[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[The Free Joy State]

Name of Nation: Nepleslia
Name of Issue: #32. One Wife Is Never Enough, Say Polygamists
Date Received: 07/02/2020

My nation received the "Permanent Marriage" policy after I went with the issue's second option; although the choice's mention of "until death do we part" admittedly hints at the aforementioned policy, it does not clearly signify that said policy will be enacted if the choice is chosen - nor does it even hint at the existence of the policy in the first place.

"'Death do we part" makes it pretty explicit that, by selecting this policy, no divorce will henceforth be allowed.

Here's the option in full:

“This is nothing more than sexual deviants using religion as a pretext for perversion!” says Reverend @@RANDOMNAME@@. “Marriage is one man, one woman, and death do we part. What’s so hard to get? Anything else is a perversion, and must be banned.”

The issue is working as intended.

[Romance and Reverie]

Not that serious/drastic, but still.

Name of Nation: Romance and Reverie
Name of Issue: Couped Up (#913)
Date Received: July 11th, 2020
Main Stats Involved: Niceness and Compassion. Dropped two common-issues-worth.
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Summary of Argument: If an autocratic monarchy has capital punishment as a policy, and a traitor who admits to plotting a coup is executed, isn't it extremely normal?

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It's business as usual, and treason is usually one of the most severe crimes one can commit. Why would it not merit capital punishment?

I've been happy recently seeing my Niceness and Compassion rank climb as I continue to answer questions sincerely. This reversed two issues worth of progress. Charmlessness also increased an issue-worth.

It feels off, unless the stance is that nations with capital punishment get meaner with each justifiable criminal conviction.

It's not an unusual effect in a vacuum, but I read that invisible variables exist in the background to take context into consideration.

Maybe my stat changes seem bad to me, but are lower than usual, having already taken context into account, no idea. Can someone verify?



I set an example and ensured the country was accessible to blind people.

I set an example and ensured the country was accessible to people in wheelchairs.

I deploy the national guard to look for a missing child because the mother thinks not enough people are looking.

My citizens grew nicer and more compassionate.

I lawfully invoked an established punishment on a criminal who admits to treason, and suddenly everyone's meaner and less compassionate.
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[The Free Joy State]

Not that serious/drastic, but still.

Name of Nation: Romance and Reverie
Name of Issue: Couped Up (#913)
Date Received: July 11th, 2020
Main Stats Involved: Niceness and Compassion. Dropped two common-issues-worth.
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Summary of Argument: If an autocratic monarchy has capital punishment as a policy, and a traitor who admits to plotting a coup is executed, isn't it extremely normal?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


It's business as usual, and treason is usually one of the most severe crimes one can commit. Why would it not merit capital punishment?

I've been happy recently seeing my Niceness and Compassion rank climb as I continue to answer questions sincerely. This reversed two issues worth of progress. Charmlessness also increased an issue-worth.

It feels off, unless the stance is that nations with capital punishment get meaner with each justifiable criminal conviction.

It's not an unusual effect in a vacuum, but I read that invisible variables exist in the background to take context into consideration.

Maybe my stat changes seem bad to me, but are lower than usual, having already taken context into account, no idea. Can someone verify?



I set an example and ensured the country was accessible to blind people.

I set an example and ensured the country was accessible to people in wheelchairs.

I deploy the national guard to look for a missing child because the mother thinks not enough people are looking.

My citizens grew nicer and more compassionate.

I lawfully invoked an established punishment on a criminal who admits to treason, and suddenly everyone's meaner and less compassionate.
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Firstly, niceness and compassion are secondary stats and their responses are not entirely predictable (they do vary based on the stats input into them and your nation's own stats). If you stick to one direction in your decisions, your effects will generally get smaller. If you change course, your effects will generally get larger.

Secondly, there is nothing even remotely unusual about the effects you received from this issue. You instituted, not just capital punishment, but the possibility of "hanging, drawing and scattering her wicked body to the four winds for the birds to feast upon." (i.e. the slow, drawn-out and painful death by hanging, drawing and quartering).

[Romance and Reverie]

Firstly, niceness and compassion are secondary stats and their responses are not entirely predictable (they do vary based on the stats input into them and your nation's own stats). If you stick to one direction in your decisions, your effects will generally get smaller. If you change course, your effects will generally get larger.

I see, kind of unintuitive. Does that mean that consistently answering in a manner which would generally increase a secondary stat will have it plateau at some point instead of rising? So some alternation would ultimately increase the stat more than consistency? I'm pretty confused with this.

Secondly, there is nothing even remotely unusual about the effects you received from this issue. You instituted, not just capital punishment, but the possibility of "hanging, drawing and scattering her wicked body to the four winds for the birds to feast upon." (i.e. the slow, drawn-out and painful death by hanging, drawing and quartering).

