Anteria

Anteria, being a present day realistic region, has relatively strict rules regarding the waging of the war, which are summed up in the Neuewland's dispatch "Anterian Rules of War"
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Those rules are non-negotiable and can not been broken without a stated approval by the Roleplay Council. Those rules were specifically designed to make the region more realistic and crafted to fit the present-day rules. The 28 days cooldown is specifically crafted to deter lower quality players, which start multiple unrealistic wars in the first 24 hours of their presence in the region, so to all people asking, it is not a bug, it is a feature deterring newcomers from starting an overexaggerated civil war.

Simply said, it is generally annoying to the community, if a new nation arrives and first five posts by them are "Emperor Kaiser God President Gregory XXIV cracks down on *national minority*", "Protest erupt into riots in *capital city*", "Military of *nation* stages a coup d'etat", "Civil war erupts in *nation*" and "Chemical weapons used in *national* civil war", it not only kills the atmosphere that both regulars, veterans and admins of Anteria wish to see, but it is also futile, as there are literally regions on NationStates focusing on unrestricted warfare.

The "Good" roleplay is a roleplay, that is not problematic regarding the lore of the region and that is not regulated by the RP Council.

Zhousheng wrote:

Vultesian seizing of Zhoushi trade vessel demands a response
As a response to Vultesian army seizing Zhoushi trade vessel in the Hagalaz Ocean on Monday, the Ministry of Defence of Zhousheng announced sanctions on multiple sectors of the Vultesian economy. From the evening tonight, all Zhoushi vessels approaching the Vultesian sovereign territory would be followed by Zhoushi military vessels.

Zhousheng wrote:

Zhousheng to send military contingent into Kentalis
With the new insurgent group establishing itself in Kentalis, a strategical ally to Zhousheng, Zhoushi Ministry of Defence as well as Zhoushi government approved deployment of a support regiment of the MUFETA (Mustelarian Federal Task Army) in the rear of the Kentalan front. This unit would be operating as a rear backing unit, being deployed to the front in case of a collapse of Kentalan units on the front.

The "Questionable" roleplay is a roleplay, that may be problematic if done sporadically, without proper research or with no buildup leading to such an action.

Zhousheng wrote:

Zhousheng undergoes a coup d'etat
Earlier today, part of the Zhousheng's military stormed the Parliament Building in Kandan, occupying the Kandan International Airport and searching for the president, which is as of now missing. A demonstration against the action was met by police force, but no fatalities have been reported yet.

Zhousheng wrote:

Military raid on the facility of Vultesia
Overnight, Zhousheng's special elite units conducted a night raid on the facility in Kentalis owned by Vultesia that was suspected of being a undercover uranium enrichment plant.
Zhousheng has reported 2 killed and 3 wounded men, Vultesia hasn't released a statement yet.

The "Bad" roleplay is an example of roleplay, that will not be accepted no matter what, as it breaks the basic principles Anteria is built on.

Zhousheng wrote:

Total war!
Today, at around 5:20 AM, first Zhoushi units crossed the border with Vultesia. The casus belli of the conflict is annexation of Vultesia into the Great Empire of Zhousheng. Over two million troops crossed the border, catching the Vultesian military off guard. Over twenty thousand Zhoushi paratroopers occupied the inland of the country, quickly disarming most of Vultesian militiamen, policemen and armed personnel.
Long live the Empire!

Zhousheng wrote:

Zhousheng falls into a civil war!
Zhousheng, after a series of violent protests last month and a military coup d'etat on Tuesday, has descended into a 9-sided civil war. The communist rebels in the Commune of Kandan have engaged in an open skirmish with the Military loyalists in Ukadsk and Fascist militias in Plavlino. Haldenian separatists operating in Orlobirg officially declared their secession from the state, which encouraged the Vultesian-backed imperial guard to get involved in the Minimalstrit-Orlobirg sector, fighting the Christian mountain rebels.
In the first 48 hours of the war, almost 20,000 deads are reported.

Note: Zhousheng, Kentalis and Vultesia are in reality strategical allies and all of those reports are only demonstrational.
Note 2: All of those examples need prior escalation and can not stand on their own
One of the honorable mentions of a civil war done well is Azureden, which is doing their civil war for over a year and a half now and the sides are realistically constructed.

