[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Trotterdam]

I guess all three options I reported involved the government supporting a specific religion, rather than religious freedom, so in that sense I kinda understand that it wouldn't repeal a policy of repressing religion. However, all of them were still the government explicitly supporting a religion.

What would make sense is if picking those options (assuming they showed up at all - they tend to be the kind of thing someone in an atheist nation wouldn't just suggest some acknowledgement of the conflict) swapped out Atheism for Theocracy.

[Laissez-Faire Mauritius]

Issue 161
Nation: Laissez-Faire Mauritius
Experienced May 15

I chose to abolish inheritance tax, and yet Freedom from Taxation went down. This is the exact opposite of what one would expect when picking that option.

[Pogaria]

Issue 161
Nation: Laissez-Faire Mauritius
Experienced May 15

I chose to abolish inheritance tax, and yet Freedom from Taxation went down. This is the exact opposite of what one would expect when picking that option.

Freedom from Taxation (and our tax model in general) is based on income tax, not all taxes. If you abolish inheritance tax, income taxes would need to increase to make up the difference (given that government spending hasn't changed). The majority of your population would end up paying more taxes; only a small number of wealthy individuals would benefit from this change.

NS doesn't have the best system for modeling taxes, but I believe it's been that way since 2002, and changing it would require a massive overhaul of the issue stats. That's not really possible right now.

[Trotterdam]

The list is a long one - I've got dozens that I'm working on (I want to do them in one broad set of adjustments, rather than piecemeal - hence the long timeline on fixes).

I guess all three options I reported involved the government supporting a specific religion, rather than religious freedom, so in that sense I kinda understand that it wouldn't repeal a policy of repressing religion. However, all of them were still the government explicitly supporting a religion.

It happened again: #702, this time. (This one did have a pro-religious-freedom option, but despite considering it, I didn't end up picking it, so I don't know if it would have worked.)

In this case, the triggering event was a private hotel chain (or as private as you can be in a socialist nation?) performing actions endorsing religion, so it's possible that they were simply doing so in violation of the law (crime is "all-pervasive"...), but it seems like it would draw a different set of responses (at least, option 2 would need to be "we need stricter enforcement" rather than "we need to ban this").

[Verdant Haven]

The list is a long one - I've got dozens that I'm working on (I want to do them in one broad set of adjustments, rather than piecemeal - hence the long timeline on fixes).

I guess all three options I reported involved the government supporting a specific religion, rather than religious freedom, so in that sense I kinda understand that it wouldn't repeal a policy of repressing religion. However, all of them were still the government explicitly supporting a religion.

It happened again: #702, this time. (This one did have a pro-religious-freedom option, but despite considering it, I didn't end up picking it, so I don't know if it would have worked.)

In this case, the triggering event was a private hotel chain (or as private as you can be in a socialist nation?) performing actions endorsing religion, so it's possible that they were simply doing so in violation of the law (crime is "all-pervasive"...), but it seems like it would draw a different set of responses (at least, option 2 would need to be "we need stricter enforcement" rather than "we need to ban this").

This one is on my previously-mentioned list of more than five dozen issues that need addressing for atheist nations. It's in the works!

[Trotterdam]

Yeah, well, I don't have access to your list, so I have no way of knowing which issues you already know about

[SAF-Kommissariat Moskowien]

This has made me gutted because it just ruined all my progress on authoritarianism.

On Issue #136, I selected the '1 Child Policy'. Obviously forcing EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN to only be able to have 1 Child should be the most authoritarian answer, right!?!?!?!?!

No, obviously not! Apparently forcing people to not have more than 1 child REDUCES MY AUTHORITARIANISM BY 20%!?

This, honestly. Made me lose hope in this nation. I prided it already for it's 264th rank in authoritarianism and thats why I always came back to it. But picking a obviously authoritarian answer is going to reduce my authoritarianism is honestly bizzare. I hope this can get fixed, if at all.

Edit: Also, excess children are sold into slavery! Apparently that makes me less authoritarian! I'm fucking laughing rn this is absolutely baffling

[SAF-Kommissariat Moskowien]

Okay... let me actually answer this.

- SAF Kommissariat Moskowien
- 18 March, 2023.
- Issue #163: Much Ado About Abortion

Massive authoritarian drop on my 264th authoritarian nation for banning over 1 child families and selling the excess as SLAVES. Obviously unexpected as this is by far the most authoritarian answer on there. Don't know what they were thinking when that stat change occoured. It's gutted me and my nations only worthwhile stat.

