When reporting these, ideally include the following information:
- The name of the nation that had this effect
- The day that this effect was encountered
- The name of the issue, and if you know it, the number of the issue.
This thread should not be used to propose rewrites of issues, or to complain about issue bias. Those discussions can occur in The Writer's Block (viewtopic.php?f=13&t=159868), then subsequently in their own threads as needed. Yes, I know the Writers Block thread says not to do that. Don't worry - that's now our catch-all miscellaneous conversation place, and nobody is going to worry what posts go on there, so long as they're Issue-related discussions, and within normal forum rules (viewtopic.php?f=16&t=260044).
This thread should not be used to report grammar, punctuation or spelling mistakes, though we do like to hear about those things on the "Fix" thread.(viewtopic.php?f=13&t=158858)
Additionally, please read the following Unexpected Effects FAQ before using this thread. These represent the "bare minimum" of system knowledge required to be able to tell if issues are actually giving unexpected effects. Expect to be mocked mercilessly if your query is covered here, and yes, there will be a test at the end of term. Class dismissed!
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Unexpected Effects FAQ
"Why did this stat change by X%? That's too much / too little!"
The percentage change depends on your starting point.
If you have a statistic of 5, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +40%.
If you have a statistic of 100, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +2%.
If you have a statistic of 0.01, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +20000%.
The perceived magnitude of effect that you are experiencing often results from being a new nation. The earliest issues you answer always cause massive stat changes, as you're adding small numbers to small numbers. As time goes on you'll find that the same issues will often now barely affect things at all, as you're adding small numbers to very large numbers.
Corollary: If you see NO stat effects, the simulation isn't broken. Rather, the decision was in keeping with where your current stat model suggests you are ideologically and structurally, so no stat changes were needed.
Look on it not so much as a direct cause and effect thing, but rather the game working out the nature of your nation. The more information it gathers, the closer it moves your simulation to where you're likely to truly be. It's kind of a collapsing waveform sort of thing. It's not quite that simple, but the main gist here is not to see the "effects" as part of a direct cause and effect model.
For example, if banning Grand Prix racing drops your tourism by 75%, it's not that Grand Prix racing represented 75% of your tourism, rather that the simulation is gathering information about your priorities, and slowly refining its simulation of those. Later on, when your nation has momentum, only decisions that are out of keeping with your previous direction will upset the overall simulation.
So long as you keep answering issues with a consistent style, and keep playing the game, your nation's simulation will grow more and more stable.
Don't worry about "buyer's regret" either. Early decisions in your nation's lifespan are no more inherently consequential than late ones: its the amalgamated effect of ALL your decisions that matters.
If you have a statistic of 5, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +40%.
If you have a statistic of 100, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +2%.
If you have a statistic of 0.01, and the game code says add +2 to this, you'll see an increase of +20000%.
The perceived magnitude of effect that you are experiencing often results from being a new nation. The earliest issues you answer always cause massive stat changes, as you're adding small numbers to small numbers. As time goes on you'll find that the same issues will often now barely affect things at all, as you're adding small numbers to very large numbers.
Corollary: If you see NO stat effects, the simulation isn't broken. Rather, the decision was in keeping with where your current stat model suggests you are ideologically and structurally, so no stat changes were needed.
Look on it not so much as a direct cause and effect thing, but rather the game working out the nature of your nation. The more information it gathers, the closer it moves your simulation to where you're likely to truly be. It's kind of a collapsing waveform sort of thing. It's not quite that simple, but the main gist here is not to see the "effects" as part of a direct cause and effect model.
For example, if banning Grand Prix racing drops your tourism by 75%, it's not that Grand Prix racing represented 75% of your tourism, rather that the simulation is gathering information about your priorities, and slowly refining its simulation of those. Later on, when your nation has momentum, only decisions that are out of keeping with your previous direction will upset the overall simulation.
So long as you keep answering issues with a consistent style, and keep playing the game, your nation's simulation will grow more and more stable.
Don't worry about "buyer's regret" either. Early decisions in your nation's lifespan are no more inherently consequential than late ones: its the amalgamated effect of ALL your decisions that matters.
"Why did my civil rights / political freedom / economy move the wrong way?"
Broadly, the game is seeking information from you all the time to define your position on the three main categories.
If you confirm what it already knows about you, then you see no or little change in its recording of your position.
If you go against what it thinks it knows about you, then you can see a sizeable change.
So, for example, if the United States of America were to block its citizenry from the internet for one week, that's be a massive shift in its position on civil liberties. If China were to do the same, it'd be a notable but less dramatic shift. If North Korea were to do it, people would consider it business as usual.
With me so far?
Now add to this that the game uses a lot of invisible stats, and checks each of these in isolation, and that sometimes a single option may effect many of these.
