[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects Since New Update

[Crockerland]

I got the issue "Caught Green Handed", dilemma 420, went with the second option (legalizing Maxtopian Grass), and my weaponization decreased by 14.8% for no reason.

[Sanctaria]

I got the issue "Caught Green Handed", dilemma 420, went with the second option (legalizing Maxtopian Grass), and my weaponization decreased by 14.8% for no reason.

Just off the top of my head, but I don't know any people who, when stoned, think "I know, I'll buy a gun". Usually it's "I know, I'll buy a multipack of Cornflakes with chocolate milk and marshmallows".

[Kaisachen]

I chose option 2 of Violent Violetists Demand Blood!, and it raised inclusiveness? How?

[Jute]

"Pharmacies close down as medicinal drugs are sold freely by the government." (Issue 107)

How did that make public education and eco-friendliness fall by 6.8 % each?

[Leppikania]

Option 222.6, how did legalizing terrorism increase File a GHR's intelligence?

[Skappola]

"Regarding Robber's Rights." Giving people the right to use lethal force on their property lowers civil rights by 2.5% and Average Income of the poor by 1%. And income equality by 1.6%. The circumcision issue (forgot the name) also lowers civil rights by a substantial amount if you chose to keep it legal. Why are my civil rights going down through legalizing things? These issues seem to regard negative liberty as more important than positive liberty.

[Alterrum]

by Jute » Today, 20:48

"Pharmacies close down as medicinal drugs are sold freely by the government." (Issue 107)

How did that make public education and eco-friendliness fall by 6.8 % each?

Since this also decreased your economy, the government has less money to tax and invest into these departments.

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Option 222.6, how did legalizing terrorism increase File a GHR's intelligence?

a freer political process (weakly) stimulates intelligence.

[Trotterdam]

I chose option 2 of Violent Violetists Demand Blood!, and it raised inclusiveness? How?

Because you're becoming more tolerant of horrible and cruel religions that preach murder.

Tolerance is not always good.

"Pharmacies close down as medicinal drugs are sold freely by the government." (Issue 107)

How did that make public education and eco-friendliness fall by 6.8 % each?

I agree that seems wrong. The option was about selling drugs to raise funds for the government, so it should increase or at least not-decrease funding to government departments including these two. (It would make sense for widespread use of drugs to lower Intelligence, but that's not the same as Public Education.)

Probably it's a result of the game's simplistic funding model that is unable to recognize sources of government revenue besides taxes.

Oops, I missed the "medicinal" part and mistook it for a different issue. How embarrassing. Ignore me, please.

The drop in some government departments is probably due to funding being redirected from them into Healthcare.

Option 222.6, how did legalizing terrorism increase File a GHR's intelligence?

...Natural selection?

Okay, I don't have a good explanation for that one.

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So this has been pointed out by others before, but #433 option 3 (building a weather control machine) actually lowers Weather. In fact, when I tested it, it appeared to have no positive effects at all - the closest was minor increases to Industry stats, but Average Income dropped, and all other stat effects were in the "bad" direction.

This may be understandable (weather control machines are crazy fringe science, so it's not a huge surprise they turn out not to work), but NationStates has working mad science elsewhere (AIs, vat-grown people, resurrected dinosaurs), it's not entirely without real-life basis, and all of the issue's other options are about somehow coping with the bad weather, rather than trying to fix it. The issue has no true environmentalist option besides the weather machine one, and it seems some choice should actually succeed at improving weather.

[Alterrum]

"Pharmacies close down as medicinal drugs are sold freely by the government." (Issue 107)

How did that make public education and eco-friendliness fall by 6.8 % each?

I agree that seems wrong. The option was about selling drugs to raise funds for the government, so it should increase or at least not-decrease funding to government departments including these two. (It would make sense for widespread use of drugs to lower Intelligence, but that's not the same as Public Education.)

Probably it's a result of the game's simplistic funding model that is unable to recognize sources of government revenue besides taxes.

If the effect line is taken literally, then it seems that the government isn't actually generating any revenue directly. The option was about subsidizing the pharmacological industry, however, so by NS logic, it should have actually increased the economy as well, leaving these departments at least unchanged indeed.

[Trotterdam]

Err yeah. I misread which issue was being talked about.

In that case, the drop in some government departments is probably due to funding being redirected from them into Healthcare.

[Mushet]

Puppet nation Panjamawattopolis answered option 1 on issue 298

Stomping out a cult on behalf of the National Religion really shouldn't raise Secularism and decrease Religiousness.

[North-by-Northwesteros]

OK, so this nation (North-by-Northwesteros), on issue 443, Five Year Plan and New Deals, chose option 2: the pro-market, remove subsidies, "let them eat cake" option. Somehow, this dropped my economy by half from 72 to 36! This is a *lot* of drop...

[Crockerland]

I got the issue "More Jails Needed" (Dilemma 199), went with the first option (making more jails) and weaponization decreased by 5.0%.

[Jute]

OK, so this nation (North-by-Northwesteros), on issue 443, Five Year Plan and New Deals, chose option 2: the pro-market, remove subsidies, "let them eat cake" option. Somehow, this dropped my economy by half from 72 to 36! This is a *lot* of drop...

It's probably because you removed subsidies, which a part of your economy relied on?

[North-by-Northwesteros]

OK, so this nation (North-by-Northwesteros), on issue 443, Five Year Plan and New Deals, chose option 2: the pro-market, remove subsidies, "let them eat cake" option. Somehow, this dropped my economy by half from 72 to 36! This is a *lot* of drop...

