[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Teh War Machine]

It was a very large decrease

[Trotterdam]

Polygamy violates the dignity of women. It is an inadmissible discrimination against women. Consequently, it should be definitely abolished wherever it continues to exist."

There is a way in which polygamy actually gives women more freedom. It means they can marry whichever man they want, even if he is already married. Meanwhile more men will be unable to find a wife at all.

In a patriarchal society where a woman's success is heavily dependent on her husband, being able to snag the best husband you can find even if there's heavy competition is a valuable asset.

Rather, polygamy is a coping mechanism. In societies which already make life hard for women in other ways, it is beneficial in the sense that it serves as a way for them to mitigate the damage. In a genuinely egalitarian society there isn't so much advantage to it and most women would prefer having a faithful husband to sharing a rich one. But you can't cure the disease by suppressing the symptom.

There is also a correlation between polygyny and the ability of women to perform jobs other than housewife. Both because if women can make valuable contributions economically it becomes more desirable to have more of them in your family, and because if one woman in a polygamous marriage is taking care of everyone's kids then that leaves the others with more free time to do other stuff.

And that's all just assuming traditional polygyny, not the modern polyamory movement. (#032 makes a distinction, with an option for each, but I don't think the game tracks that as a flag, just treating both as "polygamy" for the purpose of followup issues.)

It was a very large decrease

5000 SMUs is only 1.5% of your Average Income. That's not a big change, relatively speaking.

[Fauxia]

Trott, aren’t we the people who always say don’t go by perecntages?

[Drasnia]

Trott, aren’t we the people who always say don’t go by perecntages?

Both are useful metrics. You need the information of both to make an accurate assessment.

I this case, a 5K drop in a stat where it can (and is) in the hundreds of thousands isn't something to worry too much about. It's on the higher end of normal, but it's still a normal result.

[Teh War Machine]

But why would forcing criminals to fight cause a 5K decrease? Seems like a large decrease for such change.

[Trotterdam]

Trott, aren’t we the people who always say don’t go by perecntages?

Well, more accurately, the most informative measurement is neither the absolute change nor the percentage change relative to your nation's value, but rather the percentage change relative to the world average.

In this case, though, the player's value is significantly above-average, but not by orders of magnitude. It's a decent enough basis for comparison.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

But why would forcing criminals to fight cause a 5K decrease? Seems like a large decrease for such change.

As has been pointed out, it's not a large change, nor an effect inconsistent with the internal logic of the simulation.

Nothing to fix here, move on please.

[Land Without Shrimp]

So...my first time posting in this thread - apologies if I ask a stupid question. I just encountered issue 490 for I think...the 3rd time? Anyways, I answered it differently this time - decided to "cut the taxpayers a break" in my ongoing efforts to cut tax rate. Because of the wording of that option("slash every department in half!"), I figured this would be a drastic one for me...but figured, why not right? I really wanted to see what would happen. Curse my curiosity! Anyway - I was right that it was drastic. Weaponization went up by about 28, Crime up by 32, Black Market by 3.5T(!!!). I also lost a lot of my Public Transit, Welfare, Healthcare, etc - but that was expected.

What surprised me the most was that my taxation rate went from 75.03 to 3.69. Staggered. Most I've ever seen out of a tax decrease option(and I've chosen a lot of them!) has been somewhere in the 5-10% range. From 75.03 to 3.69 though!??! I just want to make sure that's intentional. I have a fairly mature nation(or so I thought) and wanted to make sure this issue was working as intended. Thanks!!

(As much as my nation has taken an unexpected turn...I did pick up 4 new banners, so I won't complain too much!)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Hmmm... Now THAT is what I'm talking about with an Unusual Issue Effect.

Well certainly that option more or less cuts spending in half. I say more or less, because of the way the spending calculation figures government department budgets, we can't actually tell it to halve government spending.

But given that your economic output fell, and that all your departments moved by more or less the right amount (-47.5% in your case), I'm really surprised to see that tax change as well.

Something is off in the maths. I suspect bug. I'll raise it backstage.

Good error report, thanks mate.

[Land Without Shrimp]

Something is off in the maths. I suspect bug. I'll raise it backstage.

Good error report, thanks mate.

Thanks for checking this out!! Intrigued to know what the issue was with this one...

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Very complicated explanation was provided to me, but it's hard to know how much I'm allowed to transmit.

