[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Pronalle]

Option 4 in issue 628 brings down lifespan, when it is investing in disaster relief.

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

Option 4 in issue 628 brings down lifespan, when it is investing in disaster relief.

Disaster relief is not the same as disaster prevention. You took away all funds that should have been used for disaster prevention and used them for disaster relief. You chose not to do anything to prevent wildfires from starting, reducing the average lifespan of your population.

[Menta Lee-IL]

Not sure how allowing rainforests to be bulldozed for uranium mining has any tangible effect in terms of reducing military spending.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88#023

Option 1 chosen.

General aside: many issues that seemingly should have no effect (logically speaking) end up decreasing my military spending. It's incredibly easy to decrease this stat for me now, and incredibly hard to even lift it by small increments (I know it's because the number is so high, but still, it's very frustrating).

[The Free Joy State]

Not sure how allowing rainforests to be bulldozed for uranium mining has any tangible effect in terms of reducing military spending.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88#023

Option 1 chosen.

General aside: many issues that seemingly should have no effect (logically speaking) end up decreasing my military spending. It's incredibly easy to decrease this stat for me now, and incredibly hard to even lift it by small increments (I know it's because the number is so high, but still, it's very frustrating).

Your defense forces were a secondary stat here. While there was a very small drop from 165,058.42 to 164,838.51 or 0.13%, it was not coded into the option, but was based on your own stats interacting with the backstage stats.

If it's any consolation, you did, however, gain a small increase in your arms manufacturing industry, which the option hinted to.

As you say, once your stats reach any extreme, it's very hard to push them further, and incredibly easy for them to go the other way. However, there was no fall programmed here.

If you do see further stats that seem out of the ordinary, please do let us know, however.

[Apabeossie]

Students Demand Financial Aid
Option1
The number of students attending university has reached a record high.
While financial aid is sort of a welfare program, it decreased.

You corrupt evil country I'll nuke you

[Lord Dominator]

Students Demand Financial Aid
Option1
The number of students attending university has reached a record high.
While financial aid is sort of a welfare program, it decreased.

You corrupt evil country I'll nuke you

Financial Aid is more accurately a form of education spending, which does look to have increased.

[The Glorious Third Reign of Templedom]

Date/time: today, 5 mins ago

Issue #514 Contract Killer

Option 2 (annul cruel & unusual contract) returned several effects I find illogical:
* corruption increased by 1.3 pts: this really rests upon the definition of corruption. Eg. Corruption as the perversion of law; but in the context of this particular issue, to annul the cruel and unusual legal contract is to correct the perversion of common sense, thus should have no effect on corruption.

* safety and weaponisation both decreased: if the rationale is that legal contracts are no longer seen as binding under all situations leading to feelings of insecurity, then weaponisation ie, the desire to arm and defend oneself should increase and not decrease.

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

Date/time: today, 5 mins ago

Issue #514 Contract Killer

Option 2 (annul cruel & unusual contract) returned several effects I find illogical:
* corruption increased by 1.3 pts: this really rests upon the definition of corruption. Eg. Corruption as the perversion of law; but in the context of this particular issue, to annul the cruel and unusual legal contract is to correct the perversion of common sense, thus should have no effect on corruption.

* safety and weaponisation both decreased: if the rationale is that legal contracts are no longer seen as binding under all situations leading to feelings of insecurity, then weaponisation ie, the desire to arm and defend oneself should increase and not decrease.

Thank you for the report. These issue effects are not unusual.

[The Free Joy State]

Students Demand Financial Aid
Option1
The number of students attending university has reached a record high.
While financial aid is sort of a welfare program, it decreased.

You corrupt evil country I'll nuke you

Financial Aid is more accurately a form of education spending, which does look to have increased.

Lord Dominator is correct on both counts.

[The Evergreen Dreamscapes]

why does this option

3. "Behold! What we are witnessing is the twilight of modern civilization and the grunge of industrialization," declares aspiring primitivist @@RANDOMNAME@@, clothed solely in @@A(ANIMAL)@@ pelt, while stretching both arms upward and revealing two miniature valleys of woodland. "I read somewhere that before the emergence of states and industrialism, everyone lived peacefully in small, egalitarian, cohesive societies. We're almost there again, and to ensure that everyone can truly live and die among the roots and vegetation of nature, we must begin the complete deindustrialization of @@NAME@@. It'll sound terrible to some, sure, but don't knock it til you try it."

from issue 590 not increase primitiveness?

[The Free Joy State]

why does this option

3. "Behold! What we are witnessing is the twilight of modern civilization and the grunge of industrialization," declares aspiring primitivist @@RANDOMNAME@@, clothed solely in @@A(ANIMAL)@@ pelt, while stretching both arms upward and revealing two miniature valleys of woodland. "I read somewhere that before the emergence of states and industrialism, everyone lived peacefully in small, egalitarian, cohesive societies. We're almost there again, and to ensure that everyone can truly live and die among the roots and vegetation of nature, we must begin the complete deindustrialization of @@NAME@@. It'll sound terrible to some, sure, but don't knock it til you try it."

from issue 590 not increase primitiveness?

