[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Fauxia]

188.4 (banning video games) did not decrease civil rights on Faurexus. While the higher civil rights is nice, shouldn’t banning a common form of entertainment decrease civil rights?

[Burbaadistan]

Nation: Burbaadistan
Day: 23rd August 2020
Issue: Derailing the Gravy Train (#307)
Unusual effect: Now that "newspapers cannot report anything about politicians without their explicit consent", integrity has gone up by 0.95%, and corrupption has gone down by 1.1%. i rather think it should be the other way round...

[Honeydewistania]

On Honeydewistania just now, I answered 1264.3 and my niceness increased by 5% even though it’s about starving citizens in flood disasters. Was that intentional?

[Allenstadt]

https://www.nationstates.net/page=enact ... ilemma=353
For this issue, both my Taxation AND my freedom from taxation decreased! why?

[Of Zigarozia]

https://www.nationstates.net/page=enact ... ilemma=908
My corruption increased?!

[Westinor]

Posting a link to the results page of an issue doesn’t allow others to see the results, only the issue number. Providing the Name, Issue number, option chosen, and date the issue was received would probably be more helpful to the Issue Editors (not an Issues editor).

[The Free Joy State]

188.4 (banning video games) did not decrease civil rights on Faurexus. While the higher civil rights is nice, shouldn’t banning a common form of entertainment decrease civil rights?

The option was more an impingement on ability to sell than play. Although lack of availability would impact ability to play, it was not a primary effect, so is not represented in your effects.

Working as intended. Enjoy the higher civil rights!

Nation: Burbaadistan
Day: 23rd August 2020
Issue: Derailing the Gravy Train (#307)
Unusual effect: Now that "newspapers cannot report anything about politicians without their explicit consent", integrity has gone up by 0.95%, and corrupption has gone down by 1.1%. i rather think it should be the other way round...

These are both secondary effects (caused by the primary effects input backstage interacting with your own nation). This is actually an interesting option, because it controls what can be printed, but does so (at least ostensibly) in the name of preventing the distortion of fact (which partly explains the fall in corruption).

Integrity, however, may not change at all, or may even have a little fall, depending on the individual nation).

As an aside, I have your raw numbers in front of me. If you are yet to do it, I suggest you turn on "Show More Stats" in your Settings, so you can see them too (percentages can be a little alarming). They show your corruption only fell from 91.53 to 90.54 and your integrity only rose from 61.29 to 61.87.

On Honeydewistania just now, I answered 1264.3 and my niceness increased by 5% even though it’s about starving citizens in flood disasters. Was that intentional?

This is because the government was buying food -- albeit stale -- from a merchant to feed starving citizens. Other nations would not see the same magnitude of a rise, but your nation's niceness stats are comparatively low.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=enact_dilemma/dilemma=353
For this issue, both my Taxation AND my freedom from taxation decreased! why?

That's due to the way the economic simulator works in this game. To learn more about our economic simulator, I recommend going to the OP of this thread and reading Candlewhisper Archive's post, especially under "Why didn't tax / unemployment / black market do what I expected it to?"

https://www.nationstates.net/page=enact_dilemma/dilemma=908
My corruption increased?!

Yeah, I see what happened. I have amended that issue.

In future, this should not happen.

Posting a link to the results page of an issue doesn’t allow others to see the results, only the issue number. Providing the Name, Issue number, option chosen, and date the issue was received would probably be more helpful to the Issue Editors (not an Issues editor).

And, for future reference, Westinor is right. This is the format we require.

[Westinor]

I just received Issue 770 (Vaping Up A Storm) on Anestoria, and chose Option 1. Curiously enough, this dropped my Health and Lifespan stats. I thought this was strange, since vaping tends to be associated with negative health effects. Is this an error?

[Honeydewistania]

I just received Issue 770 (Vaping Up A Storm) on Anestoria, and chose Option 1. Curiously enough, this dropped my Health and Lifespan stats. I thought this was strange, since vaping tends to be associated with negative health effects. Is this an error?

No, because everyone who vapes will start smoking instead, which is worse.

[Insaafistan]

Nation: Insaafistan
Day: 29th August 2020
Issue: Flash, Aaaaaargh! (#543)
Unusual effect: Now that "Sullen teenagers in bright orange 'community payback' onesies can be seen picking litter at the roadside.", civil rights have gone up by 4.5%, and authoritarianism has gone down by 1.9%. is that supposed to happen?