This is where you get the confusing situations. Say, for example, a North Korea like nation embraces an option that arms its populace and tells them to go out and shoot anyone of non heterosexual sexuality.
That sounds like an attack on civil rights, right?
Well yes, except that the game looks at the nation's attitude on homosexuality, and notes that it's already super-bigoted, so a super-bigoted stance has very little effect on civil rights. The game then looks at the people's right to bear arms, and notices that we're going from no right to bear arms, to having the right to bear arms for a specific purpose. This creates a sizeable increase in civil rights.
Thus, you get a spurious and confusing scenario where civil rights increase in an option that sounds anti-civil rights.
The closer your nation is to the extremes, the more pronounced this effect becomes.
Sometimes you can work out the freedom sub-category, sometimes you can't. There's a few things that frequently catch people out so I'll mention them here specifically:
1) The right to privacy is a civil right. Self-explanatory really, but people often associate options that invade privacy with the rights of the invader to do as he pleases, not the rights of the invaded to preserve their privacy.
2) The right to influence politics with bribes / lobbying / money is a political freedom. Political freedom isn't just a "positive".
3) The right of small businesses to have an environment they can survive in (e.g. anti-monopoly legislation), and the right of the worker to unionise / strike etc. are economic freedoms. In other words, the game also considers the economic freedoms of the little guy.
4) The right to bear arms is considered not just for private citizens, but also for agencies like the police and the government. For minimum gun freedom, you can't allow the police or the military to have guns.
and here's the craziest one:
5) The right to not have things be illegal is a civil right. That is, if a nation doesn't have a law against murder or theft, then there's more freedom. This one is being reviewed, and may well leave the game some time soon, as it's often counterintuitive to what most folk mean by civil rights.
90% of "unexpected effects" on freedoms are from people not realising these factors are considered freedoms/rights by the game.
Finally, the Economy score has - in particular - an even more complicated simulation behind it, where your economic output, economic freedoms et al are not always going to correlate with your Economy score as you might expect. Take heart though - the same is true of real world economies, so this is probably weirdly realistic.
If you confirm what it already knows about you, then you see no or little change in its recording of your position.
If you go against what it thinks it knows about you, then you can see a sizeable change.
So, for example, if the United States of America were to block its citizenry from the internet for one week, that's be a massive shift in its position on civil liberties. If China were to do the same, it'd be a notable but less dramatic shift. If North Korea were to do it, people would consider it business as usual.
With me so far?
Now add to this that the game uses a lot of invisible stats, and checks each of these in isolation, and that sometimes a single option may effect many of these.
This is where you get the confusing situations. Say, for example, a North Korea like nation embraces an option that arms its populace and tells them to go out and shoot anyone of non heterosexual sexuality.
That sounds like an attack on civil rights, right?
Well yes, except that the game looks at the nation's attitude on homosexuality, and notes that it's already super-bigoted, so a super-bigoted stance has very little effect on civil rights. The game then looks at the people's right to bear arms, and notices that we're going from no right to bear arms, to having the right to bear arms for a specific purpose. This creates a sizeable increase in civil rights.
Thus, you get a spurious and confusing scenario where civil rights increase in an option that sounds anti-civil rights.
The closer your nation is to the extremes, the more pronounced this effect becomes.
Sometimes you can work out the freedom sub-category, sometimes you can't. There's a few things that frequently catch people out so I'll mention them here specifically:
1) The right to privacy is a civil right. Self-explanatory really, but people often associate options that invade privacy with the rights of the invader to do as he pleases, not the rights of the invaded to preserve their privacy.
2) The right to influence politics with bribes / lobbying / money is a political freedom. Political freedom isn't just a "positive".
3) The right of small businesses to have an environment they can survive in (e.g. anti-monopoly legislation), and the right of the worker to unionise / strike etc. are economic freedoms. In other words, the game also considers the economic freedoms of the little guy.
4) The right to bear arms is considered not just for private citizens, but also for agencies like the police and the government. For minimum gun freedom, you can't allow the police or the military to have guns.
and here's the craziest one:
5) The right to not have things be illegal is a civil right. That is, if a nation doesn't have a law against murder or theft, then there's more freedom. This one is being reviewed, and may well leave the game some time soon, as it's often counterintuitive to what most folk mean by civil rights.
90% of "unexpected effects" on freedoms are from people not realising these factors are considered freedoms/rights by the game.
Finally, the Economy score has - in particular - an even more complicated simulation behind it, where your economic output, economic freedoms et al are not always going to correlate with your Economy score as you might expect. Take heart though - the same is true of real world economies, so this is probably weirdly realistic.
"Why didn't tax / unemployment / black market do what I expected it to?"
NS uses a complex model to calculate a lot of things, which can lead to counter-intuitive results.
- Why didn't tax fall when spending was described as reducing (or why didn't it rise when spending was described as rising)?
The answer usually lies in your economic output.