We all know, that war, military technology as well as tactics and strategy has evolved. The large military formations of World War II or fighting over trenches of World War I is mostly over. So are the formations from the middle ages.
Do not act as if the war you are in is a World War II, because it is not. Current wars are not fought using millions of soldiers or flooding the front with bodies, but using strategy, maneuver technology, rebellions and raid operations. Poisoned gas is not the norm, nor is bombardment of civilian targets or occupation by sheer amount of soldiers. Currently, the tendency is rather to use smaller units and use the maneuvaribility of them to your advantage and target almost exclusively transport nods and military installations.
Simply said: Do not use tactics from World War II, because it kills the scenario, war has evolved with technology and shift in strategical thinking.

Due to obvious reasons, war crimes should be approached with the upmost carefullness. Unfortunately, we live in a world, where war crimes are still common during the war. If you are not sure if the war crime you are planning to include in the war is acceptable, feel free to ask the RP Council, it would be easier if you asked first than if you played it out wrong and maybe got banned in the process, as due to the nature of the topic, everybody playing with it is standing on a thin ice. Even if you report on the war in-character, there are some things to avoid if you do not want to get the war vetoed or yourself banned from Anteria.
List of general guidelines if war crimes are involved is:

• Do not glorify the commitment of war crimes or war criminals

• Do not speak only about the war crimes and do not go into much detail, that makes it seem that you are glorifying them

• Make sure that the war criminals are brought to justice or that there is a outrage over them

• Do not commit an excessive number of them

• Simply state, that war crimes are not good and that you are not supporting the happening in the scenario

• Do not double down on the war crimes if you are questioned about them. If the reason why they are there can be questioned, they are not necessary

• If your nation is fascist or any other authoritarian and you are giving news in-character, make sure to state OOC, that you are glorifying it only by the mouth of your nation and if possible, do not mention them at all

• If the trial on war crimes is held after the war, do not be barbaric in it and make sure to give it some sense of legitimacy by playing it realistically

• If you want to sweep the war crimes under the rug in-character, make sure to question the legitimacy of the message as a afternote OOC
  

Do not exaggerate the numbers of your soldiers or numbers of casualties and if you want them to be exaggerated due to IC reporting, make sure to leave an OOC note, that the number is probably lower. You can not mobilize millions of soldiers for the conflict during several weeks without ruining your economy and destroying your country in the long turn and you can not have exaggerated casualties in the war (For example: NATO estimates on the possible casualties in the conventional attack made by the Warsaw Pact on Western Germany, including the Fulda Gap attack, amphibious landings in Schleswig-Holstein, fighting in West Berlin and full-scale bombardement of NATO installations, transport corridors and civilian airports estimated the first day casualties to 15,000 and we are talking about World War III).

If you are not sure what the realistic casualty count may be, search the conflicts on wikipedia and rank them by the relatability, preferring the more recent ones similar in situation to the older ones.

Next, do not invent superweapons on the run. Superheavy tanks, modern aircraft carriers, enormous cannons or EMP weapons are all off the table for a local conflict, most of which can simply be disregarded as they are not realistic. See the militaries of the world and really ask yourself, if your nation really has the said amount of super-modern equipment. Also please consider, that no country can be realistically good in all branches of the military, some would have to be weaker (For example, French military in the interwar period had major problems with mobility and communication capabilities. North Korea has problems with equipment and Americans generally have large problems with logistics...).

And last but not least, not every unit is elite. If you army is conscripted, be aware that drafted units generally have worse capabilities, lower morale and tend to be exhausted more quickly than all-professional military. Elite units are also rare and due to the costs of maintaining them, your nation can not have a large army consisting of only elite units.

So, you've decided to go to war. You've found a willing opponent, and your newly minted iiWiki on your nation's military has been signed off as realistic by the RP Council. It's go time! Or...is it?

'The line between order and disorder is logistics.' -Sun Tzu

'Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics.' -Napoleon Bonaparte

'Logistics are the ball and chain of warfare.' -Heinz Gudarian

Here are some boilerplate truths about modern warfare. Firstly, in a modern fighting force, only around one in ten men are frontline combatants. Take this into account when you're figuring out your deployments; if you want to deploy one thousand infanteers and their accompanying fighting vehicles, you're looking at several more thousand mechanics, supply specialists, medical staff, military police, signallers, transporters, cooks, clerks, sappers, storemen, technicians and intelligence personnel; this is the immutable nature of 21st century warfare.

