[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[The Free Joy State]

On the issue Tariff-ic Trouble (#1134, which I just answered on this nation 5/13/2019), why did my business subsidization go up when I selected the "invertebrates of the year" option that tries to negotiate by responding to a tariff increase by lowering tariffs? I would have expected if anything that bending over to a foreign trade partner to give them a fairer deal would have lowered business subsidization.

Business Subsidization is a secondary stat, made up of the backstage stats mixing with your own frontstage stats. In this case, you could think of it this way: lowering the tariffs indirectly impacted subsidisation by making it easier for your nation's businesses to import the goods they need (reducing overhead costs for businesses to import raw materials to make products).

Really, it is a secondary stat, made up a complex list of interacting stats, and it doesn't work the same on every nation. But that's a good way to think of it IC'ly.

[All are Equal]

Why would adding drugs to my drinking water turn me into a dictatorship? That seems WAY extreme.

[Luna Amore]

Why would adding drugs to my drinking water turn me into a dictatorship? That seems WAY extreme.

Issue/Choice/Nation.
Every report.

You've been doing this for years.

Looking back, I'm not sure you've ever posted correctly in this thread. It ain't hard.

[All are Equal]

Why would adding drugs to my drinking water turn me into a dictatorship? That seems WAY extreme.

Issue/Choice/Nation.
Every report.

You've been doing this for years.

Looking back, I'm not sure you've ever posted correctly in this thread. It ain't hard.

Okay then: WHERE IS THE ISSUE NUMBER?! I give PLENTY of information to answer my question! If you don't WANT TO, I completely understand.

[The Free Joy State]

You've been doing this for years.

Looking back, I'm not sure you've ever posted correctly in this thread. It ain't hard.

Okay then: WHERE IS THE ISSUE NUMBER?! I give PLENTY of information to answer my question! If you don't WANT TO, I completely understand.

We will not search through all your issues to track down an issue based on a vague description. It's time consuming, and you have been making reports long enough to know what we need from you.

If you do not have the number, we will accept the name.

But, in future, please report only if you have the issue name or number, the option you picked, the date (if not today), the nation (if not this one), and the effect you think is unusual.

And it's worth remembering that being polite makes us more inclined to want to help you.

[Trotterdam]

Issue number: #597, option number: 3.

[The Chuck]

- The name of the nation that had this effect: The Chuck
- The day that this effect was encountered: 5/17/2019
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Issue #65, Should Martial Law Be Declared?

I selected choice #3 which states,

“Look, we do need more security, but we can’t sacrifice all of our freedoms. Just increase the police force and allow local militias to tool up and assist them,” says Tamara Gutenberg, a long-retired cop who’s been itching to start patrolling again. “There might end up being more guns on the street, but at least the right people will be pointing them at the right heads.”

One of the side effects was that it actually caused my Weaponization to drop by 0.82%. I assume this is another case of "So much that it decreases". Unfortunately it was annoying but if this is the case, I guess I understand.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

- The name of the nation that had this effect: The Chuck
- The day that this effect was encountered: 5/17/2019
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Issue #65, Should Martial Law Be Declared?

I selected choice #3 which states,

“Look, we do need more security, but we can’t sacrifice all of our freedoms. Just increase the police force and allow local militias to tool up and assist them,” says Tamara Gutenberg, a long-retired cop who’s been itching to start patrolling again. “There might end up being more guns on the street, but at least the right people will be pointing them at the right heads.”

One of the side effects was that it actually caused my Weaponization to drop by 0.82%. I assume this is another case of "So much that it decreases". Unfortunately it was annoying but if this is the case, I guess I understand.

<-- Not an issues editor or mod

Actually, I'd guess that it's a knock on effect of the tumble in Crime (cause more cops/militia folk) The Chuck has recently enjoyed.

[Alterrum]

Chose option 2 (allow homebrewing) of issue #1108: A Whiskey Rebellion Brewing. As a result, the black market and wealth gaps increased. The first should be the other way around completely; by definition, I've declared such dealings 'white'. Regarding wealth distribution, a wider ownership of the means of production in a capitalist economy should reduce wealth gaps.

[The Free Joy State]

- The name of the nation that had this effect: The Chuck
- The day that this effect was encountered: 5/17/2019
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue: Issue #65, Should Martial Law Be Declared?

