Darcness
Robot Overlord
Forum Administrator
Associate Justice
Cabinet
Honoured Citizen
Citizen
Discord Moderator
Best Tech Admin
- Pronouns
- He/Him
NOTE: The following article was published by Lloenflys' Gavel, but does not necessarily reflect this paper's views. Posted with permission.
The Frontier/Stronghold (further referred to as F/S) update has been at the forefront of discussion not only in Europeia but across the Nationstates world as the Gameplay Community Manager seeks to make drastic changes to the technical rules of the game. While the intricacies of the F/S update have been covered elsewhere, the debate rages on regarding the correct path for Europeia and the implementation details of the same.
Becoming a Stronghold (which is essentially the 'default' stance of a User-Created Region and thus a continuance of the status quo) has recently come under fire, with opponents pointing to dwindling nation counts and delegate endorsements. While the allure of a steady stream of new nations joining the region and presumably the growing delegate counts and new citizenry that comes with it is difficult to ignore, we are forced to validate the idea in and of itself. Nation counts will undoubtedly increase, but will being a 'mini-Feeder' (Frontier) increase our delegate power and productive member (further referred to as citizen) count?
Assumptions
Source - All data is based on an amalgamation of Daily Dumps from the past three years (beginning 1 Sep 2018). The source code used to collate the data can be found here: https://github.com/Darcness/Europeia/tree/users/darcness/eurodata. (Requires node v14.17.4.) The Excel document which contains the merged CSV files and Pivot Tables can be made available on request.
Metrics - All data is scored as an average of daily Delegate votes across each month within the timeframe.
Feeders
Over time, the number of nations in The North Pacific has stayed mostly the same. We see the Drew Boom come and go (a common arc across the game), but by the end of our cycle, we're at a similar number of nations. The percentage of nations endorsing the delegate follows cyclical trends as well, although there is a bit of a downturn in the past year.
The South Pacific seems to have a similar cycle to TNP, and while the number of nations may shift as much as 2000 in a year, they cycle back to previous lows (note that the November data is incomplete, and so averages used here aren't valid data).
The East Pacific enjoys a slight increase of approximately 200 nations per year in this data, when taking the mean per year. The percentage of Delegate votes begins to drop off severely in 2019 and not recover, however, implying that the region has fallen into a worrisome lack of engagement (but maintaining nation count).
The West Pacific instead sees a downturn of nations in our month-over-month analysis, in greater amplitude than TEP's increase. As the percentage of Delegate votes rises, we essentially see an effort by the region to 'discard' less useful nations.
The Pacific has perhaps the most direct cycle, with peaks and lows over each year ending up within 100 nations of one another.
Overall
We see some commonalities across all of this data. Each year has cycles that tend to run (using lows as a base) from July-June. Summer slump, anyone? But what is most interesting is that the lows are all similarly low, and the highs are all similarly high. There are some differences, of course (TEP has seen a YOY increase, where TWP has seen a YOY decrease), but overall the cycles hold true and the overall mean is quite regular. Conclusion? The Feeders aren't actually gaining nations. Not in any real sense. Every nation they gain they inevitably lose, and the rates of gain and loss are equal.
UCRs
Overall
It's much more difficult to detect patterns within the data for 10KI, TCB and Europeia, mainly because internal factors can drive numerical shifts just as much as external ones. A dip in recruiting efforts, a slowdown in gameside outreach, all of these can lead us to a dip in incoming regions. UCRs, of course, enjoy a much higher percentage of 'engaged' members (delegate endorsers), as they are less likely to be full of military and card trading puppets. Additionally, nations that move into UCRs moved there on purpose.
Analysis
Perhaps the most surprising note here is that the Feeders don't see an increase in nations year over year. Losing just as many nations as they gain means they're losing just as many potential citizens as they gain during any given month. There's no overall increase in Delegate endorsement, meaning that we're not seeing 'wheat from chaff' shifts, but simply just as many in as out. Common understanding of Feeders (and Frontiers, which are effectively mini-Feeders) is that an increase in incoming nations will mean at least some increase in citizens and delegate endorsements, but the data doesn't bear this logic out. Being a Frontier will not increase our nation count over time (just as it does not increase the current Feeders' nation count over time).
Frontier: Is it worth it?
Written by Darcness
Written by Darcness
The Frontier/Stronghold (further referred to as F/S) update has been at the forefront of discussion not only in Europeia but across the Nationstates world as the Gameplay Community Manager seeks to make drastic changes to the technical rules of the game. While the intricacies of the F/S update have been covered elsewhere, the debate rages on regarding the correct path for Europeia and the implementation details of the same.
Becoming a Stronghold (which is essentially the 'default' stance of a User-Created Region and thus a continuance of the status quo) has recently come under fire, with opponents pointing to dwindling nation counts and delegate endorsements. While the allure of a steady stream of new nations joining the region and presumably the growing delegate counts and new citizenry that comes with it is difficult to ignore, we are forced to validate the idea in and of itself. Nation counts will undoubtedly increase, but will being a 'mini-Feeder' (Frontier) increase our delegate power and productive member (further referred to as citizen) count?
Assumptions
- Delegate Endorsements (votes) are a substitute metric for citizens. Every region calculates citizens differently, yet delegate endorsements are a firm statistic with intrinsic value.
- Nation counts are not a primary statistic for Feeders, due to gameplay elements that require empty shell nations (puppets). Military gameplay and Card Trading puppets inflate these values to drastic amounts without providing value.
Source - All data is based on an amalgamation of Daily Dumps from the past three years (beginning 1 Sep 2018). The source code used to collate the data can be found here: https://github.com/Darcness/Europeia/tree/users/darcness/eurodata. (Requires node v14.17.4.) The Excel document which contains the merged CSV files and Pivot Tables can be made available on request.
Metrics - All data is scored as an average of daily Delegate votes across each month within the timeframe.
Feeders
Overall
We see some commonalities across all of this data. Each year has cycles that tend to run (using lows as a base) from July-June. Summer slump, anyone? But what is most interesting is that the lows are all similarly low, and the highs are all similarly high. There are some differences, of course (TEP has seen a YOY increase, where TWP has seen a YOY decrease), but overall the cycles hold true and the overall mean is quite regular. Conclusion? The Feeders aren't actually gaining nations. Not in any real sense. Every nation they gain they inevitably lose, and the rates of gain and loss are equal.
UCRs
Overall
It's much more difficult to detect patterns within the data for 10KI, TCB and Europeia, mainly because internal factors can drive numerical shifts just as much as external ones. A dip in recruiting efforts, a slowdown in gameside outreach, all of these can lead us to a dip in incoming regions. UCRs, of course, enjoy a much higher percentage of 'engaged' members (delegate endorsers), as they are less likely to be full of military and card trading puppets. Additionally, nations that move into UCRs moved there on purpose.
Analysis
Perhaps the most surprising note here is that the Feeders don't see an increase in nations year over year. Losing just as many nations as they gain means they're losing just as many potential citizens as they gain during any given month. There's no overall increase in Delegate endorsement, meaning that we're not seeing 'wheat from chaff' shifts, but simply just as many in as out. Common understanding of Feeders (and Frontiers, which are effectively mini-Feeders) is that an increase in incoming nations will mean at least some increase in citizens and delegate endorsements, but the data doesn't bear this logic out. Being a Frontier will not increase our nation count over time (just as it does not increase the current Feeders' nation count over time).