The option ends with "Or, you could just chop her head off if you’re feeling generous.” I wasn't aware that the stats associated with issues assume the average of everything written. I assumed that option boils down to "execute this woman for plotting a coup" for the purposes of the game, the rest being just flavour text. Anyway, now I know. Thanks.

[The Free Joy State]

Firstly, niceness and compassion are secondary stats and their responses are not entirely predictable (they do vary based on the stats input into them and your nation's own stats). If you stick to one direction in your decisions, your effects will generally get smaller. If you change course, your effects will generally get larger.

I see, kind of unintuitive. Does that mean that consistently answering in a manner which would generally increase a secondary stat will have it plateau at some point instead of rising? So some alternation would ultimately increase the stat more than consistency? I'm pretty confused with this.

Backstage, the game keeps counting all stat changes, but if the change is less than one-hundredth of a percent, you won't see it frontstage.

Secondly, there is nothing even remotely unusual about the effects you received from this issue. You instituted, not just capital punishment, but the possibility of "hanging, drawing and scattering her wicked body to the four winds for the birds to feast upon." (i.e. the slow, drawn-out and painful death by hanging, drawing and quartering).

The option ends with "Or, you could just chop her head off if you’re feeling generous.” I wasn't aware that the stats associated with issues assume the average of everything written. I assumed that option boils down to "execute this woman for plotting a coup" for the purposes of the game, the rest being just flavour text. Anyway, now I know. Thanks.

Yes, the totality of what the option entails is taken into account. For the record, we do not take the effect line into account.

[Romance and Reverie]

Not that serious/drastic, but still.

Name of Nation: Romance and Reverie
Name of Issue: Birds, Bees, And Breeding Teens (#200)
Option Chosen: #5 - ""However sex education is taught, it is still social engineering..."
Date Received: July 17th, 2020
Main Stats Involved: Health and Lifespan dropped 1-2 issues worth.
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Summary of Argument: How does sex-ed in school make the citizenry live longer and healthier?

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Even in the comedic NationStates chain-of-thought, I couldn't find a way to connect sex-ed with physical health and lifespan, but maybe I'm not so good at that.

Leaving sex-ed to parents/kids should have no effect on health/lifespan.

We slowly slid condoms onto bananas in high school. It was a massive waste of time, and nobody did it properly. Nobody learned a thing.

Everybody wanted to do gym-things like playing soccer instead of being indoors where a bunch of guys giggle at the word "penis", and the teacher keeps telling us masturbation is okay.

I don't recall where else I felt this, since I only recently started nagging about stat changes, but I perceive some liberal bias at NS.

Ignorance, fine, I disagree, but it makes sense at least. Crime/Obesity increasing don't make much sense either.

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[Sanctaria]

When you're reporting unusual issue effects, it also helps to include the option you took.

[Romance and Reverie]

When you're reporting unusual issue effects, it also helps to include the option you took.

Right, sorry about that. Edited the comment to include it. =)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Sorry you had such bad sex ed!

Well-delivered and sensibly structured sexual education would almost certainly have a health benefit. This is difficult to evidence robustly in terms of lifespan data, as a prospective cohort study would run into practical difficulties and take a very long time, but there's certainly good evidence that sex education reduces STD prevalence and teenage pregnancies. This is most notable in the poorest countries and communities, of course. You or may or may not be too young to remember, but the HIV epidemic was brought into check primarily by means of sex education. It's perhaps the case that the messages pushed by sex ed back then are so entrenched in modern minds now that it seems ridiculous that they once needed to be taught -- condoms help block STDs, bodily fluids can be infectious, and so on.

However, I think the standard of evidence is adequate for a small health boost in-simulation.

Note that this isn't really a liberal vs conservative issue either.

Conservative-leaning sex education could centre around the benefits of abstinence before marriage, and the STD risks inherent in promiscuity, the value of monogamy, and the purpose of sex being procreation rather than hedonism. A liberal syllabus could deliver the same ultimate message (don't feel forced to have sex, if you do have sex, do it safely) but from an entirely different ideological standpoint, for example putting more emphasis on contraception and self esteem. Regardless, it seems clear that good sex education is going to help people avoid STDs, and make them feel more ready to say no to sex when being pressured.

[Romance and Reverie]

It's perhaps the case that the messages pushed by sex ed back then are so entrenched in modern minds now that it seems ridiculous that they once needed to be taught -- condoms help block STDs, bodily fluids can be infectious, and so on.

Good point, I guess I didn't consider poorly educated citizens, maybe kids whose parents could also be ignorant of seemingly obvious information. Kind of how 1st year university has a lot of overlap with high school to cover kids who might not have had the same material coverage.

