The South Pacific Board

«1 2. . .22,138 22,139 22,14022,14122,142 22,143 22,144. . .64,210 64,211 »

Arnotistan

4 years 117 days ago

Oh hello there

Steampunk engineers and Thevira

The 🍪 Tropical Biscuit Paradise of Aumeltopia

4 years 117 days ago

Arnotistan wrote:

Oh hello there

Welcome, newest member of TSP! :)

Check out this guide or feel free to ask anyone any questions you may have!

Welcome to the South Pacific: A guide to playing the game and getting involved in the region.

by Erinor

Guides
.

.
Table of Contents | NationStates Guide | Getting Started | Glossary
Guide to Getting Involved in Regional Affairs | Guide to Getting Involved in Politics
.

Welcome to the South Pacific!

HOLD IT! This dispatch is really long. What’s the TL;DR, please?

Well, the game pretty much plays itself, but if you’re looking to get involved in the region beyond the basics, then there are a variety of things you can do:

First, join the World Assembly on the left, and endorse Beepee. This is the simplest way you can help strengthen our region against attack. Read this dispatch to learn more about why this important!
Once you're a member, consider visiting our Office of World Assembly Legislation (OWL) to debate resolutions and get recommendations on how to vote, as well as learning how to write your own WA resolutions.
Want to talk to all of us in real time, to get all your questions answered, to debate what there is to debate, or just to chill and have a drink of South Pacific Iced Tea? Join us on our Discord server.
Are you interested in writing and debating laws, and getting involved in the nitty-gritty of regional politics? Join our regional forum and sign up to be a legislator here.
Interested in helping to craft festivals, events, news articles, and graphics to keep everyone entertained and involved for a long time to come. Join us on Discord
Interested in the military? Do you want to go out into the wide world of NationStates to protect regions from attackers, and take the fight to them if necessary? The South Pacific Special Forces is just the thing for you. Jump on Discord to sign up.
You can join our regional roleplay here and grab a spot on our regional map too.

You may also find this Glossary of Common Abbreviations and Terms useful. And here's a guide to getting involved in Politics in the South Pacific.

Okay, I want more detail, but start with the basics, please!

So, you’ve just started playing NationStates and you’ve been randomly assigned to the South Pacific region. What now?

There’s already a great FAQ on the site that’s worth reading, but I’ll do my best to give you a basic run through here as well.

Firstly, you will want to get to know your nation and get a feel for how you can mould it to your will. This is done by answering issues, which pop up every six hours or so. [Pro-tip - you can change the frequency that you receive issues in your settings] Each issue has a number of possible decisions to choose from. These will usually cover a range of positions on the political spectrum, but they will also tend to be rather extreme - that’s part of the fun! When you’ve chosen which decision you want to take, you’ll get a screen showing you its effect on your nation, as your stats go up or down in various ways, as well as a humorous tagline which will usually make it sound like you made a bad decision (don’t worry, it’s just being funny).

Answering issues is the only way you can directly change your nation’s stats (except population, which just increases steadily over time as a measure of how long you’ve been playing - population milestones will unlock some new customisation features for your nation, like naming your capital city), and it is, basically the whole of the base game. Anything else NationStates has to offer is kinda added-on.

Indeed, the only other part of the game that connects directly to your nation is the World Assembly. It’s kinda like NationStates’ version of the UN, and if you join it you can vote on resolutions created by other nations, the outcome of which will affect your nation’s stats. You can only have one WA nation. Don’t try and have more than one - it’s a serious offence!

There’s more to being in the WA, but that’s the only part of it that affects your nation’s general stats and is, therefore, part of the basics of the game. We’ll look at the other features of being in the WA later.

Okay, so you said I’d been assigned to a region. What is a region anyway and can I change which region I’m in?

Well, regions in NationStates are communities which your nation can be part of. Each nation can only belong to one region at a time, but you are free to move your nation as much as you like, or you can create multiple nations to experience several regions at once.

