[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Umbratellus]

Forcing children to wear kilts (or really forcing them to do anything) will generally encourage them to be more rebellious.

As I recall though, the initial issue that gives you school uniforms to begin with lowers Youth Rebelliousness. Isn't this just doubling down on that position - with a potentially even more traditional outfit that the original? From personal experience thus far issues that quash the expressiveness of children tend to result in rebelliousness going down (I don't remember all the issues by number but stuff like banning violent media - books or movies - for children results in it dropping; stuff like that in general).

[Pogaria]

Forcing children to wear kilts (or really forcing them to do anything) will generally encourage them to be more rebellious.

As I recall though, the initial issue that gives you school uniforms to begin with lowers Youth Rebelliousness. Isn't this just doubling down on that position - with a potentially even more traditional outfit that the original? From personal experience thus far issues that quash the expressiveness of children tend to result in rebelliousness going down (I don't remember all the issues by number but stuff like banning violent media - books or movies - for children results in it dropping; stuff like that in general).

My personal opinion here is that requiring youth to wear boring uniforms may promote conformity. However, requiring boys to wear kilts could cause all sorts of ruckus. Imagine if one of them decided to no longer wear underwear beneath their kilt.

[Umbratellus]

As I recall though, the initial issue that gives you school uniforms to begin with lowers Youth Rebelliousness. Isn't this just doubling down on that position - with a potentially even more traditional outfit that the original? From personal experience thus far issues that quash the expressiveness of children tend to result in rebelliousness going down (I don't remember all the issues by number but stuff like banning violent media - books or movies - for children results in it dropping; stuff like that in general).

My personal opinion here is that requiring youth to wear boring uniforms may promote conformity. However, requiring boys to wear kilts could cause all sorts of ruckus. Imagine if one of them decided to no longer wear underwear beneath their kilt.

Aye but that's how you're supposed to wear a kilt. : p It's how I wear mine! Fair enough though lol.

[Broceliande]

Pay No Attention to That Donor Behind the Curtain!

I answered the option to regulate the amount of donation, and despite the stats page, this somehow increased corruption and reduced integrity substantially, which is the opposite of what it should have done. What gives?!?

[Dreamcliff]

On issue 996, I picked result 1, which appears that it was supposed to boost tourism, as the person talking was the Minister of Tourism and the text said something along the lines of “This will make tourism much easier”. I picked it, and tourism went down, only by a negligible amount, but it still strikes me as odd that it caused tourism to drop.

[Seanat]

Issue 1194, option that says "Why not simplify it and cut down on the amount of words so that it’s easier for everyone to learn?"

Dropped book publishing industry by 4%, but wouldn't making the language more accessible to learn actually increase sales of books?

[Idealistic Texas]

I will try to keep this as brief as possible. There is a rampant issue on NS regarding "Crime" rates that most definitely needs to be addressed and fixed. As someone who has played the game for many years now, over many different nations, I feel I have proper expertise to shed light on the subject. The problem is simple: crime rate "trends" do not, at all, reflect how pervasive crime is in a country—only how pervasive it is not. What do I mean by this? Well, if your country has a crime rate of "2.5", with any given population, your country descriptor will say "crime is almost unheard of" (or something along these lines): this is correct and good. The problem happens with large populations and crime rates higher than 4 or 5. Keep in mind that "crime rate" officially, according to NS itself, refers to "crimes committed per hour". I think you can begin to see the problem now. Let's use the nation I'm posting from right now as a good example: a nation with 3.324 billion people in it with a crime rate of 14.75 crimes per hour. Realistically, this means that my nation's crime rate is figuratively infinitesimally small—out of a country that is theoretically double the size of China, only 354 crimes occur in a day. To put this into perspective, it's saying that out of every 9,389,831 people, only ONE SINGLE CRIME IS COMMITTED PER DAY. In our real life world, the country of Austria, recognized as one of, if not the, safest countries on the planet has a crime rate of roughly 0.97 per 100,000 individuals. Let this sink in for a moment. NationStates literally says that a country that has a crime rate of 90-someodd-times less than the world's safest country has a crime problem. Yet the ranking system is so incredibly outdated and old that it makes claim that "Crime is a problem…." which is absolutely mind-bogglingly and irredeemably asinine. This happens most frequently in nations that have the "no prison" policy—as if the widespread use of prisons and jails is not an extremely modern idea (which it is, prior to around the 1700s, they were not common). This needs to be fixed—there's no reason that something so blatantly senseless needs to remain that way for years and years at a time. Are the NS dev's just too lazy to fix it? What's going on here?? Realistically, for a simulated country, crime statistics are extremely important and it seems blatantly lazy to overlook this for so long. When you look at the statistics, the way NS has crime statistics setup is abject stupidity. Good day.

