[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects Since New Update

[Bears Armed Mission]

I got #639 No Country For Old Men on a nation with an average lifespan of 27.23 years. Should that be possible?

In RL, nations with low average life expectancy values have tended historically to have high infant mortality rates, and once a person gets past the age of 10 or so they can fairly reasonably (barring wars, plagues, and childbirth problems) expect the Biblical "three-score-years-and-ten"...

[Trotterdam]

I guess there might be a distinction between issues that assume you have some old people, and issues that assume you have too many old people (to the point that pensions are becoming a drain on the national budget, etc.).

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It's definitely a good observation, and being discussed backstage now.

[Venetoland]

In the "poison mushroom" issue, I decided to teach my citizens the difference between poisinous and edible. My Public Health Care dropped. Wouldn't knowing what to eat make it rise?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

In the "poison mushroom" issue, I decided to teach my citizens the difference between poisinous and edible. My Public Health Care dropped. Wouldn't knowing what to eat make it rise?

Not at all. In fact, that figure represents how much you spend on public healthcare, not the health of your nation. You'll note that your nation's Health score actually rose.

What happened here was that you improved the nation's health without spending more on healthcare (as you put in a whole bunch of industrial standards instead), and this have you better health, which in turn reduced the burden on your public healthcare system.

Actually, the above is untrue in almost every important way, but it's a good lie that roughly represents what is going on in the game's fiction, without actually revealing the secret ways in which the emergent simulation actually functions.

[Ransium]

Hahaha, I was reading CWA's explanation and thinking 'Did I... mean to do that?'

[Trotterdam]

A Badly Conceived Designation:
#585 option 1 made death rate go up?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

A Badly Conceived Designation:
#585 option 1 made death rate go up?

Yeah, dumb ass game engine.

Known silly coding choices. Been flagged to the bosses. Changes promised at some time in the future.

The issue stats are entirely sensible in narrative terms, it's what the simulation susbequently does with those inputs that is illogical. The solutions are obvious, but the technical team can't implement fixes as easily on their end, as systemic changes require rigorous testing to make sure stability problems and bugs don't emerge.

[A Million Voices]

A random blurb.

A couple minutes ago I opened NationStates on my phone to answer issues, and I got #512, some issue about furniture breaking down too easily. I answered option 2, which was to ban furniture repair and force the consumer to buy replacements. After that, my Furniture Restoration ranking went from 19,805 to -2.00. I lost four years of work all at once. My initial reaction was "Oh s****", and I had to stare at it for a couple seconds. I've banned cheese, guns, cars, booze, et cetera before on puppets without this kind of thing necessarily happening. It just seemed out of character and caught me off guard.

Does anyone still answer the issues any more? Am I weird for caring? I know no one is going to repair my account, but is there anyone like an Issues Editor or an Admin that could maybe just nerf this one a little bit? I'm on the fence whether to just stop bothering, maybe go into a 2 year vacation mode hibernation. I do honestly feel a bit too old to be still playing this game.

[Luna Amore]

A random blurb.

A couple minutes ago I opened NationStates on my phone to answer issues, and I got #512, some issue about furniture breaking down too easily. I answered option 2, which was to ban furniture repair and force the consumer to buy replacements. After that, my Furniture Restoration ranking went from 19,805 to -2.00. I lost four years of work all at once. My initial reaction was "Oh s****", and I had to stare at it for a couple seconds. I've banned cheese, guns, cars, booze, et cetera before on puppets without this kind of thing necessarily happening. It just seemed out of character and caught me off guard.

Does anyone still answer the issues any more? Am I weird for caring? I know no one is going to repair my account, but is there anyone like an Issues Editor or an Admin that could maybe just nerf this one a little bit? I'm on the fence whether to just stop bothering, maybe go into a 2 year vacation mode hibernation. I do honestly feel a bit too old to be still playing this game.

Merged with the relevant Got Issues thread. I'll bring it up with the team backstage.

[Ransium]

A random blurb.

A couple minutes ago I opened NationStates on my phone to answer issues, and I got #512, some issue about furniture breaking down too easily. I answered option 2, which was to ban furniture repair and force the consumer to buy replacements. After that, my Furniture Restoration ranking went from 19,805 to -2.00. I lost four years of work all at once. My initial reaction was "Oh s****", and I had to stare at it for a couple seconds. I've banned cheese, guns, cars, booze, et cetera before on puppets without this kind of thing necessarily happening. It just seemed out of character and caught me off guard.

Does anyone still answer the issues any more? Am I weird for caring? I know no one is going to repair my account, but is there anyone like an Issues Editor or an Admin that could maybe just nerf this one a little bit? I'm on the fence whether to just stop bothering, maybe go into a 2 year vacation mode hibernation. I do honestly feel a bit too old to be still playing this game.