[Verdant Haven]

Okay... let me actually answer this.

- SAF Kommissariat Moskowien
- 18 March, 2023.
- Issue #163: Much Ado About Abortion

Massive authoritarian drop on my 264th authoritarian nation for banning over 1 child families and selling the excess as SLAVES. Obviously unexpected as this is by far the most authoritarian answer on there. Don't know what they were thinking when that stat change occoured. It's gutted me and my nations only worthwhile stat.

This is a situation that results from you having been so wildly authoritarian in the first place. Prior to this issue, you had extreme restrictions on personal freedoms and extreme protections for workers rights. By permitting slavery, you absolutely gutted worker protection laws that kept companies from exploiting workers, and introduced a level of corporate economic freedom that was previously unseen (this impact can be seen quite visibly on your nation's "Trends" tab). Because your personal freedoms were already about as locked-down as they could be, the impact of reductions to individual freedoms were insufficient to offset the impact of increasing corporate freedoms, leading to a decrease in authoritarianism. Because the authoritarianism was so extreme, a reduction of any size ends up being quite dramatic. This element of how the freedoms function is explained in the question "Why did my civil rights / political freedom / economy move the wrong way?" in the first post's FAQ.

[Socialism uwu]

After I completed issue #683, "Different keystrokes for different folks" and selecting option 2 that clearly said that a tax increase will be required, my tax rate went down as a result for some reason. I can't see any reason that this would happen.

[Trotterdam]

Conflicts with religious options in Atheist nations is a personal peeve/project of mine, and I've got a long list of corrections and adjustments I've slowly been working on.

Next-up: #252 option 4. It's less blatantly religious than some of the others, but it does say "Tell them Big Max was a warning from the heavens! Strike the fear of the Mighty One into their hearts and they’ll do whatever you tell them!", and the effect line mentions "god-fearing citizens". Still atheist.

[Silver Steps]

Issue 907: A Problem Shared: I selected the second option just a few moments ago, and public transit went down, probably as a result of overall budget allocations. Seems like it should've gone up, assuming bike sharing run by the state is public transit?

[LFPD Soveriegn]

- LFPD Sovereign
- The day that this effect was encountered: Today, 26 May 2023
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Candid Camera, or issue 775

Rapid, devastating increases on my black market, especially when I was winning the war against the markets. I find it devastating because it ruined my attempts to fight the black markets and made no sense.

I picked option 3, or coming up with fake information about the found military base. Basically denying they exist should'nt under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES make ones black market go up by 17%!

I just, cannot see how this happened.

[Querria]

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=535579

I have wrote about it in technical, but perhaps this is the more appropriate place for it.

The problem here is I clicked option 3 on Issue 1088, expecting more political freedom. Instead the game has given me the effects of option 4, despite me clicking on the button for issue 3. I suspect there is a very minor script error of some kind; one which triggers option 4 if players click option 3 OR option 4 because the code for option 3 accidentally got changed/removed in some way? Or maybe the scripts that trigger the stat effects for Options 3 and 4 got switched up in a scripting error instead?

I am no script expert, but what I would do if possible is have a test nation (like testlandia for example) look at issue 1088 real quickly. Click Option 3 and see if the line "the government terminates employment with extreme prejudice" come up instead of "voter turnout for the election of the Junior Assistant for Non-Digital Media Strategies has been unsurprisingly low" like I was hoping for. This can very quickly tell if there is some manner of error in the coding which should be fixed or not.

[SherpDaWerp]

I will quote Refuge Isle, from the other thread, who has (correctly!) guessed what happened here.

I suspect that what happened is that you used a third party tool like Minoa's wiki or Trotterdam's issue results, saw the third item down in your issue and thought it correlated to the third item in those other locations. In reality your nation may not qualify for all answers and, when that's the case, they will not show up as options. The options that display for your nation's specific situation may then be 1, 2, 4, 5, and clicking the third item in that circumstance may be something you feel is undesirable.

If those third party sites have the whole option text, make sure it correlates to the one you read and that it falls in the expected sequence.

The third option of this issue is not valid for all nations. Importantly, it's not valid for your nation. Let this be a lesson in not blindly trusting third-party tools - please do not click options and expect that they will line up 1:1 with external sites like Minoa's wiki or Trott's database. The effects of the option are quite extreme - it's an option that talks about entrenching autocratic rule and killing politicians who disagree with you - so a cursory read probably could have told you that it wasn't the political-freedom-booster you were expecting.

