Refactoring (was: Refactor preview)

[[violet]]

Why...how...is this happening? (please help)

Current > Refactored
Government size: -53 > 141
Industry size: -1,248 > -2,521.6
Publicly owned industry: ? > 0%
Public Sector size: 0.0% > 100.0%
Income tax: 0% > 66%

On top of that, it still (accurately) maintains that the government has no "detectable expenditure".

Considering the history of my nation and the many issues I have answered, I can understand some shifts, but I have always directed that nation towards 0% tax, complete private industry, extremely small government (or, as it called it before "a small group of community minded individuals"), and no detectable spending. Now it looks like my nation is a socialist land where our only industry is religion.

I hope this can be amended.

This is definitely a bug. Thank you for pointing it out! It is occurring in nations with negative industry size and particularly visible when they also have small governments.

[[violet]]

When will this Commence?

Probably Tuesday.

[Avaerilon]

Excellent! Cookies to all those involved with developing Refactor (::) (::) (::)

[New Dales]

Will it be possible to say be anti-business a far as 'private' business goes while being pro-business when it comes to 'publicly owned' business?

[1st Kramia]

I'm not sure if this is still discussed at all but since feedback was openly asked for:

I don't think per capita calculations make a whole lot of sense if population simply uniformly grows over time.
But since this uniform growth is very much ingrained into the system, it won't really work to just change that now.

Now what could be done about that? Nothing particularly natural comes to mind.
The only idea I'd have is to add something like an "effective population" as a secondary population value which, however, keeps track of things like age/sex (and if the nation has the corresponding laws, perhaps even more differentiated gender stuff)/birth rates/death rates/migration and all relevant issue decisions that deal with wages, pensions, etc - all the stuff that is relevant for economy and wealth distribution.

This value would probably be hidden and it'd be the actual thing, stuff like per capita GDP would be calculated for.
Having something like that could also open the door for much more detailed graphs about the people that inhabit your nation.
This would also mean that things like Health or Lifespan could actually be more than just a value you can increase or decrease (at least I assume those aren't used anywhere else).
It most certainly would be an adhoc solution but it may be worth it. - In the real world it's very frequently much more interesting to think about various values on a per-capita-basis but that only makes sense if population isn't merely a measure of time.

Obviously I don't think a change like this would happen any time soon - for now, keeping absolute GDP (etc.) as the major thing seems like the reasonable choice.
But eventually, I'd hope that something akin to this would happen such that GDPPC can happen in a useful manner.

[[violet]]

So what on earth can I do about this? Mine jumps from 19℅ to 97℅ its ridiculous!

You are punishing me for one decision made years ago, which I don't seem to be able to undo. Is the point to get older nations to re-roll?

You posted earlier and I answered you here.

Your nation has been relentlessly anti-industry over a long period of time; it's not one decision. But yes, you can undo it, if you want to. What you can't do is keep taxes down while providing extensive public services and eliminating all other ways of funding them.

I owe you an apology, Sassain, because your nation is in the same boat as The Gallant Old Republic, having a negative industry size but relatively small government when compared to the number of issues answered. So your tax rate should indeed be lower.

[[violet]]

Will it be possible to say be anti-business a far as 'private' business goes while being pro-business when it comes to 'publicly owned' business?

Certainly, e.g. Lenyo has no private business but a large industrial sector, all of it state-owned.

[Oceanic Vakiadia]

I'm excited for my tax rate correction. Thanks NS.

[Divergia]

Will it be possible to say be anti-business a far as 'private' business goes while being pro-business when it comes to 'publicly owned' business?

Certainly, e.g. Lenyo has no private business but a large industrial sector, all of it state-owned.

Isn't that significantly harder since the vast majority of issues are based around Private Entities?

[La Sola Island]

Why...how...is this happening? (please help)

Current > Refactored
Government size: -53 > 141
Industry size: -1,248 > -2,521.6
Publicly owned industry: ? > 0%
Public Sector size: 0.0% > 100.0%
Income tax: 0% > 66%

On top of that, it still (accurately) maintains that the government has no "detectable expenditure".

Considering the history of my nation and the many issues I have answered, I can understand some shifts, but I have always directed that nation towards 0% tax, complete private industry, extremely small government (or, as it called it before "a small group of community minded individuals"), and no detectable spending. Now it looks like my nation is a socialist land where our only industry is religion.

I hope this can be amended.

This is definitely a bug. Thank you for pointing it out! It is occurring in nations with negative industry size and particularly visible when they also have small governments.

This also explains why I thought my nation was a bit weird (back on page 8 ). Good to know it was a bug in a way, be interested to see any changes once that is fixed.

[Jinwoy]

Quick question: when my economy chart has a slice named "government" when opposed to Private Industry, what does it mean? How is it different from State Industry?

[The Only Empire]

Quick question: when my economy chart has a slice named "government" when opposed to Private Industry, what does it mean? How is it different from State Industry?

If I understand correctly, state owned industry is when the company is owned/funded by the nation, but not explicitly ruled by it, while the 'government' slice represents the government graph, and everything there completely state controlled . I guess.

[Nuremgard]

Just wanted to ask something. Currently, I have a large public sector but when my nation is refactored, the private industry slice of the chart becomes so much larger. Why is this if I broadly favour the public sector?

