[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Land of the Laconic Shrimp]

Ok so have yet another weird result to report. I know taxation can be a bit wonky and not always do what you expect but this seems a bit off? Let me know if I'm crazy and this is expected.

Issue 135, I chose option 1. The option that I *thought* would lower tax and also take cuts out of education, welfare, etc. Well instead my stats went in all kinds of unexpected directions. Tax actually went UP from 76.03 to 90.22. And somehow this meant my freedom from taxation ALSO went up? From -1.13 to 14.39. And welfare actually went up...from 8533.31 to 8932.30.

Do these stat changes make sense? I get it that taxation is weird, but these results were unexpected. Appreciate the feedback!

[Fauxia]

That issue is one known to have this problem. The issue here, I believe, is that your nation already relies on the government for most of its economy, so making lots of cuts to taxation (and, because it's the way the game works, spending) really destabilizes the economy, which shrinks the tax base, which causes taxes to rise, not fall.

I can't explain it if taxation rose and freedom from taxation rose, are you sure you see that right?

[Land of the Laconic Shrimp]

That issue is one known to have this problem. The issue here, I believe, is that your nation already relies on the government for most of its economy, so making lots of cuts to taxation (and, because it's the way the game works, spending) really destabilizes the economy, which shrinks the tax base, which causes taxes to rise, not fall.

I can't explain it if taxation rose and freedom from taxation rose, are you sure you see that right?

Understand the tax going up instead of down. Weird, but I get it.

But yes, I am sure that my taxation rose AND my freedom from taxation rose (both significantly). I haven't answered any other issues since that one, so you should see it in my stat trends.

[Bears Armed]

That issue is one known to have this problem. The issue here, I believe, is that your nation already relies on the government for most of its economy, so making lots of cuts to taxation (and, because it's the way the game works, spending) really destabilizes the economy, which shrinks the tax base, which causes taxes to rise, not fall.

I can't explain it if taxation rose and freedom from taxation rose, are you sure you see that right?

Understand the tax going up instead of down. Weird, but I get it.

But yes, I am sure that my taxation rose AND my freedom from taxation rose (both significantly). I haven't answered any other issues since that one, so you should see it in my stat trends.

I definitely remember seeing this combination mentioned before as possible with one issue, but can't recall now whether that was this issue.

[Naya Insaafistan]

Nation: Naya Insaafistan
Date: 3rd July 2021
Issue: Monkey Business (No. 1217)

Choosing Option 1 caused the nation's Food Quality to increase. And nothing else. Well, inclusiveness also rose by a tiny amount.... How does the issue have anything to do with Food Quality?

Nation: Naya Insaafistan
Date: 6th July 2021
Issue: A Midsummer Night's Snooze-Fest (No. 984)

Choosing Option 3 somehow caused Taxation and Freedom from Taxation to decrease simultaneously. Which is kinda odd, no? Possibly has something to do with Business Subsidisation increasing...

Nation: Naya Insaafistan
Date: 6th July 2021
Issue: Teach Your Farmers Well (No. 425)

Choosing Option 1 caused Taxation, Freedom from Taxation and Business Subsidisation to decrease. Shouldn't at least one of theses be moving in the opposite direction than the other two? How can they all decrease at the same time?

[Ambiance United]

Currently the Plug in and Play issues offers the option to remove ban on videogames and the results of options 1 & 4 cancel the policy 'No Video Games' entirely; they do not however remove the policy 'No Computers' which feels silly, as I'm not entirely sure what video games people are lining up for when there are no entertainment systems of any kind available in a nation where computers are entirely banned. Could we get a change on this and add a cancel on that policy as well?

[Frisbeeteria]

[Suggestion] '#561 Plug in and Play' should change policy

Merged from Technical.

[Naya Insaafistan]

Currently the Plug in and Play issues offers the option to remove ban on videogames and the results of options 1 & 4 cancel the policy 'No Video Games' entirely; they do not however remove the policy 'No Computers' which feels silly, as I'm not entirely sure what video games people are lining up for when there are no entertainment systems of any kind available in a nation where computers are entirely banned. Could we get a change on this and add a cancel on that policy as well?

on a related note, how is it that banning computers does not cancel one's space program..? or cancel Weapons of Mass Destruction? and Nuclear Power?