Awww... the last part of your post makes me really sad. Please don't stop playing. The only reason I write and edit issues is for people like you.

[Bears Armed Mission]

I do honestly feel a bit too old to be still playing this game.

i'm 57 years old, and have no plans to give up playing this game: Are you older than that?

[The first Galactic Republic]

Issue #380: Farmers seeding discontent (Issue brought to Svothlore)

Farmers throughout the country are threatening a nationwide strike, because their domestic produce cannot compete with cheap foreign imports. They demand that the government step in and protect the agricultural sector.

I chose solution #3:

"Are these people serious?" scoffs @@RANDOMNAME@@, owner of A Whole Shipload, LLC. "Subsidies, tariffs, what is all that about? You're messing with the free market here! If foreign produce is cheaper, then that means they're better at doing their jobs. These ungrateful peasants just want government coddling, because they can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It's time that @@NAME@@ promote personal responsibility instead of pandering to the weak. Crush the strike by abolishing all foodstuff tariffs, and then we can import as much as we like."


The effects were:

(Image)

Let's look at these one by one.

Taxation shouldn't have gone up. I DECREASED taxes by removing tariffs on foreign foodstuffs.

Death rate doesn't exactly make sense since people wouldn't willingly buy foreign food if they knew it was killing them, but I'll let that pass because my people are actually incredibly stupid for some reason.

Employment makes sense, since local farmers found themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

Business subsidization doesn't make a lot of sense since it has nothing to do with trade regulation, but I won't complain because I want that to go down anyway.

Human Development Index certainly shouldn't go down for me, and it seems that every single choice I make decreases this no matter what. But if lifespan is going down along with unemployment, then it makes sense that this would follow.

Beverages, pizza sales, furniture restoration, manufacturing, and retail should all either remain about the same or increase, because the farmers that are displaced from the market will eventually need to find a niche in a different market through the process of specialization.

Economic output should go up, not down. People now don't need to pay as much for food, now that costs went down. That's money that they can spend on other things, which is a stimulant to the economy.

Average income should also increase, not decrease, once again for the same reason mentioned above.

The economy should be increasing a lot, not decreasing. I know free trade is a bit of a controversial topic in the political field, but not in terms of economics. Every country under free trade has a more prosperous economy as a result; almost every economist agrees with that notion.

Cheese exports and agriculture should be going down: that's correct. We're terrible at making cheese and farming; it's just the competitive process that causes that.

Not a fan of this one either. A lot of things imploded after I picked option 3 and a lot of them don't seem to connect to the issue. One of the most unreasonable examples of extreme consequences for an action that don't even connect to most of the stat losses.

[A Million Voices]

Merged with the relevant Got Issues thread. I'll bring it up with the team backstage.

Awww... the last part of your post makes me really sad. Please don't stop playing. The only reason I write and edit issues is for people like you.

thank you both. Hopefully it all gets straightened out.

i'm 57 years old, and have no plans to give up playing this game: Are you older than that?

that would be a negative. you definitely have me beat, haha.

[Venetoland]

Marriage equality leads to increased drug use? Unless you're including champagne at wedding receptions, I'm curious about this.

[Drasnia]

Marriage equality leads to increased drug use? Unless you're including champagne at wedding receptions, I'm curious about this.

Your civil rights increased which has a small but noticeable effect on RDU.

[Venetoland]

Thanks Drasnia, that makes sense. (Not as much as the other movement I got)

[East Angria]

I (East Angria)recently encountered issue # 650: Political Hacks and chose the third option: Putting a group of hackers under government control under more regulation. Somehow this lowered my nation's political freedom.
How does it lower political freedom if the government puts its own agents under more regulation and thus lets them spread less propaganda and stirr up less trouble in foreign nations?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

This is an interpretation thing, I think. I'll telegram the author/editor and see if he wants to comment.

[Trotterdam]

A Badly Conceived Designation:
#585 option 1 made death rate go up?

Yeah, dumb ass game engine.

Known silly coding choices. Been flagged to the bosses. Changes promised at some time in the future.

The issue stats are entirely sensible in narrative terms, it's what the simulation susbequently does with those inputs that is illogical. The solutions are obvious, but the technical team can't implement fixes as easily on their end, as systemic changes require rigorous testing to make sure stability problems and bugs don't emerge.

Add #278 option 3 and #280 option 3 to the seemingly-pro-safety options that ended up raising Death Rate, I guess.

And don't call asses dumb again, you hear me?

[Greater Hunnia]

709:3 "Community-designed sword prostheses are becoming dangerously common."

Weaponisation and Industry: Arms Manufacturing went down, which is pretty much contradicting to the point, while Foreign Aid went up, which has nothing to do with the issue whatsoever.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

709:3 "Community-designed sword prostheses are becoming dangerously common."

