This guide was first posted in the Regional Influence (NSv1.9 changes) thread in the NationStates Technical forum. Note that this list is unofficial, as the NationStates moderators refuse to confirm the ordering of any of the NationStates rankings.
Safalra’s Guide To Influence
When a nation moves to a region, it has no influence within that region. Nations accrue influence in a region by remaining in the region, and by receiving endorsements from the region’s members. Being a member of the UN has no effect unless the nation gains endorsements, and the influence of the nations endorsing has no effect either.
At each UN update the each nation’s influence is increased by a constant factor (to represent its remaining in the region) and a factor proportionate to the number of UN endorsements it has. The precise equivalence between these two factors (for example, whether having n endorsements is equivalent to remaining in a region for n days) is unclear.
The regional power is equal to the sum of the national influence of all its members (updated each UN update), and is displayed as a ranking on a scale ranging from ‘Backwater’ to ‘Extremely High’.
The national influence ranking (ranging from ‘Minnow’ to ‘Hermit’) is determined by the ratio of national influence to total regional influence and the previous UN update. If the nation joined the region since the last UN update it has no power. If the region was created since the last UN update all its member have ranking ‘Hermit’ until the next UN update.
The ordering of national influence rankings is as follows:
- Hermit
- Hegemony
- Dominator
- Superpower
- Power
- Powerbroker
- Eminence Grise
- Enforcer
- Dealmaker
- Instigator
- Contender
- Negotiator
- Auxiliary
- Ambassador
- Diplomat
- Envoy
- Duckspeaker
- Handshaker
- Truckler
- Vassal
- Minnow
The ordering can mainly be deduced by looking at regions where all nations have identical influence (mainly regions without UN members where the membership hasn’t changed since the influence system was introduced):
| Size | Shared ranking | Example region |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hermit | 00000000000000000000000000 |
| 2 | Dominator | 000000000000000000000000 |
| 3 | Superpower | 000000000 GrandIslamicAlliance |
| 4 | Power | 00000000000000000000000000000 |
| 5 | Power | Abudabi |
| 6 | Powerbroker | 00 Nirvana 00 |
| 7 | Eminence Grise | A Home for Those About to Rock |
| 8 | Eminence Grise | Abcede |
| 9 | Eminence Grise | Anti Nerd Alliance |
| 10 | Eminence Grise | Acheron |
| 11 | Enforcer | Conservicstan |
| 12 | Dealmaker | Alrindor |
| 13 | Instigator | Ashtan |
| 14 | Instigator | Lost Caribbean Islands |
| 15 | Contender | Poke World |
| 16 | Contender | Civics Class Sandbox |
| 17 | Contender | EOTLOUD |
| 18 | Negotiator | Sheep Protectors |
| 19 | Negotiator | Chemistry |
| 20 | Negotiator | Major IMPACT |
| 22 | Ambassador | The NSPD |
| 23 | Ambassador | Terra 13 |
| 25 | Ambassador | The Cheese Alliance |
| 26 | Diplomat | Pantheon |
| 31 | Envoy | ECU |
This also allows us to derive bounds on the share of total regional influence that leads to each title.
The positions of the remaining rankings can be deduced by using the regional XML feeds to determine the relative ages of nations in a region and see how this correlates with the rankings of those that aren’t UN members. To complete the list above the regions of England, The YoungWorld, Indus River Valley, and 00000000000000000 ALL 4 TEENS were used.