For now, all I can really say is that it is working as intended, and that a halving of government spending is NOT meant to equal to a halving of income tax. The simulation is way more complicated than that, and the factors that made your nation have a much larger tax cut than expected are based around multiple facets of your economy. Likewise, there are nations out there who might halve spending and barely see income tax change at all.

I don't think I can say much more than this without revealing more than I am allowed.

[Pilarcraft]

Alright. since this seems to be the place for it.
Today (approximately, 2 issues before I post this), I faced the following issue
#839: “Partisanship Too Far?” Wrongly Asks Opposition


Wishing to lower my taxes, I chose option two:

“That’s precisely the sort of dangerous idiocy your party would advocate!” shouts host @@RANDOMNAME@@, cutting off @@HIS@@ attempts to talk. “People just need a little incentive to break through their bubbles and see the other side as people too. Give a small tax break to people based on how many of their MyFace friends have different political views, and I’m sure all this partisan hullabaloo will be gone overnight.”

expecting a small decrease in my taxes.
Obviously, that is not what happened. In fact, I had a small increase in my taxes.
I think this might be a bug. but I might be wrong. please inspect.

[Pilarcraft]

So...my first time posting in this thread - apologies if I ask a stupid question. I just encountered issue 490 for I think...the 3rd time? Anyways, I answered it differently this time - decided to "cut the taxpayers a break" in my ongoing efforts to cut tax rate. Because of the wording of that option("slash every department in half!"), I figured this would be a drastic one for me...but figured, why not right? I really wanted to see what would happen. Curse my curiosity! Anyway - I was right that it was drastic. Weaponization went up by about 28, Crime up by 32, Black Market by 3.5T(!!!). I also lost a lot of my Public Transit, Welfare, Healthcare, etc - but that was expected.

What surprised me the most was that my taxation rate went from 75.03 to 3.69. Staggered. Most I've ever seen out of a tax decrease option(and I've chosen a lot of them!) has been somewhere in the 5-10% range. From 75.03 to 3.69 though!??! I just want to make sure that's intentional. I have a fairly mature nation(or so I thought) and wanted to make sure this issue was working as intended. Thanks!!

(As much as my nation has taken an unexpected turn...I did pick up 4 new banners, so I won't complain too much!)

I faced something like that in a puppet nation.
I also cut funding, and went from 60% to 15%. not as drastic as this one, but I think it's still kinda... odd.
I mean, welcome (since I was planning lower my tax to that anyway lmao)

[All are Equal]

All are Equal decided to clean up the environmental effects of a rusted battleship. I gained the "Eschew Military" banner. I didn't abandon the military, I just want them to be responsible.

[The Gamma Monster]

The game defines primitiveness as being your openness to "primitive" ideas and ways, so it judges that the more religious your nation, the more "primitive" you are. This is a loaded definition, admittedly, and it has been discussed backstage before, but structural changes to the game engine are not frequently or easily undertaken.

Kinda just realized this explanation didn't really make sense why primitiveness went down since my religiousness did go up.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Alright. since this seems to be the place for it.
Today (approximately, 2 issues before I post this), I faced the following issue
#839: “Partisanship Too Far?” Wrongly Asks Opposition


Wishing to lower my taxes, I chose option two:

“That’s precisely the sort of dangerous idiocy your party would advocate!” shouts host @@RANDOMNAME@@, cutting off @@HIS@@ attempts to talk. “People just need a little incentive to break through their bubbles and see the other side as people too. Give a small tax break to people based on how many of their MyFace friends have different political views, and I’m sure all this partisan hullabaloo will be gone overnight.”

expecting a small decrease in my taxes.
Obviously, that is not what happened. In fact, I had a small increase in my taxes.
I think this might be a bug. but I might be wrong. please inspect.

Yes, that does seem to be an omission. I'll raise it with the named editor, see if he would like to change this.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

So...my first time posting in this thread - apologies if I ask a stupid question. I just encountered issue 490 for I think...the 3rd time? Anyways, I answered it differently this time - decided to "cut the taxpayers a break" in my ongoing efforts to cut tax rate. Because of the wording of that option("slash every department in half!"), I figured this would be a drastic one for me...but figured, why not right? I really wanted to see what would happen. Curse my curiosity! Anyway - I was right that it was drastic. Weaponization went up by about 28, Crime up by 32, Black Market by 3.5T(!!!). I also lost a lot of my Public Transit, Welfare, Healthcare, etc - but that was expected.