The more economic output you have, the less %tax you need to support your spending.
Bear in mind that economic output is dependent on a lot of interacting factors. Sometimes an option will cause you to shrink your economy by more than you proportionally shrank your spending, causing a tax rise to support the same spending. Sometimes it won't. Often different things will happen to different nations faced with the same issue choice.
- Why didn't tax fall when an option described a corporation tax cut / sales tax cut?
The tax model of the game is very simplistic, and it basically abstracts all spending as income tax and doesn't take into account any idea of government borrowing, deficit spending or tax from sources other than income tax.
That gives us limited tools for simulation.
Corporation tax is rolled into business subsidisation, with lowering of corporate tax representing an effective business subsidisation, and a shifting of tax burden onto the income taxpayer.
Sales tax and VAT, meanwhile, move income tax inversely, as raising more revenue from these forms of taxation decreases the burden on income tax, and vice versa.
This isn't entirely satisfactory, of course, as it means that the descriptions of "Freedom From Taxation" on the graphs aren't accurate, but it's reflective of how the game engine is written and of the simulation's limitations. It basically isn't possible to have burden of taxation and income tax move in opposite directions, as in the simulation all measured tax = income tax.
- Why didn't employment rise/fall when it said we were creating / destroying jobs?
Often, the described effect has taken place, but other changes to your economy could have affected employment elsewhere.
For example, if you create a load of artificial jobs to employ the homeless, you might also weaken your private sector economy through the public sector taking its market share in certain industries. Your economy might shrink, and your net employment could fall, even though you created the jobs you said you would.
- Why didn't black market / state industry / private sector fall or rise like the option said it would?
Again, think whole economy. An option that reduces the market share that goes to the black market but which grows the economy as a whole could result in the absolute market size of the black market increasing, even as you decrease the black market's proportional prominence in the economy.
Finally, remember that issues effects vary according to the nation they effect. The effect it has on your nation is almost certainly not the same effect you'll see on another nation.
- Why didn't tax fall when spending was described as reducing (or why didn't it rise when spending was described as rising)?
The answer usually lies in your economic output.
The more economic output you have, the less %tax you need to support your spending.
Bear in mind that economic output is dependent on a lot of interacting factors. Sometimes an option will cause you to shrink your economy by more than you proportionally shrank your spending, causing a tax rise to support the same spending. Sometimes it won't. Often different things will happen to different nations faced with the same issue choice.
- Why didn't tax fall when an option described a corporation tax cut / sales tax cut?
The tax model of the game is very simplistic, and it basically abstracts all spending as income tax and doesn't take into account any idea of government borrowing, deficit spending or tax from sources other than income tax.
That gives us limited tools for simulation.
Corporation tax is rolled into business subsidisation, with lowering of corporate tax representing an effective business subsidisation, and a shifting of tax burden onto the income taxpayer.
Sales tax and VAT, meanwhile, move income tax inversely, as raising more revenue from these forms of taxation decreases the burden on income tax, and vice versa.
This isn't entirely satisfactory, of course, as it means that the descriptions of "Freedom From Taxation" on the graphs aren't accurate, but it's reflective of how the game engine is written and of the simulation's limitations. It basically isn't possible to have burden of taxation and income tax move in opposite directions, as in the simulation all measured tax = income tax.
- Why didn't employment rise/fall when it said we were creating / destroying jobs?
Often, the described effect has taken place, but other changes to your economy could have affected employment elsewhere.
For example, if you create a load of artificial jobs to employ the homeless, you might also weaken your private sector economy through the public sector taking its market share in certain industries. Your economy might shrink, and your net employment could fall, even though you created the jobs you said you would.
- Why didn't black market / state industry / private sector fall or rise like the option said it would?
Again, think whole economy. An option that reduces the market share that goes to the black market but which grows the economy as a whole could result in the absolute market size of the black market increasing, even as you decrease the black market's proportional prominence in the economy.
Finally, remember that issues effects vary according to the nation they effect. The effect it has on your nation is almost certainly not the same effect you'll see on another nation.
"Why did wealth gaps / inequality move the wrong way?"
A common complaint is that when you make a decision that is intended to affect the rights of the poor or the rich, income inequality goes the wrong way.
This is to do with the limited toolset in the sim. Essentially, if you restrict economic freedoms, wealth gaps tend to decrease. If you increase economic freedoms, wealth gaps tend to increase.
There's lots more complexity to that behind the scenes, but the most common cause of mismatch between narratives and wealth gaps is due to this.
Sometimes, IRL, a reduction in economic freedom can result in greater wealth gaps. However, the sim doesn't allow for that.
This is to do with the limited toolset in the sim. Essentially, if you restrict economic freedoms, wealth gaps tend to decrease. If you increase economic freedoms, wealth gaps tend to increase.