[Islands Of Ventro]

The United States sent a Man to the Moon with the most basic of computers and managed to construct one nuclear bomb without computers. Think about this for a second.

[Bears Armed]

The United States sent a Man to the Moon with the most basic of computers and managed to construct one nuclear bomb without computers. Think about this for a second.

And neither chemical weapons nor biological ones are computer-dependent, although both are classed as WMDs, either.

[Electrum]

A whole bunch of issues

Try reading the thread OP - your questions are answered there.

Currently the Plug in and Play issues offers the option to remove ban on videogames and the results of options 1 & 4 cancel the policy 'No Video Games' entirely; they do not however remove the policy 'No Computers' which feels silly, as I'm not entirely sure what video games people are lining up for when there are no entertainment systems of any kind available in a nation where computers are entirely banned. Could we get a change on this and add a cancel on that policy as well?

Video games do not require computers. Consoles are totally a thing.

on a related note, how is it that banning computers does not cancel one's space program..? or cancel Weapons of Mass Destruction? and Nuclear Power?

There already is an issue that deals with nations having a space program but with no computers.

[Naya Insaafistan]

"no computers" should mean no computers. no Gameboys, no Casio calculators, no Babbage's Analytical Machine; nothing. otherwise how is it "no computers"?

[The Ursine Northlands]

This nation, just now.
Issue # 604, 'Food Behind Bars'.
Shouldn't option 2, logically, cause a slight increase in Food Quality?

[Ambiance United]

Video games do not require computers. Consoles are totally a thing.

I can't find mentions of any non-computer consoles ever existing, there are some really early ones that didn't require parts that we would now consider essential in such systems, but even they were decidedly computers, and came over 3 decades after the first computer was built.

[Your lives are mine]

Sorry if this has already been answered but why does not learning the lingua franca issue cause nudity to increase. I wouldn't care if it was a little bit but it's the number 1 effect and I can't even think of a reason why

[Trotterdam]

Sorry if this has already been answered but why does not learning the lingua franca issue cause nudity to increase. I wouldn't care if it was a little bit but it's the number 1 effect and I can't even think of a reason why

Nudity is correlated with Civil Rights, and not forcing people to learn something they don't care about in school is considered a civil right. It's not very logical (even if you agree that counts as a civil right, it's about a totally unrelated subject that has nothing to do with nudity rights), but I guess that's a limitation of the simulation.

As for it being the "number 1 effect", this is probably due to your nation's Nudity being exceptionally low, so a change that's actually pretty small still looks like a big percentage of your previous value.

(And before anyone complains about the lack of detail in the report: it's the same nation as the one making the post, answering issue #115 option 2, about five hours ago.)

[Pesetz Archipelago]

My nation has a ban on immigration. When I got this issue, I thought that the options 1 and 3 (i chose the latter) would lift that ban, especially since it seemed to be heavilly implied by this phrase:

It behoves our nation to create an exemption to the immigration ban...

It appears like this issue does not affect migration laws at all. Not like I wanted to get rid of the ban too much yet it is confusing nevertheless.

[The Free Joy State]

This nation, just now.
Issue # 604, 'Food Behind Bars'.
Shouldn't option 2, logically, cause a slight increase in Food Quality?

With the usual disclaimer of Food Quality being a secondary stat and that not all nations will receive the same effect, it does seem like a tweak may be helpful.

I have made an amendment.

My nation has a ban on immigration. When I got this issue, I thought that the options 1 and 3 (i chose the latter) would lift that ban, especially since it seemed to be heavilly implied by this phrase:

It behoves our nation to create an exemption to the immigration ban...

It appears like this issue does not affect migration laws at all. Not like I wanted to get rid of the ban too much yet it is confusing nevertheless.

The word exemption suggests that the rules remain in place, but don't apply to some people. Therefore, creating a limited exemption for one specific group would not reverse a ban.

[The Ursine Northlands]

This nation, just now.
Issue # 604, 'Food Behind Bars'.
Shouldn't option 2, logically, cause a slight increase in Food Quality?

With the usual disclaimer of Food Quality being a secondary stat and that not all nations will receive the same effect, it does seem like a tweak may be helpful.

I have made an amendment.