Nation: Insaafistan
Day: 30th August 2020
Issue: Nudists Demand Time in Sun (#8)
Unusual effect: "Nudity is frowned upon" but nudity levels haven't gone down at all. Nudity is already pretty low though, so maybe that explains it.

[The Finntopian Empire]

Yay, first query two queries is are mine!

Why did banning bungees on Autocracian Lands decrease its already low lifespan? Albeit only slightly? This was today, issue 376

Also, why does 417.2 always decrease political freedom? It seems unfair to the player, who commonly will use the leader as a representation of themself. Yet when they don't have an affair and say so to their people, corruption skyrockets, and political freedom decreases. What if my leader just, didn't have an affair?

about the bunjee jumping thing maybe since thay couldnt have fun they just killed themselves

[Lamenia]

It’s Hard to Separate the Truth From Entertainment No. 1082.
Option 3: “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.”
Now, I don't know if policies count as issue effects, or if this goes in the writer's block, but I chose this...
And I got autocracy? The option literally states that it's still democracy. Hell, isn't it more democratic then having others make laws for you? My political freedoms also went from "world benchmark" to "very good".
Wtf?

[Fauxia]

It’s Hard to Separate the Truth From Entertainment No. 1082.
Option 3: “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.”
Now, I don't know if policies count as issue effects, or if this goes in the writer's block, but I chose this...
And I got autocracy? The option literally states that it's still democracy. Hell, isn't it more democratic then having others make laws for you? My political freedoms also went from "world benchmark" to "very good".
Wtf?

The speaker may define it as democracy, but it’s clearly autocracy from the game’s point of view (the nation does not hold democratic elections)

[Insaafistan]

Nation: Insaafistan
Date: 11th Sept 2020
Issue: #193 (Robots leaving workers jobless)
Unusual effect: i thought banning automation would boost my employment but it actually decreased it, albeit very slightly. i guess it could be cos certain businesses could no longer stay afloat due to increased production costs so some of the people who still had jobs lost them, but i wanted to confirm.

[Westinor]

Nation: Insaafistan
Date: 11th Sept 2020
Issue: #193 (Robots leaving workers jobless)
Unusual effect: i thought banning automation would boost my employment but it actually decreased it, albeit very slightly. i guess it could be cos certain businesses could no longer stay afloat due to increased production costs so some of the people who still had jobs lost them, but i wanted to confirm.

I believe Employment is based off of other stats, leading to certain wonky situations like that one.

[Paffnia]

Just got #479: @@LEADER@@, Put On The Yellow Light on Golden Gate. I chose Option #2, and the Industry: Information Technology stat went down. I did not have Option #3 available. It seems like choosing to promote app-based ridehail services should increase, not decrease, the IT sector (especially when the self-driving car option is unavailable as a choice).

[Rhim Flavezztowland]

Nation: Rhim Flavezztowland
Date: September 18, 2020
Issue: #866 (O Medication, Where Art Thou?)
Effect: I was shocked to see my nation's crime rate rise by 0.40% after I answered this issue by choosing option #3! Why did this happen? Is this a bug in the code for the game?

[Luna Amore]

Just got #479: @@LEADER@@, Put On The Yellow Light on Golden Gate. I chose Option #2, and the Industry: Information Technology stat went down. I did not have Option #3 available. It seems like choosing to promote app-based ridehail services should increase, not decrease, the IT sector (especially when the self-driving car option is unavailable as a choice).

The issue is primarily about the right to compete in the market rather than the technology involved. If you have a smart phone, a new app doesn't represent a leap or an investment in technological improvement.

Nation: Rhim Flavezztowland
Date: September 18, 2020
Issue: #866 (O Medication, Where Art Thou?)
Effect: I was shocked to see my nation's crime rate rise by 0.40% after I answered this issue by choosing option #3! Why did this happen? Is this a bug in the code for the game?

Considering how small the change (2.49 -> 2.50), it was a knockdown effect from the bigger changes in the issue. Looks fine.

[Hergonae]

Issue Name:
Students Demand Financial Aid
Nation Name:
Hergonae

I encountered this weird issue effect today.
I chose the option where goverment pays for tuitions but instead of raising the tax it lowers it by 2.2%.