There's lots more complexity to that behind the scenes, but the most common cause of mismatch between narratives and wealth gaps is due to this.
Sometimes, IRL, a reduction in economic freedom can result in greater wealth gaps. However, the sim doesn't allow for that.
"Why did Weather change in this way?"
Weather is a funny old stat, and we don't take it into consideration when coding issues. Therefore, you should not expect any narrative consistency in the movement of this stat.
I consider this to be a deliberate comment by the game designers on how you can't really control the weather, at the end of the day. Don't know if that's true, but basically please don't make reports on unexpected effects on weather.
I consider this to be a deliberate comment by the game designers on how you can't really control the weather, at the end of the day. Don't know if that's true, but basically please don't make reports on unexpected effects on weather.
"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:
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.
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.
What's going on with doping the water supply and recreational drug use? (December 2017 changes)
Coding changes have moved doping of water out of drug-related freedoms, and instead made this a question of bodily autonomy. Net result is that civil rights drop a little, and the game tends to correlate falling civil rights with falling recreational drug use.
In narrative terms, forced ingestion of drugs is not recreational drug use, it's compulsory drug ingestion. The unit of recreational drug use is Pineapple Fondness Rating, indicating how much the citizenry seek recreational drug use. Indeed, the presence of all those drugs in the water make the population more docile and complaint, and less inclined to - say - have a good time by going out and getting high.
The last step of this process was for the technical team to migrate stats on nations that historically have squiffed stats from this. This has involved basically eliminating the compulsory drug use scale. One unfortunate side effect of this, because math, is that nations who were previously maximally compulsory drug users are now maximally anti-drug. This is the best solution in game stat terms, as it gives the exact same civil rights position as before, though it does mean of course that liberal drug moves will now improve your freedoms rather than leaving them unchanged. This also means that nations that thought they were as pro-drug as they could be (forcing everyone to take drugs) suddenly have a "No Drugs" policy flag, and a much lower recreational drug use than was previously registering.
Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear. Look on it as previously you having been inappropriately gated from increasing your drug freedoms because of a bad editing/design decision, and now that barrier being removed, so you can show that your nation is pro-drugs, and actually have those choices register. Likewise, look on the change in Recreational Drug Use as the measurement becoming more accurate than before, as it is no longer categorising forced ingestion of any and all chemicals as a tendency towards drugs for recreation.
In narrative terms, forced ingestion of drugs is not recreational drug use, it's compulsory drug ingestion. The unit of recreational drug use is Pineapple Fondness Rating, indicating how much the citizenry seek recreational drug use. Indeed, the presence of all those drugs in the water make the population more docile and complaint, and less inclined to - say - have a good time by going out and getting high.
The last step of this process was for the technical team to migrate stats on nations that historically have squiffed stats from this. This has involved basically eliminating the compulsory drug use scale. One unfortunate side effect of this, because math, is that nations who were previously maximally compulsory drug users are now maximally anti-drug. This is the best solution in game stat terms, as it gives the exact same civil rights position as before, though it does mean of course that liberal drug moves will now improve your freedoms rather than leaving them unchanged. This also means that nations that thought they were as pro-drug as they could be (forcing everyone to take drugs) suddenly have a "No Drugs" policy flag, and a much lower recreational drug use than was previously registering.
Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear. Look on it as previously you having been inappropriately gated from increasing your drug freedoms because of a bad editing/design decision, and now that barrier being removed, so you can show that your nation is pro-drugs, and actually have those choices register. Likewise, look on the change in Recreational Drug Use as the measurement becoming more accurate than before, as it is no longer categorising forced ingestion of any and all chemicals as a tendency towards drugs for recreation.
Some known bugs...
These things are commonly reported unexpected effects, which the technical bods know about, but the fixes for which are held back by technical reasons. Being worked on!
For now, they're just technical flaws that there's no need to re-report, and which we just have to live with. Sorry!
1) Tourism doesn't always go up when you expect it to.
Tourism is excessively dependent on the environment in the current simulation, so an issue that trades environment for additional tourism will normally result in a spurious fall in tourism.
2) Allowing bribes decreases corruption.
The freedom to bribe is a political freedom. Corruption decreases when political freedoms increase.
Therefore the game believes that if you increase freedom to bribe, you decrease corruption. A frequent "manwhut?" moment.
Fixed: 007. https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/beta=7
For now, they're just technical flaws that there's no need to re-report, and which we just have to live with. Sorry!
1) Tourism doesn't always go up when you expect it to.
Tourism is excessively dependent on the environment in the current simulation, so an issue that trades environment for additional tourism will normally result in a spurious fall in tourism.
The freedom to bribe is a political freedom. Corruption decreases when political freedoms increase.
Therefore the game believes that if you increase freedom to bribe, you decrease corruption. A frequent "manwhut?" moment.
Fixed: 007. https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/beta=7