Conservative-leaning sex education could centre around the benefits of abstinence before marriage, and the STD risks inherent in promiscuity, the value of monogamy, and the purpose of sex being procreation rather than hedonism.

This goes beyond the scope of my complaint, but the only option in favour of sex-ed has "free condoms" attached and an indifferent (or I guess pragmatic) attitude towards teens having sex. This supports sex for pleasure, a lack of abstinence before marriage, etc. I'd probably still have chosen to leave it out of the curriculum even if the condom bit wasn't there, so it's a moot point.

I'm content with your justification for the stat changes though, thanks for explaining. =)

[Mount Aris]

i messed up both yesterday and today by making crime moderate. how do i fix it so there's no crime for my nation?

[Fauxia]

i messed up both yesterday and today by making crime moderate. how do i fix it so there's no crime for my nation?

Boost law enforcement, education, and welfare.

In the future, please make a separate thread for this type of query. This is for questions about stat effects that appear incongruous to the option chosen, not general questions about statistics.

[Westinor]

i messed up both yesterday and today by making crime moderate. how do i fix it so there's no crime for my nation?

Boost law enforcement, education, and welfare.

In the future, please make a separate thread for this type of query. This is for questions about stat effects that appear incongruous to the option chosen, not general questions about statistics.

They actually ended up making a separate thread.

[Merni]

Why does 447.1 decrease Intelligence?

[Izusbekistanistan]

Issue number 826, named "Licensing Driving [Nation citizens] Crazy", has some really odd effects.

As I'm going for a very bureaucratic nation, I chose the first option, which is simply to allow bureaucracy to be bureaucratic, which had the normal effects, government size increase, taxation increase and whathaveyou, then when I scrolled down I saw a decrease in nearly every single sector of my government including healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, compliance, ignorance, Human Development index, and an absolutely massive drop of over 50% of my government's manufacturing sector, for an issue about licensing on cars. I don't think I have to explain just how ridiculous this is, and if possible I'd like the effects reverted since I had no idea that it was going to drop literally everything I've been working for since I started.

Needless to say this issue is incredibly unbalanced and needs to be reduced in impact and what it impacts massively.

[The Free Joy State]

Why does 447.1 decrease Intelligence?

This is a secondary effect from the effects that are coded (appropriately) in the issue interacting with each other and with your own nation's stats. The effects vary from nation to nation (others will see no lowering of intelligence).

Issue number 826, named "Licensing Driving [Nation citizens] Crazy", has some really odd effects.

As I'm going for a very bureaucratic nation, I chose the first option, which is simply to allow bureaucracy to be bureaucratic, which had the normal effects, government size increase, taxation increase and whathaveyou, then when I scrolled down I saw a decrease in nearly every single sector of my government including healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, compliance, ignorance, Human Development index, and an absolutely massive drop of over 50% of my government's manufacturing sector, for an issue about licensing on cars. I don't think I have to explain just how ridiculous this is, and if possible I'd like the effects reverted since I had no idea that it was going to drop literally everything I've been working for since I started.

Needless to say this issue is incredibly unbalanced and needs to be reduced in impact and what it impacts massively.

Basically, the same answer as I gave to Merni. The effects you cite are secondary caused by the (appropriate) stats coded into the issue interacting with each other and your own nation's stats. Other nations won't receive the same changes as you.

Incidentally, I have your figures right in front of me: law enforcement rose (not fell) from 4,064.17 to 4,127.60. Healthcare didn't change. Compliance rose from 81.53 to 81.81. Ignorance didn't change.

If you have not yet done so, I would also suggest you go to your Settings and turn on "Show More Stats", which shows you the raw numbers, which tend to be less alarming. Most of the changes you cite were incredibly small (Welfare, for example, fell from 5,588.24 to 5,573.10, a tiny fall of 0.27%) in raw numbers.

Long story short: no change needed.

[Kyundao]

Nation: Kyundao
Date received: August 6th, 2020
Issue number: 16

On issue 16, I chose option 2 - the option allowing employers to fire anyone without giving a reason why - and my economic freedom went down. That makes no sense to me at all and I checked the issue stats on another website. Isn't economic freedom supposed to go up instead? Option 2 literally gives employers the freedom to fire anyone at any time, so what gives?

[Ghost Land]

Nation: Bratwurst Realm, my newest puppet.
Issue: 896.5, "It's Our Lot in Life"
Income went up slightly, economic output dropped by 11.1%. The new value of 491,000,000,000 makes more sense mathematically, so I'm not sure where the old 552,000,000,000 value came from or what went on here.