'Okay!' You say. 'My force isn't going to be a thousand fighting troops, it'll be a limited incursion of a hundred or so ground troops and tanks, with all the necessary support.' That's great, so let's consider some overlooked practicalities of warfare.

• Planning (and minutiae):
  Do you have up to date maps of your opponents' nation? Do your forces have any grasp of the local language, or potentially languages? Is the military of your alpine nation equipped to deploy to your desert enemy - are your vehicles and clothing appropriate? Have your soldiers undertaken any specific pre-deployment training, or acclimatisation? Does your nation have enough vaccines ready to immunise your soldiers from local diseases? Does your average citizen approve of this war - if so, why? How long could you keep this up for? Does your nation have anything more than a token force at readiness? All these questions, from little to large, affect your ability to deploy, plan accordingly.

• Projection:
  If your opponent doesn't share a border with you, how will you get your force to the theatre of operations? If they're landlocked you'll have to pass through or over other sovereign nations, who may not be happy with foreign military transport or aviation crossing their territory. If they have an open coastline, are their waters contested by other states, are their beaches capable of supporting landings, are their ports able to support your shipping?

• Sustainment:
  Your marines have hit the beach and established a base of operations, congratulations! The only thing is, they've now taken casualties and are running low on ammunition; in 48 hours, food too will be running low. How are you sustaining your force away from home? Where are your casualties being evacuated to and how are your men being resupplied and reinforced. This point is expanded exponentially when dealing with armoured vehicles; not only do you need ammunition for its armament and food and water for its crew, but in combat operations a main battle tank needs thousands of litres of fuel, hundreds of litres of coolants and lubricants, and likely a solid tonne of spare parts. How are you getting thousands of litres of fuel and other chemicals, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, tonnes of food, medical aid, spare parts, spare clothes and batteries to the front?

• Ability:
  Have a look at some of the most capable militaries of the real world; The U.S, France, the U.K, Japan. These are generally considered some of the most modern, adaptable forces in history, but who are their soldiers? Chances are, young men, on the lower end of the secondary education ability tier, from working class, low income backgrounds. This is an abject reality, and nothing is more immersion breaking than when Private Smith leads your forces to victory thanks to his innate knowledge of Alexander's or Caesar's strategy, or Private Bloggs converses fluently with the local resistance after a week in theatre. These are people, they have doubts, hopes and plenty of fears, and no matter their training, they're limited by the human body, be aware of that.

All this goes to say, ground warfare is a supreme headache, so maybe, there are other options available. From NATO's campaign over Yugoslavia, to the Coalition's efforts against Daesh/ISIL, air warfare, by manned and unmanned assets, is increasingly the norm in the modern battlespace. Air warfare removes much of the logistical strain, risks, casualties, and preparational headaches of land warfare -and while it comes with its own trials and tribulations- and you are encouraged to explore this option before committing to some Anterian equivalent of Desert Storm. Ask yourself the question, if your objectives have even an outside chance of success without sending hundreds of men into the line of fire, when a handful cruise missiles and jets could create equivalent gains, why on earth would you?

Armed conflicts generally do not start overnight, nor do they start without previous buildup. Even surprise attacks are often generally proceded with a set of small incidents and severing of diplomatic relations.

You should not start a conflict with another country, but also a civil war or a coup d'etat, without previous buildup. The included list is an escalation of force list, the lower you go, the deeper the crisis is. Some IRL examples may include:

• The Berlin Crisis of 1948 reached level 18, as the West Berlin exclave was de facto blocaded from the east

• The Berlin Crisis of 1961 reached level 17 because the Berlin Wall de facto destroyed the connections in Berlin

• The Cuban Missile Crisis reached level 20 when the Americans started flying missions above Cuba, pumping it up from level 18.

• The Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia reached level 20, as the invading armies didn't shoot local troops, showing only the demonstration of force.

