Z-Day 12 response

The Z-Day 12 response was the multiregion coordinated effort by The League's community to keep regions The League and Concord from being overrun by zombies during the 2023 iteration of NationState's annual Z-Day event. The simulated zombie pandemic was confirmed to run between 30-31 October.

Background

Red mark indicates the date of last Z-Day

Originally an April fools prank, Z-Day it was first described by site owner Max Barry in 2013 as "a mild uptick in infection rates of a flu-like illness"- Since then, the simulated zombie pandemic has since become an annual Halloween event. From the first iteration, Barry has said that he believes "since everybody would be better prepared for the apocalypse" the site should "ramp up the potency of zombie exporters", which has been reflected in the increasing difficulty of each year. Since 2013, zombified nations have become significantly more dangerous, and mid-simulation events ranging from switching off cure research in progress, the destruction of all completed vaccine research, and the reanimation of all dead citizens as zombies have been implemented by NationStates admin, with all three being used in 2022's Z-Day event.

After 2022's Z-Day, the total national populations of The League and Concord continued to grow, particularly after Concord's transition to Frontier status, which saw the region's number of member nations increase to over 1000 about a month after the introduction of the Frontiers and Strongholds update. As of July 2023, The League and Concord combined had over 1.3 trillion national citizens, presenting a significantly increased challenge compared to last year's response.

Preparations

Research programs

Multiple research projects were set up prior to Z-Day 12 in order to empirically test the mechanics of the event. Of these, only one, the Ares project, proceeded.

Z-Day taskforce

On 14 October 2023, assembly of the Z-Day 12 taskforce began.

Performance

Results

Leaderboard rankings

Region	Most Survivors	Most Survivors & No Zombies	Most Survivors + No Quarantine	Most Zombies	Most Dead
The League	35th ( 10)	-	9th ( 4)	-	-
Concord	41st	-	11th ( 14)	-	-

The League faltered in its Leaderboard rankings and fell off the "Most Survivors & No Zombies", while Concord established itself on the "Most Survivors" leaderboard for the first time, and improved its ranking in the "Most Survivors + No Quarantine" category.