First thing, here's a basic but very fundamental list of things things you need to establish well before you get into Valsora. You don't really need to make your own, not everyone is J.R.R. Tolkein, the master of Worldbuilding, but you can take some inspiration from the real world and mix and match things from there. Remember, there are 210 sovereign states on Earth and history is filled with much info about cultures, society, politics, economy, etc.

So, here's the list/criteria:

1. Culture
2. Government System
3. Ethnicities (ie. Are you a homogeonous ethnic state like Japan and Korea or are you culturally and ethnically diverse like the U.S.A?)
4. Economy and/or Industry (List 5)
5. Political, Social, and Economic Ideologies (these will likely influence who you align your nation.)
6. Society (What does your society encourage, approve of, and disapprove of?)

Now, these are very important because Valsora runs on a noticeable degree of Realism. It's not the kind where every variable needs to be tracked or calculated in order to justify where you're at now, but Valsora does operate within a reasonable level.

A nation built on an oil industry is more likely to be socially and politically oppressive like the Middle East Gulf countries unless you have laws, regulations, and a social democracy system that enforces those laws to protect the people and keep the government's integrity like Norway.

Thus, using the real world as our basis, we can determine which blend of those 6 things are realistic and most of all, are what you want to do. Remember, this is still your nation and the final call for all these criteria is up to you. Let's take Taiwan, for example. Disregarding the previous years of dictatorship, Taiwan would have it's criteria look like this:

1. Culture: Multi-culturalist, mostly Han Chinese culture inherited from Mainland China and the native Gaoshan people of Taiwan.
2. Government System: Sun Yat-Sen's Government, Representative Democracy with 5 Branches of Government (Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Audit, Examination)
3. Ethnicities: Mostly Han Chinese including Hoklo and Hakka, Gaoshan people, small amount of foreigners
4. Economy and/or Industries (List 5): Electronics, communications and information technology products, petroleum refining, chemicals, textiles
5. Political, Social, and Economic Ideologies: Social Democracy, Social Liberalism, Progressivism
6. Society: Very diverse as a whole, but in general a more progressive and socially accepting society albeit it with many exception that are still influenced by the ROC's authoritarian racially motivated past.

This way, you basically have in a list is the entire foundation of your nation. Though, don't be too concerned about the economy part, you can change things around in the future to get the economy of your choice. I mean, not even those in the 60s would've believed that Japan would soon surpass the United States through it's exports in cars, TVs and computers.

Also, don't hesitate to talk to other, more experienced RPers in the community, even the Valsora Carto Council, about this. Just be patient and respectful, I'm sure they will help you make sure things are realistic. Also many of the things here can be determined by the land you're starting with so really, reach out and get some advice.

Now that you have established your country's foundations, it's time to get started on RPing. So, in general there are 3 basic things you need to focus on in RPing: Economic and Social Developments, Local Politics, and International Relations.

RPing these is basically putting your actions and the developments of your new nation on the record. Economic and Social Developments are important as other RPers will be informed about what changes are happening in your society. Local Politics basically show your government and it's politicians in action. And most importantly, international relations set the tone for how other countries interact with you and how you interact with them.

Once again, you can take inspiration from real life to make these things as realistic and authentic as possible, but in this section, I will address the most important thing here, which is international relations.

Often times, many fledglings I see in the RMB have the very first instinct to declare war or be aggressive in International Relations. I'm not going to address declaring war as that is part of a bigger issue for another chapter, so I will be addressing diplomatic aggression.

Think about this for a second. You're a fledgling nation, you haven't secured any alliances or if you have, you haven't officiated them yet in writing. This puts you in quite a vulnerable position in the world stage, as no matter where you turn, both regional and some continental powers are seeking for an opportunity for more influence or worse, more territory under their ever-growing empire.

You can do 3 things; 1, try to be friendly to everyone and be neutral, providing a service everyone benefits from, 2, secure alliances with friendly neighbors and like-minded nations, or 3, be very aggressive and sh!t on everyone. Listen to me. Do not do number 3. DO NOT. If your goal is to not get rofl-stomped by the nearest expansionist within walking distance or by the juggernaut continental superpower, do not be aggressive.

The best example we have of this is the People's Republic of China. Though not in the same position, it's "Wolf-warrior" diplomacy was just the epitome of aggressive tantrums and we begin to see very quickly why aggressive diplomacy isn't worth it if you don't have the influence, power, and military might to back it up. While China secured support from rabid nationalists back home, it lost some really serious footing in the world stage. Nearly everyone in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia (India), Europe, the Americas, and even in Africa downright hated the Chinese and the perception of the Chinese alone utterly gutted any remaining trust most nations had in China, not to mention that style of diplomacy didn't help mitigate accusations of genocide, debt-traps, and influencing politics in Africa.

