[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Samudera]

Issue 16, option 1, why did it increase my economic freedom while also decreasing my average income of poor?

[Leutria]

Issue 16, option 1, why did it increase my economic freedom while also decreasing my average income of poor?

Competing freedoms and the way economic freedom works basically! Economic freedom is made up of a bunch of hidden freedoms, and your economic freedom was already really low. Whatever freedoms business lost was nothing because they already have so little freedom, so the freedom you gave to workers to strike (also an economic freedom) was larger then whatever loss in freedom business had, so over all your economic freedom went up.

Then income of the poor (as well as income of the rich) is impacted by the economic freedom stat. Unless average income goes up a lot, increasing economic freedom will always lower income of the poor and increase income of the rich.

[The Free Joy State]

Issue 16, option 1, why did it increase my economic freedom while also decreasing my average income of poor?

It increased your economic freedom because it gave your people the freedom to strike. This option actually plays off two options: restricting the rights of employers to set their wages and granting employees more rights to strike. In your nation, employers already had the wages they could pay regulated to the point that granting the freedoms to strike increased economic freedom.

As for the average income of poor, it's a secondary stat (which means that a myriad of stats put into the issue work with each other and your own stats to influence the changes). Fairly often, this option would help to increase the average income of the poor, but -- due to your personal stats -- this didn't happen in this case.

It's worth considering that the average income of the poor is already very high in your nation, making it hard to push it further and easy to slip back (due to the secondary stats).

[GlobalRevolutionaryArmy]

Why did I get a 1.2% decrease in civil rights when I chose the option for the issue,"The Great Wall of GlobalRevolutionaryArmy", that gave me the talking point,"A great wall is being built around the country's borders"? Again, I didn't violate the civil rights of my citizens.

[The Free Joy State]

Why did I get a 1.2% decrease in civil rights when I chose the option for the issue,"The Great Wall of GlobalRevolutionaryArmy", that gave me the talking point,"A great wall is being built around the country's borders"? Again, I didn't violate the civil rights of my citizens.

While you're not reducing the freedom of movement of those with citizenship, you are limiting the freedom of movement of other human beings. You are also "boot[ing] all immigrants out on their ears" (including, by implication, any who already live in @@NAME@@).

International protocol generally states that -- once someone is in your country (as the immigrants mentioned are) -- they are entitled to at least a basic level of courtesy (includng some measure of legal protections). This option violates those usual protections, by immediately throwing out all immigrants who are already in the country legally (perhaps for work or study) with no due process.

Also, (while a secondary consideration, as the throwing out of people with no consideration of due process is more than enough) a wall can be used to keep people in. Once a government has shown a willingness to keep people out using extreme methods against other humans, historical precedent shows that it's not unusual for them to turn their methodology even on legally recognised citizens.

The stats seem appropriate to me.

[Apabeossie]

#712 Flight of the Rich and Famous
Option 3
I choose the option that allowed people to say anything about the government, but why did it increase corruption?

[The Free Joy State]

#712 Flight of the Rich and Famous
Option 3
I choose the option that allowed people to say anything about the government, but why did it increase corruption?

A fall in corruption is programmed, and -- testing on numerous nations finds that it generally occurs. However, you already had very low levels of corruption making it harder to push it further. Additionally, corruption is partly secondary, related to backstage statistics programmed into the issue.

A drastic change in your citizens' political rights, has the ability to -- depending on other factors -- alter your corruption levels, and may not do so in a predicable manner. However, although the percentage seems large, at 0.61 to 0.64, the rise in corruption in raw numbers is comparatively small.

The issue's working as intended.

[Apabeossie]

Issue:#1028 Can't get enough of you baby
Chosen optiomln: Option 4
Option 4 is an option to remove the ban on immigration, but it didn't remove the policy no immigration. Why?

[The Free Joy State]

Issue:#1028 Can't get enough of you baby
Chosen optiomln: Option 4
Option 4 is an option to remove the ban on immigration, but it didn't remove the policy no immigration. Why?

It appears that a little something got missed off the code.

It's fixed now.

[Rainbowsix]

I had a issue where people were protesting the LGBT book. I want public protest allowed but i want homosexuality allowed. I didn't know what to do and what the outcome would be. I ended up making Heterosexuality which I don't want. Please help me!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I had a issue where people were protesting the LGBT book. I want public protest allowed but i want homosexuality allowed. I didn't know what to do and what the outcome would be. I ended up making Heterosexuality which I don't want. Please help me!

