Monte Ozarka
TNPer
Lecture 7: Invading and Defending "The closest thing to a zerg rush you'll see in NS"
Right, let's put everything together. One of the more popular activities in NS is invading or defending. We'll spend this lesson going over a cursory overview of it.
What is invading?
Invading is a playstyle where you try to change control of a UN delegacy to a nation that you are conspiring with. This nation can be a nation foreign OR native to the region. However, the greater bulk of the "forces" (read: UN nations) that attempt this should be from foreign lands. (Note: "Invader" and "raider" are pretty much interchangeable terms.)
A subset of invaders are "griefers", and although the differentiation has largely been lost since the implementation of the influence mechanic in-game, this label generally refers to invaders who show little knowledge or respect of the game rules. This is a bit of a derogatory term in NS, and the classier invader groups do not label themselves as such.
What is defending?
Defending is a playstyle to counter that of invading. What it essentially means is that defenders will try to catch invasions in progress and overwhelm invading forces so that they do not attain the delegacy. However, if invaders are successful in their mission, defenders will often try to mount a "liberation", in which they counter-invade the region at a later date to try to wrest control of the delegacy from the invader delegate.
Why do people care?
I've said before that the Delegate often holds a large degree of power over the region. (Note that founders have even more power, and therefore, it should not be surprising that founderless regions are the biggest targets of invasion.) A Delegate has a regional monopoly on power. A regional government could hardly function when the de facto leader of the region is no longer within the authority of said government. Nations cannot go about their daily national lives if their in-game leader has absolutely no incentive to care for them (and often purports to actively bring harm to the region). In short, regional life is greatly disrupted, and the natives are much subject to the whims of a foreign, hostile, and powerful force.
And as every villain needs a hero, defenders try to play the "good guys" in NS. Larger, more established regions will often have defender armies whose mission will largely be to counter invaders, protect the weak and defenseless (as the regions that are typically invaded tend to be), and protect the right of each region to be self-deterministic. Rah rah rah.
It's good guy-bad guy. It all depends on how you get your kicks.
The mechanics of it all
The funny thing in invading and defending is that the difference is mostly ideological--invaders try to usurp native control of regions, while defenders try to maintain native control. Mechanistically speaking, the two are almost identical.
In a nutshell, both employ UN nations to act as military forces. The side (invaders vs. natives + defenders) with the most UN nations by the end is the winner (at least for a day
). Furthermore, liberations and invasions are mechanistically the same--a foreign force (maybe with native aid) comes into a region and tries to topple a sitting delegate.
Here's the basic rundown of an invasion or defense:
So I've made mention before that puppet nations are very important for invading and defending. This is because puppets allow for more advanced technique, as well as a great degree of secrecy.
It's better than it sounds, I swear
This sounds pretty bland, huh? Of course, this is invading/defending boiled down to its most essential aspects. The real process is oftentimes far more sophisticated. Tactics and strategy can matter a lot, and a healthy bit of intelligence work is devoted to this type of military intelligence. Insertion windows, sophisticated puppeteering, last-minute endorsement switching, psych-outs (sp?), counter-intelligence, and deep cover intelligence operations may not often be used, but they definitely have been before, and if the occasion should call for it, they will be used again. Plus, if you ever get to experience a delegate crisis like the Great Bight or Pixiedance fiascos, serving in a NS military role will put you on the front lines and challenge you to come up with creative and practical plans and operations. Nothing can move such a great portion of NS to action as a feeder region in crisis, after all.
A bit of commentary: TNP, defending, and invaders
TNP has traditionally been a "defender region", meaning that it runs a defender army and is generally more sympathetic to other defender regions in foreign affairs. Generally, defender regions tend to be larger, more established regions where defending is only a small subset of governmental affairs, while invader regions are smaller and usually devoted to ONLY the invasion of other regions.
The NPA has TNP's army since as far back as I can remember, and it has taken part in many, many operations with other defenders over the course of its history. TNP was a signatory party to several defender alliances (ADN, as well as ALL, to a smaller extent) and joined in treaty with other defender regions. Although many events have happened between then and now, pro-defender sympathies still run strong within the government of the region. Many of us are old fogeys, as far as NS is concerned, and remember the days where fellow defenders came to our aid in restoring our legitimate government. Many of us have been a part of the defending community in the past or currently. Old sympathies die hard.