I selected choice #3 which states,

“Look, we do need more security, but we can’t sacrifice all of our freedoms. Just increase the police force and allow local militias to tool up and assist them,” says Tamara Gutenberg, a long-retired cop who’s been itching to start patrolling again. “There might end up being more guns on the street, but at least the right people will be pointing them at the right heads.”

One of the side effects was that it actually caused my Weaponization to drop by 0.82%. I assume this is another case of "So much that it decreases". Unfortunately it was annoying but if this is the case, I guess I understand.

Basically, yes. You have so many gun rights already that the gun rights are higher than the threshold to be taken into account by the stats, so wouldn't impact weaponization.

You could think of it that, in your case, your populace actually start concealing their guns due to the presence of a local militia, meaning there's fewer visible weapons around.

Chose option 2 (allow homebrewing) of issue #1108: A Whiskey Rebellion Brewing. As a result, the black market and wealth gaps increased. The first should be the other way around completely; by definition, I've declared such dealings 'white'. Regarding wealth distribution, a wider ownership of the means of production in a capitalist economy should reduce wealth gaps.

Black market is a secondary stat, and I recommend you see the OP under "Why didn't tax / unemployment / black market do what I expected it to?" for a more detailed explanation.

As for your wealth gaps, it's worth remembering that they are also a secondary effect and one we do not code directly. Wealth gaps are impacted by a wide variety of backstage stats mixing with your own, and they can be unpredictable.

However, it's worth saying that this is an extreme pro-business option, that values the economy over consumer safety ("If some unscrupulous individual lets heavy metals leech in, or adds something unsafe, that’s not the fault of we connoisseurs! The government needs to back off, and give us all the liberty to make what we want in the privacy of our own homes!").

This is not an unusual effect.

[Stormcalling]

Why did option 1 of Issue #1050 ("Criminal Guns Soon to Be Shooting Blanks") switch from causing an increase in crime to begin causing a decrease in crime?

[The Free Joy State]

Why did option 1 of Issue #1050 ("Criminal Guns Soon to Be Shooting Blanks") switch from causing an increase in crime to begin causing a decrease in crime?

Can you tell me the date you received this issue, so I can check the effect? I can see you haven't received it in the last five days.

EDIT: In fact, you don't appear to have ever received it on this nation. Did you answer on a puppet?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

For the record though, 1050's stats have been the same since publication.

[Australian rePublic]

How in the fudge does 613.3 increase authoritarianism and decrease civil rights?

[The Free Joy State]

How in the fudge does 613.3 increase authoritarianism and decrease civil rights?

This option is a balance of two rights: the increased right of people who want to make nude and unflattering images of public figures, and the reduced right of public figures to have privacy.

Speech is already pretty free in your nation, so that increased freedom wasn't really represented in the stats, meaning that the increased impingement on the privacy of public figures was reflected more in the stats, leading to a loss in civil rights (from 83.71 to 83.14).

Authoritarianism is a secondary stat that tends to rise when your civil rights fall.

[Emazia]

Happened to me, today, Issue 988. I prevented the poor from getting education and yet somehow income equality increases?!

[Liberal Thermidorian Reaction]

I received the issue "An International Dictatorial Dilemma" which is #1087, and I chose option number 3. This increased both niceness and rudeness. I think that's a bit contradictory. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.

[The Free Joy State]

Happened to me, today, Issue 988. I prevented the poor from getting education and yet somehow income equality increases?!

Income equality is a secondary stat, influenced by a huge number of hidden backstage stats, some of which are correctly present here. As such, it is quite unpredictable. Here, the change was accentuated by the fact that your income equality was fairly low before (the closer you are to either extreme, the more noticeable the change when it moves the other way).

There's nothing unusual in this change.

I received the issue "An International Dictatorial Dilemma" which is #1087, and I chose option number 3. This increased both niceness and rudeness. I think that's a bit contradictory. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.

Rudeness and niceness are both impacted by different sets of backstage stats, and can both change independently of each other.

If you have people who are both nice and rude, IC'ly you can think of it that at least some of your people are probably both glacially polite to a fault and also incredibly sniffy.

