a Faction can't attack or be attacked. You can join a Faction when you're ready and leave when you're not (to stay safe).

  2. When the event begins, nations will be assigned a random Specialty and begin to accumulate Production. You will now be able to spend Production, fire nukes and deploy shields.

  3. Watch your nation automatically generate Production at a rate of 1 every 2 minutes. Use it to build Nukes and Shield.

  4. Launch Nukes at other nations and use Shield to shoot down Nukes that are launched at you.

Tactics

The simplest way to play N-Day is to join whichever Faction seems most fun and start targeting Nukes at its enemies while shooting down anything incoming. Your Faction page's icon bar shows everything you need to know, including who's targeting anyone in your Faction, and who your fellow Faction members are targeting.

Attacking: Step by Step

  1. On your Production screen, spend some of your Production to build Nukes. These go into your Stockpile.

  2. On another nation's Nuke page, click/tap the TARGET button and select the number of Nukes to use.

  3. Once Targeted, it takes 10 minutes for your Nukes to reach a READY state (3 for Intel Specialists). Note that your Targeted page is public: All nations can see who is targeting whom.

  4. When your Targeted Nukes are ready, click/tap LAUNCH.

  5. Your Nukes are now categorized as Launches for you and Incoming for your target. Launched Nukes take 3-5 minutes to reach their target. When they do, they earn Strikes for you and inflict Radiation on the target, which reduces their rate of Production. This also earns Score for your Faction and reduces the enemy Faction's Score.

Defending: Step by Step

  1. On the Production screen, spend Production to build Shield.

  2. Find Launched Nukes to destroy. Your top priority is any Incoming Nukes launched at you. Secondarily, you may wish to target Incoming Nukes on anyone in your Faction (see your Faction's Incoming page), and also keep an eye on Targeted Nukes that may threaten you or your Faction in the near future.

  3. Click/tap DESTROY to deploy 1 Shield per Nuke.

Strategy

Strategically, it may be wise to avoid attacks on nations or Factions until you are confident of obliterating them, since this eliminates the possibility of counter-attack. Smaller-scale attacks, which damage but don't destroy an enemy, can lead to an escalating series of grudge-related nuclear exchanges.

On the other hand, targeting an enemy can be an effective warning. And it takes Nukes 10 minutes to be ready to launch, so you can't leave it too late.

Scoring

Each Nuke that reaches a target causes Radiation damage, which reduces the target's rate of Production generation and counts as a Strike for the attacker.

A Faction's Score is Strikes minus Radiation.

Duration

N-Day lasts for 24 hours, after which point, an Arms Control Agreement means that no Nukes can be launched. (In-flight nukes can still land, however.)

The "winner" is the Faction with the highest score; if, that is, nuclear war can be said to have a winner. Which we say it can. It's the Faction with the highest score.

FACTIONS

Once registration opens, Factions can be founded by a Regional Officer of any region. Any and all Regional Officers of that region can update the Faction's official text to issue instructions to Faction members.

Factions can be made open to all members, or restricted to the region's members only.

You can leave your Faction, which is a good way to stay safe if you're signing off for the night. However, you can only do this if you're not engaged with the enemy! That means:

  • You must not have any nukes targeted or launched at another nation; and

  • No nukes can be targeted or incoming on you.

Note that in practice, this can make it challenging to leave a Faction, since you may be frequently targeted.

While outside a Faction, you cannot be targeted, and do not generate any Production.

Before joining, it's worth making sure a Faction isn't currently under mass bombardment.

SPECIALTIES

Nations are randomly assigned a specialty.

Military Specialists build Nukes faster: They receive 50% more Nukes when converting Production.

Strategic Specialists build Shield faster: They receive 50% more Shield when converting Production.

Economic Specialists can accumulate more Production: Their production cap is four times larger than the other specialties.

Intel Specialists can finalize targets faster: Their targetted nukes reach READY in 3 minutes instead of 10. They have no Production advantages.

Cost of Nukes/Shield in Production Points

Military Specialist

Strategic Specialist

Economic Specialist

Intel Specialist

1 Nuke

0.67

1

1

1

1 Shield

2

1.33

2

2

PRODUCTION
Non-WA nations automatically generate Production at a rate of 1 Production per 2 minutes, up to a maximum of 50 (200 for Econ Specialists).
WA nations automatically generate Production at a rate of 10 Production per 2 minutes, up to a maximum of 150 (600 for Econ Specialists).

Production can be spent on Nukes or Shield.

WA NATIONS
World Assembly members will accumulate Production 10x faster than non-WA members, and have their Production limits increased by 3x.
It is allowed to switch WA membership to receive this benefit for different nations, but (as per regular site rules) you are only allowed to have one nation in the WA at a time.
Keep in mind that if your Production is over the non-WA limit when you resign membership on a nation, the Production on that nation will decrease down to the limit (i.e. if you resign with 75 Production on a non-Econ nation, the Production will drop to 50).