The South Pacific is a Game-Created Region (GCR), meaning that it was not founded by an individual player and, as one of the five Pacifics, it serves the purpose of being a ‘feeder’ region, meaning it is where new nations are randomly assigned once they are created, because everybody has to start somewhere.

As such, there are a lot of nations in the South Pacific at any one time and nations come and go quite quickly, but this also means that the region is very diverse and inclusive and this is reflected in the aims of the regional government.

Wait, what? The region has a government?

Yes, but there’s more to tell you about regions first!

Okay…

You can find other regions by searching for them on ‘The World’ page and you can change your nation’s region by visiting the World Factbook Entry (WFE - here’s the South Pacific’s) of another region and then scrolling until you see a button labeled ‘Move [nation name] to [region name]’. Click it and you’re off!

Right. Are you going to tell me about the regional government, now? Is that, like, a roleplaying thing?

Yes, okay.

Firstly, the regional government of the South Pacific (known as the Coalition of the South Pacific) is not a roleplaying government, at least, not exactly. It is made up of individuals within the South Pacific who have been elected to office by others in the South Pacific and, once in office, they have real power over the community and what happens there. In that sense, at least, this is not roleplaying. They are not ‘in character’. It is, however, a kind of gameplay, as it allows people to ‘play’ at politics and enjoy another aspect of being part of this community.

So, how does it work?

Well, regional governments sprang up not long after the game was first created back in 2003. They grew up out of the delegate system, which is where nations which are members of the WA can endorse each other and the nation with the most endorsements in the region becomes the regional WA delegate, with increased voting power in the WA itself. That automatically creates a kind of democracy and, since the regional WA delegate has certain powers (like banning nations and editing the WFE), it became a desirable position and one that people wanted to make sure was used wisely.

The limitations of what is possible on regional message boards made regions begin to form the structures of government on off-site forums and, over time and through the work and effort of many ‘generations’ of players, those structures have evolved into fully-functioning governments.

The Coalition of the South Pacific (found Link

on these forums) is one of the oldest democracies in the game. It has Link

a charter from which all our laws are derived, an Assembly which serves as the legislature of the coalition, creating and voting on laws and presided over by the Chair; a Cabinet consisting of a Prime Minister and the Ministers, respectively, of Regional Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Military Affairs, who serve as our executive; and a local government on the game website consisting of the Delegate and three Local Council members. All of these positions are elected at regular intervals, allowing players frequent opportunity to run for them.

That sounds interesting. How do I get involved?

The best thing to do is to join the forums here and Link

register as a legislator, which will allow you to vote on laws. Then you should probably lurk a little while and look through old threads to see what people actually do in government and how it affects the community.

I’d also recommend joining Link

our Discord chat server. It’s great fun and a lot happens on there which is relevant to the forum-based government. Indeed, in many ways, it’s more active than the forums, with the latter serving as the place to store and action all our laws, debates and votes.

What else is there to do?

There is roleplaying on both the TSP forum and the NationStates forum. Most regions have their own journalism reporting on regional events and are keen to have new writers get involved. Our journalism is run by the Ministry of Regional Affairs, who also organise festivals and events and write guides like this to help welcome new players. You can join us Link

on our Discord server

There is military gameplay, which takes the form of using WA membership and delegate endorsement to ‘raid’ regions, taking over their in-game power-structure to make changes or just say that you’ve done it. Other’s ‘defend’ regions from attacks by raiders who seek to damage a region’s membership or culture. There are also independents, who raid or defend just for fun and don’t seek to cause any damage. (the South Pacific has it’s own independent army - the South Pacific Special Forces, which you can join Link

here, or

on their Discord server. There are even special GCRs called Warzones designed just for this purpose.

And of course there’s the usual banter and word games, karaoke competitions, inter-regional festivals - all sorts of things really. There’s always something going on in NationStates!

But don’t be overwhelmed. Take your time, get involved in whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it and don’t stress. Above all, have fun and play nicely with other players!