[Frisbeeteria]

The Crime Problem

Merged into the correct thread.

[Idealistic Texas]

I will try to keep this as brief as possible. There is a rampant issue on NS regarding "Crime" rates that most definitely needs to be addressed and fixed. As someone who has played the game for many years now, over many different nations, I feel I have proper expertise to shed light on the subject. The problem is simple: crime rate "trends" do not, at all, reflect how pervasive crime is in a country—only how pervasive it is not. What do I mean by this? Well, if your country has a crime rate of "2.5", with any given population, your country descriptor will say "crime is almost unheard of" (or something along these lines): this is correct and good. The problem happens with large populations and crime rates higher than 4 or 5. Keep in mind that "crime rate" officially, according to NS itself, refers to "crimes committed per hour". I think you can begin to see the problem now. Let's use the nation I'm posting from right now as a good example: a nation with 3.324 billion people in it with a crime rate of 14.75 crimes per hour. Realistically, this means that my nation's crime rate is figuratively infinitesimally small—out of a country that is theoretically double the size of China, only 354 crimes occur in a day. To put this into perspective, it's saying that out of every 9,389,831 people, only ONE SINGLE CRIME IS COMMITTED PER DAY. In our real life world, the country of Austria, recognized as one of, if not the, safest countries on the planet has a crime rate of roughly 0.97 per 100,000 individuals. Let this sink in for a moment. NationStates literally says that a country that has a crime rate of 90-someodd-times less than the world's safest country has a crime problem. Yet the ranking system is so incredibly outdated and old that it makes claim that "Crime is a problem…." which is absolutely mind-bogglingly and irredeemably asinine. This happens most frequently in nations that have the "no prison" policy—as if the widespread use of prisons and jails is not an extremely modern idea (which it is, prior to around the 1700s, they were not common). This needs to be fixed—there's no reason that something so blatantly senseless needs to remain that way for years and years at a time. Are the NS dev's just too lazy to fix it? What's going on here?? Realistically, for a simulated country, crime statistics are extremely important and it seems blatantly lazy to overlook this for so long. When you look at the statistics, the way NS has crime statistics setup is abject stupidity. Good day.

…so we just don't address this problem?

[Luna Amore]

I will try to keep this as brief as possible. There is a rampant issue on NS regarding "Crime" rates that most definitely needs to be addressed and fixed. As someone who has played the game for many years now, over many different nations, I feel I have proper expertise to shed light on the subject. The problem is simple: crime rate "trends" do not, at all, reflect how pervasive crime is in a country—only how pervasive it is not. What do I mean by this? Well, if your country has a crime rate of "2.5", with any given population, your country descriptor will say "crime is almost unheard of" (or something along these lines): this is correct and good. The problem happens with large populations and crime rates higher than 4 or 5. Keep in mind that "crime rate" officially, according to NS itself, refers to "crimes committed per hour". I think you can begin to see the problem now. Let's use the nation I'm posting from right now as a good example: a nation with 3.324 billion people in it with a crime rate of 14.75 crimes per hour. Realistically, this means that my nation's crime rate is figuratively infinitesimally small—out of a country that is theoretically double the size of China, only 354 crimes occur in a day. To put this into perspective, it's saying that out of every 9,389,831 people, only ONE SINGLE CRIME IS COMMITTED PER DAY. In our real life world, the country of Austria, recognized as one of, if not the, safest countries on the planet has a crime rate of roughly 0.97 per 100,000 individuals. Let this sink in for a moment. NationStates literally says that a country that has a crime rate of 90-someodd-times less than the world's safest country has a crime problem. Yet the ranking system is so incredibly outdated and old that it makes claim that "Crime is a problem…." which is absolutely mind-bogglingly and irredeemably asinine. This happens most frequently in nations that have the "no prison" policy—as if the widespread use of prisons and jails is not an extremely modern idea (which it is, prior to around the 1700s, they were not common). This needs to be fixed—there's no reason that something so blatantly senseless needs to remain that way for years and years at a time. Are the NS dev's just too lazy to fix it? What's going on here?? Realistically, for a simulated country, crime statistics are extremely important and it seems blatantly lazy to overlook this for so long. When you look at the statistics, the way NS has crime statistics setup is abject stupidity. Good day.

