Region Crashing & Defending

[frattastan]

Original source: http://z4.|invisionfree|.com/thepacific/i ... &f=124&st=
As posted in the Naivetry Reference Library.

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Region Crashing & Defending : A look into the Raider and Defender life
By Sorakan, with contributions from Pirates Roost.
Class One : Terminology
(30 Dec 2005)

Class One is going to be very simple, It is going to be the basic terminology employed by defenders and raiders in the NationStates world.

Raid: Taking over a region by gaining more endorsements then a defender and/or native delegate. Raiding is general term but to get specific it would be taking a region, then leaving it the next day after changing the World Factbook Entry.

Invade: To take over a region by gaining more endorsements then a defender and/or native delegates. Generally invading is long-term and can stay in a region for multiple days, weeks, months, and possibly for the rest of the region's life.

Raider/Invader: A person who either raids or invades.

Imperialist: In the raider/defender world, an Imperialist would be an organization or region (defender or invader) that makes an empire.

Defender: A person who goes and endorses native delegates (or a defender delegate in case of inactive/no native delegate) to stop Invaders/Raiders from taking a region over. Also known as Def's, or 'Fendas among raiders/invaders, and often call themselves Counter-Invaders.

ADN: Alliance Defence Network. An imperialistic defender organization who has lost all/most public standing throughout NationStates, also often laughed at for thier few attempts to make themselves look good.

RLA: Red Liberty Alliance. A left-wing defender organization. Known throughout NationStates for deleting forums (Invaders, The Black Hawks and DEN being the ones deleted). They have many active members and regions, and have replaced the ADN as the main defender force in NationStates.

NS: Short for NationStates

The Alliance: The newest and one of two active multi-regional raider alliances out there, including Invaders, DEN, Children of the Grave, and The Swamp among its members, and embassies from almost every raider region.

World Invasion Network: The Older of the two active multi-regional alliances, founded by members of The Black Hawks. More regions are part of WIN then The Alliance, but is much less active.

TORC: The Old Raiding Club. Founded by raiders, is a place where raiders can recruit, and trade information. Many raiders have a puppet or two there, and is often had attempts from newer raider orgs and even some defender invasions of the region, which has led to Alphaks and Flamulon (aka. BLAZIN) often rotating delegateship to keep threats to the region out. Defenders and Raiders are all welcome to come here and talk to eachother and can basically be considered Neutral Ground between the two.

Atlantic Alliance: Often considered the height of Raider power in NationStates. Consisted of several region (including the feeder The South Pacific). It was controlled by the Alliance Central Command (ACC) until Mr. Nonchalant dissolved it. Were often called the last true Invaders. Many of its members still play and have attained important positions throughout NationStates in many different regions.

Griefing: The act of ejecting multiple native nations from a region. Is a deleteable offence and frowned upon by most of the NationStates community.

TITO: Ten-Thousand Island Treaty Organization. A once large and active defender organization, based in 10000 Islands and was fairly effective. Was brought into the raiding/defending world when some raiders tried to take it (before the days of founders) and the region Urbanites (another once-active defender region) stopped the raiders.

CDi: Counter Defence Initiative. A raider alliance that was fairly ineffective, only thing to come out of it was the creation of The Empire and raider organizations meeting new raider orgs.

The Empire: A much more organized and active version of the CDi. It was originally very effective until many members (including the admin) went all defencive about any new ideas brought forward to attempt to revolutionize raiding. Alongside that there was the co-Admin turning out to be a spy for a small but active defender organization.

GRA: The Global Right Alliance. A right-wing defender organization that defended many regions. The main region they are known for defending is Cuba from the raider organization of Hells Army of Amish Zombies.

HAAZ: Hells Army of Amish Zombies. It was a low-scale raider region that operated out of several regions. The first region they took was an Amish region, then from that region they took Hell the next update. That is when they decided on the name HAAZ. They usually went after several region in a short period of time (usually in spring/summer) and were successfull of taking over every region they went for, though not so successfull in keeping it. After maybe two-three months of raiding they will disappear for up to a year without raiding. They mainly operate out of The East Pacific, The Pacific, Hell and Lazarus and only a couple members use messaging means outside of Telegrams.

TG: Telegrams

Class Two: Why Raid, and Raiding Theory
(30 Dec 2005)

This class is about why some people raid, and raiding theory. This was not completely written by me, some of this was also written by Pirates Roost.

Why Raid?

I could tell you why I raid, or why some other friends of mine raid, but I could never give you a reason to raid. You have to do that for yourself.

At its core raiding is going to another region you have little or no relation to and taking it over for your own reasons. This can be viewed as predatory in the same way military action in RL can be seen as predatory. For example, when the United States took military control of Iraq, they went into a region that they had little relation to and took it over for their own reasons. Whether you think their reasons were "moral" or "right" is not at issue, the point is they did it for their own reasons whatever those reasons may be. At the end of the day, for good or ill, every nation's use of force in the real worlds an exercise of their various superiorities (numbers, technology, tactics, etc.) to shape the world in a way thought to be beneficial to the exerciser of force.