Read dispatch

(Also, join the World Assembly! :P)

Erinor, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

Steampunk engineers

4 years 117 days ago

Arnotistan wrote:

Oh hello there

Hallo! Welcome to TSP!
*hands you a glass of SPIT (South Pacific Iced Tea) along with placing a lampshade on your head*
Hope you enjoy your stay here
:p

Proctethia

The Federal Ocean Republic of Qawe

4 years 117 days ago

Good morning TSP!

*looks at GA proposal at vote*
Uhh, it doesn’t do anything. It’s just definitions, then encouragements, then welcomes stuff, then emphasises the importance of Forensics.

Aumeltopia, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

Steampunk engineers

4 years 117 days ago

Edited

Qawe wrote:

Good morning TSP!

*looks at GA proposal at vote*
Uhh, it doesn’t do anything. It’s just definitions, then encouragements, then welcomes stuff, then emphasises the importance of Forensics.

Morning!
Ja, is a bit of an odd proposal...

Qawe and Proctethia

Post self-deleted by The Filippinas.

Steampunk engineers

4 years 117 days ago

The Filippinas wrote:

Stop that! Just wait until school or class is over, we're not going anywhere anyways...

But that’s so many hours of being here that I’d lose! Besides, my classes are boring...

The Filippinas, Proctethia, and The ottomans two

The 🍪 Tropical Biscuit Paradise of Aumeltopia

4 years 117 days ago

Edited

Qawe wrote:

Good morning TSP!

*looks at GA proposal at vote*
Uhh, it doesn’t do anything. It’s just definitions, then encouragements, then welcomes stuff, then emphasises the importance of Forensics.

And really not even forensics. Just "forensic genetics".

Beepee, Qawe, Proctethia, Steampunk engineers, and 1 otherThe ottomans two

Post by The ottomans two suppressed by a moderator.

Steampunk engineers

4 years 117 days ago

Edited

The ottomans two wrote:

Lol my schools already over!!! USA forever!!!!!!!!

What? What does any of that have to do with what we were talking about? If you were saying your school day is over, so is mine, we were discussing me being here on nationstates while at school, not right now... What does shouting “USA forever” have to do with it?

Lily pad nation and Proctethia

Iym winterless

4 years 117 days ago

Steampunk engineers wrote:

I’m awake now
:p

*Is dying and working*

Oh God-

Proctethia and Steampunk engineers

The Communist Monarchy of Commonwealth Of Astoria

4 years 117 days ago

Steampunk engineers wrote:

Hi steampunk, ugh broke my foot today.

Proctethia and Steampunk engineers

Post by The ottomans two suppressed by a moderator.

Emu outer space

4 years 117 days ago

Steampunk engineers wrote:

Don’t be sad...
*hugs back*
I’m actually going to take a nap now
:p

*is warm and cozy*
Thank you kind emu

your welcome i just in good mood

Steampunk engineers

Post by The ottomans two suppressed by a moderator.

Emu outer space

4 years 117 days ago

The ottomans two wrote:

Hands out free real-estate
I’m Elon Musk, and I’m in a good mood! Lol

*Takes it*

wow we all in good mood :)

Beepee and Steampunk engineers

Post self-deleted by The Filippinas.

The Tastiest Parts of Beepee

4 years 117 days ago

The Filippinas wrote:

In these hours though there isn't much interesting activity, so it's alright. Maybe you can socialize with real hoomans?

Real Hoomans..... Nooooooo... that would involve actually talking to people

The Filippinas, Fihami, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

Fihami

4 years 117 days ago

Beepee wrote:

Real Hoomans..... Nooooooo... that would involve actually talking to people

What is this "people" you talk about?

Beepee, Lily pad nation, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

The Tastiest Parts of Beepee

4 years 117 days ago

Fihami wrote:

What is this "people" you talk about?