Edit: A similar drop from 553,000,000,000 to 491,000,000,000 just happened now after selecting 1242.1. I'm calling some kind of glitch?

[Dabarastan]

I understand this isn't within the format of the thread, however I didn't think it was worth creating an entirely new thread about. I've today had some absolutely massive changes in stats, vastly greater than any stat changes before. I do not recall processing an issue that caused this - would this be a result of WA legislation? It seems crazy to me that WA legislation could affect stats this much. Some examples:

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=74

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=73

Any info would be greatly appreciated

[SherpDaWerp]

I understand this isn't within the format of the thread, however I didn't think it was worth creating an entirely new thread about. I've today had some absolutely massive changes in stats, vastly greater than any stat changes before. I do not recall processing an issue that caused this - would this be a result of WA legislation? It seems crazy to me that WA legislation could affect stats this much. Some examples:

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=74

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=73

Any info would be greatly appreciated

That would probably be this recent resolution:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_pa ... /council=1

Reading the text, it does sound like pretty sweeping legislation to protect workers, which would explain the changes. The amount is significantly larger than other resolutions that I've seen, but choosing an option in an issue that enacted very pro-worker policies like these would result in a pretty similar stat change.

[Noahs Second Country]

That would probably be this recent resolution:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_pa ... /council=1

Reading the text, it does sound like pretty sweeping legislation to protect workers, which would explain the changes. The amount is significantly larger than other resolutions that I've seen, but choosing an option in an issue that enacted very pro-worker policies like these would result in a pretty similar stat change.

I can confirm that these changes absolutely killed some of my stats - specifically rudeness, economic freedom, wealth gaps, and some others.

As a WA member, I understand that my stats are subject to change a little bit here and there, but this is an absolutely huge effect compared to previous effects. Currently it appears that I would have to answer hundreds of issues to gain back what was lost in rich income/wealth gaps, which seems a little disproportionate for a WA resolution but oh well.

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread to discuss this on but there doesn't seem to be a better one...

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Nation: Kyundao
Date received: August 6th, 2020
Issue number: 16

On issue 16, I chose option 2 - the option allowing employers to fire anyone without giving a reason why - and my economic freedom went down. That makes no sense to me at all and I checked the issue stats on another website. Isn't economic freedom supposed to go up instead? Option 2 literally gives employers the freedom to fire anyone at any time, so what gives?

There's two economic freedoms at play here - the right of employers to hire and fire freely, and the freedom of employees to undertake strike action without being immediately fired for it.

For an entirely new nation, the former's pro-freedom effect is significantly larger. However, as you tend towards extremes you'll sometimes find a paradoxical shift.

In short, your nation's employers were already mostly unregulated, while your nation's workers still had some employment rights, but that's been diminished by your decision.

It doesn't always make perfect sense, of course. See the first post of this thread for more on how freedoms work in this game.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Nation: Bratwurst Realm, my newest puppet.
Issue: 896.5, "It's Our Lot in Life"
Income went up slightly, economic output dropped by 11.1%. The new value of 491,000,000,000 makes more sense mathematically, so I'm not sure where the old 552,000,000,000 value came from or what went on here.

Edit: A similar drop from 553,000,000,000 to 491,000,000,000 just happened now after selecting 1242.1. I'm calling some kind of glitch?

Yeah, something not right there. You answered 5 issues that day, and your economic output numbers are all over the place. Something glitchy is happening. I'll raise it backstage.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I understand this isn't within the format of the thread, however I didn't think it was worth creating an entirely new thread about. I've today had some absolutely massive changes in stats, vastly greater than any stat changes before. I do not recall processing an issue that caused this - would this be a result of WA legislation? It seems crazy to me that WA legislation could affect stats this much. Some examples:

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=74

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=73

Any info would be greatly appreciated

Its not just you:

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=dab ... ensusid=74

So yeah, probably WA.

[Reorganisieren Reichregierung]

I chose the first option for Issue #445 "Evasive Maneuvers" ("corporations claim the third ounce of any metal traded in a wicker-cone on the Sunday of a full moon as a charitable expense") and I got a huge cut to my Average Income of Rich, Weath Gaps and Freedom From Taxation. From 2.5+ M average income of rich and and a weath gap of approximately 850 I went to less than 1M and 16.5 respectively, which is a dramatic drop, not to say the least.

I do not understand how is allowing corporate loopholes brings down the income of the rich and raises taxes, so this is definitely an unusual effect.

EDIT: Checking my stat graphs, I think issue #210 option 1 ("urban high-volume mailers now receive their mail via chauffeur-driven limousines") is the issue that caused my problem. Which makes the effect all the more incomprehensible because how does privatization of postal services drive down the income of the rich and the weath gap?