[quote=@Candelabra]
Hey, I'm considering playing a Nation RP for the first time. How much do I need to know about history to participate? I have an understanding of the general events of the period and geopolitical context, but not any ultra specific details for them outside of the UK as I read a book on the matter.[/quote]

Well we exist in the time of the internet so you could easily do research on any particular country so you have a general idea of what you're working with, or you do enough research to give you a sort of structure on how you can get away with running things and doing whatever research you need to do to become generally familiar with the terrain and build on it more and more. In my own RP'ing career I've done continuing study on stuff to better refine more and more my approach with whatever country I picked the longer I've written them; mainly this applies to China in Precipice of War. But in preparation for this I have been doing some brush up.

Generally, especially if you're new I would advise picking the poison you're mostly familiar with but we already sort of have a British Empire, he just has to move his app to the IC thread. But the structure of this RP is such that I encourage people to also play as non-state parties so if you want to do British stuff, you will need to ask our British guy and work something out as being the Whigs or the Chartrist movement or something in Britain. Otherwise: if you need help you can always ask.

[quote=@Candelabra] Right now, I'm considering picking up Luxembourg, maybe used by another nation as the groundwork to curb German influence and create a friendlier German state from the bordering Prussian holdings? Was gonna consider Greece but saw someone was interested already. Punjab/The Sikh Empire would also be very interesting, albeit very rough. And I'm Dominican-American so I could either play the US and stir up trouble with the UK over Canada or mess with Spain by pushing for early Dominican independence and trying to create the Antillean Confederation. Of course, if anyone has suggestions for a nation to make the overall dynamic more fun I'd be willing to do the research and take the reigns. 
[/quote]

As Yam said: Luxembourg isn't really relevant to German politics and most of its territory would have been ceded to the Netherlands and would be caught up in the fights in the Lowlands over greater German struggle. Realistically any counter to "Prussian hegemony" would be Austria, France, or Russia. But because the basis of this RP is that reactionary forces - read: the old feudal landowners - of much of Europe is greatly weakened the people who would have turned Germany into what it would become by the later half of the century are much weakened and sets the stage for a more radical of a more equal movement of German nationalist revolution. The intent of this RP would kind of be to radically reshape the historical course of Europe in the post-Napoleonic era, because it's all about "what if Napoleon was around for longer and was able to effect his radical mission much more decisively".

So the perfidious rotten cabbage merchants that are the Junkers get to be busted up and variously bankrupted and get to have a more tense relationship with the more upwardly mobile modern classes.