Something a little different today. I’ll play a lot of games online, though I have a few that I do enjoy. One that I’ve actually been playing for six years now, but I’m surprised I’ve never written about or talked about before, is called NationStates. As far as I know it’s unlike anything else that’s out there, it’s fairly easy to play, and they can offer some interesting scenarios.
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I’m not quite sure how to describe it in the general terms of gaming, but the basic premise behind the game is that you create a nation state, given the name, and then determine, based on a series of questions that you get on a daily basis, how your government is going to run and how it’s going to fit in with the rest of society. Every day that you go back to the game you get to see what kind of impact the choices you made have on your nation, and get the alter your stance as you so choose. Sometimes you find that the choices you make don’t result in the responses you expected, but I tend to believe that’s pretty much how it is with regular government.
The next step after creating your nation is to decide if you want to join a region or create your own region. You have to be somewhere, and early on I used to take my civilization around to different regions before deciding to create a region of my own. The region is called Fairness For All; that I decided to call the capital city Mitchellopolis might seem a bit narcissistic, but that’s one of things you get to do. Unfortunately right now I’m the only member of my region, as it would be fun to have other nations involved, but that’s okay because it allows me to have the deciding vote for my region when it comes to participating in the World Assembly.
The World Assembly is where your nation state gets to either vote for or against something along with all the other nation states that are out there, kind of like a United Nations. Sometimes you’re voting for things like whether there should be international laws created or repealed, and sometimes you’re voting for or against a nation state or a region that’s being blamed for bad behavior. I have no idea what happens to those nations that get condemned, and I haven’t really weren’t all that much about it.
They also have a forum where people can get together and participate in all kinds of things. I’ve only been to the form a few times overall these years, because truthfully I forget about it. But the few times I have gone has been interesting, and you usually will find out what new thing is going on with the game because the owners of it are always making some kind of change here and there.
The best thing I like about the game is that it doesn’t take all that long to play unless you really want to get into the forums. At this point, because I’ve been playing so long, my nation has a population of around 8.6 billion people. Try imagining a world where there were so many nations that had billions of people in them; yeah, that would be a freaky proposition, but this game allows for it.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a little bit of diversion and have a little bit of a Napoleon complex about you, at least take a look and decide if it’s something you wouldn’t mind doing. And if you do, I wouldn’t mind you joining my region for a while just to figure out how things are going for you, and one of the best things about the game is that you can always leave and join other nations without much trouble.
Wow! That sounds pretty cool, I haven’t known that there were already this kind of games, it is some kind of educational or political, but entertaining in the same way. I’d like to give it a try!
Go for it Brigi; you might like it.
Mitch I never heard of this games sounds pretty interesting. I guess you are the ruler of the free World.:) It is good to see that you find things to relax with.
I will take a look at it and if I like I will join your team. Look for me.
I’ll keep my eyes open Michael.
You definitely surprised me, Mitch. Honestly I didn’t know that you are playing games online. This title looks very interesting and probably I will try it myself later today. I know that few colleagues are using games as successful strategy for online marketing too.
Carl, I doubt many are using this game for that purpose and yet, it could be happening and I just don’t know about it, since I rarely visit the forum.
Right, not particularly this game, but there were strategies for some of the popular games on some social networks. Actually, it was possible previously to build very good mail list combining groups and games on Facebook. On the other hand with logo avatar and being at the top of leaderboard can turn into excellent brand building strategy. Sure, shooting on chaos, but still way to promote brand.
This reminds me of my time playing Civilization and Age of Empires. I’m trying to build up my army and the game keeps nagging me that people are starving, or something.
SHEESH, do I gotta do everything? Guess I’ll go farm or something.
These types of games were always a hit with me, but I tend to avoid them now because it will be too much a time-sink if I get sucked in.
I remember nights playing Civilization where I knew I had to get up for work in the morning but I just kept right on clicking. Even though it’s just a game you want to see if you can pull it off.
Or games like “Elite” on the old Commodore 64. All you did was trade in space on a stark black and white screen. You learned about economics real quick playing that game when you bought some worthless cargo and ended up having to dump it to make room for something better. Or worse if you bought something that was tolerated in one star system but illegal in the next you’d find yourself taking fire form the law real quick.
Another time sink these days is Eve Online (that I don’t play, but love reading about), where players build businesses in space or pirate, or both. The game has it’s own complex eco-system that has generated all kinds of scams and brutal underhanded deals. Here’s a list of the top ten:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10/28/eve-evolved-top-ten-ganks-scams-heists-and-events/
I took a look over at NationStates and I know I could easily get sucked into it so I have to chill right now lol. Anyway I hope to take good care of your 8.6 billion peeps!
John, the thing with NationStates is that you can’t get sucked into it as far as time goes. Pretty much you make your decisions, which are fairly quick, if you decide to join the world assembly you might have something to vote on every couple of days, and that’s pretty much it most of the time. I go, spend my 5 minutes, and that’s it for the day. 🙂
I loved Civilization, but when I bought version IV it never worked on any of my computers and that was that. I was the idiot for tossing away version III before trying out the newer version first. Oh well…
Hey Mitch
NationStates sounds like a pretty cool game. I’ll give it a whirl when I get a chance in the next couple of days.
Thanks for sharing!
Cool Tim. As I told John, once you’re set up there’s little time commitment, so it just goes about its business with you as king of the benevolent (or not) leader from afar. lol
Oh ok so it’s kinda like what NATO does.
The name you chose sounds more like a city than a region unless the city is the region like Atlantis.
Mitchelopolis Sounds like a city not far away from Gotham or something. Is that what you get when you blend everything from Philly to NY into one big nationstate?
Interesting, hilarious.
PS
check out the email I just sent you. Thanks for your feedback this year on the #IBCT
Well Jacko, when I decided I was going to create my own region, after being frustrated with all the other regions I was ever a part of, I just decided to go all the way with it. Actually, I have to go modify the post a bit; the name of the region is Fairness For All, and the capital city is Mitchellopolis. lol
Quite an interesting game, if you ask me.
I can see how a game like this can be a force for more inclusive citizenship since it exposes citizens of different countries to the day to day rigours of running a government.
Great idea! Reminds of Games for Change…
Welcome Yeremi; of course you name another game I’ve never heard of or played. lol It’s an interesting game, that’s for sure.
Awesome game, i never knew it before. It is interesting.
Thank you so much for sharing.