…so we just don't address this problem?

Unsurprisingly, volunteer staff doesn't pounce to respond on wall of text complaints calling us lazy.

Crazy world, I know.

Comparing real world crime rates to NS nations really doesn't matter. All that matters is there is an internal and consistent scale that can compare NS nations to other NS nations. As should be evident, the game is satirical and occasionally wacky. Try not to take it too seriously.

[British West Zuzunia]

I will try to keep this as brief as possible. There is a rampant issue on NS regarding "Crime" rates that most definitely needs to be addressed and fixed. As someone who has played the game for many years now, over many different nations, I feel I have proper expertise to shed light on the subject. The problem is simple: crime rate "trends" do not, at all, reflect how pervasive crime is in a country—only how pervasive it is not. What do I mean by this? Well, if your country has a crime rate of "2.5", with any given population, your country descriptor will say "crime is almost unheard of" (or something along these lines): this is correct and good. The problem happens with large populations and crime rates higher than 4 or 5. Keep in mind that "crime rate" officially, according to NS itself, refers to "crimes committed per hour". I think you can begin to see the problem now. Let's use the nation I'm posting from right now as a good example: a nation with 3.324 billion people in it with a crime rate of 14.75 crimes per hour. Realistically, this means that my nation's crime rate is figuratively infinitesimally small—out of a country that is theoretically double the size of China, only 354 crimes occur in a day. To put this into perspective, it's saying that out of every 9,389,831 people, only ONE SINGLE CRIME IS COMMITTED PER DAY. In our real life world, the country of Austria, recognized as one of, if not the, safest countries on the planet has a crime rate of roughly 0.97 per 100,000 individuals. Let this sink in for a moment. NationStates literally says that a country that has a crime rate of 90-someodd-times less than the world's safest country has a crime problem. Yet the ranking system is so incredibly outdated and old that it makes claim that "Crime is a problem…." which is absolutely mind-bogglingly and irredeemably asinine. This happens most frequently in nations that have the "no prison" policy—as if the widespread use of prisons and jails is not an extremely modern idea (which it is, prior to around the 1700s, they were not common). This needs to be fixed—there's no reason that something so blatantly senseless needs to remain that way for years and years at a time. Are the NS dev's just too lazy to fix it? What's going on here?? Realistically, for a simulated country, crime statistics are extremely important and it seems blatantly lazy to overlook this for so long. When you look at the statistics, the way NS has crime statistics setup is abject stupidity. Good day.

This is an incredibly easy problem to fix. You can do it yourself. Just pretend that the graph is showing "per thousand" (or "per 10,000", or whatever you think appropriate) and the WA graph-makers omitted it from the label for space reasons. I've seen real-life graphs do way sillier stuff.

[Gonswanza]

You know, I am starting to wonder why most, if not all issues seem to result in a harsh and sharp rise in black market activity regardless of other effects. For example, I could pick a choice that causes the economy to tank and reduces taxes, but the black market rises with law enforcement. It also applies with law enforcement going up, economy going up, employment going up or down, even changes in freedoms don't seem to have any influence on it beyond some hidden values.

Now I'm starting to think the WA is to blame here, but what's really going on? As I'm trying to keep the black market from taking over my economy entirely now.