Nationstates provides an analog to the use of force in the real world through delegates and founders. Delegates and founders can both shape and control their region through a number of powers (writing the factbook entry, clearing the message boards, ejection of nations from the regions, etc.). Taking control of the delegacy (in a founderless region) is tantamount to taking control of a foreign region through use of force.

The primary and obvious difference between NationStates and the real world is that using force in a game cannot directly cause anyone physical or any other concrete harm. The worst it can do here is hurt someone's feelings. So, it is possible in the game for even an avowed pacifist to raid other regions because the reasons for pacifism in the real world do not apply in the game (except maybe in the most moralistic scenarios--even hurting feelings is wrong in and of itself).

It is important to re-emphasize that raiding in and of itself is niether moral or immoral. Much like the real world (with the notable exception of pacifism), the morality of the use of force is largely a question of how that force is used. In the real world analogy most people do not question the morality of the ability of the US to invade Iraq, the moral question is why they did so, and what they have done and will do there.

In game raiding basically has two sides. The raiders who take over regions, and their opposites who fight raiders. Raiders take regions for whatever purpose they may have, and their opposites (commonly, but illogically called 'defenders' or 'fendas') fight them for their own equally personal reasons. Whatever the reasons, both sides use force to imprint their view of how regions should operate on those regions.

A common and illogical representation is often made by those who oppose raiders that they are fighting for the self determination of regions and that this inherently is not using force to mold the regions and the game to their view. This is illogical because they are indeed using force to imprint their value of 'self determination' on the game. Hence, they are not 'defending' regions, they are actually 'defending' (or imposing) thier world-view on the game by the use of force. Again, this is a difference of ends, not the means to achieve them.

Whichever side you choose (if either), there can be no logical doubt but that your choice is one that necessarily implies using force to imprint your values on the game and other players in it.

Now for the personal bit. I, personally, raid because I find it enjoyable to do so. It is a game and I play it to enjoyable distract myself from real life. I find the complexities and challenge of raiding far more interesting than its opposite. I also, personally, make no analogy between hurting the other players' feelings and using actual real world force to hurt another physically. I, personally, do not favor using actual force in the real world to hurt others physically for personal moralistic reasons, however hurting someone's feelings in an online game that players freely choose to enter bothers me not at all. I think the complaints of those who I effect in a game over that effect are equivalent to those who want to regulate what is said and done on television or in print -- they are welcome not to read or watch if they do not like what is being said or done.

That said, I also think the game is essentially communal and enjoy it when those effected by the raid derive some enjoyment from it as well. For that reason I try to keep things light and funny and enjoy those who raid with style and panache. But, I don't think it makes a difference 'morally' either way, ts just a matter of taste. And for those who complain, quip the often said but rarely meant line of those who often oppose raiding in the game, "It's just a game -- lighten up."

Raiding Theory

Essentially raiding boils down to getting control of the delegacy of a region. You gain the delegacy by having more UN nations endorse you than whomever is currently the delegate.

If the current delegate has, for example, 5 endorsements, you will need 6 or more endorsements on your raid leader to take over the delegacy of the region. Your raid leader is the nation who will run the captured region as the new delegate if you win the endorsement battle. Your raid leader will also need to be a UN member nation, and will not count for the endorsement total. So, to take that 5 endorsement delegacy mentioned as an example above you will need your raid leader plus 6 UN nations to take the delegacy.

Now, many regions have founders as well as delegates. The founders have absolute control of their regions (since they created them). So, if you take over the delegacy of a region with a founder, that founder can legally eject you and your fellow raiders. Founders have a tendency to do this to people raiding their regions. This is why many raiders do not raid regions with founders. It is a logical reason, but there can be exceptions. The exceptions are relatively rare, so for the most part raiders raid 'founderless' regions.

The rules forbid the use of multiple UN nations by one player ("multi-ing"). This theroretically means that you have to get yourself and six other people together to take that 5 endorsement region above. In reality, however, the Moderators of the game only have 2 ways to determine if two or more UN nations are run by just one person.

The first is the e-mail account you give in your nation's 'Settings' control--the e-mail address you list there and where they send game information to. The second major way they have to identify multi-ing is IP addresses. When you log on to the internet, whoever gives you your internet service assigns you an IP address. This basically operates like a physical address -- it tells the rest of the internet "where" you are so info can be sent back and forth. Unlike a real address, this one is just assigned to you by the internet service provider (ISP) and isn't permanent. Though technically you can have multiple IP addresses, it is still against rules to control more then one UN nation, though many people ignore that rule in case of multiple IP's. In the case of multiple IP's it is basically up to the player to judge whether it is right to use 2 UN nations for 2 IP addresses. That last example though would also go against the NationStates rule "One User, One UN" and you can still be prosecuted for multi UN nations if you forget to change IP or even log into a non-UN nation with both IP addresses.