[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Bears Armed]

I don't know where to put this, but I've gotten the same exact issue 3 times in 2 days (???) It's issue 1507, nothing special I can tell by it. But surely with 1500 issues, I wouldn't get the same one in each rendition of my issue renewals ???

I have it in my queue right now, and then it came up the following times:
3 hours ago: Following new legislation in Bear Connors Paradiso, life is somewhat repetitive.
16 hours ago: Following new legislation in Bear Connors Paradiso, life is somewhat repetitive.

Looking at the effect line, maybe choosing that particular option sets up a loop and you have to either choose a different one instead or just dismiss the issue in order to break free?

[SherpDaWerp]

I don't know where to put this, but I've gotten the same exact issue 3 times in 2 days (???) It's issue 1507, nothing special I can tell by it. But surely with 1500 issues, I wouldn't get the same one in each rendition of my issue renewals ???

I have it in my queue right now, and then it came up the following times:
3 hours ago: Following new legislation in Bear Connors Paradiso, life is somewhat repetitive.
16 hours ago: Following new legislation in Bear Connors Paradiso, life is somewhat repetitive.

Looking at the effect line, maybe choosing that particular option sets up a loop and you have to either choose a different one instead or just dismiss the issue in order to break free?

That gimmick (Option 4 causing the issue to repeat) was discussed in drafting here.

[Bear Connors Paradiso]

Looking at the effect line, maybe choosing that particular option sets up a loop and you have to either choose a different one instead or just dismiss the issue in order to break free?

That gimmick (Option 4 causing the issue to repeat) was discussed in drafting here.

Alright well I guess I'll dismiss it and see if it comes back.

[New Galactic States]

I can’t remember the issue name, but it was one were I banned cars (I recently unbanned them) and my Insurance industry went up?, this issue happened about a month-ish ago, any reason why?

[Orwellism]

in the issue "Much Ado About Abortion" i banned abortion but somehow civil rights rose up. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

[SherpDaWerp]

in the issue "Much Ado About Abortion" i banned abortion but somehow civil rights rose up. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

Awhile back, the team (aware of the deep and personal feelings around the sensitive issue of abortion) took the -- perhaps controversial decision -- to (generally speaking, allowing for individual stats) programme a civil rights rise for both banning and allowing abortion.

Due to the strength of emotion it raises, we felt it inappropriate to come down on either side of this debate.

[Lofia]

On http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/944.html, for Issue #944 Deadly Persuasion, I unexpectedly found a 5th option result saying "the nation is now officially a purple state" (not to be confused with the 4th option result "Children who write letters to Santa Claus end up in straitjackets"). There were only 3 data points recorded and I didn't find any info on this option on either https://nsindex.net/wiki/NationStates_Issue_No._944 nor https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88&start=50#944.

Is this an Easter Egg or a deleted option?

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

Is this an Easter Egg or a deleted option?

It is an option that appears under certain circumstances.

[Trotterdam]

It requires you to have "Violetism" as your national religion.

That's rare and specific enough that it can almost be considered an easter egg, although it isn't a formal easter egg as defined by the game (it won't give you the easter egg trophy or anything).

[The Order of Makai]

- The name of the nation that had this effect - The Order of Makai
- The day that this effect was encountered - 6/22/22
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue. - Preach it! issue #891

I recently lost my Theocracy policy because of an issue despite the issue not giving any indication that I was allowing a religion other than the national faith to be practiced. All the issue was about was street preachers, so I ask, what gives? Just undo it on my nation and give me back my Theocracy policy please.

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

- The name of the nation that had this effect - The Order of Makai
- The day that this effect was encountered - 6/22/22
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue. - Preach it! issue #891

I recently lost my Theocracy policy because of an issue despite the issue not giving any indication that I was allowing a religion other than the national faith to be practiced. All the issue was about was street preachers, so I ask, what gives? Just undo it on my nation and give me back my Theocracy policy please.

From the FAQ in the OP of this thread:

"Why did THIS policy switch on or turn off out of line with the issue's story?"

It may be an error, and something to report here. However, it may not. Read the below information first.

