[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Luna Amore]

I answered 243.3 with this nation and unlocked my national religion. I've definitely answered that option before, so why has it unlocked my religion now?

It’s a new QOL change. Check out the posts above yours.

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

I answered 243.3 with this nation and unlocked my national religion. I've definitely answered that option before, so why has it unlocked my religion now?

It’s a new QOL change. Check out the posts above yours.

Yeah, sorry about that. Apparently scrolling is too complicated for me now

[Jutsa]

I totally understand...

[Luna Amore]

It’s a new QOL change. Check out the posts above yours.

Yeah, sorry about that. Apparently scrolling is too complicated for me now

No worries, it happens.

[Godular]

How in the bloody heck does building kids skateparks make the weather WORSE?

I swear... the weather metric is bogus in so many ways. I've already accepted at this point that it's because my nation is IC'ly located in the depths of space (and thus not something one would go for a leisurely stroll in), but still.

[Trotterdam]

Apparently skate parks are associated with Culture, and are not associated with Health.

[Totec Oulzipochtli]

Issue 135, option 2.
Is that supposed to lead to a tax cut? I got the impression that it's what the other option is about. I understand that my tax rate is high (or at least was before this issue). But a decrease of 16 percentage points by refusing to make a tax cut? Shouldn't a yes-or-no question have at least one 'no' answer?

[Trithereon]

938.3 was a boost to military spending plus increased use of my military, but defense forces went down?

[The Free Joy State]

948.3 was a boost to military spending plus increased use of my military, but defense forces went down?

#948 does not relate to the military and thus has no military spending encoded. Furthermore, I cannot see where you answered this issue recently.

Ah, you meant #938. The option funds new armaments, and I can see from your results that you gained a substantial increase (from 3,285.70 to 3,693.08) in your arms manufacturing industry. But it didn't offer to boost the size of your military, and so your defence forces did not increase.

I can see that it went down as a secondary effect, as a result of choosing to spend the money on arms, rather than what is described as an "ailing economy". Where those secondary effects will fall is unpredictable. As tests across several nations shows.

Issue working as intended.

For more information on the potential span of usual results on any option, please see Trotterdam's wonderful site: http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/

Issue 135, option 2.
Is that supposed to lead to a tax cut? I got the impression that it's what the other option is about. I understand that my tax rate is high (or at least was before this issue). But a decrease of 16 percentage points by refusing to make a tax cut? Shouldn't a yes-or-no question have at least one 'no' answer?

Tax is a known flaw with the simulation. A rise is programmed, but it sometimes doesn't work the way it's supposed to.

Please see the third answer in the first post of this thread: "Why didn't tax / unemployment / black market do what I expected it to?"

We're currently in the early stages of discussing a new tax system backstage, but that will take a while to agree upon and implement. Please bear with us.

[Land Without Shrimp]

Issue 641 - I picked Option 1 on this, really hoping to improve my abysmal health. Sadly, didn't see any affect on Health at all, which seems odd as the main instigator of this issue is the fact that pollutants are damaging kids' health. I checked Trotterdam's database and I see a 0 change is possible. Ok, but why? Is there a flag in my nation which is hindering health increases? (Having a lot of trouble EVER increasing my nation's health!!) Thanks, just wondering if something is "wrong" with my nation here.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Issue 641 - I picked Option 1 on this, really hoping to improve my abysmal health. Sadly, didn't see any affect on Health at all, which seems odd as the main instigator of this issue is the fact that pollutants are damaging kids' health. I checked Trotterdam's database and I see a 0 change is possible. Ok, but why? Is there a flag in my nation which is hindering health increases? (Having a lot of trouble EVER increasing my nation's health!!) Thanks, just wondering if something is "wrong" with my nation here.

It's not that there's no increase, it's just more to do with whether the change is large enough to register. If you have particularly bad health or particularly good health, the change may be too small a percentage for the sim to consider it worth reporting.

[Land Without Shrimp]

Issue 641 - I picked Option 1 on this, really hoping to improve my abysmal health. Sadly, didn't see any affect on Health at all, which seems odd as the main instigator of this issue is the fact that pollutants are damaging kids' health. I checked Trotterdam's database and I see a 0 change is possible. Ok, but why? Is there a flag in my nation which is hindering health increases? (Having a lot of trouble EVER increasing my nation's health!!) Thanks, just wondering if something is "wrong" with my nation here.