However, we've come a long way since then. Although an invader (persona or player--it didn't matter) would have been hard-pressed to find any welcome (or access) on the forums when I first got involved in TNP, we have become more accepting and welcome a broad array of people within our fold. Two TNPer's you might recognize--Fedele and Blue Wolf II--lead and invade under the (very successful, I must say) banner of Lone Wolves United. If you ever wander onto our IRC channel, you might find GMT--a #tnp regular, generally swell fellow, and a raider from DEN. Our community benefits from their presence.
Despite the far greater tolerance that is present today, certain things are still unlikely to happen. The biggest is the idea of freeing the NPA from never being allowed to invade offensively or of founding an official army alongside that has the authority to invade. This has been brought up several times over, if I recall correctly, and each time, it has been shot down after heated debate. Perhaps it may be unfair, but it certainly respects regional tradition, and it seems that TNP's citizens still do not wish to accept that change. Perhaps time will tell if TNP will ever be willing to swallow any fundamental change to our defender culture.
-------------------------------------
Whee. This was a fairly non-detailed overview of invading and defending. If you're interested in learning more, I'd suggest enrolling in A04 Intro to Invading and Defending. After that, we have more advanced invading and defending courses, taught by highly qualified personnel.
Now, as for today's open-ended question...Do you accept Pope Hope as your queen? Besides stodgy traditionalism, what do you think are some reasons that regions like TNP have yet to allow an official offensive army?
I myself have been a defender since forever. I've seen people come and go, and rulesets come and go. Most of my experience occured when influence wasn't around, but if you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer.
Right, let's put everything together. One of the more popular activities in NS is invading or defending. We'll spend this lesson going over a cursory overview of it.
What is invading?
Invading is a playstyle where you try to change control of a UN delegacy to a nation that you are conspiring with. This nation can be a nation foreign OR native to the region. However, the greater bulk of the "forces" (read: UN nations) that attempt this should be from foreign lands. (Note: "Invader" and "raider" are pretty much interchangeable terms.)
A subset of invaders are "griefers", and although the differentiation has largely been lost since the implementation of the influence mechanic in-game, this label generally refers to invaders who show little knowledge or respect of the game rules. This is a bit of a derogatory term in NS, and the classier invader groups do not label themselves as such.
What is defending?
Defending is a playstyle to counter that of invading. What it essentially means is that defenders will try to catch invasions in progress and overwhelm invading forces so that they do not attain the delegacy. However, if invaders are successful in their mission, defenders will often try to mount a "liberation", in which they counter-invade the region at a later date to try to wrest control of the delegacy from the invader delegate.
Why do people care?
I've said before that the Delegate often holds a large degree of power over the region. (Note that founders have even more power, and therefore, it should not be surprising that founderless regions are the biggest targets of invasion.) A Delegate has a regional monopoly on power. A regional government could hardly function when the de facto leader of the region is no longer within the authority of said government. Nations cannot go about their daily national lives if their in-game leader has absolutely no incentive to care for them (and often purports to actively bring harm to the region). In short, regional life is greatly disrupted, and the natives are much subject to the whims of a foreign, hostile, and powerful force.
And as every villain needs a hero, defenders try to play the "good guys" in NS. Larger, more established regions will often have defender armies whose mission will largely be to counter invaders, protect the weak and defenseless (as the regions that are typically invaded tend to be), and protect the right of each region to be self-deterministic. Rah rah rah.
It's good guy-bad guy. It all depends on how you get your kicks.
The mechanics of it all
The funny thing in invading and defending is that the difference is mostly ideological--invaders try to usurp native control of regions, while defenders try to maintain native control. Mechanistically speaking, the two are almost identical.
In a nutshell, both employ UN nations to act as military forces. The side (invaders vs. natives + defenders) with the most UN nations by the end is the winner (at least for a day
). Furthermore, liberations and invasions are mechanistically the same--a foreign force (maybe with native aid) comes into a region and tries to topple a sitting delegate.Here's the basic rundown of an invasion or defense:
- Sit around.