I'd suggest starting with the first post of this thread, which explains how to use it. Broadly, this thread is intended for effects which are unexpected because the presented story mismatches the stats presented, not effects which are unexpected because the player didn't know what to expect.

The option you chose read "We need to purge these sexual inverts from society, cleanse the socialist dross from the streets and hail the simple purity of one correct faith".

Maybe instead you should have picked the option that reads "We ought to encourage free speech and give airtime to every point of view, no matter how loopy."

Basically, read the issue.

However, broadly the answer here is that you should keep reading and answering issues, and over time you can definitely create the nation shape you're looking for.

I'd note, however, that having unexpected political consequences from making decisions that you don't understand is really good simulation of the actions of real world politicians.

[Earthbound Immortal Squad]

I have one how does an increase in truancy create a world class fashion industry I can't remember the issue but I know I chose the first option.

Well, I think we have a new winner for worst ever Unusual Issue Effect reporting.

To quote the opening post of this thread:

When reporting these, ideally include the following information:

- The name of the nation that had this effect
- The day that this effect was encountered
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue.

I note that the nation you are posting from has not answered any issues in the past 5 days. Going to need more to go on here.

After about 6 months and me forgetting about this I think I have the issue it was issue #160 forgot the title but if it is the correct one the result of option one should be something along the lines of "Truancy levels are on the rise since school registers were banned".

[Ghost Land]

I'm assuming this kind of post would be acceptable here.

On this nation, I just got and answered issue #1041 "A Sport Retort". I checked this site to see what the potential effects were as I was unsure how to answer the issue, and I decided on option 2, which is supposed to lead to the outcome of "the best-of-the-best athletes are replaced by the best-of-the-mediocre". However, when I clicked option 2, it had the same effect as option 3 on the site listed, namely "children's bedrooms are often decorated with posters of successful accountants", and quite a few stats went in basically the opposite direction of how I wanted them to. Was option #2 removed from this issue and that site not updated?

[Trotterdam]

On this nation, I just got and answered issue #1041 "A Sport Retort". I checked this site to see what the potential effects were as I was unsure how to answer the issue, and I decided on option 2, which is supposed to lead to the outcome of "the best-of-the-best athletes are replaced by the best-of-the-mediocre". However, when I clicked option 2, it had the same effect as option 3 on the site listed, namely "children's bedrooms are often decorated with posters of successful accountants", and quite a few stats went in basically the opposite direction of how I wanted them to. Was option #2 removed from this issue and that site not updated?

Option 2 is still present, but it has a validity that makes it not eligible to all nations.

I'm not sure of the exact validity, but a cursory examination suggests that it may only be available to capitalist nations. The Autarky and No Immigration policies are also suspects, but you don't have those, while you do have Socialism.

Moral of the story: check how many options your copy of the issue has, or look at the source code to see the internal option numberings.

[The Free Joy State]

I'm assuming this kind of post would be acceptable here.

On this nation, I just got and answered issue #1041 "A Sport Retort". I checked this site to see what the potential effects were as I was unsure how to answer the issue, and I decided on option 2, which is supposed to lead to the outcome of "the best-of-the-best athletes are replaced by the best-of-the-mediocre". However, when I clicked option 2, it had the same effect as option 3 on the site listed, namely "children's bedrooms are often decorated with posters of successful accountants", and quite a few stats went in basically the opposite direction of how I wanted them to. Was option #2 removed from this issue and that site not updated?

I can confirm that you picked 1041.3 and that the stats you received were entirely proportional with the expected effects of this option.

If you have any queries about Trotterdam's site, I suggest you ask them on this thread in future, as the site is not maintained by NationStates' staff.

Generally, however, we would always recommend reading the option closely -- even if you are using a third-party site. The clues for the direction of the stats you'd receive were in the option: "I recommend that we slash funding for all of this sporting nonsense and give our citizens a nice tax cut." -- This option was clearly deprioritising sports entirely.