Basically, that answer can. Primitiveness is a secondary stat that can be slightly impacted by many of the backstage stats linked to that option. But secondary stats also interact with your own stats.

Because your primitiveness score is already so high, it will take a lot more to raise your primitiveness at all. When you reach any extreme with stats, it's very hard to push them further.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Because you're already the 314th most primitive nation in the world.

It certainly does increase primitiveness for most nations, but for you, the described outcome isn't really that much of a departure from your current position.

edit: Heh, ninja'd by FJS. Good thing our responses agree, eh?

[Townsvalley]

Okay, so i got issue 578 i chose option 3 my economic output got down from 181 to 170 trillion,my arms manufacturing industry reduced by 75% , but my economy wasn't affected,like 97.9 after that much drop,why?,please fix it.!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Okay, so i got issue 578 i chose option 3 my economic output got down from 181 to 170 trillion,my arms manufacturing industry reduced by 75% , but my economy wasn't affected,like 97.9 after that much drop,why?,please fix it.!

Oof. The stats on that one aren't really in line with our current approaches.

Would have got to it sooner or later on the big stats review (which is up to issue 421, for those who are interested), but I'll move it up the job list.

---

Edit: And done. I'll give it a more thorough once over when I reach it on the review, but for now I've taken the edge off the more unexpected stats. For one thing, the manufacturing drop is no longer a percentage based drop.

As for your own stats, sorry, we can't/won't put them back. It sets too much of a precedent to reverse people's stat changes based on previous simulation choices, and would open the floodgates to too large a workload of retcon stat changes. You'll have to rebuild your arms industry the hard way.

[The Evergreen Dreamscapes]

Basically, that answer can. Primitiveness is a secondary stat that can be slightly impacted by many of the backstage stats linked to that option. But secondary stats also interact with your own stats.

Because your primitiveness score is already so high, it will take a lot more to raise your primitiveness at all. When you reach any extreme with stats, it's very hard to push them further.

that makes sense, thanks!

[Townsvalley]

Okay, so i got issue 578 i chose option 3 my economic output got down from 181 to 170 trillion,my arms manufacturing industry reduced by 75% , but my economy wasn't affected,like 97.9 after that much drop,why?,please fix it.!

Oof. The stats on that one aren't really in line with our current approaches.

Would have got to it sooner or later on the big stats review (which is up to issue 421, for those who are interested), but I'll move it up the job list.

---

Edit: And done. I'll give it a more thorough once over when I reach it on the review, but for now I've taken the edge off the more unexpected stats. For one thing, the manufacturing drop is no longer a percentage based drop.

As for your own stats, sorry, we can't/won't put them back. It sets too much of a precedent to reverse people's stat changes based on previous simulation choices, and would open the floodgates to too large a workload of retcon stat changes. You'll have to rebuild your arms industry the hard way.

can you reduce my economy accordingly please?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

No.

I'm pretty sure I just said that.

[Hatsunia]

"Why did this stat change by X%? That's too much / too little!"

The percentage change depends on your starting point.
If you have a statistic of 5, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +40%.
If you have a statistic of 100, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +2%.
If you have a statistic of 0.01, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +20000%.

The perceived magnitude of effect that you are experiencing often results from being a new nation. The earliest issues you answer always cause massive stat changes, as you're adding small numbers to small numbers. As time goes on you'll find that the same issues will often now barely affect things at all, as you're adding small numbers to very large numbers.

Corollary: If you see NO stat effects, the simulation isn't broken. Rather, the decision was in keeping with where your current stat model suggests you are ideologically and structurally, so no stat changes were needed.

Look on it not so much as a direct cause and effect thing, but rather the game working out the nature of your nation. The more information it gathers, the closer it moves your simulation to where you're likely to truly be. It's kind of a collapsing waveform sort of thing. It's not quite that simple, but the main gist here is not to see the "effects" as part of a direct cause and effect model.

For example, if banning Grand Prix racing drops your tourism by 75%, it's not that Grand Prix racing represented 75% of your tourism, rather that the simulation is gathering information about your priorities, and slowly refining its simulation of those. Later on, when your nation has momentum, only decisions that are out of keeping with your previous direction will upset the overall simulation.

So long as you keep answering issues with a consistent style, and keep playing the game, your nation's simulation will grow more and more stable.

Don't worry about "buyer's regret" either. Early decisions in your nation's lifespan are no more inherently consequential than late ones: its the amalgamated effect of ALL your decisions that matters.