The following policies are not on/off binary flags directed by issue editors, but rather were implemented to change when your nation crosses above or below a certain threshold in various freedoms:

Theocracy
Free Press
Gun Ownership
State Press
No Dissent
No Drugs
No Gambling
Public Protest
No Marriage
Arranged Marriage
Atheism
Nudism
Prudity
State Surveillance

For example, Public Protest looks at a backstage number that often is coded to move when the right to protest is infringed or increased. When that number is below or above a certain threshold (lets arbitrarily say 700/1000, though these aren't the actual numbers) the policy can turn on or off. That means that even a tiny "side-effect" level movement of +1 or -1 can be enough to change the policy flag. Indeed, said change might not even be a result of a narrative relating to protests.

Because these "pseudo-policies" were late additions to the game code, we never considered their activation or deactivation in narratives when assigning the invisible stats that they're based upon, and the way we use such stats is guided by long-established operation rules, not with a view to considering these policies.

But hold on... it get's worse. Also, many of these pseudo-policies are based on stats that the game only generates for a nation the first time they are used. This means that the pseudo-policy may suddenly appear when that stat is generated, even if the decision is one which is pushing the stat away from the pseudo-policy's criterion.

For example, you could make a pro-nudity decision, and because it's the first ever decision made on this metric, the game would generate the invisible stat for your nation, then it'd notice you're now in range for Prudism, and ABRACADABRA, a pro-nudism decision generates Prudism for your nation.

Also the pseudopolicies are based upon specific interpretations of backstage stats, which have sometimes been used beyond those interpretations. For example, drug-related pseudopolicies has descriptive text implying that it is just about recreational drugs, whereas for a very long time we've also used the stat it references to also refer to freedom to use drugs of all sorts, including medicines and painkillers. So you might allow someone to use painkillers, and cancel No Drugs.

Clearly this is creating major narrative disconnects, but the tech team hasn't got a good solution yet, so for now, just be aware that this is a known bug.

[Terminus Station]

The Ministers Exposing Themselves issue is about how politicians might have a conflict of interest being in office while owning stocks in the weapons industrial complex. I picked the option to fire them but that lowered my nation's integrity and rocketted Corruption? I think the wires may have been crossed here. Theres a huge political debate right now in the US about not letting people in office have stocks or at least to put them in a blind trust to not rig policies that would benefit those markets economically.

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

The Ministers Exposing Themselves issue is about how politicians might have a conflict of interest being in office while owning stocks in the weapons industrial complex. I picked the option to fire them but that lowered my nation's integrity and rocketted Corruption? I think the wires may have been crossed here. Theres a huge political debate right now in the US about not letting people in office have stocks or at least to put them in a blind trust to not rig policies that would benefit those markets economically.

Thank you for your report. I agree that this is problematic. I see backstage that the problem has to do with the factors that make up the Corruption stat. The model could definitely use improvement. I will bring this to the attention of my fellow editors. To fix this problem would require a new version of the current model. This means that a fix will take months or even years. Consider this a known bug.

[Comfed]

I picked option two for issue #878 and the following stats took massive hits:
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=com ... ensusid=53
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=com ... ensusid=45
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=com ... ensusid=73
Why? How does this make sense? Especially for the first two? For context, this is the option:

2. "Freedom is slavery," observes your Minister of Plenty, while carrying out his daily physical jerks to keep himself fit. "Grab those who complain, and strip them of their liberty by putting them to forced labour in service of the state. Good citizens will have the incentive to behave better, and our economy will benefit from a costless workforce."

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88&p=33286601&hilit=Freedom+is+Slavery#p33286601

[Teslin]

in the issue "Much Ado About Abortion" i banned abortion but somehow civil rights rose up. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

Awhile back, the team (aware of the deep and personal feelings around the sensitive issue of abortion) took the -- perhaps controversial decision -- to (generally speaking, allowing for individual stats) programme a civil rights rise for both banning and allowing abortion.

Due to the strength of emotion it raises, we felt it inappropriate to come down on either side of this debate.

That's such a nonsensical policy.... plenty of things are controversial, doesn't change that banning abortion is placing restrictions that weren't there before. It's only logical that would lower civil rights.

[Verdant Haven]

I picked option two for issue #878 and the following stats took massive hits:
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=com ... ensusid=53
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=com ... ensusid=45
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=com ... ensusid=73
Why? How does this make sense? Especially for the first two? For context, this is the option:

2. "Freedom is slavery," observes your Minister of Plenty, while carrying out his daily physical jerks to keep himself fit. "Grab those who complain, and strip them of their liberty by putting them to forced labour in service of the state. Good citizens will have the incentive to behave better, and our economy will benefit from a costless workforce."