• The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was a level 21 action. It was a local war in Yugoslavia in which the NATO got involved

• Hypothetical Indo-Pakistani Nuclear war would reach the level 24, being a localised nuclear conflict

• Both World War I and Cold War (especially the early pre-détente Cold war) would classify under the level 22 - Limited global conflict

• The World War II is the highest we ever got on the list in real life, reaching level 25, as every single continent was fought on (yes, including both Americas and technically Antarctica)

You should not escalate the conflict unrealistically, skip 4 points tops if you want a quick escalation, but in real life, the escalation is often sluggish and in the very most of cases happened in the span of months. Anteria is a present-day real-time region, so escalation in the span of few days would be generally vetoed by the RP Council for not being realistic.

If you want to start a realistic war and have no problems with the RP Council, after you get a consent from the other side, decide on a one-two months long buildup of relations freezing before shots are actually fired.

In Anteria, consent is essential to the game. Any country effected by the war, including economical downturn, refugee crisis, border clashes, or political stagnation must be asked for their consent before war can begin (via the rule 7 of the Anterian Rules of War).

The moment you have the consent of all affected countries, you can start working on the script. To prevent the arguments over who should win the war, RP Council demands the war to be scripted by the countries before it begins, including the outcome and major ripple effects. Of course, the outcome can be later changed, but it must be consented to by all involved and affected countries.

The script should include also casualties, info on the movement of the front, major battles behind the movement, information on further essential things happening during the war, such as assassinations, terrorist attacks, usage of weapons of mass destruction and the way media report on the conflict.

The script should include:

• The outcome of the war and the general date when the war ends

• Prepared ripple effects and calculated economic downturn on all participants

• Number of casualties and some general idea how much of them are civilian

• Movement of the front and major battles effecting the front

• The general way the war is presented (who is the goodie and who is the baddie)

• Further important things happening during the war, such as air raids, protests

• If and where there were used weapons of mass destruction (if you do not have a really good reason to have them used, avoid them)

• What will happen in the winning and losing country after the war (protests, trials...)

• If there were some attacks, diversion, fifth column attacks etc...

• How would the OOC information be delivered to the community (there should be an objective reporting on the war besides propaganda outlets)
  

The general OOC timeline of the conflict should generally follow pattern similar to this one:

1. Find an opponent. Get a general agreement that you wish to engage in a military conflict.

2. Fabricate an incident (it can be anything minor, from spy uncovered to a terrorist attack)

3. Observe if there is a country that can get directly involved in the conflict or would inevitabely be affected by the scenario you plan.

4. If there is such a person, contact them and ask for their consent or rework the scenario to not get them entangled

5. Develop a script, leading to the war, the military actions during the war, and development after the war

6. Start the escalation of force via the list. Do not skip more than four steps at the same time

7. If your conflict is affecting a large area or has more than 5 actors, contact the RP Council and ask for their approval of the scenario

8. If your conflict involves any weapons of mass destruction, ask the RP Council for their approval (nuclear devices would most likely be vetoed as their usage is simply a no-go in Anteria, unless given a real good reason to create an exception to the rule)

9. If your conflict involves multiple war crimes or one side plans to commit war crimes via the script, contact the RP Council for advice (you can technically skip this one, but it may cause troubles if the RP Council decides to veto the scenario due to excessive war crimes later down the line)

10. The moment you get an approval from the RPC and your scenario meets all the Anterian Rules of War, you can start escalating beyond the point 15 and enter a deep crisis

11. Fabricate a casus belli (in case the buildup until now doesn't cover it)

12. Create an opening fight. If your countries declare war officially, state it. Explain when and where were the first shots fired and what that means to the conflict

13. Escalate the skirmish into a full blown local conflict

14. Set a precedent to how the war would evolve. This can be done by one side starting the push or giving a general view in the future development

15. Give regular reports on the development of the front and label the casualties

16. Start an endgame move, be it a final offensive, a bloody nose operation, bilateral negotiations, stalemate or a bill suggesting surrender

17. End the conflict by declaring a surrender of one side or by announcing a ceasefire or an armistice

18. Specify the destruction

19. Set the outcome by signing a peace treaty (or ship it like Korean war, although that one is rather problematic)

20. Run an economical crisis as agreed in the pre-war script