It's not that there's no increase, it's just more to do with whether the change is large enough to register. If you have particularly bad health or particularly good health, the change may be too small a percentage for the sim to consider it worth reporting.

Understood. It's definitely not my particularly good health!! Appreciate the answer.

[Samudera]

I just answered issue 1014 with option 2, but it seemed to significantly decreased my secularity and increased my religiousness instead. It also cancelled Atheism policy as well

It seems weird for me, is it an error or it is working as intended?

[The Free Joy State]

I just answered issue 1014 with option 2, but it seemed to significantly decreased my secularity and increased my religiousness instead. It also cancelled Atheism policy as well

It seems weird for me, is it an error or it is working as intended?

It's working as intended. #1014.2 gives your citizens the option to choose atheism, through rational (presumably irreligious) education rather than force. A nation without compulsory atheism would usually become more atheist, but a nation with compulsory atheism becomes -- conversely -- more accepting of religion.

Although you did receive a rise in religiousness, in raw numbers it was actually pretty small (from 2.04 to 2.53).

[Samudera]

I just answered issue 1014 with option 2, but it seemed to significantly decreased my secularity and increased my religiousness instead. It also cancelled Atheism policy as well

It seems weird for me, is it an error or it is working as intended?

It's working as intended. #1014.2 gives your citizens the option to choose atheism, through rational (presumably irreligious) education rather than force. A nation without compulsory atheism would usually become more atheist, but a nation with compulsory atheism becomes -- conversely -- more accepting of religion.

Although you did receive a rise in religiousness, in raw numbers it was actually pretty small (from 2.04 to 2.53).

Ah well, thanks for the answer. Im still disappointed though with the drastic decrease of secularism. Now i'm in the top 4% :/

[Apabeossie]

WHY DID THE FIRST OPTION IN Hackles raised over fur coats debate RESULT IN LOWER ECO-FRIENDLINESS?(Banning fur coats)

[Trotterdam]

WHY DID THE FIRST OPTION IN Hackles raised over fur coats debate RESULT IN LOWER ECO-FRIENDLINESS?(Banning fur coats)

Eco-friendliness actually represents the amount of money your government is spending on the environment. So if your economy goes down (due to the banning of certain industries), and your government consequently is able to raise less tax money, it can't spend as much money on the environment anymore, even if it wants to.

Actual Environmental Beauty is not affected by either option on that issue at all. Probably this is because the first option establishes that most of the fur is coming from farming of domestic animals, which wouldn't hurt wild animals much. However, the second speaker does want to "stock rarer animals" (implicitly, ones that aren't commonly farmed and so have to be hunted in the wild), so that option not reducing Environmental Beauty is worth a review.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

WHY DID THE FIRST OPTION IN Hackles raised over fur coats debate RESULT IN LOWER ECO-FRIENDLINESS?(Banning fur coats)

Eco-friendliness actually represents the amount of money your government is spending on the environment. So if your economy goes down (due to the banning of certain industries), and your government consequently is able to raise less tax money, it can't spend as much money on the environment anymore, even if it wants to.

This is correct. No government department is singled out.

Actual Environmental Beauty is not affected by either option on that issue at all. Probably this is because the first option establishes that most of the fur is coming from farming of domestic animals, which wouldn't hurt wild animals much. However, the second speaker does want to "stock rarer animals" (implicitly, ones that aren't commonly farmed and so have to be hunted in the wild), so that option not reducing Environmental Beauty is worth a review.

I don't know if wild hunting is strongly implied enough to justify the stat change. You could just be importing them, or allowing breeding of pandas for their fur, or whatever.

[Trotterdam]

Actual Environmental Beauty is not affected by either option on that issue at all. Probably this is because the first option establishes that most of the fur is coming from farming of domestic animals, which wouldn't hurt wild animals much. However, the second speaker does want to "stock rarer animals" (implicitly, ones that aren't commonly farmed and so have to be hunted in the wild), so that option not reducing Environmental Beauty is worth a review.

I don't know if wild hunting is strongly implied enough to justify the stat change. You could just be importing them, or allowing breeding of pandas for their fur, or whatever.