[Umbratellus]

You know, I am starting to wonder why most, if not all issues seem to result in a harsh and sharp rise in black market activity regardless of other effects. For example, I could pick a choice that causes the economy to tank and reduces taxes, but the black market rises with law enforcement. It also applies with law enforcement going up, economy going up, employment going up or down, even changes in freedoms don't seem to have any influence on it beyond some hidden values.

Now I'm starting to think the WA is to blame here, but what's really going on? As I'm trying to keep the black market from taking over my economy entirely now.

Have you tried tackling your massive corruption?

[Land of Bobtopia]

It makes sense if it lowers mining because you're both lowering demand for oil and coal, while also not having any immediately tangible effects. What was the effect on your weather and environmental friendliness to boot? I'd also hope there were positive gains in HDI or Lifespan.

I suppose you have a point, but I would think that since my nation has nuclear power and such that I would be using that a lot already and coal and oil power wouldn't be very prominent. and I have high tech level so I would think it would have that in mind too. but I don't know how in-depth the coding regarding that goes. and I believe it did increase environmental friendliness but not whether if I remember correctly. and I think it did increase lifespan by 0.02 years as well.

[Land of Bobtopia]

apparently adding bullet trains lowers my food quality by 4.5%?

[Umbratellus]

apparently adding bullet trains lowers my food quality by 4.5%?

Food quality is correlated with culture, and iirc that issue causes culture to drop.

[Cretox State]

1086.6's effect line is "hordes of tourists are ruining the environment," but that option raised my environmental beauty. Though I guess the increase in tourism would spur my government to pass stricter environmental regulations for tourists.

[Land of Bobtopia]

apparently adding bullet trains lowers my food quality by 4.5%?

Food quality is correlated with culture, and iirc that issue causes culture to drop.

interesting... but if thats true that does explain that.

[Fel Dramalis]

I just had a few very strange days on my hunt for ever-more-impressive defense force numbers. On March 16th I got Issue #1149, in which my nation's weapons are seen in the hands of terrorists filming their atrocities for propaganda purposes. I pretty much constantly use Milostein/Trotterdam's data collector to give me the best chance to find good results, and found that the last option of #1149, in which the nation eliminates its arms manufacturing industry entirely(!), had a very good chance--and I do mean a very good chance, but not a perfect one--of raising DF by a somewhat ridiculous degree (three hundred points on average, with a previous max payout of 12,000). Since Fel Dramalis is a min-maxer, I've been fooled before by previous nations' results, and I decided that I wouldn't be disappointed if I lost some points instead (apparently someone had previously lost a little more than eleven points, and with my nation's skewed stats I figured that I'd probably get a bigger loss than that).

Fel Dramalis jumped from 110.4k DF to 158.8k DF in a single issue.

Obviously I celebrated, but I was also extremely confused, and slightly worried that this would drastically unbalance how Fel Dramalis would react to future stat adjustments. Today's issues seem to bear out that concern, as (again using Milostein's data collector) I found two issues with responses that had previously guaranteed DF increases and instead lost impressive DF points to both of them, totaling about three hundred points (specifically, Option #1 of Issue #650 and Option #5--well, officially programmed as #5, though it was the fourth and last on my list--of Issue #982). Which leads to my question: Do these results show the game self-adjusting to the massive and rather unnatural DF increase I had a few days back, or has Fel Dramalis been flagged for deliberate readjustment or something? I suppose I'm asking to determine if my nation is undergoing a more chaotic incidental-stat-driven decline or a more certain one that can be better predicted (assuming I knew who to talk to about it).

Either way, I should probably stop answering issues with this nation if I don't want to completely skew Milo's stat collection results and confuse myself with my other puppets.

Edit: For clarity, I have answered other issues between the 16th and today, with both notable gains and losses. Today's losses were just more unexpected than usual, which is why I'm posting this today.