Weaponisation and Industry: Arms Manufacturing went down, which is pretty much contradicting to the point, while Foreign Aid went up, which has nothing to do with the issue whatsoever.

Stat changes reflect the option, not the effect line. If you think on it, it wouldn't be fair to take any other approach, really.

The option was:

“There’s another way to reach out to the limbless,” says Moff Hicks, a volunteer from the charitable Open Hands Society. “3D-printed limbs can be produced for anyone, by anyone. If one wears out or becomes outdated, it can be tossed, and a new one printed. Along with that, citizens can work together to design limbs that work for them. Why not send some money to the non-profit foundations that are developing these things? You’ll be helping not only here in Mahsanco Al-Weivri, but also the disabled of third world nations that the charities serve.”

The last bit explains why this is a pro foreign-aid move: you're subsidising charities that help the third world.

As for weaponisation falling, this is because the issue doesn't have any coded effect for the arms industry, but it does boost the IT industry (as it's pushing 3D-printing). Whenever one industry gets a coded boost, the game engine gives a tiny drop to every other industry. The economy still grows overall, but this is a longstanding simulation factor to simulate industries being in indirect competition with each other for disposable income, employees, resources and the like.

[Greater Hunnia]

709:3 "Community-designed sword prostheses are becoming dangerously common."

Weaponisation and Industry: Arms Manufacturing went down, which is pretty much contradicting to the point, while Foreign Aid went up, which has nothing to do with the issue whatsoever.

Stat changes reflect the option, not the effect line. If you think on it, it wouldn't be fair to take any other approach, really.

The option was:

“There’s another way to reach out to the limbless,” says Moff Hicks, a volunteer from the charitable Open Hands Society. “3D-printed limbs can be produced for anyone, by anyone. If one wears out or becomes outdated, it can be tossed, and a new one printed. Along with that, citizens can work together to design limbs that work for them. Why not send some money to the non-profit foundations that are developing these things? You’ll be helping not only here in Mahsanco Al-Weivri, but also the disabled of third world nations that the charities serve.”

The last bit explains why this is a pro foreign-aid move: you're subsidising charities that help the third world.

As for weaponisation falling, this is because the issue doesn't have any coded effect for the arms industry, but it does boost the IT industry (as it's pushing 3D-printing). Whenever one industry gets a coded boost, the game engine gives a tiny drop to every other industry. The economy still grows overall, but this is a longstanding simulation factor to simulate industries being in indirect competition with each other for disposable income, employees, resources and the like.

No other industry had a measurable fall besides Arms Manufacturing / Sector: Manufacturing. Since crippled people are supposedly pretty much strapping 3d printed swords on themselves now,it would be oly logical if it actully gave a boost to Weaponisation, and depending on whether or not the production of such home made contraption counts in Arms Manufacturing, a boost to that industry as well. Here's a screenshot of the issue's full effects btw. http://i.imgur.com/3itw2pk.png

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Right you are: Actually, all the industries would have fallen, though less perceptibly. The arms manufacturing shift was magnified by other knock on effects.

Broadly, being a nicer nation means people carry less guns. It's more complicated than that, but that's the core of it.

The stat allocations remain correct.

Re: this...

Since crippled people are supposedly pretty much strapping 3d printed swords on themselves now,it would be oly logical if it actully gave a boost to Weaponisation,

...you may have missed what I said.

Stat changes reflect the option, not the effect line.

The option was not to develop sword-prostheses, that was just the humorously exaggerated outcome.

There's some fuzziness to the above "rule", as sometimes the effect line is used to explain changes that the stats are showing, but it's all about fairness. If a weaponisation boost was coded, there'd be folk on this thread saying "I chose an option to support 3D printing of prosthetics and charitable work, and my people started carrying more weapons."

Anyway, no changes will be occurring here. Closing this query.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

This has bene driving me crazy and it's getting to the point where I feel I am screwed no matter what I do.

Today, I got the "Government Saturated In Corruption" Issue, and I chose the strongest option: to hang politicians found guilty of corruptuon. My corruptuion went UP. The Option EXPLICITLY called for DRASTICALLY reducing corruption by killing off those who are corrupt until they're too scared to do it. What's worse, my Political Freedoms PLUMMETED. Corruption is not and should not be tied to Political Freedom, because Corruption SUBVERTS POLITICAL FREEDOM.

Another example: in the "Coup d'Etat In @@NATION@@" issue, the first issue allows you to dissolve the government. That Resets Police, the Government Size, tax rates, and most other stats (both good and bad) to zero. EXCEPT CORRUPTION, which it reduces by, like, seven percent, that is, three or four points. Why doesn't dissolving the govenrment and dismissing all ministers reset your Corruption?!

Most Issues that raise Corruption raise it by at least seven percent, but I'l lucky to get a full percentage point cut if I want to reduce it. No matter how extreme I go to cut corruption, it never leaves a dent.