[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[The Free Joy State]

Happy to acknowledge any flaws in my logic there.

The way taxation works gameside has been explained to you. That is the only answer.

Kindly do not stay to debate further. Debate is not the purpose of this thread.

My nation is socialist and has totally banned private enterprise on numerous occasions, yet issue 1148, about the Welfare Department hiring private companies to assess people before benefits, still showed up. I realise that they could hire a foreign private company, but shouldn't banning it altogether strongly imply if not require the government to not use it so extensively?

Thank you for raising this. This has been altered.

I see you have got this issue in your unanswered issues. Feel free to dismiss it; doing so will have no effect on your nation.

[Lord Dominator]

So, answered option 2 on issue #16 (ie, the option to reduce workers protections) just now, and miraculously my income equality went up. I'm assuming that this is some weird knock-off effect generally, given that I don't recall this happening before, more just curious on how that happened.

[The Free Joy State]

So, answered option 2 on issue #16 (ie, the option to reduce workers protections) just now, and miraculously my income equality went up. I'm assuming that this is some weird knock-off effect generally, given that I don't recall this happening before, more just curious on how that happened.

That's right. The secondary effects (which includes income equality) of this option can vary substantially based on your own personal stats.

Basically, this option balances two rights (the loss of your workers' right to be treated fairly -- which, in your nation, already couldn't really get any worse) and your employers' rights to run their businesses as they see fit (including not pay fair wages and fire at will) improving.

Another nation would not see the same stat changes from this option, but it is working as intended.

[Lord Dominator]

Gotcha, thanks

[Sunemia]

Nation: Sunemia
Day: November 1
Issue: Pet Theory, 1,156
Option 1,which estabilish an healthcare program for animals lowers public healthcare? What's the sense?
Edit: I understand now,thanks you.

[Trotterdam]

I think the Public Healthcare stat means human healthcare.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I think the Public Healthcare stat means human healthcare.

This is correct. Subsidising veterinary care is treated here as Welfare spending, as you're supporting the day to day costs that the human population incurs. As always, a rise in any one department's spending results in a modest drop in every other department.

[Filasira]

I was presented with the issue "It's hard to separate truth from entertainment" today in Filasira, so I picked the option that seems like direct democracy; people vote on issues, then experts are selected to carry out the will of the people. This gave me the policy "Autocracy," which is described as "Not holding democratic elections." My political freedom went down.
For one, that's not autocracy (one person or group holding supreme power, not a lack of elections) and secondly, direct democracy (as described, anyways) is MORE free than picking politicians, as someone can vote for any combination of policies, while with elections, there may be no candidate supporting that exact combination and in First-Past-The-Post voting, most candidates don't have a chance anyways.

[SherpDaWerp]

It looks to me like you chose Option 3, and the effect line on your nation page confirms that fact.

“Even if Tulsi Haggard stops parading around half-naked, Lisbeth Burrows stops talking about her fry bread recipe, and Ernie Flanders stops conducting symphonies, that won’t stop voters from getting duped,” sulks your Foreign Secretary, Hillary Smoochinger. “As long as elections are a popularity contest, personality politics are going to get in the way of choosing the most qualified candidates. We should just conduct surveys to find out what policies our citizens want, and you could appoint the most qualified experts to implement them. It’s still democracy, except that people are recommending policies instead of voting for candidates.”

The last line sums up this option nicely: "people are recommending policies instead of voting for candidates". Your people can no longer choose to vote candidates in/out of office. You will be in power forever, and you choose the people you see as most qualified to implement the policies. This would be a significant drop in political freedoms, as people can no longer choose who they want to represent them.

You're right, Autocracy means one person or group holds supreme power. (which is true anyway because of the nature of the game, but that's besides the point) This option ensures that you and the people you choose cannot be voted out of office, which is the same thing. And your political freedoms are still at a rating of 38.00, which would be representative of the fact your people can still have say over the policies that your government implements, just not who implements them.

[I'm not a mod or an editor, so this is just my observations]

[Candlewhisper Archive]

That interpretation is correct.