Not really sure... I think someone mentioned one once

Auphelia, Fihami, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

The Republic of Abarri

4 years 117 days ago

Beepee wrote:

Not really sure... I think someone mentioned one once

I heard that they currently own a certain republic called China.

Beepee, Lily pad nation, The Filippinas, Fihami, and 2 othersProctethia, and Steampunk engineers

The Tastiest Parts of Beepee

4 years 117 days ago

Abarri wrote:

I heard that they currently own a certain republic called China.

Oooh really... sounds nice

Auphelia, Fihami, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

Fihami

4 years 117 days ago

Beepee wrote:

Not really sure... I think someone mentioned one once[/[quote=abarri;37400076]I heard that they currently own a certain republic called China.

No, it wasn't China, it was Ohio.

Beepee, Lily pad nation, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

The Tastiest Parts of Beepee

4 years 117 days ago

Edited

Fihami wrote:

No, it wasn't China, it was Ohio.

Doesnt sound quite as nice.... I mean I do love fine bone China..... Ohio sounds like a bit of a comeon

Auphelia, Fihami, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers

Auphelia

4 years 117 days ago

Beepee wrote:

Doesnt sound quite as nice.... I mean I do love fine bone China..... Ohio sounds like a bit of a comeon

Ooh, China. My set of South Song Dynasty porcelain and ceramics collection is among my favourite, and holds a special place within the antiquities hall of my April palace (because what am I, a farmer? To live in anything less than one palace per month would effectively be trapping myself in poverty!).

Also, I have a new musical. While short, it gets to the point.

Hoyden - A TSP Musical

by Auphelia

Act I

The musical is set in and around TSP just prior to and following the Great Milograd Coup. Tyrannical star Auphelia, awaiting the return of her husband, Drystar, from prison, reflects on their life together, and their story is told as a flashback.

Auphelia (played by Si-topia as a young woman) is a stage-struck teen who gets her first job in the TSP musical circuit. Her mother, Alice Parker and her friend Quiescent try to dissuade her from show business because Auphelia is not the typical beauty ("What a Nose!"). But Auphelia perseveres ("Driving Ms. Crazy") and is helped and encouraged by The Solar System Scope, a dancer she meets on the set of one of her shows. Once Auphelia's career takes off, TSSS and Quiescent lament that once she's famous she'll forget about them ("No Business in Show Business"). Auphelia performs a supposedly romantic number, but she turns it into a classic comic routine, ending the show by "murdering" her costars ("Break a Leg").

She meets the sophisticated and handsome Drystar (played by Zess as a younger version), who accompanies Auphelia to her mother's opening night party on Drama Llama Avenue. Auphelia is clearly falling in love with Drystar, while acknowledging their complex vulnerabilities through an extended analogy to early 20th century Russian literature ("We"). Later they meet in TNP and have a private dinner at a swanky restaurant and declare their feelings ("Heartbeat Hummus"). Auphelia is determined to marry Drystar, regardless of his gambling past ("When the Chips Are Down").

Act II

Auphelia and Drystar do marry and move to a mansion in TSP ("Bliss"). In the meantime, Quiescent and TSSS suggest to Alice Parker that she should find a man to marry, now that her daughter is supporting her ("Manhunt"). auphelia has become a major star within the theatre scene ("Toe-tapping Tunes"). Drystar asks Beepee, the owner of many theatres, to invest in a gambling casino, but although Beepee refuses, Auphelia insists on investing. When the venture fails and they lose their money, Auphelia tries to make light of it, which propels Drystar to get involved in a shady bond deal, resulting in his arrest for embezzlement. Auphelia feels helpless but stronger than ever in her love for him ("My Heart Won't Break").

In the present, Auphelia (as herself again) is waiting for Drystar (as himself again) to arrive on the ferry from prison, and has time to reflect on her situation. Drystar arrives, newly released from prison, and he and Auphelia decide to separate. She is heartbroken, but resolves to pick up her life again ("When the Chips are Down, Reprise").

Read dispatch

Beepee, Proctethia, and Steampunk engineers