- Get a message from a superior officer or some contact that a mission is going down.
- Log onto UN nation.
- Move to the right region and endorse the right nations.
- Wait and hope that you win.
So I've made mention before that puppet nations are very important for invading and defending. This is because puppets allow for more advanced technique, as well as a great degree of secrecy.
- You can sign multiple nations up for the UN (if you do it right
), and so if you get banned from one region, you can drop your UN status on your original nation and immediately switch over to another UN-ready nation. - You can use puppets to try to hide your moves. This may skirt NS rules a bit about spamming (the Regional Happenings board, in this case), so be cautious.
- You can use a fresh puppet every time, and NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO TRACK YOU. Nothing visible on a nation can really be traced to a player (unless you intentionally put up some identifying info, i.e. motto, nation name, flag, etc.). Old nations can be tracked. New nations are wholly anonymous. And of course, anonymity make movement and infiltration 87983243 times easier.
It's better than it sounds, I swear
This sounds pretty bland, huh? Of course, this is invading/defending boiled down to its most essential aspects. The real process is oftentimes far more sophisticated. Tactics and strategy can matter a lot, and a healthy bit of intelligence work is devoted to this type of military intelligence. Insertion windows, sophisticated puppeteering, last-minute endorsement switching, psych-outs (sp?), counter-intelligence, and deep cover intelligence operations may not often be used, but they definitely have been before, and if the occasion should call for it, they will be used again. Plus, if you ever get to experience a delegate crisis like the Great Bight or Pixiedance fiascos, serving in a NS military role will put you on the front lines and challenge you to come up with creative and practical plans and operations. Nothing can move such a great portion of NS to action as a feeder region in crisis, after all.
A bit of commentary: TNP, defending, and invaders
TNP has traditionally been a "defender region", meaning that it runs a defender army and is generally more sympathetic to other defender regions in foreign affairs. Generally, defender regions tend to be larger, more established regions where defending is only a small subset of governmental affairs, while invader regions are smaller and usually devoted to ONLY the invasion of other regions.
The NPA has TNP's army since as far back as I can remember, and it has taken part in many, many operations with other defenders over the course of its history. TNP was a signatory party to several defender alliances (ADN, as well as ALL, to a smaller extent) and joined in treaty with other defender regions. Although many events have happened between then and now, pro-defender sympathies still run strong within the government of the region. Many of us are old fogeys, as far as NS is concerned, and remember the days where fellow defenders came to our aid in restoring our legitimate government. Many of us have been a part of the defending community in the past or currently. Old sympathies die hard.
However, we've come a long way since then. Although an invader (persona or player--it didn't matter) would have been hard-pressed to find any welcome (or access) on the forums when I first got involved in TNP, we have become more accepting and welcome a broad array of people within our fold. Two TNPer's you might recognize--Fedele and Blue Wolf II--lead and invade under the (very successful, I must say) banner of Lone Wolves United. If you ever wander onto our IRC channel, you might find GMT--a #tnp regular, generally swell fellow, and a raider from DEN. Our community benefits from their presence.
Despite the far greater tolerance that is present today, certain things are still unlikely to happen. The biggest is the idea of freeing the NPA from never being allowed to invade offensively or of founding an official army alongside that has the authority to invade. This has been brought up several times over, if I recall correctly, and each time, it has been shot down after heated debate. Perhaps it may be unfair, but it certainly respects regional tradition, and it seems that TNP's citizens still do not wish to accept that change. Perhaps time will tell if TNP will ever be willing to swallow any fundamental change to our defender culture.
-------------------------------------
Whee. This was a fairly non-detailed overview of invading and defending. If you're interested in learning more, I'd suggest enrolling in A04 Intro to Invading and Defending. After that, we have more advanced invading and defending courses, taught by highly qualified personnel.
Now, as for today's open-ended question...
I myself have been a defender since forever. I've seen people come and go, and rulesets come and go. Most of my experience occured when influence wasn't around, but if you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer.
