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by The Eternal Misfortune of Pencil Sharpeners 2. . 1,596 reads.

The Zombie Invasion

Disclaimer: I meant to update this after last year, but never got round to it. Some of the information may be inaccurate.
Z-Day Information


What is it?
Nationstates Z-day is an annual event held over the space of 36 hours around Halloween. When it begins, a certain percentage of your citizens are turned into zombies. You are given 3 choices: Exterminate, cure, or embrace. What happens next depends on which option you choose.

What are the choices?

  • Exterminate: Choosing this option will convert your infected citizens into dead citizens, meaning that the infection can't be passed on to any of your other citizens. You may also exterminate the zombies of other nations, but it's probably best to get their permission first... Warning: If you choose this too late, you will struggle to exterminate your zombies, as most of your police and military will be infected.

  • Cure: Choosing this option will research a cure, lowering the infection rate of your whole region, and allowing you (usually after a couple of hours) to fire cure missiles at other nations in your region, which converts some of their infected citizens into healthy citizens. As with extermination, if you choose this option too late, you're cure missiles will be less effective, as many of your scientists will already be zombies.

  • Embrace: Choosing this option means your nation has sided with the zombies. It increases the infection rate of your region, and after a couple of hours (Presumably, I've never picked this option), you can attack other nations in your region with zombie hoards.


What's the regional infection rate?
If you do nothing, the infection will spread gradually throughout your citizens, until all of them are zombies. The speed at which the infection spreads depends on the regional infection rate. If it is low, your citizens won't get infected quickly, if it's high, they will. In a region which is attempting to keep zombie levels down, a low infection rate is imperative, because if it gets too high, zombies will spread faster than the curers can cure them, and the battle will be lost.

What affects my survival rate?
There are two ways your citizens could die. Firstly, exterminating your zombies will kill any of your infected citizens. Secondly, zombies die after a few hours if they aren't cured, which generally accounts for the majority of deaths.

What happens if I get rid of all my zombies?
You've won! They're not coming back* (unless someone attacks your nation with a zombie hoard). You can now focus on curing other nations (providing you chose that option). *Disputed - there are some different memories of whether you can be automatically reinfected or not

What can be done about the hoarders?
During Z-day, the delegate can eject nations at no influence cost, so if you see a hoarder, report them to the delegate (or another nation with border control powers). Also, delegates of every region (including the feeders) can close the borders, to prevent any hoarders coming in to deliberately infect the nations of that region.

Will it have a lasting effect on my nation?
No. Even issues will continue as normal throughout the event. You may unlock the banner "Abandoned - Exhibit a disturbingly low average lifespan" if many of your citizens die, but everything will return to normal after the event

Hints and Tips

  • Due to it reducing the regional infection rate, researching a cure as soon as you can is generally the best option if your region is aiming for a high survival rate, even if you won't be around much to help cure other nations.

  • Cure the curers. It's natural to try and cure the large, inactive nations, since they have the most zombies, but if the active curers all take some time to cure each other, their missiles will be more effective, which will be more helpful in the long run.

  • If you have multiple nations, move them to the same region and self-cure until none of them have zombies left. This will ensure that your survival rate is high, and your cure missiles are more effective.

  • Try to be around when the event begins. There will be a news post soon telling you exactly when the event will start, and acting quickly will save you a lot of problems later on. Obviously time zones mean this isn't realistic for everybody, but you should try to choose your option as soon as possible.

  • Don't cure the hoarders! This will just give them more ammunition in the future - it's best to just let their zombies die out.



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