And one more question. Let's say for example I answered an issue which would create/increase my defence budget, would money be taken away from other government departments to fund it? Because that was something that always irritated me about the old form of the game.

[Nedea]

Man, I have tried so hard to eliminate every vestige of taxes and government and let the private sector rule it all. Now I gotta do all that work all over again.

I'm not sure if this was already answered or not but can we expect to see new numbers in the issues we answer as well? And will there be a rejiggering of issues all together?

[Capital McIntosh]

Interesting. My government priorities are now much more accurate.

[Nedea]

Interesting. My government priorities are now much more accurate.
(Image)

Ill trade ya.

[Ontorisa]

I love it. When is it being integrated?

[[violet]]

This is definitely a bug. Thank you for pointing it out! It is occurring in nations with negative industry size and particularly visible when they also have small governments.

This also explains why I thought my nation was a bit weird (back on page 8 ). Good to know it was a bug in a way, be interested to see any changes once that is fixed.

Yes, this affects your nation. Your refactored tax rate will be around 3%.

We are going to have an awkward situation, though, even after refactoring, where a nation like yours that begins to support industry again, after a long period of opposing it, may see taxes temporarily rise. This is because the game today doesn't have a reliable way of distinguishing between these two cases: (1) Nation hasn't done much, but has tended to favor support public spending and oppose industrial development; (2) Nation has been very active, keeping government spending under control while first driving all industry from the land and then beginning to let it back in again. I've got some new tracking code in now that will help fix this in the future, but it will need time to build up data.

[[violet]]

Just wanted to ask something. Currently, I have a large public sector but when my nation is refactored, the private industry slice of the chart becomes so much larger. Why is this if I broadly favour the public sector?

The game thinks your private sector is doing pretty well, since although it's quite specialized, some industries like Tourism and Book Publishing are very strong.

Let's say for example I answered an issue which would create/increase my defence budget, would money be taken away from other government departments to fund it? Because that was something that always irritated me about the old form of the game.

No, this has never been the case. Although it may look that way in a pie chart, since when one pie slice gets bigger the others have to get smaller.

Hypothetical example: You are spending $10 billion a year on Education with total government expenditure of $100 billion. So Education is 10% of the total. Then you increase Defense spending, so your total expenditure rises to $120 billion. You are spending the same amount as before on Education, but it's now only 8.3% of the total.

[Herrebrugh]

So, I've been bothered by this for a while (and risking looking stupid): how can government be put in the same graph with industry? The government doesn't produce anything, does it? I don't see how the government would contribute anything to the economy. Except through state-owned enterprises, maybe; but those are already represented as State-Owned Industry.

Also, I think the pictures in the pie-graph look a bit... Weird. I've taken a screen-cap so I don't have to make a futile attempt at explaining what I mean:

This particular picture has been made in Maxthon (browser), though, I checked it in Chrome and it looks the same there, so I don't think it's a browser-related problem. It may have something to do with the size of my screen (1920 x 1080 px). I'm running Windows 8. I'm not sure if someone already mentioned this, but I've done several attempts at finding such a mention and haven't found any.

[Capital McIntosh]

Interesting. My government priorities are now much more accurate.
(Image)

Ill trade ya.

Achieving that one is quite the task. Glad it will be finally recognized by the system.

The idea is never pick an option which increases government spending, regardless of the issue. Even the ones like the car one with the company asking for subsidies should just be dismissed instead of picking the lesser of two evils (banning cars or spending government money on specific companies rather than just boosting the economy by not collecting those taxes in the first place).

[[violet]]

So, I've been bothered by this for a while (and risking looking stupid): how can government be put in the same graph with industry? The government doesn't produce anything, does it? I don't see how the government would contribute anything to the economy.

Governments generate a lot of economic activity by buying things and paying the salaries of public servants. Pretty much all measures of GDP count this. A nice list of real-life countries here.

Also, I think the pictures in the pie-graph look a bit... Weird. I've taken a screen-cap so I don't have to make a futile attempt at explaining what I mean:

I'm afraid you'll need to make an attempt to explain, because I'm not sure what aspect of that you're referring to.

[Herrebrugh]

So, I've been bothered by this for a while (and risking looking stupid): how can government be put in the same graph with industry? The government doesn't produce anything, does it? I don't see how the government would contribute anything to the economy.

Governments generate a lot of economic activity by buying things and paying the salaries of public servants. Pretty much all measures of GDP count this. A nice list of real-life countries here.

Alright, thanks.

Also, I think the pictures in the pie-graph look a bit... Weird. I've taken a screen-cap so I don't have to make a futile attempt at explaining what I mean:

I'm afraid you'll need to make an attempt to explain, because I'm not sure what aspect of that you're referring to.

On the left there is what somewhat looks like another picture of the same colour is pasted next to it. It creates sort of a line running straight down, which ends just left of the line pointing to Law & Order.

[Bears Armed]

Does a 'National Health Service' get counted under 'Government', or would it be counted as a publicly-owned Industry?

[Seraven]

Does a 'National Health Service' get counted under 'Government', or would it be counted as a publicly-owned Industry?

According to Wikipedia part of NHS in UK:

The systems are primarily funded through central taxation. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use for people legally resident in the United Kingdom. The four systems are mostly independent from each other although some functions might be routinely performed on behalf of the UK Department of Health

I think it's counted as government, since health will be strange to be categorized under publicly-owned industry.