[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects Since New Update

[Helaw]

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.

Hanging people that you determine by your own measurements to be corrupt is a very corrupt thing to do.

Corruption is not and should not be tied to Political Freedom, because Corruption SUBVERTS POLITICAL FREEDOM.

Corruption, by definition, does not subvert political freedom. The people can have a very large amount of freedom and be corrupt, or the state could lock down all democratic processes and be corrupt. Corruption exists across the spectrum, it simply depends on how you approach different situations.

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?!

When you replace everyone in a room, the likelihood can be that the replacements have some similar attributes. In this scenario, take it to be how corrupt they are.

[Christian Democrats]

Effect of Option 457.3: "Tourists are forbidden to enter Native Christian Democratic lands."

Stats: Tourism (Tourists Per Hour 7.33 → 7.43 1.4%)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

You are correct.

Generally speaking, it is reasonable to say that restricting political freedom should increase corruption.

However, in the specific case of the freedom to act corruptly (which is the specific thing that was coded to be restricted here), corruption should fall as that freedom is restricted.

I noticed this almost immediately on moving backstage, and flagged it to the tech admins. It's on a job list of things that have been promised to be fixed.

My advice is to follow the narrative even if it gives paradoxical effects. Hopefully, when these changes come in, your corruption will be properly reflective of your decisions.

There's a lot of stats that have deep and fundamental flaws to their calculation, including tourism, lifespan and corruption, as well as a few others. All of these have been flagged a long time ago, and are promised fixes at some future stage.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Effect of Option 457.3: "Tourists are forbidden to enter Native Christian Democratic lands."

Stats: Tourism (Tourists Per Hour 7.33 → 7.43 1.4%)

Ha, your timing is impeccable!

As I was saying in the post above, tourism is another broken stat. This issue option directs your tourist industry to increase, but the effect is outweighed by the tightening of environmental law.

It makes no sense to me either, and I have flagged this some time ago.

[Gnejs]

But the other way around, right, because here tourism increases whereas you'd expect it to decrease. I think the link between the "beauty" of your environment and the numbers of tourists visiting your nation is reasonable, although the thrust of the "added value" to tourism from enviro-stat might be a bit on the heavy side.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Sorry, yeah, other way round. Point being that having a nice environment has way more effect on tourism than a whole heap of other things combined, including all the economic, civil rights, cultural and so on factors. Oh, and the size of the tourism industry. You'd think that'd be a big one, but nope, completely outweighed by your green credentials.

Because these tables here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tou ... t_arrivals), they reflect levels of environmentalism, right? The USA and China, those well-known havens of ecological thinking.

And those ecologically-friendly nations like Iceland and Slovenia? Famed for being the holiday spots of choice for everyone across the world.

[Koem Kab]

Option 4 of this Issue decreased scientific advancement by about 0.5 points. Although not by much, it just doesn't make sense why it would decrease scientific advancement.

[Venetoland]

Homophobia goes DOWN, Social Conservatism goes UP? That's weird.

[Tinhampton]

Homophobia goes OWN, Social Conservatism goes UP? That's weird.

What issue and what option? I haven't got the foggiest as to what option you're on about, and neither do the editors.

[Trotterdam]

#674 2.

[Christian Democrats]

The Social Conservatism statistic is misnamed, so a number of issue options have counterintuitive effects on that statistic. In reality, the statistic measures social control:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_control

If fact, the statistic should be called Social Control to prevent the confusion that it frequently causes.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Option 4 of this Issue decreased scientific advancement by about 0.5 points. Although not by much, it just doesn't make sense why it would decrease scientific advancement.

Yep, it's both hard-coded, and (in my view) nonsensical.

However, as this is a self edit by the editor who is the head of our senior triumvirate, and as that editors judgement is well respected by all of us on the team, we'll need a big discussion backstage prior to amendments. Thanks for flagging it.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

The Social Conservatism statistic is misnamed, so a number of issue options have counterintuitive effects on that statistic. In reality, the statistic measures social control:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_control

If fact, the statistic should be called Social Control to prevent the confusion that it frequently causes.

Absolutely agree. Badly named stat, with non-intuitive outcomes frequent because of this. This is the view of myself as an individual, not necessarily that of all game-runners.

[Koem Kab]

When picking the education option of This Issue, average income goes down, but option 3 of This issue and This Issue increases it. How come one decreases it but the other 2 increases it when they are basically the same thing.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

When picking the education option of This Issue, average income goes down, but option 3 of This issue and This Issue increases it. How come one decreases it but the other 2 increases it when they are basically the same thing.

