Telegramming instructions [for Siwale]

Section 2. Creating a telegram template

We strongly recommend that, for your manual recruitment, you use the template mechanism provided by NationStates. Using templates makes mass sending of telegrams much faster and safer (in the sense of not breaking game rules) for you, and much more efficient computationally for the game server. We explain in this section how to create a telegram template, and in the next section how to use it to actually send telegrams. Similar information can be found in the technical section of the NationStates FAQ, and we recommend that you also read that if you have not already done so.

Telegram templates can be used to send telegrams only from the nation by which they were created. Therefore, make sure you are logged in the nation you have selected to recruit from (see previous section). Go to your nation's telegram page (Figure 2), and there click at the "New Telegram" button (Figure 3).



Figure 4 shows the screen that appears. You can fill in the text of the telegram template---a copy of this text will be used every time you send a telegram with this template. We strongly recommend that you use the official recruitment telegram drafted by the Ministry of Interior, available from here. This page is frequently updated to include the latest copy of the official telegram, and you can directly copy/paste its contents from the Code section of that post.

As you are the one sending the recruitment telegram, you may want to personalize the telegram a bit - perhaps by adding an extra line or two about what some of your favorite parts of Europeia are or what you've liked best since you joined Europeia. (Or, if you'd rather, you can just leave the recruitment telegram exactly as is.) Once you are done with the text, click on the little arrow next to the telegram address bar (Figure 4).


Once you do this, a few new options appear, as shown in Figure 5. Follow Figure 5 and type "tag:template" where you usually put the telegram recipient. This is a special recipient that indicates that you intend to create a telegram template instead of sending a regular telegram---and a notification confirming that will appear as soon as you are done typing the recipient. In the same screen, tick the small box marking your telegram template as a recruitment telegram, as shown in Figure 6. It is very important that you remember to do this every time you create a telegram template that you intend to use for recruitment, otherwise you will be violating game rules!



After you have completed these two steps, you are ready to create your telegram template: just click the "Send" button (Figure 7) as you would do with a regular telegram. You will then see a screen confirming the creation of the telegram template, similar to what is shown in Figure 8. The bolded code of the form "%TEMPLATE-NUMBER%" is the identifier of the telegram template you just created, and what you need to send telegrams using this template (explained in the next section).



Closing this section, a final note: telegram templates are intended to be used as much as possible. The only real reasons to create a new telegram template is if you want to change the nation from which you recruit, or if you want to change the text of the telegram. In all other cases, if you have already created a telegram template, you should use that. The way to do this is explained in the next section.

NOTE: To more effectively measure the efficiency of our recruitment, please use one template in all of your recruitment adventures. Thank you!

Section 3. Sending telegrams using templates

It is now time to use the telegram templates you have created to do some actual recruitment. To start hitting telegrams, first you need the template identified. This is the bolded code that appeared when you created the template (Figure 8). If you did not write it down then do not worry, you can easily retrieve it as we explain in the following.

First, go to your nation's telegram page (Figure 2, above)---remember at this point that this must be the same nation as the one from which you created the template. Then, from the drop-down menu at the upper left corner of the telegram page, select to go to your "Sent Items", as shown in Figure 9.


The new page that appears will list any telegrams you have sent from this nation, as well as any telegram templates you have created from it. The latter are marked by displaying "tag:template" as the recipient, as shown in Figure 10. Clicking on one of them reveals the corresponding text (Figure 11), which should help you find the template you intend to use. Once you have found it, click on the small "Recruitment & Delivery Reports" that appears at the bottom right of the template text (highlighted in Figure 11). This will show you some information relating to the telegram, including the template code (Figure 12). Copy this code---you will shortly use it when sending a telegram.




The way you use the template to send a telegram is similar to how you send a regular telegram. Go to your nation's telegram page (Figure 2, above), and from there click to create a new telegram (Figure 3). Then, use the template code you copied earlier as the text for your telegram, as shown in Figure 13. This may seem odd if you have never used template before, but rest assured: instead of the code, the recipient of the telegram will see a copy of the text of the template the code corresponds to!

If you want, you can "test drive" your template before you use it by sending it to another one of your own nations - or to the nation of a friend. Just make sure that they have recruitment telegrams enabled under their telegram settings. Otherwise, it will never arrive.


You also need to select the recipients of your telegram. NationStates allows you to simultaneously telegram up to 8 nations for free, and in general you want to use all 8 slots for maximum efficiency. You can find nations to recruit (newly created or newly refounded ones) using either the manual recruitment helper (recommended and described in the next section) or, if you do not have access to that, the NationStates nation founding activity page. Once you have selected the nations to telegram, you can enter their names as a comma-separated list in the telegram address bar, as shown in Figure 14.


At this stage, you may be thinking that you need to mark your telegram as a recruitment one. Thanks to templates, you do not: if you followed the instructions of the previous section correctly, then the template you are using is marked for recruitment, and all telegrams created using it are automatically similarly marked. Your telegram is ready to be sent, and all you need to do is, unsurprisingly, hit the "Send" button (Figure 15).


If your telegram is successfully delivered, you will see a message similar to that in Figure 16. Occasionally, and in particular if you are sending telegrams in quick succession, you may encounter the message shown in Figure 17. This is the cool down effect we described in Section 1, and it means that you will need to wait between 5 and 15 seconds and then repeat the telegram sending process. Running into this message can be annoying and frustrating, as it means that you have wasted your time preparing a telegram for nothing. The manual recruitment helper provides a way to prevent this from happening, as explained in the next section.