[Steelfeather Rapture 1]

From issue #344: "litter collection has replaced fast food as the most popular after-school job"

As a fat AMAB who occasionally picks trash and who would have loved to have had such a job, why did this lower obesity sharply? It's a myth that exercise lowers obesity rates. I think it's treating environmentalism as a serial killer ideology. On that note, why did this increase the black market? Why did it increase my nation's "accident" rates? How do I fix the rate of "accidents"? Why is my nation's government obligated to pretend that "accidents" aren't a shallow euphemism for serial killers targeting people they decide are ugly to them? Why in the world does this game treat environmentalists as serial killers in the first place? The IRL combination of rising obesity rates and strengthening environmentalism point to fat environmentalists being an IRL commonplace. Why doesn't Nationstates have more fat environmentalists the way the real world does?

[Umbratellus]

From issue #344: "litter collection has replaced fast food as the most popular after-school job"

As a fat AMAB who occasionally picks trash and who would have loved to have had such a job, why did this lower obesity sharply? It's a myth that exercise lowers obesity rates. I think it's treating environmentalism as a serial killer ideology. On that note, why did this increase the black market? Why did it increase my nation's "accident" rates? How do I fix the rate of "accidents"? Why is my nation's government obligated to pretend that "accidents" aren't a shallow euphemism for serial killers targeting people they decide are ugly to them? Why in the world does this game treat environmentalists as serial killers in the first place? The IRL combination of rising obesity rates and strengthening environmentalism point to fat environmentalists being an IRL commonplace. Why doesn't Nationstates have more fat environmentalists the way the real world does?

My place has a significantly better environment than yours and no death by accidents so it's completely unrelated. If it had to guess what happened; your environment went up, cancer deaths went down (cancer is a result of being below a certain environmental threshold), other causes of death have to increase as a percentage to fill the gap; ergo, accidents go up. If something improves your economic output as a whole black market usually also increases proportionally. The rest with serial killers I have no idea what you're on about lmao.

[Kurillit]

Why did selecting the first option in issue #16 “Tourism Workers Strike!” cause income equality to go down?

[Nanualele]

On my medieval horror themed puppet, Rooksloft, for issue #218: Two Mommies One Too Many? I chose option 3, making homosexuality punishable by death. I thought it odd that this resulted in a decrease in death rates and an increase in lifespan, although granted a Rook's average lifespan is already below 40.

[Noahs Second Country]

Why did selecting the first option in issue #16 “Tourism Workers Strike!” cause income equality to go down?

Your nation heavily restricts individual economic freedom. Allowing workers to unionize gives them a bit more economic freedom, and in theory that may allow certain workers to achieve higher wages, creating more income inequality.

On my medieval horror themed puppet, Rooksloft, for issue #218: Two Mommies One Too Many? I chose option 3, making homosexuality punishable by death. I thought it odd that this resulted in a decrease in death rates and an increase in lifespan, although granted a Rook's average lifespan is already below 40.

It's notable that the change to your lifespan/death rate was .06. Thus, this isn't a particularly direct effect, but you are increasing government oversight and therefore marginally increasing the safety of your citizens since you already have a very authoritarian nation, leading to a tiny increase in your average lifespan.

[Toast Incorporated]

I got the issue “Gunman Kills 3” (I think that was the name?) number 20 today (April 14th), selected the first option banning guns for civilians and got a wide variety of effects. I will list them here.
(I had the “Show Details” on)
Going up:

Pacifism
Social Conservatism
Safety
Black Market
Authoritarianism
Primitiveness
Health
Averageness
Ignorance
Tourism
Patriotism
Weather
Income equality
Compliance
Lifespan

Down:

Human development index
Death rate
Employment
Average income of poor
Nudity(???)
Obesity
Wealth gaps
Economic output
Industry: cheese exports
Law enforcement
Defense forces
Public education
Average income
Public healthcare
Eco friendliness
Welfare
Public transport
Foreign aid
Industry: information technology
Business subsidization
Recreational drug use
Crime
Average disposable income
Average income of rich
Rudeness
Economy
Charmlessness
Civil rights
Ideological radicality
Economic freedom
Scientific advancement
Weaponization
Freedom from taxation
Industry: arms manufacturing