1) These options are not the same.
2) A nation can be at a different place prior to answering the issue.
3) There's different establishing contexts, specifically about where the money comes from.
4) There's a complex emergent simulation, from which most of your stats come from, which incorporates your current position plus a LOT of moving parts. The same option on the same issue can cause different effects to the same nation just because of other options inbetween. Different options on different issues, with different narratives and different stats: it'd be honestly surprising if you always got the same outcome just because there is thematic overlap.

[Jutsa]

On an alt, I just banned pubs and alcohol in issue #588(I think - it's an alcoholic one, just ctrl+f "pub" in the second page of Drasnia's list of stuff),
by choosing option 1, and it somehow managed to raise my civil rights?

I'm probably missing something, and if I am, I'd love to hear about it, but on the surface it at least seems to be a bit... odd?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

On an alt, I just banned pubs and alcohol in issue #588(I think - it's an alcoholic one, just ctrl+f "pub" in the second page of Drasnia's list of stuff),
by choosing option 1, and it somehow managed to raise my civil rights?

I'm probably missing something, and if I am, I'd love to hear about it, but on the surface it at least seems to be a bit... odd?

Known and commonly reported problem. Goes something like this:

1) Nation has compulsory drug use
2) This issue makes drug-use non-compulsory
3) The issue then puts in place measures to show restriction on drug (alcohol) use
4) The nation ends up freer with drugs than before because Step 2 > Step 3.

We have discussed and debated this SO MANY TIMES backstage. The problem, clearly, is step 2, as nothing in the issue suggests compulsory drug use has been withdrawn. And yet somehow we've never reached an agreement that change is needed.

So basically, it's as it is right now. Sorry.

I'll raise it again though, and see if folk are amenable to change.

[Wine-loving Chimps]

So I just had an issue about a northern port city that freezes over every winter and chose to build railways to accommodate it. This was the effect line.

"Every spring railroad foundations erode to reveal human remains."

I then looked at the stats and found that my Timber Woodchipping Industry went up... 10,650%! It went from 1,41 to 148.73. That's an awfully huge increase for a couple of traintracks isn't it?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

So I just had an issue about a northern port city that freezes over every winter and chose to build railways to accommodate it. This was the effect line.

"Every spring railroad foundations erode to reveal human remains."

I then looked at the stats and found that my Timber Woodchipping Industry went up... 10,650%! It went from 1,41 to 148.73. That's an awfully huge increase for a couple of traintracks isn't it?

Short answer:
Percentages, learn how they work.

Long answer:
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=can ... /id=743331

The same change would have given my nation +0.6% change, see?

[Wine-loving Chimps]

So I just had an issue about a northern port city that freezes over every winter and chose to build railways to accommodate it. This was the effect line.

"Every spring railroad foundations erode to reveal human remains."

I then looked at the stats and found that my Timber Woodchipping Industry went up... 10,650%! It went from 1,41 to 148.73. That's an awfully huge increase for a couple of traintracks isn't it?

Short answer:
Percentages, learn how they work.

Long answer:
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=can ... /id=743331

The same change would have given my nation +0.6% change, see?

So this option increases Woodchipping by 140ish standard? That's still a big increase, but fair enough.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It's not a big increase: it's the smallest increase that can be coded as a direct rather than secondary effect. A quantum of woodchipping, as it were.

[Jutsa]

In issue #316, I picked the option that made it so people can do whatever they want with my leader's nudes
(option 3), and it resulted in my civil rights going down from the top 8% to the top 11%.

I'm aware that it gives the popular folks not-so-much privacy, but surely that'd be countered by the fact
that the common person is also free to do whatever to them?

Oh, also, this happened.

[Ransium]

In issue #316, I picked the option that made it so people can do whatever they want with my leader's nudes
(option 3), and it resulted in my civil rights going down from the top 8% to the top 11%.

I'm aware that it gives the popular folks not-so-much privacy, but surely that'd be countered by the fact
that the common person is also free to do whatever to them?

Oh, also, this happened.

(Image)

You mean #616. Essentially if your nation is a very free one (or a very restrictive one) and you pick an option which has mixed effects towards freedoms (as you yourself identified 616-3 ash having) your going to regress towards the mean. For your nation, this is because the model already knows you let people have the sort of freedoms you identified that option as granting, but previously you had let your people have more privacy than you do now. For almost all nations this option would grant more freedom. This is one of the reasons the NS wiki is so inaccurate btw.

[Arridian Islands]

Option 1, issue 717 increased economic freedom for some reason. Usually any "socialist" options would decrease it.

[Koem Kab]

In one of my Puppet states, I picked option 4 of this issue and taxation went down a lot, however education was already in the negatives. (you wont see it on the graph because another issue negated the effects)