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{ARCHIVED} Influence, Explained



Influence, Explained


What is Influence?

Influence is created when a nation collects endorsements from other nations within their region by joining the World Assembly and endorsing everyone and waiting to be endorsed back. A nation starts at 0 endorsements and can take as long as a year to reach 300 endorsements. With a high endorsement count, nations gain influence much more quickly; the amount of Influence gained is proportional to the number of endorsements a nation has.


What is the point of endorsements?

1. You should join the WA (abbreviation for World Assembly) on your main nation in TEP (abbreviation for The East Pacific) and collect endorsements because:

  • When WA voting, the delegate's vote is counted by how many endorsements the delegate has. We won't have a say in the WA which handles interregional gameplay concerning us if the delegate doesn't have a high endorsement count. And likewise, we won't have a voice towards whether a GA resolution passes/fails if the delegate's endorsements are low. Seeing as this is are political simulator, the more power (votes) you have, the better, that's one of the objectives of the game. And votes are re-counted by endorsements. Therefore, even if a player doesn't care about the WA, s/he should still join it, endorse the Delegate, and ignore the rest.

  • On the contrary, if the player does care about the WA, that's even better! We have TEP government positions for players who advise the delegate on how to vote in the WA. To work in the WA ministry, fill in the LinkExecutive Branch Application form in the forum and indicate WA Affairs. This team also trains new WA resolution writers too!

  • There's a game mechanic called "influence", which is measured by number units. Every nation with 0 endorsements gains 1 influence per 12 hours. The formula is this: every 12 hours (specifically everyday at 12pm and 12 am EST), your nation gains influence by the number of endorsements you have plus 1. So if you had 30 endorsements, you'd gain 31 influence per 12 hours. That means if you have 30 endorsements and have been a resident of TEP for 48 hours, you would have gained (30+1)*(48/12)=124 influence. For the mathematically inclined, influence is well-approximated by twice the integral of endorsements on the WA Rankings plus twice the number of days in residency. If math doesn't interest you, don't worry about it!

  • Influence and endorsement count resets back to 0 if your nation dies, so be sure to log in at minimum once per 28 days or set your nation settings to vacation mode for 60 days (you won't receive issues though.) Conversely, if your nation moves out of TEP, your influence will significantly decrease for every 12 hours that you're outside of TEP (96 points per day), so don't move your nation out. If you must, just create a new non-WA nation as your alt account. (Non-WA because NS only permits 1 WA nation per player.)

  • Influence is more than just a nation ranking statistic, although you can check how much influence you (or someone else's nation) have by checking your nation's Rankings at the Influence category.

  • That number you see is how much influence it would cost a regional officer to eject your nation. If you have 400 influence, and the regional officer has 300 influence, that nation cannot ban you. However, if that nation has 500 influence and ejects your 400 influence nation, that nation will lose 400 influence and end up having just 100.

  • Alternatively, you can become a future regional officer so get more influence (endos) and someday if you get more involved with TEP matters you can get promoted to that rank. However, if you're not interested in being in TEP Government, then as a regular citizen, click to give your endorsements one time, that's all you're required to do.

  • However, there is a second benefit to endorsing every WA nation in the region:

  • If you endorse someone, they're likely to endorse you back, which increases your endorsement count. So endorsing everyone is obviously the fastest/easiest way to collect endorsements.

  • If everyone has a high endorsement count and the person that becomes delegate or a regional officer goes rogue and decides to troll and ban the entire region and ban everyone?it wont work. Everyone's collective influence is 98\%\ and the delegates influence is 2\%\ of the pool.

  • In a region with a Founder (basically tiny regions that are not a Pacific), it costs a founder 0 influence to ban anyone regardless of their endorsement count (which won't be very high in the first place in tiny regions). Founders can be boot happy and this is one reason why some players opt to stay in a Pacific. Different people have different experiences, and some players find their homes in User Created Regions.

  • P.S. if you are ever tempted to join a different region (obviously we want you to stay in TEP), please consider having your WA nation remain here in TEP. We are a founderless region that relies on WA endorsements on the Delegate, and you can create a an additional, non-WA nation here: page=create_nation. You can use that nation to join elsewhere. The NS site rules permit you to create as many nations as you want but forbids you from having more than 1 WA nation. Hence, you should use the SAME email address for ALL your NS nations, which helps ensure that you don't accidentally join the WA on 2 nations (NS automatically stops you from joining WA twice on the same email, so you won't be punished by the website if you try to join again on accident). Remember to log in your WA nation at least once every 28 days (or 60 if set on vacation mode). If your nation dies, remember to revive it through logging in normally, and moving it back to The East Pacific!

2. Another perspective (a real conversation)

  • Anglarond: Thank you so much for the detailed response
    So basically endorsments arent used as a measurement of how may nations think it is worthy of merit just how much political power a nation has

  • Queen yuno: Yes ^_^
    I don't think merit can be measured by numbers or at least not by NS stats

  • Anglarond: Well it at first seemed to me that if you thou a nation was good youd endorse them showing that you thought that

  • Anglarond: I mean merit as in people just thinking that that nation is good

  • Queen yuno: You can do that too ^-^ For example, Ramaeus (Ram) used to give endos out only to nations she thought "deserved" it
    Consequently she only had 100 endos for the longest time
    I nagged her to collect more

...


How to Endorse?

Step 1: First, join the World Assembly

  1. Click the "World Assembly" link in the sidebar

  2. Click the "Apply to Join" button to be sent an invitation email

  3. Click the link in the email to join the World Assembly

Step 2: Second, endorse the Delegate (Altys) and the Viziers

  1. Click on their nation page

  2. Scroll down to the bottom

  3. Click "Endorse"

Step 3: CASUAL endorsement collecting (optional)

  1. Endorse all the actives here: page=activity/view=region.the_east_pacific/filter=member+endo

Step 4: HARDCORE endorsement collecting (optional)

  1. Visit Linkthis website

  2. Just click on "General Endotarting Queries"

  3. Type in "notendorsedby:YOUR_NATION_NAME"

  4. Hit Submit, and endorse everyone down that list.

Step 5: Profit

Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.


Benefits of Endorsements

Contrary to what many others might say, there are indeed benefits to endorsements, and more than one might imagine or even acknowledge. Below is a list that is in no way exhaustive:

  • The clickable convenience of having your endorsers listed at the bottom of your nation (similar to a friend list or a team roster)

  • Your nation receiving endorsements from Delegate Altys themselves, the Viziers, and endorsements from active endorsement givers.

  • Gaining Influence for your nation!

  • Gives you something to do on-site other than answering Issues.

  • WA members are trusted members of the community because NationStates rules permit only 1 WA nation per player, and the NS website automatically checks IP addresses to make sure you're not cheating with multiple WA nations. Therefore, we use WA nation as a safeguard method to ensure a player isn't holding 2 citizen forum accounts, and that each citizen is a separate person to ensure fairness and lack of spies.

  • For this reason, we often ask players "What is your WA nation?" to make sure we're talking to their main identity rather than a puppet/sleeper agent.

  • Therefore, it would be in your best interest to join the WA: page=un
    It takes only minutes.



Original Dispatch Credit: Queen yuno
Edited by: Cyberstrom
Header and Footer Credit: East Malaysia

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