Even though I've been in the game less than a week, I'm already interested in creating puppet nations-- I've got 7 different email addresses, as well as a domain name that will forward wildcard addresses to one of my standard emails-- making dozens of nations possible, I suppose. I can't work anymore, so I certainly have the time to juggle them all. I'm guessing it would best to start slow, with maybe 2 or 3 puppets. Long term plans would be to use them in intelligence gathering roles.

Would the more experienced players recommend I wait and build my home nation further before expanding? I'm taking 2 issues a day, but it feels like a long time between turns while sitting at home all day waiting for the updates.

Also, what would be required if I were to take one of those puppets and use it to create my own region to act as a "waystation" for all the other puppets? I know that as the founder nation it needs to stay there, but is there any danger of the founder being forcibly evicted by non-controlled nations that might move in?

you can created as many puppets as you want - you don't even need a different e-mail address - so long as only one nation joins the UN, you can have as many puppets as you want.

Feel free to start with one or two, and keep adding puppets until you've achieved a desired number for your level of interest.

If you start your own region, there is a chance others could evict you. However, as a founder of the region, you'll always be able to evict and ban any trouble makers, and return to your region. You can also password protect your region, making invasion almost impossible.

Thanks, got the first puppet built, now I need to create a flag.

There are at least two players that I know that have over 200 puppets. Crazy Girl, most recently of the Rejected Realms, has puppets everywhere. How she has time to keep them all active, I'll never know.

If you create a region and keep your founding nation active, you are invulnerable to attacks. As founder you can disable delegate controls and eject anyone you want for whatever reason you want.

Well, let's assume 280 puppet nations--you said over 200 but this makes for easier calculation--she hypothetically only needs to log in to 10 nations a day to keep them all active.

Obviously this means she has a lot of free time as well.

'Course, I think the biggest problem would be remembering to visit all the nations you had. She must have some electronic files to help her keep track.

She apparently has both. She has what would be considered a native nation in virtually every significant region in the game. I wonder what her Canadian nation is called...

Fantastic. In my humble opinion, the best thing to do is if you're counsidering this is to make two or three puppets now. The reason I say this is that if a Nation of 6 to 35 million joins a Region, it can raise eyebrows, especially in the more active user-created Regions. Larger Nations, in some respects, indicate more experienced players who have been roving and learning. Also having UN status is advantageous.

True. More than one can apply to join though. Generally this is how invaders and defenders operate, allowing UN status to change rapidly. Some unscrupulous people may, use proxy-generators (which has been done) to create 'fake' IP addresses to have multiple UN Nations. You could also purchase additional IP addresses off your ISP or run UNIX with several jails (I'm sure daemon will correct this if it inaccurate).
The first method is by far the most tried and tested. I believe it is this premise that Operation Puppet Master is based upon.

That's what I'd suggest anyway... :wacko:

Thanks for the insights.

I suppose my next question is, since I do have several legitimate e-mail addresses, is it permitted (by the rules of the game) to have multiple UN nations as long as each one has its own unique email address? Or is the restriction that the player can have only one UN nation?

Right now I've got the first puppet (a different email than Prophylactica) in a region that openly boasts about other regions they have conquered. I thought it might be interesting to watch them for awhile, though I'm sure Canada's Ministers are aware of them already.

One UN nation per player. It doesn't matter what e-mail addresses they're signed up with. (All your nations can have the same email, it doesn't matter). The mods track IP addresses, and having more than one UN nation will get all your nations booted from the UN.

Okay, so it sounds like I need to have one of my nations petition for UN membership, then if and when that is approved I would be able to transfer the membership between the nations I own. Is that correct?

How difficult is it to get into the UN? Does the assembly itself vote on applicants, or is it merely the process of the game's system administrators checking to be sure there are no ISP conflicts?

I'm currently uncertain whether I want to commit Prophylactica to the UN, for fear that their mandates could be far more restrictive regarding a citizen's rights than what my goals are. I'm particularly dismayed about the needle sharing proposal even being on their agenda, as I think it is more properly a decision for the individual nation states-- why force a nation to conform to the program and be responsible for the increased taxation if drug use is non-existent to begin with? Not that it's the case with Prophylactica, which is somewhat hedonistic. I'm just getting philosophical, probably because I was a preacher's kid. ;)

Yup. Exactly.

It's the latter. You'll get in for sure, everyone does. It doesn't take long either.

UN admission is guaranteed - you apply on the UN page, and in 24-48 hours, you'll be in.

It's as Checkers and Bweezy said but it's not against the rules to apply and leave the decision pending. Multiing is difficult to maintain and is questionable ethically in my opinion although I am aware of the methods used to achieve it.

Any relevant information is appreciated.

Geez, I'm such a tootie. My region-founding puppet is now a member of the UN. But I don't see any way to transfer that membership to my other nations.

Do I need to have the UN nation resign its membership, and then re-apply as the nation I want to transfer it to?

That's my understanding of how it is to be done (though I'm not entirely sure)

If we take the 'Operation Puppet Master' approach, you can apply to join with your puppets too. As long as you don't except the offer to join (you can decline) it doesn't matter in so long as when you decide to make that puppet a UN member you resign your membership with the other nation first.

Is there any place where the principles of "Operation Puppet Master" are fully explained?

Not to my knowledge. Apparently Mr Max Berry himself was involved in it. I'm sure the logic, strategy, and justifications are around somewhere and it is only a matter of time before sections are leaked either to show the 'mastery' of this move, or through intelligence leaks. The only down side to this will be almost immediate modification to suit smaller Regions and their preferred tactics (crashing/griefing/defending/liberating) or targets. It would then be a case of a piece by piece dissemination of the material to work out the most ruthlessly efficient course of action from the accumulated garbage. That would be about it as the Operation was over in less than 24 hours (one main server update for Endorsements/rankings etc.), so it's going to have to be prety effective.

Well, you setup your puppets, with different emails, have all of them apply for UN, but don't verify. No IP tracking until you verify. If you get enough people doing this a large force can mounted by a small group of people.

The next part, I'm unclear about, but I think what happens is all the nations need to have supplied their region names and password to a "commander" who has access to a large number of computers who show on the internet with different IP addresses. Possibly someone who works for an ISP or a business with many computers on a network. Which seems like one hell of an undertaking...

Or all the nation verify at the same time, endorce a delegate, just before the "time of server reconciliation," (does it's housekeeping and switches to the next day) kick the unwanted delegate and then drop their UN endorcements right afterward. But that would require some knowledge of how the NationStates server works....

As for the recent changes in the North Pacific, some reports suggest that Bight actually unbanned all regions and stepped down from his delegate posistion all on his own...
Or at least someone controling Bights nation, maybe someone cracked his password,
or maybe Bight just decided to go on vacation and rid himself of region worries.

My version of possible events is pure speculation....
The trouble is that the North Pacific news changes so fast it's hard to track exactly what was happening. Although, I can verify that Bight was the delegate in power when nations were being unbanned... as I was looking at the region during that event.