[SherpDaWerp]

- LFPD Sovereign
- The day that this effect was encountered: Today, 26 May 2023
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Candid Camera, or issue 775

Rapid, devastating increases on my black market, especially when I was winning the war against the markets. I find it devastating because it ruined my attempts to fight the black markets and made no sense.

I picked option 3, or coming up with fake information about the found military base. Basically denying they exist should'nt under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES make ones black market go up by 17%!

I just, cannot see how this happened.

This is a secondary effect (albeit quite a large one) - our backstage stats can't directly modify the black market, rather, the black market is dependent on a wide variety of factors. I can confirm they're all coded correctly on our end - the predominant output you're seeing is that encouraging political lying increases your corruption, and corruption increases your black markets.

[LFPD Soveriegn]

- LFPD Sovereign
- The day that this effect was encountered: Today, 26 May 2023
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Candid Camera, or issue 775

Rapid, devastating increases on my black market, especially when I was winning the war against the markets. I find it devastating because it ruined my attempts to fight the black markets and made no sense.

I picked option 3, or coming up with fake information about the found military base. Basically denying they exist should'nt under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES make ones black market go up by 17%!

I just, cannot see how this happened.

This is a secondary effect (albeit quite a large one) - our backstage stats can't directly modify the black market, rather, the black market is dependent on a wide variety of factors. I can confirm they're all coded correctly on our end - the predominant output you're seeing is that encouraging political lying increases your corruption, and corruption increases your black markets.

It seems quite bizzare though, saying the military base isn't there is not a big lie and many nations do it. So a 17% increase is quite unexpected

[Zhaoguo]

It was called "Jailhouse Blues" and I dispatched the military to disperse a prison riot (see title). My civil rights increased from 4 to 5. As a psychotic dictatorship aiming for zero civil rights, this was kind of annoying. Is this intended?

[SherpDaWerp]

It was called "Jailhouse Blues" and I dispatched the military to disperse a prison riot (see title). My civil rights increased from 4 to 5. As a psychotic dictatorship aiming for zero civil rights, this was kind of annoying. Is this intended?

Prior to choosing this option, you were so restrictive that even the military were not allowed to use guns. By arming them to deal with a prison riot, you very marginally increased your populace's "right to bear arms" - but clamping down on riots was nothing new for your nation, so the corresponding crackdown on other civil liberties had no effect.

Very small gun rights boost + "business as usual" for dealing with riots = very small civil rights boost.

[Malkaestan]

Issue #16, allowing companies to fire people for no reason whenever they want decreases wealth gaps?

[Paffnia]

I just answered issue # 272 "Slow Down, You’re Going Too Fast" with option 3: getting rid of cars and building tons of rail-based transport systems for everything.
That lowered my Public Transport stat by 0.08%

Hi - sorry if this has come up before, but uh, I answered #272: Slow Down, You’re Going Too Fast (old one I know) with option 3, and uh...
yeah, I did expect cars to be banned I guess (in hindsight that was kinda silly given the blow to my scientific advancement), but I only did it because of this line:
"We need to shift entirely to railroads and get rid of cars AND trucks – hi-speed trains between cities, light rail to the suburbs, monorails and trolleys in town."

My public transportation funding went down. Uh.
I'd accept that maybe private industries might be funding the trains? More? For some reason?
But this kind of implies that the government's doing something to, y'know... actually do something about it?

The same just occurred on my puppet Transportation. Answered Option 3 on Issue #272, and the Public Transport stat fell (Societal Mobility Rating: 23,177.15→23,107.07, ↓ 0.30%). I understand that the issue option does imply a ban on buses too, but the option seems to offer a massive expansion of transit on net: "hi-speed trains between cities, light rail to the suburbs, monorails and trolleys in town." It's even presented by a "transit advocate." And if it matters at all, the description of the Public Transit stat says "World Census experts captured, tagged, and released trains...", not buses. The puppet already has a very high Public Transit stat, so maybe that's the issue here. But even so, I would expect the stat to go up at least some, not down.

[Sarthinia]

So as you can tell by my country flag I'm currently trying to establish the most conservative, most theocratic and most authoritarian government possible. I get an issue discussing the legality of abortion, one of the options being a literal reverend calling for the banning of abortion in all circumstances for the preservation of the country's morality. This sounds like what I'm aiming for, so I take this choice.

