The Western IslesBoard

The object of the game is to lead a country in the way the player finds best. At the start of the game, the player chooses a few basic characteristics including country name, flag, motto, currency, national animal and style of government. Answers to a short questionnaire determine the initial ratings of the country's civil, economic and political rights. The nation's population starts at five million and increases every day automatically with play.

You can decide how often issues come to you by clicking on 'settings' in the side-bar on the NS game.

Even though you are allowed to create more than one nation, you are permitted to have only one nation in the WA at a time. This is important. Violating this rule could get you ejected from the WA permanently or, even worse, deleted permanently.

The Security Council focuses on one nation at a time. More often than not, these involve praising individual players and 'liberating' nations, allowing free entry. Whilst there is no battle system set in place by Max Barry, the Security Council's resolutions often relate to keeping the peace.

Becoming a delegate can be an easy or difficult process, depending on the circumstances. To be elected, you need endorsements (a minimum of two) from the majority of members in your region. Whilst a region composed of you and your friends can guarantee you a spot, bigger regions with a vast collection of players are often much more challenging. Not only must you convince people to support your cause (and potentially get the old delegate demoted), you need to hold this position by respecting the demands of the region.

The national influence ranking (ranging from ‘Minnow’ to ‘Hermit’) is determined by the ratio of national influence to total regional influence and the previous WA update.

The population of a nation is related to the descriptor of it's size. As a nation's population increases, it progresses through a series of size descriptors, which are: fledgling, tiny, small, large, very large, huge, massive, colossal, and gargantuan. As a nation's population increases, it eventually gains a number of new custom nation traits, including the capitol city (250 million), the nation name pretitle (500 million), the nation's leader (750 million), and the national religion (1 billion).

Roleplay is an extension of NationStates gameplay and is generally defined as assuming the attitudes, actions, and discourse of (another), in a make-believe situation in an effort to understand a differing point of view or social interaction. For a more comprehensive guide to roleplay, please refer to this forum thread.

Thread: The overall topic/conversation/story.

Opening Post (OP): The first post of a thread. Usually, the person who posts first is known as the Opening Poster (OP). They are usually the person who runs the thread unless stated otherwise.

Co-Opening Poster (CO-OP): A person who is employed by the Opening Poster.

Post: An individual reply made by one person to a thread.

Character: When you make your first post in a RP thread that is where you will name your character.

Out-of-character (OOC): Out of Character posts are often posted in the Drafting Plane in the respective Out of Character thread. Post of this sort is used to convey messages unrelated to the roleplay, such as informing your fellow players that you will be out of town for a week and therefore will not be online in NationStates.

Private Message (PM): This is a method where you send a particular person a message.

Coloured Post: The use of colors, bold, and italics is also applied in many threads. When used correctly, this makes seeing the speech and thought of each PC (player character) much easier to tell apart from the rest of the post. It is suggested that colors be used as a last resort.

Non-Player Character: A character that is only used for a minor detail or for a small bit of dialogue. These characters are generally flat and will only be involved in a Role Play for a short amount of time.

Time Skip: A moment where the story will advance upon an agreed amount of time. This is used for when intimate moments start approaching too explicit or when there is no way to advance the plot anymore unless time passes quickly.

Godmod: Godmodding is in essence when someone’s character has the ability to do practically anything without limits or boundaries. And example is when they simply cannot be harmed by any and all means other RP-ers try.

Sinker Region: One of the 4 major regions in NationStates, featuring (at times) thousands of nations and has no founder.

Warzones: Completely open regions that cannot be password-locked. Bans are temporary and last 24 hours.

Regional Message Board (RMB): The blurb on the front page of our region where you can talk to anyone here.

Puppets: Non-WA nations that are often used for the purposes of diplomacy, filling, and pure deception.

Telegrams (TG): A private messaging system that acts as emails for NS. Players often say "PM" or "TG me".

World Assembly (WA): The political body that passes laws on NS. Very nasty and very beginner-unfriendly.

World Assembly Member: Gives you the right to vote on WA laws. Click here and click "Apply to Join".

Word Assembly Delegate: The one member of the region that has the most number of WA Endorsements.

Rejected Realms (RR): The one place you go after being banned. You're safe in the RR (except from Admins).

Founder: The Nation that founds a region. Has the power to ban, eject, banject nations, change tags, suppress RMB posts, change the flag, construct and deconstruct embassies, and change the WFE.

Founderless Region: A region where the Founder has CTE'd, handing all administrative controls to the WA Delegate by default.

WFE - World Factbook Entry: An area that describes you region, etc. At the top of any region screen.

Eject: The Act of ejecting a nation from another region. Can be done for free by a Founder, or at the cost of Influence for a delegate. Ejected nations arrive in the Rejected Relams immediately.

Ban: Prohibits a nation from entering a given region. Costs a WAD more influence than just ejection.

Banject: Ejecting and Banning someone at the same time, Costs the most influence.

Cease-to-exist (CTE): The deletion of a nation after a period of inactivity lasting 28 days. A nation can be 'refounded' by the owner by login in again.

A guide to different issues type: A guide authored by Goddess Relief Office provides an overview of the different issue types and the methods to unlocking them.