Thank you.
Now, again with this nation just a few minutes ago: #425 'Teach Your Farmers Well', option 1 (funding agricultural colleges) apparently had no effect on Food Quality... even though its effect line is "even the nation's brussel sprouts are delicious and nutritious". Was there an effect but, on this nation, too small a one to show? Or is the effect line wrong?

[The Free Joy State]

With the usual disclaimer of Food Quality being a secondary stat and that not all nations will receive the same effect, it does seem like a tweak may be helpful.

I have made an amendment.

Thank you.
Now, again with this nation just a few minutes ago: #425 'Teach Your Farmers Well', option 1 (funding agricultural colleges) apparently had no effect on Food Quality... even though its effect line is "even the nation's brussel sprouts are delicious and nutritious". Was there an effect but, on this nation, too small a one to show? Or is the effect line wrong?

This option may or may not increase Food Quality, depending on your individual nation and how the backstage stats interact to both it and themselves (disclaimers about it being a secondary stat apply).

Also worth remembering that we don't stat based on effect lines.

[Libradam]

Not an effect exactly, but I figure this is the best place for this.
This nation recieved #4: Economic Collapse Looms! despite an economy of 71.56 and an economic freedom of 54.33. Is that supposed to happen?

[Malanasia]

A couple days back, I implemented feudalism in this nation, figuring it would boost my wealth gaps. It reduced it by about 10 percent.
When I encountered issue #605, I decided to repeal the policy by choosing the first option, supposing this would undo the effect. Much to by befuddlement, this reduced my wealth gaps by over 90 percent, from 94.49 to just 7.18. I can accept a counterintuitive affect, but this seems a little overkill.

[The Free Joy State]

Not an effect exactly, but I figure this is the best place for this.
This nation recieved #4: Economic Collapse Looms! despite an economy of 71.56 and an economic freedom of 54.33. Is that supposed to happen?

The Help Us Fix Old Issues Thread would be better for validity questions, for future reference.

To answer your question, yes, at the time you received the issue, you were within the (correct) validities that were placed on the issue. Although your economic freedom was 54.33, it is nowhere near as high as it could go.

A couple days back, I implemented feudalism in this nation, figuring it would boost my wealth gaps. It reduced it by about 10 percent.
When I encountered issue #605, I decided to repeal the policy by choosing the first option, supposing this would undo the effect. Much to by befuddlement, this reduced my wealth gaps by over 90 percent, from 94.49 to just 7.18. I can accept a counterintuitive affect, but this seems a little overkill.

I really suggest you don't just look at percentages. Your original rise in income equality, when bringing in feudalism was very tiny, from 0.95 to 1.06.

If you are not yet to do so, I suggest you go straight to your settings and turn on Show More Stats, which will give you a true picture of what your numbers are doing.

As for the change, the stats you see are all made up of a mix of backstage stats that interact with each other and your nation and produce the output. This means that different nations may see different outcomes, depending on where their own stats are when they answer the question; other nations will experience a fall in income equality (some, a fairly substantial fall). Others may experience no change.

It is also possible that, depending on where your own stats are, removing feudalism may change income equality a lot, a little or not at all (positively or negatively).

It's worth remembering that the more of a change in direction for your nation something is, the larger and more noticeable your stat changes are likely to be.

You can find out more about stats in the game by reading the OP of this thread, at the moment, you might want to especially look at: "Why did this stat change by X%? That's too much / too little!"

[Nepleslia]

After I, Nepleslia, chose the second option in Issue 16 (@@MAJORINDUSTRY@@ Workers Strike!), at roughly 03:15 UTC today, the following changes occurred:

Increases
+ Income Equality
+ Average Income of Poor
+ Authoritarianism
+ Averageness
+ Taxation
+ Black Market
+ Tourism

Decreases
- Charmlessness
- Obesity
- Employment
- Weaponization
- Average Disposable Income
- Death Rate
- Industry: Gambling
- Freedom from Taxation
- Rudeness
- Average Income of Rich
- Ideological Radicality
- Wealth Gaps

This - particularly for the italicized values - seems to be the opposite of what should have occurred based upon the option’s effect text (2. employers may fire workers without giving any reason), especially when one looks at the values listed here on Trotterdam’s site.

[Seanat]

Issue 1230 (Home Hunger) is specifically about food quality, but it doesn't seem to have any direct impact on the food quality stat. I picked option 3 and it didn't change (or didn't change enough to be shown).