The result of, again, me banning all abortions is a 404% increase in civil rights, a 200% increase in Nudity (???), a 1.5% increase in Intelligence, only a 0.56% increase in Religiousness and, actually, a decrease in Ideological Radicality (-1.6%), Social Conservatism (-1.8%) and Authoritarianism (-4.0%)

I'm baffled.

[SherpDaWerp]

Issue #16, allowing companies to fire people for no reason whenever they want decreases wealth gaps?

This is an annoying problem in the issues sim where we can't directly affect wealth gaps; it's correlated too heavily with overall economic freedom. It's the same problem as issue #434, which was also brought up (and answered offsite) just recently.

We can't individually fix these without causing other, even more unintuitive effects, so for now, just consider it a known bug.

---

I just answered issue # 272 "Slow Down, You’re Going Too Fast" with option 3: getting rid of cars and building tons of rail-based transport systems for everything.
That lowered my Public Transport stat by 0.08%

Hi - sorry if this has come up before, but uh, I answered #272: Slow Down, You’re Going Too Fast (old one I know) with option 3, and uh...
yeah, I did expect cars to be banned I guess (in hindsight that was kinda silly given the blow to my scientific advancement), but I only did it because of this line:
"We need to shift entirely to railroads and get rid of cars AND trucks – hi-speed trains between cities, light rail to the suburbs, monorails and trolleys in town."

My public transportation funding went down. Uh.
I'd accept that maybe private industries might be funding the trains? More? For some reason?
But this kind of implies that the government's doing something to, y'know... actually do something about it?

The same just occurred on my puppet Transportation. Answered Option 3 on Issue #272, and the Public Transport stat fell (Societal Mobility Rating: 23,177.15→23,107.07, ↓ 0.30%). I understand that the issue option does imply a ban on buses too, but the option seems to offer a massive expansion of transit on net: "hi-speed trains between cities, light rail to the suburbs, monorails and trolleys in town." It's even presented by a "transit advocate." And if it matters at all, the description of the Public Transit stat says "World Census experts captured, tagged, and released trains...", not buses. The puppet already has a very high Public Transit stat, so maybe that's the issue here. But even so, I would expect the stat to go up at least some, not down.

I've raised this backstage.

---

So as you can tell by my country flag I'm currently trying to establish the most conservative, most theocratic and most authoritarian government possible. I get an issue discussing the legality of abortion, one of the options being a literal reverend calling for the banning of abortion in all circumstances for the preservation of the country's morality. This sounds like what I'm aiming for, so I take this choice.

The result of, again, me banning all abortions is a 404% increase in civil rights, a 200% increase in Nudity (???), a 1.5% increase in Intelligence, only a 0.56% increase in Religiousness and, actually, a decrease in Ideological Radicality (-1.6%), Social Conservatism (-1.8%) and Authoritarianism (-4.0%)

I'm baffled.

Both sides of the abortion debate increase civil rights; consider it a "rights of the mother" vs "rights of the child" tradeoff. Due to the strength of emotions that this discussion raises, the editing team felt it would be inappropriate to penalise either side with a civil rights decrease, so instead (in most cases, depending on the individual stats of the nation) it'll end up rising.

As for the magnitude of the changes; you're using percentage-based effects in a highly restrictive nation. Moving from a score of 0.5 to a score of 2.5 is a change of only 2 points, but it's a 400% increase. If you're interested in your stats, I recommend turning on "show more stats" in your settings and looking at the raw score changes instead of the percentages.

[Southland]

Not sure of this is the right place, but a puppet nation of mine got Issue #426 ("Women in Uniform Under Fire"). Despite selecting Option 2, Patriotism went down. Wouldn't allowing women to serve in combat roles increase patriotism, since it upholds the right of half the population to fight for their country?

[Verdant Haven]

Not sure of this is the right place, but a puppet nation of mine got Issue #426 ("Women in Uniform Under Fire"). Despite selecting Option 2, Patriotism went down. Wouldn't allowing women to serve in combat roles increase patriotism, since it upholds the right of half the population to fight for their country?

Can't really look into the details without the name of the puppet, but in basic terms, anything that increases freedom or diversity can have a small negative impact on Patriotism.

The stat measures not just "pure" patriotism of the good variety, but is described specifically as a measure of "the fervor with which citizens believed their own nation was the greatest of all" - in other words, patriotism bordering on jingoism. That side the equation tends to be associated with closed-mindedness, hence the slight reduction it can experience from open-minded policies.