We ask that you refrain from switching WA for N-Day purposes more than once every two minutes. You will not be punished for this, but it is against the spirit of this change to the event mechanics.

NUKES

Nukes are purchased with Production, kept in stockpile until ready, then targeted and launched at an enemy nation.

Launched Nukes take 3-5 minutes to reach their target. While in-flight, they can be shot down by any nation using Shield. If they're not, each Nuke generates 1% of Radiation in the target and earns 1 Strike for the attacker.

SHIELD

Shield can be used to knock out Launched Nukes. You can shoot down any in-flight Nukes regardless of who they are aimed at.

Locate in-flight Nukes under Launches or Incoming, and use the DESTROY button to eliminate them at a rate of 1 Shield per Nuke.

It is possible to waste Shield if multiple nations deploy Shield simultaneously to knock out the same Nukes.

TARGETING

Target a nation by viewing their Nuke page and clicking/tapping TARGET. You may then select how many Nukes to target from your Stockpile.

It takes a short time for a Targeted Nuke to reach a READY state, after which it may be launched. This is normally 10 minutes, but Intel Specialists are faster, finalizing targets in only 3 minutes.

If not launched after 1 hour, Targeted Nukes automatically return to your Stockpile.

RADIATION

Radiation is generated in a nation when it is struck by a Nuke.

Radiation proportionately reduces a nation's Production generation rate. For example, 20% Radiation reduces Production generation by 20%.

When a nation is 100% Radiated, it is destroyed and no longer able to launch any Nukes nor use any Shield.

Radiation is irreversible.

You can leave a Faction when irradiated, but this does not affect your Faction's score.

SCORE

A Faction's score measures strikes and radiation that occurred while those nations were a member. It is unaffected by nations joining or leaving the Faction.

GLOSSARY

Term

Explanation

Production

Used to buy Nukes and Shield. Automatically generated by all non-destroyed nations in a Faction.

Nuke

Unholy instrument of death and destruction.

Stockpiled Nuke

A Nuke that has been purchased with Production and is sitting idle, awaiting a target.

Targeted Nuke

A Nuke that has been targeted at a nation. A targeted Nuke takes 10 minutes to achieve a READY state, after which it may be launched.

Launched/Incoming/In-Flight Nuke

A Nuke that has been launched at a nation and is currently chewing up 3-5 minutes of in-flight time.

Shield

A unit of defensive technology. Possibly involves lasers or satellites or something.

Strike

A record of how many Nukes have successfully landed on targets.

Radiation

A record of how many Nukes have struck the nation. Reduces Production generation.

Faction

A group of nations sharing a common interest in survival and/or bloodlust.

Score

Strikes minus Radiation.

Read dispatch

and a vibrant "Vault 41" discussion forum.

Don't worry, as peace is our profession, you can always choose not to participate. Non-aligned nations (that haven't joined a faction) cannot be targeted or nuked.

All previous Factions will be wiped shortly before the bombs start flying, so you maniacs will need to create new ones.

You are allowed to use satellites puppets, but it will be a cumbersome process

Good luck to you all.

Update: When you play a game of nukes, you win or you fry, there is no middle ground.

Update: Whew, that's all over then. There seem to be a lot more devastation this time around, though. Something to think about.

Trivia Challenge Complete

by Max Barry
Tue, 02 Apr 2019

The Challenge is over! Not in our hearts. There, it lives on forever. Also it is actually staying up. Look, it's right here. But there will no longer be a great honking banner on nation pages.

Congratulations to the 32 special nations who scored over 100 on the Trivia Leaderboard, and in particular the five who managed to record the maximum score of 351, despite the frequent addition of new questions, at the close of event! Please accept my congratulations, and seek professional help.

  1. The Great Empire of Kandorith

  2. The Tax Free Land of Zintai

  3. The Principality of Trotterdam

  4. The N-Space Compression of Luna Amore

  5. The Reaper of Lord Dominator

Special thanks are deserved: This year the April Fools event was highly collaborative, with many people contributing quiz questions, and hard-working mods diligently fact-checking and compiling them.

Also, of course, the whole reason we're able to have an event like this is because we have 16.5 years of built-up NationStates history created by people like you! I hope the Trivia Challenge has served as a small tribute to that. Because it's pretty amazing.

NationStates Trivia Challenge

by Max Barry
Sun, 31 Mar 2019

NationStates Trivia Challenge

Some people say they've wasted years on NationStates collecting useless knowledge, but now's your chance to prove it! We've assembled a devilish quiz to test your NationStates IQ with a series of ever-more challenging questions. From the simple and irrelevant to the obscure and equally irrelevant, the NationStates Trivia Challenge has questions for everyone!*

Take the Trivia Challenge!

Trivia Leaderboard

(* Provided they have squandered their life on this site.)

Update!: For forum discussion, we are pleased to offer Trivia Central!