What surprised me the most was that my taxation rate went from 75.03 to 3.69. Staggered. Most I've ever seen out of a tax decrease option(and I've chosen a lot of them!) has been somewhere in the 5-10% range. From 75.03 to 3.69 though!??! I just want to make sure that's intentional. I have a fairly mature nation(or so I thought) and wanted to make sure this issue was working as intended. Thanks!!

(As much as my nation has taken an unexpected turn...I did pick up 4 new banners, so I won't complain too much!)

I faced something like that in a puppet nation.
I also cut funding, and went from 60% to 15%. not as drastic as this one, but I think it's still kinda... odd.
I mean, welcome (since I was planning lower my tax to that anyway lmao)

Yep, I'm still finding it kind of odd too. We're discussing this at the moment backstage, but the general gist I'm getting is that this is all intentional.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

All are Equal decided to clean up the environmental effects of a rusted battleship. I gained the "Eschew Military" banner. I didn't abandon the military, I just want them to be responsible.

"Instead of building yet another war machine,"

That's why military budgets were cut, and diverted towards environmentalism.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

The game defines primitiveness as being your openness to "primitive" ideas and ways, so it judges that the more religious your nation, the more "primitive" you are. This is a loaded definition, admittedly, and it has been discussed backstage before, but structural changes to the game engine are not frequently or easily undertaken.

Kinda just realized this explanation didn't really make sense why primitiveness went down since my religiousness did go up.

Didn't make sense how?

As I said, being more religious makes you more primitive. Also as I said, this is a loaded definition, but built into the game engine.

I mean, its more complicated than that, but that's the simplified version.

[The Gamma Monster]

That issue increased my religiousness but decreased my primitiveness.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Oh right, I see what you're saying.

No there's actually more complex stats going on. While you saw a report of increased religiousness, actually what really happened was that your religious structure changed itself in various ways, but actually there was downward shifts in the bits of religion that drive primitiveness, and upward shifts in the bits of religion which don't. I was looking at the religion stats that changed your primitiveness, but of course you can't see those. You just see net religiousness increasing.

It is all coded correctly from the issue's end, as far as I can see, it's just there's a lot of odd calculations between those inputs and your final number, which basically results in your primitiveness changing.

Don't read too much story into it, it's just one of those things that can emerge from a complex simulation with lots of overlapping movements.

[Fauxia]

Why did picking 519.2 on Armed Beagles increase corruption?

[[violet]]

Very complicated explanation was provided to me, but it's hard to know how much I'm allowed to transmit.

Sorry, I should have posted here as well:

A key factor in tax rates, which is causing the effect you see here, is the relative size of the government and industry.

Imagine two nations with governments of the same size, but Nation A is a communist state that has abolished almost all industry, while Nation B is a libertarian state where the government is dwarfed by the size of the private sector. Nation B can spread the cost of government across a much wider base (as well as having more potential sources of revenue, such as corporate tax and tarrifs), and so the income tax rate for each individual will be lower. In fact, Nation A's tax rates will be about 100% while Nation B's tax rates approach 0%.

The effect of cutting government spending in half will be different, too. In Nation A, where the only source of work is the government, that action not only reduces costs but also puts half the workforce out of a job, shrinking the tax base by about the same amount. So it makes little difference how large the government is in absolute terms: if there's no industry, the tax rate will still be around 100%. Everyone who earns an income gets it from the government, and the government needs that money back to pay for itself.

Nation B, with its large taxable base, is more sensitive to cuts in government size. In Land Without Shrimp, income taxes would certainly fall by half due to the government cuts, but it gains further tax relief from transitioning from a nation with a 4:1 ratio between industry and government (80% industry, 20% government) to a nation with a 9:1 ratio (90% industry, 10% government). That's a lot of industry to help pay for government services.

[All are Equal]

All are Equal decided to clean up the environmental effects of a rusted battleship. I gained the "Eschew Military" banner. I didn't abandon the military, I just want them to be responsible.

"Instead of building yet another war machine,"

That's why military budgets were cut, and diverted towards environmentalism.

Ahh! I missed that part! Thanks

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Why did picking 519.2 on Armed Beagles increase corruption?

Because you're teaching a generation that it is okay to commit crime, so long as you are impressively clever.