[Filasira]

Ah... I misinterpreted it as "citizens vote on policies, leaders handle implementation" and not "citizens recommend policies, leaders have final say on everything" You're right, that is autocracy, it's just autocracy where the people's will is done because those in power believe it is important to do so.

[Shytopia]

Not exactly an unexpected stat effect, but I hope this thread accepts unexpected policy effects as well.

Nation: Shytopia
Day: November 6
Issue: Paparazzi Parent, 975
Option 2 gives the parents rights to deal with children photos as they please. At the same time it canceled Nudism policy. Frankly speaking, the two felt completely unrelated to me.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Not exactly an unexpected stat effect, but I hope this thread accepts unexpected policy effects as well.

Nation: Shytopia
Day: November 6
Issue: Paparazzi Parent, 975
Option 2 gives the parents rights to deal with children photos as they please. At the same time it canceled Nudism policy. Frankly speaking, the two felt completely unrelated to me.

This is covered in part by the FAQ in the first post of this thread.

However, the fact that this is a pro-nudity decision is entirely intentional. This is an issue about the right of parents to post pictures of their kids, with the option you picked saying...

what is more natural for a mother than to take the pictures of her pretty little pumpkin and his adorable chubby bum, and to share them with her friend

[Fontenais]

Not really sure if this belongs here or where to put it, but anyway just a mildly interesting observation:
Health is measured in "Bananas ingested per day" but eating bananas (well, underripe bananas) is linked to constipation, which isn't very healthy. Or fun, I imagine.
Shouldn't apples make more sense? Because "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"
(just found out that apples can erode teeth due to high sugar content. Is anything truly healthy?)

[Shytopia]

This is covered in part by the FAQ in the first post of this thread.

However, the fact that this is a pro-nudity decision is entirely intentional. This is an issue about the right of parents to post pictures of their kids, with the option you picked saying...

what is more natural for a mother than to take the pictures of her pretty little pumpkin and his adorable chubby bum, and to share them with her friend

That's the problem though, it can be taken as pro-nudity (or as unrelated to nudity at best), but the policy got cancelled. Which is, well, rather weird. Though I concur, I managed to miss that part of the FAQ.

[Trotterdam]

Is anything truly healthy?

No matter what you eat, it's going to kill you in eighty years or so.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

This is covered in part by the FAQ in the first post of this thread.

However, the fact that this is a pro-nudity decision is entirely intentional. This is an issue about the right of parents to post pictures of their kids, with the option you picked saying...

That's the problem though, it can be taken as pro-nudity (or as unrelated to nudity at best), but the policy got cancelled. Which is, well, rather weird. Though I concur, I managed to miss that part of the FAQ.

Right. And to clarify, the relevant section of the FAQ is this:

But hold on... it get's worse. Also, many of these pseudo-policies are based on stats that the game only generates for a nation the first time they are used. This means that the pseudo-policy may suddenly appear when that stat is generated, even if the decision is one which is pushing the stat away from the pseudo-policy's criterion.

[Anglia-Saxia]

Uh,I got the ''Hush...Hush,Sweet Charlotte'' issue and picked option 2,which is,in my view,the opposite of Option 1,which is the most corrupt opinion. Instead,I got an increase in corruption?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Uh,I got the ''Hush...Hush,Sweet Charlotte'' issue and picked option 2,which is,in my view,the opposite of Option 1,which is the most corrupt opinion. Instead,I got an increase in corruption?

This is working as intended. Option 1 is directly corrupt for the pay off, but option 2 is indirectly corrupt because it involves taking control of the media for political ends. The key parts:

“We just have to make sure she doesn’t win over the public with her deceptions,” counsels your attorney, Heidi Orbison. “Force all the newspapers to expose her as a liar. Release statements saying you stand by your family. Drastic measures must be taken to ensure media truth! Now let’s prep your testimony. Repeat after me: I did not have an affair with that woman.”

[The Holy Quran]

Hello all. I just received and processed issue number #1287, Children of the Magna Carta, discussing children petitioning the government for increased political rights. I chose Option 3, "raising the voting age by 5 years", despite being a Theocratic (policy) Psychotic Dictatorship with No Dissent (policy) and "Outlawed" political freedoms. Should I not have been excluded from this issue?