[The Free Joy State]

Issue Name:
Students Demand Financial Aid
Nation Name:
Hergonae

I encountered this weird issue effect today.
I chose the option where goverment pays for tuitions but instead of raising the tax it lowers it by 2.2%.

Taxation is a known limitation within our simulation, solely representing income tax. This is explained a bit more in the OP of this thread. I suggest looking under "Why didn't tax / unemployment / black market do what I expected it to?"

[Trotterdam]

Maybe this is more of a Technical issue, but I happened to notice that my database currently has 16 nations with both the Gun Control ("Citizens are forbidden from owning firearms.") and Gun Ownership ("Gun Ownership") policies. This... probably shouldn't happen.

10ki_card_farm_hs_78
almadaria
card_farmer_1993
javlena
militaryland
mini_ossulu
moonbutt
osick
second_best_puppet_150
second_best_puppet_178
second_best_puppet_88
sundiata
the_far_southern_swamplands
ump310
vlasisitan
zip240

There might be a few more than these 16 that I didn't catch due to being in the WA or other complications, though it clearly isn't a common occurence. Still, not something that should logically ever happen at all.

On further inspection, the earlier issues that set Gun Control (up to #488) seem to be manually coded to also remove Gun Ownership while they're at it rather than this being an inherent property of the model, but some of the later issues forget to do this. At least #629 1 and ironically #1235 4 are confirmed to have this problem, while #698 4 and 933 #3 and even #137 2 are unconfirmed either way (I haven't seen anyone with Gun Ownership pick them).

Oddly, #137 1 does remove Gun Ownership. I guess it does technically say "relaxation of gun laws", but that seems to be against the spirit of the option.

[Random Country 453632]

Issue 127.3 is about a surging death rate, but there is absolutely no related stats change!

[The Free Joy State]

Issue 127.3 is about a surging death rate, but there is absolutely no related stats change!

The Death Rate is a secondary stat. Basically, it's based on a huge number of the backstage stats we put in, interacting with your own nation, and providing an output. However, because every nation is in a different place, every nation gets a different result (some nations will see a rise in the death rate with option three).

Secondly, it's worth considering that we stat to the wording of the option, not the effect lines; effect lines are one-liners, often a joke, sometimes a quotation or reference, designed to hopefully make people smile or chuckle, or perhaps think.

The option is statted appropriately, and the issue is working as intended.

[Authoritaria-Imperia]

Nation: Authoritaria-Imperia
Time: Basically just now (see original post time)
Issue: #972: "Sing Heil!", option 2

“It’s too late, your magnum opus has been ruined,” sighs Layla O'Brien, while offering a comforting shoulder to the previous speaker. “The zombies, it seems we need to have another song. One that would be impossible for them to corrupt, like a song showcasing how much we love sparkly rainbows!”

I'm perplexed as to how this left my Cheerfulness stat alone, affecting only Inclusiveness and Rudeness — I'd understand if my country was already super cheerful and this was in keeping with previous government decisions, but I'm in the top 87% or something for that stat.

Edit: Changed option text to match what I say instead of being copy-pasted from the spoiler list.

[The Free Joy State]

Nation: Authoritaria-Imperia
Time: Basically just now (see original post time)
Issue: #972: "Sing Heil!", option 2

“It’s too late, your magnum opus has been ruined,” sighs Layla O'Brien, while offering a comforting shoulder to the previous speaker. “The zombies, it seems we need to have another song. One that would be impossible for them to corrupt, like a song showcasing how much we love sparkly rainbows!”

I'm perplexed as to how this left my Cheerfulness stat alone, affecting only Inclusiveness and Rudeness — I'd understand if my country was already super cheerful and this was in keeping with previous government decisions, but I'm in the top 87% or something for that stat.

Edit: Changed option text to match what I say instead of being copy-pasted from the spoiler list.

I can see why a song about the people's love of sparkly rainbows might be thought to boost Cheerfulness, but the option doesn't point to a boost -- just to having a new magnum opus that is not possible to corrupt (also, what of the people in @@NAME@@ who actually really don't like sparkly rainbows and have to sing about them before every major sporting event...).

The issue is working as expected.