It's probably because you removed subsidies, which a part of your economy relied on?

Subsidies barely existed (government doesn't exist, since my tax rate is 0), though the whole pie was subsidies since I messed up on an issue (so 100% of 0 was given out to industry). Probably it's proportional to percentage of government spending spent on subsidies, but it should really be based on percentage of economy spent on subsidies...

[Outer Sparta]

Puppet nation Panjamawattopolis answered option 1 on issue 298

Stomping out a cult on behalf of the National Religion really shouldn't raise Secularism and decrease Religiousness.

It would raise secularism because you're cracking down on other religious groups, hence cults, and also cracking down on ANY religion, cult or not, increases secularism.

[Mushet]

Puppet nation Panjamawattopolis answered option 1 on issue 298

Stomping out a cult on behalf of the National Religion really shouldn't raise Secularism and decrease Religiousness.

It would raise secularism because you're cracking down on other religious groups, hence cults, and also cracking down on ANY religion, cult or not, increases secularism.

Secularism is the separation of the church and state, cracking down on a cult in favor of a national religion is very anti-secular.

Anyway somehow answering option 1 on issue 186 increases the residency stat, which I don't think should be affected by any issue.

[Jolteonia]

I hope this is the right place to report problems like this...

I just passed legislation for issue 008. Nudists Demand Time in the Sun. I picked the same choice that I always choose (option 1), but I feel like the results have got to be bugged. Civil rights went up, which seems reasonable, but nudity dropped by nearly 50%. All the way from 800 to 415, showing a really sharp decline on the trend graph. The headlines showed clothing retailers expecting a "bumper season", and I'm left very confused by how that makes any sense.

[Luna Amore]

I hope this is the right place to report problems like this...

I just passed legislation for issue 008. Nudists Demand Time in the Sun. I picked the same choice that I always choose (option 1), but I feel like the results have got to be bugged. Civil rights went up, which seems reasonable, but nudity dropped by nearly 50%. All the way from 800 to 415, showing a really sharp decline on the trend graph. The headlines showed clothing retailers expecting a "bumper season", and I'm left very confused by how that makes any sense.

At some point in the past you must have pushed nudity to be compulsory for either everyone or just woman. Which would explain why suddenly giving either half or all of the populace the choice on whether or not to be nude would drop your nudity score.

[Luna Amore]

It would raise secularism because you're cracking down on other religious groups, hence cults, and also cracking down on ANY religion, cult or not, increases secularism.

Secularism is the separation of the church and state, cracking down on a cult in favor of a national religion is very anti-secular.

Anyway somehow answering option 1 on issue 186 increases the residency stat, which I don't think should be affected by any issue.

Every issue affects the residency stat indirectly because time passes in between answering issues.

[Luna Amore]

It's probably because you removed subsidies, which a part of your economy relied on?

Subsidies barely existed (government doesn't exist, since my tax rate is 0), though the whole pie was subsidies since I messed up on an issue (so 100% of 0 was given out to industry). Probably it's proportional to percentage of government spending spent on subsidies, but it should really be based on percentage of economy spent on subsidies...

True you don't have any govt expenditure. But your people were also already about as free economically as they could be, so the only thing you did was very staunchly reaffirm that your govt does not subsidize business. It's an odd result due to the fact that most stats do not have ceilings or floors.

[Trotterdam]

#008 probably just shouldn't be given to nations with compulsory nudity, since there's already #295 as the unban issue.

Though, there's currently no unban for female-only compulsory nudity. In fact that position is in limbo as absolutely nothing else ever acknowledges the possibility.

[Luna Amore]

I agree that seems wrong. The option was about selling drugs to raise funds for the government, so it should increase or at least not-decrease funding to government departments including these two. (It would make sense for widespread use of drugs to lower Intelligence, but that's not the same as Public Education.)

Probably it's a result of the game's simplistic funding model that is unable to recognize sources of government revenue besides taxes.

If the effect line is taken literally, then it seems that the government isn't actually generating any revenue directly. The option was about subsidizing the pharmacological industry, however, so by NS logic, it should have actually increased the economy as well, leaving these departments at least unchanged indeed.

The option directly refers to subsidization in a negative manner as the govt taking complete control:

"That's a disgraceful way to think!" says equal rights activist, @@RANDOMNAME@@. "So the people who need the most help shouldn't get any? I propose that the government subsidises the production of all drugs so everyone can benefit from them, rich or not! That way the money-hungry corporations won't profit from the suffering of the masses. Of course there will be the matter of a small tax rise to fund it - but what's that when lives will be saved?"

[Luna Amore]

#008 probably just shouldn't be given to nations with compulsory nudity, since there's already #295 as the unban issue.

Though, there's currently no unban for female-only compulsory nudity. In fact that position is in limbo as absolutely nothing else ever acknowledges the possibility.

I thought that was already the case. Fixed.

And that sounds like a draft for an aspiring author.

[Jolteonia]

At some point in the past you must have pushed nudity to be compulsory for either everyone or just woman.

I'm almost positive I have never done that, but I can't say it's impossible, I suppose. I've been doing the "my choice to dangle" option since my nation was founded though, so I don't know...

Is the "for just women" actually even an issue though? I'm very sure I've never seen that issue if it exists...

Edit: Oh, ok, I followed the link from the earlier post and apparently that issue exists as #295. But Ive definitely never seen that issue before, which makes me further believe I've never had a compulsory nudity policy.