[The Free Joy State]

Hello all. I just received and processed issue number #1287, Children of the Magna Carta, discussing children petitioning the government for increased political rights. I chose Option 3, "raising the voting age by 5 years", despite being a Theocratic (policy) Psychotic Dictatorship with No Dissent (policy) and "Outlawed" political freedoms. Should I not have been excluded from this issue?

If you think issue validities are incorrect, please post here in future.

The Theocracy policy, in NS, means that religion is mandatory. It is related to religious freedoms and unrelated to this issue.

Your nation classification is extrapolated from various freedom levels and does not directly impact the issues you are eligible for (this explains nation classifications more clearly). Likewise, your political freedom level is extrapolated from a range of political stats, we do not use the gameside "Outlawed" label as the basis for our validities.

You have not banned voting. You are eligible for this issue.

[The Holy Quran]

Hello all. I just received and processed issue number #1287, Children of the Magna Carta, discussing children petitioning the government for increased political rights. I chose Option 3, "raising the voting age by 5 years", despite being a Theocratic (policy) Psychotic Dictatorship with No Dissent (policy) and "Outlawed" political freedoms. Should I not have been excluded from this issue?

If you think issue validities are incorrect, please post here in future.

The Theocracy policy, in NS, means that religion is mandatory. It is related to religious freedoms and unrelated to this issue.

Your nation classification is extrapolated from various freedom levels and does not directly impact the issues you are eligible for (this explains nation classifications more clearly). Likewise, your political freedom level is extrapolated from a range of political stats, we do not use the gameside "Outlawed" label as the basis for our validities.

You have not banned voting. You are eligible for this issue.

Thank you for clarifying. Should the children not have been banned from their original political petitioning due to the No Dissent policy though?

[The Free Joy State]

If you think issue validities are incorrect, please post here in future.

The Theocracy policy, in NS, means that religion is mandatory. It is related to religious freedoms and unrelated to this issue.

Your nation classification is extrapolated from various freedom levels and does not directly impact the issues you are eligible for (this explains nation classifications more clearly). Likewise, your political freedom level is extrapolated from a range of political stats, we do not use the gameside "Outlawed" label as the basis for our validities.

You have not banned voting. You are eligible for this issue.

Thank you for clarifying. Should the children not have been banned from their original political petitioning due to the No Dissent policy though?

No. The students are not protesting publicly.

[One Small Island]

The name of the nation that had this effect: One Small Island
The day that this effect was encountered: November 11th, 2019
The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Brain Pain on the Sports Plain, #415

Upon selecting the second option in this issue; the one which allowed kids to continue playing a sport in school, my obesity rating went up. It was a minimal effect (only a 1% increase easily fixable if I wanted to) but it seemed odd to me that not banning a physical activity made the people in my nation fatter.

I apologize if this has been brought up before, I searched for the issue number and a couple of keywords in the thread (obesity, sports, brain pain) and didn't see anything about issue #415.

I did see that obesity is a secondary stat and governed by some hidden stats, and so after reading I think that is probably what's happened but I thought I'd make a post about it anyway, just in case it actually is an issue.

Thank you!

[The Free Joy State]

The name of the nation that had this effect: One Small Island
The day that this effect was encountered: November 11th, 2019
The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Brain Pain on the Sports Plain, #415

Upon selecting the second option in this issue; the one which allowed kids to continue playing a sport in school, my obesity rating went up. It was a minimal effect (only a 1% increase easily fixable if I wanted to) but it seemed odd to me that not banning a physical activity made the people in my nation fatter.

I apologize if this has been brought up before, I searched for the issue number and a couple of keywords in the thread (obesity, sports, brain pain) and didn't see anything about issue #415.

I did see that obesity is a secondary stat and governed by some hidden stats, and so after reading I think that is probably what's happened but I thought I'd make a post about it anyway, just in case it actually is an issue.

Thank you!

Yes, that obesity is a secondary stat is exactly what caused the change you saw.

I can suggest -- if you have not yet done so -- that you go into Settings and turn on "Show More Stats", which will provide the changes in raw numbers, rather than percentages (percentages can be alarming; raw numbers tend to be less-so): here, obesity rose from 28.53 to 28.82 in raw numbers.