Well, even if you're captive-breeding them, you'd still need to capture your initial breeding stock from the wild, which would deplete their population. Rather rapidly, if multiple farmers get the idea to try this at the same time, and keep in mind that you need a reasonably large breeding pool to be properly self-sufficient.

The main reason I'm thinking this is implied to hurt endangered species is that "if the government would allow us to stock rarer animals" implies that there's a reason to ban it in the first place. If the animal is not endangered and obtaining its fur would not harm the environment (and you don't have a blanket ban on all fur, rare or not), any alleged "rarity" in the fur trade would likely be because there's no market demand for it rather than because the government is being a spoilsport.

The game is inconsistent about how policies that affect the global environment are represented by your own nation's Environmental Beauty score. In #937, enacting policies that improve or worsen the environment in Brancaland (by preventing or encouraging deforestation) affect your own Environmental Beauty in the same direction. However, in #356, dumping your waste in international waters will improve your own Environmental Beauty on the basis that it's not your problem anymore, and the same goes for #97 which allows you to pay other nations to take your waste. Some issues, like #647 and #685, narratively justfy why something happening in another nation would affect your own's environment, but the aforementioned ones don't. Regardless, it seems reasonable to assume that there is at least one endangered species with pretty fur which is native to @@NAME@@, so even if some or even most of the demand is being met by imports, probably not all of it will be.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Yeah, as you say, it's an inconsistent thing.

One of the big advantages of the big stat review I've been doing is that while there are still weird and quirky interpretations going on in the issues I've reviewed (up to 341 and counting now) they're now consistently weird and quirky in the same ways, because it's one person inflicting their view of the game systems.

My thoughts here is that while you're certainly right that there would be some knock-on effect in the environment, I think the impact is (in my judgement) small enough to be rounded down to 0 quanta of primary environmental beauty movement as opposed to rounded up to 1 quantum of the same. So basically, I think I'll leave it as it is.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

How come choosing Option 1 for #1014 did not increase my secularism?


https://prnt.sc/jycj3f

[The Free Joy State]

How come choosing Option 1 for #1014 did not increase my secularism?


https://prnt.sc/jycj3f

It's the old, "where you end depends on where you start" answer. I checked your backstage stats, and the basic answer is that your hidden stats -- which produce the score you can see -- were pretty high for secularism already. Once you get beyond a certain level on any stat, it sometimes takes a lot to move them further.

The lesson being, I suppose, that -- on NS -- once you go so far, you can start killing your citizens and the stats won't really notice the difference.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

How come choosing Option 1 for #1014 did not increase my secularism?


https://prnt.sc/jycj3f

It's the old, "where you end depends on where you start" answer. I checked your backstage stats, and the basic answer is that your hidden stats -- which produce the score you can see -- were pretty high for secularism already. Once you get beyond a certain level on any stat, it sometimes takes a lot to move them further.

The lesson being, I suppose, that -- on NS -- once you go so far, you can start killing your citizens and the stats won't really notice the difference.

I see. That's bad. So I instituted a capital punishment policy for basically nothing.

OK, thanks.

[The Free Joy State]

It's the old, "where you end depends on where you start" answer. I checked your backstage stats, and the basic answer is that your hidden stats -- which produce the score you can see -- were pretty high for secularism already. Once you get beyond a certain level on any stat, it sometimes takes a lot to move them further.

The lesson being, I suppose, that -- on NS -- once you go so far, you can start killing your citizens and the stats won't really notice the difference.

I see. That's bad. So I instituted a capital punishment policy for basically nothing.

OK, thanks.

Sorry I don't have better news.

You'll be glad to know that six issues get rid of capital punishment: #311.3, #318.1, #631.7, #806.3, #828.5, and #835.5 all allow you to reverse your decision.

Any one of those should make a significant improvement on the civil rights you dented with this decision (though they will probably not undo the impact completely; it will probably take a little while to put them back to where they were before).

Keep an eye out in case one of them rolls around.

[Leutria]

Should he have even gotten that issue? Surely you need a fair bit religiousness to get that issue in addition to having banned religion. If Frieden-und Freudenland is in the top 0.07% of the world for secularism, does getting that issue really make narrative sense?