[Iskadar Tusdeta]

If selecting option #1 of Issue 635 results in 50% of marketing to children being for shirts of cotton wool, shouldn't that result in a buff to agriculture? I know the "Agriculture" stat expands unpleasantly into "Beef-Based Agriculture", but cotton wool is also directly an agricultural product.

(Vegetarian nations should still be able to have farmers; they should lose the "beef-based" modifier... Ditto for anti-nuclear nations still being potentially miners, just not "uranium" miners... But this is broad grousing, pardon.)

I received the issue "An International Dictatorial Dilemma" which is #1087, and I chose option number 3. This increased both niceness and rudeness. I think that's a bit contradictory. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.

In addition to "glacially polite, but a bit sniffy", for nice+rude you might also imagine such patterns as "sincerely well-intended criticisms", "unusually gentle insults", "ready willingness to breach established relationships on principle", and "wide societal disparities of niceness and rudeness".

[The Free Joy State]

If selecting option #1 of Issue 635 results in 50% of marketing to children being for shirts of cotton wool, shouldn't that result in a buff to agriculture? I know the "Agriculture" stat expands unpleasantly into "Beef-Based Agriculture", but cotton wool is also directly an agricultural product.

(Vegetarian nations should still be able to have farmers; they should lose the "beef-based" modifier... Ditto for anti-nuclear nations still being potentially miners, just not "uranium" miners... But this is broad grousing, pardon.)

We don't stat according to effect lines.

The option is statted in accordance with the option itself, and the changes received are appropriate.

As for the industries and sectors, they have been coded by admin to have standardised names and those names don't change in response to unique policies. Assume your agriculture sector includes more than animals being slaughtered.

[Honeydewistania]

I removed VAT and freedom from taxation goes down? What???????

[The Free Joy State]

I removed VAT and freedom from taxation goes down? What???????

When you report an unusual effect, please report the issue name/number, the option you picked, the date (if not today), the nation (if you answered on a puppet).

Thanks!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Also the FAQ in the first post of this thread will cover your query.
Copy and pasted for your convenience:

- Why didn't tax fall when an option described a corporation tax cut / sales tax cut?

The tax model of the game is very simplistic, and it basically abstracts all spending as income tax and doesn't take into account any idea of government borrowing, deficit spending or tax from sources other than income tax.

That gives us limited tools for simulation.

Corporation tax is rolled into business subsidisation, with lowering of corporate tax representing an effective business subsidisation, and a shifting of tax burden onto the income taxpayer.

Sales tax and VAT, meanwhile, move income tax inversely, as raising more revenue from these forms of taxation decreases the burden on income tax, and vice versa.

This isn't entirely satisfactory, of course, as it means that the descriptions of "Freedom From Taxation" on the graphs aren't accurate, but it's reflective of how the game engine is written and of the simulation's limitations. It basically isn't possible to have burden of taxation and income tax move in opposite directions, as in the simulation all measured tax = income tax.

[Merni]

I selected issue 156 option 3, with the following effect line:

"Heavy industry must go to expensive lengths to dispose of waste."

and, while my Environmental Beauty increased, my Eco-Friendliness actually decreased by about 200 points. This doesn't seem to make sense to me.

(issue answered on this nation, today, 24.5.2019)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I selected issue 156 option 3, with the following effect line:

"Heavy industry must go to expensive lengths to dispose of waste."

and, while my Environmental Beauty increased, my Eco-Friendliness actually decreased by about 200 points. This doesn't seem to make sense to me.

(issue answered on this nation, today, 24.5.2019)

Eco-friendliness is basically a measure of how much your government spends on the environment.

What happened here was two things.

Firstly, you up-prioritised environmental spending, which ought to increase eco-friendliness.
Secondly though, your economy shrank from the various restrictions, which then had a knock on effect on all government departments, which all had to shrink spending in turn. Which is weird, I know, but that's how it works.

Anyway, the option is coded as might be expected, but the game engine can result in a counterintuitive result for some nations.
Poking Trotterdam's stat doodad, we can see that for his current sample Eco-friendliness reads as:

-275.15 to +523.71 Eco-Friendliness (mean +190.4689)

so mostly folk will see this as an eco-friendly move, but for some nations, yours included, knock on effects from other stats result in a drop in eco-spending (though to a lesser degree than spending on other departments).