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88&p=33286601&hilit=Freedom+is+Slavery#p33286601

Instituting slavery has some interesting effects when it comes to how a nation's economic freedoms are perceived. When you selected that option, your economic freedom increased dramatically. Why? Because when people are enslaved, they can be used as labor and treated however the heck an employer wants - no employment laws or regulations constraining their economic activity. Because you already had a super-repressive and locked down nation, your civil rights couldn't get any worse from what you did, but overall economic freedoms were perceived to improve. That leads to Authoritarianism and Ideological Radicality seeing overall freedom levels increasing, so they went down.

As for Average Income of Poor... slaves get paid nothing. As a result, whomever is enslaved is now the poorest of "the poor," and the average wages of that group now include at least some proportion of people whose wages are absolutely zero.

[Teslin]

Legalizing abortion in my country increased crime for some reason.

[Steelfeather Rapture 2]

Steelfeather Rapture 2
2022-07-02
Big Trouble in Little Dàguó (#808)

This issue decreased ideological radicality for some reason. It also reduced obesity rates.

[Bears Armed]

Legalizing abortion in my country increased crime for some reason.

Probably just a side-effect of increasing Civil Rights.

[Teslin]

I chose the first option on issue 1123 (AKA allowing a woman to have a child from her dead husband) and it increased social conservatism for some reason. It also lowered intelligence and civil rights, albeit barely. The civil rights drop could make sense, I guess, but nonetheless I don't really see how allowing what is, in effect, a sort of artificial insemination, would make my country more conservative.

[Phydios]

I chose the first option on issue 1123 (AKA allowing a woman to have a child from her dead husband) and it increased social conservatism for some reason. It also lowered intelligence and civil rights, albeit barely. The civil rights drop could make sense, I guess, but nonetheless I don't really see how allowing what is, in effect, a sort of artificial insemination, would make my country more conservative.

As a stat, Social Conservatism is the opposite of Civil Rights. It goes up when civil rights go down, and vice versa.

[Flanderlion]

Charmlessness
Kardashian Reflex Score 730.69 → 731.63 0.13%

Weather
Meters Of Sunlight -966.00 → -965.00 0.10%

Rudeness
Insults Per Minute 214.84 → 215.03 0.09%

Defense Forces
Total War Preparedness Rating 74,390.29 → 74,438.41 0.06%

Patriotism
Flags Saluted Per Person Per Day 190.69 → 190.74 0.03%

Government Size
Bureaucratic Comprehensiveness Rating Scale Index 88.56 → 88.57 0.01%

Black Market
Denarii 27,380,966,800,000,000 → 27,381,779,300,000,000 0.003%

Industry: Arms Manufacturing
Charon Conveyancy Index 226,261.24 → 226,254.53 0.003%

Sector: Manufacturing
Gooback-Jerbs Productivity Index 245,467.83 → 245,460.54 0.003%

Tourism
Tourists Per Hour 9.06 → 9.05 0.11%

Culture
Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale -497.00 → -498.00 0.20%

Food Quality
Meeshlin-Starr Index 1.08 → 1.07 0.93%

Why does deploying tanks to the border/threatening war in #801 result in my defence forces increasing, but my manufacturing/arms manufacturing dropping? Surely my defence forces would require more arms/material for an operation?

[Trotterdam]

You could import weapons from another country?

[Verdant Haven]

Why does deploying tanks to the border/threatening war in #801 result in my defence forces increasing, but my manufacturing/arms manufacturing dropping? Surely my defence forces would require more arms/material for an operation?

With a change that minuscule, what you're seeing is a knock-on effect where a change to something else is creating a slight modification downstream. I suspect what you're seeing is that when the government redirects more of its funding into the military directly, it is slightly reducing the funding dedicated to other places, like manufacturing subsidies. The increase in your Defense Forces was around 20 times larger than the decrease in your Arms Manufacturing. The economic model of the game isn't complex enough to capture specific ideas about where you're sourcing equipment, but I admit this may feel a bit odd. I'll bring it up backstage just to be 100% sure that everything is copacetic.

[New Galactic States]

I can’t remember the issue name, but it was one were I banned cars (I recently unbanned them) and my Insurance industry went up?, this issue happened about a month-ish ago, any reason why?

Still waiting for a answer