So why did Treznor, a nation over twice my nation's age (population of 29.906 billion to my 13.966 billion at the time of this post), recently get to have faster growth rates for the Information Technology industry than my nation?

[The Free Joy State]

"Why did this stat change by X%? That's too much / too little!"

The percentage change depends on your starting point.
If you have a statistic of 5, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +40%.
If you have a statistic of 100, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +2%.
If you have a statistic of 0.01, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +20000%.

The perceived magnitude of effect that you are experiencing often results from being a new nation. The earliest issues you answer always cause massive stat changes, as you're adding small numbers to small numbers. As time goes on you'll find that the same issues will often now barely affect things at all, as you're adding small numbers to very large numbers.

Corollary: If you see NO stat effects, the simulation isn't broken. Rather, the decision was in keeping with where your current stat model suggests you are ideologically and structurally, so no stat changes were needed.

Look on it not so much as a direct cause and effect thing, but rather the game working out the nature of your nation. The more information it gathers, the closer it moves your simulation to where you're likely to truly be. It's kind of a collapsing waveform sort of thing. It's not quite that simple, but the main gist here is not to see the "effects" as part of a direct cause and effect model.

For example, if banning Grand Prix racing drops your tourism by 75%, it's not that Grand Prix racing represented 75% of your tourism, rather that the simulation is gathering information about your priorities, and slowly refining its simulation of those. Later on, when your nation has momentum, only decisions that are out of keeping with your previous direction will upset the overall simulation.

So long as you keep answering issues with a consistent style, and keep playing the game, your nation's simulation will grow more and more stable.

Don't worry about "buyer's regret" either. Early decisions in your nation's lifespan are no more inherently consequential than late ones: its the amalgamated effect of ALL your decisions that matters.

So why did Treznor, a nation over twice my nation's age (population of 29.906 billion to my 13.966 billion at the time of this post), recently get to have faster growth rates for the Information Technology industry than my nation?

The nation will have received different issues to you and answered them differently. I can't tell you which, when or how because we don't give out such information about other people's nations.

[Greater Hunnia]

I've got this issue with issues in general, that almost everything I do decreases Weaponization for some reason. Kinda ridiculous tbh. Weaponization might be tied to way too many other stats, Ignorance seems to be one (something tells me whoever coded this is not a supporter of gun ownership), Crime (that one is legit and realistic), Civil Rights maybe? My nation is a borderline libertarian meme when it comes to gun ownership from the legislative side with heavy weapons being sold to civilians etc (no recreational nukes yet), but gun ownership in practice is stupidly low due to completely irrelevant issues lowering it again and again and again.

[Leutria]

I've got this issue with issues in general, that almost everything I do decreases Weaponization for some reason. Kinda ridiculous tbh. Weaponization might be tied to way too many other stats, Ignorance seems to be one (something tells me whoever coded this is not a supporter of gun ownership), Crime (that one is legit and realistic), Civil Rights maybe? My nation is a borderline libertarian meme when it comes to gun ownership from the legislative side with heavy weapons being sold to civilians etc (no recreational nukes yet), but gun ownership in practice is stupidly low due to completely irrelevant issues lowering it again and again and again.

Bright side for you, whenever the betas are relaxed, you looo like you stand to have a huge jump in weaponization! https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta

[Hatsunia]

The nation will have received different issues to you and answered them differently. I can't tell you which, when or how because we don't give out such information about other people's nations.

So they happened to get issues which raised IT by 2 to 3 percentage points each time, for three times in a month? And they're almost at 30 billion people. But as a nation with almost 14 billion people, I get a lot of issues that only raise the IT industry by only 0.06%.

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

The nation will have received different issues to you and answered them differently. I can't tell you which, when or how because we don't give out such information about other people's nations.

So they happened to get issues which raised IT by 2 to 3 percentage points each time, for three times in a month?

Correct. That nation is eligible for fewer issues than you are, so they will see repetitions of the same issues more frequently.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

The nation will have received different issues to you and answered them differently. I can't tell you which, when or how because we don't give out such information about other people's nations.

So they happened to get issues which raised IT by 2 to 3 percentage points each time, for three times in a month? And they're almost at 30 billion people. But as a nation with almost 14 billion people, I get a lot of issues that only raise the IT industry by only 0.06%.

Hmm. I'm kind of amazed you've got to 14 billion people with so little grasp of how the game works.

Issues are allocated randomly, restricted by validities, with clever mechanisms to minimise repeating recent issues. Each issue option has different results.

In answering different issues and in picking different options, a player's nation will change in different ways.

[Hatsunia]

:unsure:

Hmm. I'm kind of amazed you've got to 14 billion people with so little grasp of how the game works.

Issues are allocated randomly, restricted by validities, with clever mechanisms to minimise repeating recent issues. Each issue option has different results.

In answering different issues and in picking different options, a player's nation will change in different ways.

I already understood that. Your post did not need to be so patronizing.