[Mostrov]

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[Candlewhisper Archive]

After several years of careful shepherding, I threw caution to the wind with #490.1 and I must say I am rather baffled.
Why should a reduction in government size cause a decrease in citizen income? When the majority of the GDP (according to the game) comes from private enterprise, with high economic freedom and a small portion of government spending through subsidisation, it can't be assumed to be all government jobs being lost (curiously the employment statistic leaped, so these people are now working—which should be more income; nor is there a sizeable amount of welfare) or the government would have greater percentage of the GDP. A decrease in healthcare and education (which led neither to a decrease in health—yet a decrease in lifespan— or intelligence) wouldn't effect income but spending. And that is without mentioning the decrease in taxation from 92% to 7% (presumably because of the inertia of cutting over 1000 points by Freedom from Taxation), doesn't decrease government size proportionally; despite the fact that such high taxation rates mean that almost all economic activity in the country was subject to a high level of government capture.

I would welcome any rationalisation, but I suppose its really an indication of how taxation doesn't work logically; especially when I am explicitly trying to emulate real world ranges (particularly Singapore).

Other things I noted:

• Environmental quality is quite cheap in terms of public spending (only a few thousand for a better than average score). Which really ought to have a greater range of descriptions given that spending varies by a magnitude higher and lower for all nations, while the descriptions (which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation; which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests) mainly occur around the global average.
  
• Corruption remains a remarkably sticky statistic, speaking of of corruption as something involving a conflict of interests in public affairs, given there are many different options which give minimal decreases—or indeed minimal increases!—but a large change in the size of the government, which is already quite democratic, produces no less corruption, as neither did a large decrease in business subsidization.

Average disposable incomes massively increased, in fact.

23,167.73 → 232,191.90
+902% increase.

So while the absolute level of income may have decreased, the government now has a far smaller share of the pay packet.

On a broader note, this issue option is often going to have big effects which will often be somewhat unpredictable. You've massively slashed your government in every department - that's going to have big and wild effects. This is simulation working as intended.

[Mostrov]

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[Candlewhisper Archive]

The game doesn't work the way you think it does. The game engine crunches up a load of numbers for each stat movement, and the results are increasingly unpredictable with more parameters changing.

Making huge cuts has wild effects on your economy. That's how it goes. Absolutely there's some squiffy simulation choices (and spotting these is why all those Betas exist) but broadly you're trying to analyse the stats in a way that the game does not work. But sure, a lot of these effects don't fit expected changes for reality. That's to do with stuff that's coded deep in the core of the game though, and isn't within the ability of issue stat edits to effect. Instead, that's what the betas are for, which hopefully will go live one of these days.

The game has never realistically simulated economic changes very well, of course. The tax model is a large part of it, but as you say, there's also a whole bunch of simplified assumptions that don't hold up to reality. Basically, don't have any expectation of the game making much sense, macroeconomically. Of course, some might argue that the bug is a feature, as reality doesn't often make much sense either when it comes to economics.

You've got all the answer you're going to, please consider this topic closed.

[Nagatar Karumuttu Chettiar]

Issue Number: 61
Option Chosen: #2
Name of Nation: Nagatar Karumuttu Chettiar
Time Encountered: 5 minutes ago

Descriptor of Problem: The issue resulted in absolutely no effects. I am unsure of what happened. Picture linked below, and I checked all my stats - nothing.

[The Free Joy State]

Issue Number: 61
Option Chosen: #2
Name of Nation: Nagatar Karumuttu Chettiar
Time Encountered: 5 minutes ago

Descriptor of Problem: The issue resulted in absolutely no effects. I am unsure of what happened. Picture linked below, and I checked all my stats - nothing.

(Image)

(Image spoilered)

There are changes to civil rights programmed, but the changes can only move you so far. As your civil rights are already better than the level to which this answer would improve them, no stat changes were recorded.

The issue is working as intended.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Also, I'd note this is covered in the FAQ in the first post:

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.

As a reminder to all, please check that FAQ before reporting unexpected effects.

[Malanasia]

Lifting the smoking ban had 0 effect on civil rights.
Why is this? Were my drug freedoms maxed out by other decisions that counteracted the ban entirely?

[The Free Joy State]

Lifting the smoking ban had 0 effect on civil rights.
Why is this? Were my drug freedoms maxed out by other decisions that counteracted the ban entirely?

Basically, yes. All the rights impacted were already as good as they could get.

By the way, in future, please could you give the issue number and option you chose (along with the date, if not today). It just makes it easier to track down the issue we're looking at.

[South Ccanda]

Uuuuuhhhhhh, so basically, I made internet free for my entire nation, and for some reason, it cancelled my "Public Protest" national policy. I'm not sure how that could happen...