Strategy Game YouTuber Sends Europeia To New Heights
Region Breaks Previous Population Record
Written by GraVandius
On July 17, 2016, 200 nations joined Europeia as a wave of 10,000 new nations crashed into NationStates. Manual recruiters mobilized and sent a relatively high, for the time, 1,860 telegrams that week bringing in an estimated 65 new nations in addition to the gains made by our automated telegrams. Hard work from recruiters over the next 27 days allowed Europeia to hit an all time high of 1,864 nations on August 11, 2016. This broke the previous record of 1,847 set on February 22, 2012. The new record, like the one it had just broken, would stand untouched for four years as we never came within 100 nations of that mark.
Then on April 20, 2020, YouTuber Drew Durnil uploaded a video on Nation States to his half a million subscribers and in one day we gained 316 new nations. This corresponding boom dwarfed Imgur in scope almost immediately. In its entirety the Imgur boom increased NS population by 30,515. That figure was eclipsed in the first 3 days following this Drew-pocalypse and so far it has increased by approximately 57,842. In the meantime Europeia has picked up a total of 965 nations, in effect almost doubling our population. That huge increase has shattered the previous record as we sped past it on May 2. This is super impressive given we are technically only halfway through the boom as the new nations will not start to CTE until May 18. That would mean there is a good chance we could reach the threshold of over 2,000 nations before this dramatic incline peters out.
Our massive gains can at least be partially attributed to fantastic work by a vast many recruiters in the Ministry of Interior. They put the 2016 squad to shame by sending 13,995 telegrams in the first week the boom began. As an unprecedented 23 citizens stepped up to the plate to recruit it showed the community coming together to make sure we capitalized on this boom. By the standard success rates of 1.5 percent this would mean our diligent recruiters brought in approximately 210 new nations into the region, representing a lion's share of Europeia's gains. This shows the massive importance of manual recruitment. It is further impressive when the rocky recent history of this ministry is considered. As First Minister Istillian noted in his comments to the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation, "Under Pichtonia’s last term as First Minister, we had resignation after resignation of recruitment ministers, and until Maowi took up the mantle, our numbers were looking a little bleak for a time. Since then, and particularly in the past term, we have had solid traction in Interior, with a lot of heavy lifting by the ministers themselves to get our numbers higher; and yet, this has never felt like enough, and our recruiters have constantly been pushed to work harder. In fact former First Minister Dax, in her last update, reported a count of only 882 nations. So I feel like this boom has been incredibly motivating, it is a reward for those that have put in so much of their time and effort."
As the boom begins to subside the question now turns to how many will stay. If the Drew-Boom follows the same curve as its Imgur predecessor we could fall back under 1,000 nations as early as June 5. However, given that quite a few members who have joined are getting actively involved with Europeia, that scenario seems very unlikely. It is actually quite probable that this massive upswing of activity could drive the region through the summer and into the fall. Indeed Istillian himself ended his statement on a forward thinking note, "I am honoured to be here right now, and proud of this region for how it presents itself, there’s already been exciting activity to come out of this spike in population, and I’m looking forward to what else is to come!"