If China was just a fledgling nation flinging mud at everyone slightly different in ideology than they were, many other nations would probably step in and give China a shellacking of sanctions, military interventions, and overall just not a good time.

So, if you want to survive in international relations and foreign policy, keep your temper, and either be friendly and/or secure alliances quick.

Now that you've gotten the first few things to do in RP ticked down, you just need to keep things going relatively stable, building infrastructure and the economy, building the military, establishing relations and trade, and generally doing what you want. Depending on where you start, this can vary wildly in time, but in general, you should be on your way to going from a fledgling nation to a developing nation especially once your economy begins to kick into high gear.

Ok, so now what? Well the most important thing to do now is not to fvck up. You may think this is easy, but remember what I said earlier about war? Well, this is the time to talk about it.

So, ask yourself. Does your nation have societal problems? Population problems? Do you lack in defenses? Do you lack in alliances to protect yourself? Is you economy going through a rough time? If the answer to any of this is yes, listen to me. DO NOT GO TO WAR, not unless your leader or government has no option or is incompetent.

War, especially modern war, fvcking sucks. You're essentially sacrificing a portion of your workforce, tech, materials, and the stability of your nation for your military to duke it out with someone you have beef with. This isn't really bad if either the reward is either security or massive wealth, or you're in the receiving end of war and need to defend your nation.

Either way, it really affects the economy negatively as you risk factories getting bombed, city centers getting attacked, and industry grinding to a halt. This is true for any war in history except WW1 and WW2 because the United States had two large fvck off oceans keeping most of it's factories from being bombed. But economy isn't your only problem.

War also brings with it massive risk to the population as you almost always need soldiers to fight. If your enemy has way more soldiers than you and has the same tech as you, you're going to get crushed even if you have the homefield advantage. War also brings massive social unrest if you fvck up because while you can replace broken tanks, rifles, ships, and airplanes, nothing is going to make young Johnny leave that casket of his draped in your nation's flag. If your society sees no point in war, or doesn't think the sacrifice is worth it, you're going to realistically get social unrest real quick.

Furthermore, war needs a lot of RP experience and knowledge of the military. You can gain this from getting advice from others and playing modern warfare realtime strategy games, but nothing can really replace experience. If you're not prepared, you will lose quickly.

If you do have allies and they basically level the playing field or give you an advantage, then by all means, go to war. But be very careful. War can either be extremely rewarding or downright devastating. It all depends on how you handle it and more importantly, the wars you find yourself in.

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight." - Sun Tzu, Art of War.

So, we're reaching the end of this guide and I've basically told you all I know that would help you, the fledglings. I hope this does in fact help you in your escapades and aid you in your quest to making your mark in Valsora. This section will be on some minor things to take note and consider.

So as you may know, factbooks and dispatches can be very useful to keep public records of anywhere from how cold your nation is and what your flag looks like, to the composition of your military and who your leader is. So, to get started I suggest you use this forum entry. It basically is a template for a Wiki-style super article about everything there is to know about your nation and it's history as well as it's recent actions, policies, etc. Go and have fun with it, and trust me, it will be helpful for other RPers as well. If you also want to make factbooks of important people or your leader, here's another template.

If you really do need to keep track of your various actions, I do suggest making a google docs or even a dispatch with every single RMB entry of in-character RP you have done and label them things like "Making a deal with Randomcountryia", "Collapse of the 2nd Mechanized Division", and "Oh Crap, The Leader has been assassinated". You can also group these things by Valsoran Year so you're not stuck going through a pile of links. This may be tedious, but trust me, without a reference, you could forget plenty of things that you did.

Lastly, and I think this will be the most important RP advice; don't get too invested. If you like acting and getting into character and immersing yourself in this world, it is easy to get too invested and hung up on every single discrepancy in Valsora and your nation. Hell, we've only been starting to tackle some aspects of Valsora's global economy just now for the amount of years Valsora has existed as an MTRP map. Point is, learn to let go of issues and topics that are too difficult to deal with and manage both your emotions and your expectations. It's easy to get too passionate, believe me.

Passion and investment is good, but too much of that will get the best of us.

That is all, thanks for reading this guide. I'd like to thank the many RPers who I've interacted with and have been through the journey Valsora has been for the past few years. I hope this guide will inspire and help you fledglings get out there and be part of what is really a rich and vast RP universe with many things, victories, defeats, and memes, that the eye can see.