Any NS statistics expert (or avid fan) out there?

[Drachmaland]

As a numerophile I closely monitor my NS statistics and constantly try to evaluate how my issue-handling affects them. After all, the NS-issue effects mechanism/algorithms may be imperfect, but still they have some educational value. Moreover, I believe that if I wish to reach certain stat-mixtures for my nation, I have something to learn from older nations and their history.

 

So, I decided to start this thread in order for me to be able to learn from the knowledge and experiences of you more senior nations and seasoned NS players — especially if you share the same inquiring-mindness and statisticsphilia as I do. Please excuse this strange topic, but I hope to poke someone's interest; so here goes my first question:

 

 

#1. For nations having a 100/100 Economy rating: If you remember, after how long from your nation's establishment did you hit a relatively unshakable 100/100 Economy? (Reason for asking: Nations with a 5-to-25+ million population, i.e. being 2-to-10+ years older than my nation, tend to have a solid 100/100 rating for their Economy regardless of their type of government — and this is the most consistent characteristic I've noticed, apart obviously from Population, that gets typically favored from a nation's age.)

 

 

P.S. In case any of you guys wish to pose your own statistics-related question, it is more than welcome! You can see your trends for the main-three stats (Civil Rights, Economy, Political Freedom) at nationstates.net/nation=%NATION%/detail=trend and your full statistics at nationstates.net/page=compare/nations=%NATION%?censusid=N (with N being a number from 0 to 71; where it says %NATION% put your nation's name).

[Mediobogdum]

As far as population goes, you will reach about 1 billion each year you play.  I have been playing NS for just over 2 years and my pop. is about 4.4 billion.

 

In order for your nation's economy to be at 100/100 you will have had to have been;

 

1. Very skillful at selecting your options on daily issues.

2. Been very understanding when an expected outcome was not related to the actual outcome on daily selection to what you thought was an economy-related daily issue  

 

Daily issues are great fun and consequences are often hilarious.  But what you thought was a sensible selection for increasing economic performance often have unintended consequences. Issues editors have a wicked sense of humour and just love to tinker around the edges sometimes.

 

About a year ago I did have a stab at pulling information together from the 27 different NS categories in terms of the three main types Civil Rights, etc, and breaking then down into "Frightening = 98-99/100", or "Thriving = 84/100" but gave up when NS++ came along and it was not possible to look at this breakdown.  I even put a couple of charts onto PhotoBucket.

 

 

 

 

[Drachmaland]

Thank you, Mediobogdum, for your response! And it's nice to see a fellow willing to examine NS stats correlations in such a deep way — please include me as a volunteer in any similar future endeavor of yours! 

 

By comparing statistics with older nations I noticed that when they have a stable stance in an issue (and typically this is representative of their NS characterization, as well) the corresponding stat metric becomes exaggerated as this nation gets older (i.e., it goes further and further away from that metric's mean). But, as far as Economy is concerned, an older nation shows a much higher probability of having a 100/100 rating — and, here's what intrigues me, irrespective of that nation's category or form of government.

 

 

As far as population goes, you will reach about 1 billion each year you play.  I have been playing NS for just over 2 years and my pop. is about 4.4 billion.

I believe it is 1 billion per 6 months, like I said in the OP — your population is actually aligned with what I said myself.

[Drachmaland]

Other question:

 

 

#2. For nations having a very high (positive) or very low (negative) Weather metric: Can you relate your Weather rating to any issue-handling behavior of your nation? 

 

 

P.S. You can review your weather rating at nationstates.net/page=compare/nations=%NATION%?censusid=41 (at %NATION% put your nation's name) — the World average (median) for this metric = +2.

[Hariko]

I take care of my environment, so that positively affects it.

[Drachmaland]

So, taking care of the environment does actually positively affect the sunshine quantity? That I hadn't thought of — and it is both interesting and useful. Thank you, Hariko!

[Hariko]

You're welcome.

[URAP]

*is stats n00b*

Yeah... I have no idea

[Mediobogdum]

The quickest way to look at your nation's stats is, if you are NS++, to be on your nation's main page and click on the "Stats" graph icon and choose the stat you're interested in. Mine for weather is -50 and I'm a Civil Rights Love Fest.  To see which issues might affect each of the now 74 stats, the daily issues are detailed at:

 

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=778

 

Hope this helps

[Drachmaland]

Thank you once more, Mediobogdum!

 

I am on NS++, but this extension won't work (at least it won't work fully / as expected) on my Chrome 45 — an issue I posted here about. [i seriously need to find a Windows box with a (non-beta) Chrome 43 and enable NPAPI there, to see if that resolves it.]

 

However, the same way (i.e., via the Analysis icon in a nation's main page) work for quickly reaching one's statistics even when NS++ is not present.

 

My Weather is negative (-18), while the supposedly related metrics of Eco-Friendliness and Environmental Beauty are both positive and expectedly/predictably correlated (67 and 198.05, respectively). I am also a Civil Rights Lovefest, but I haven't formulated or tested any hypothesis on the potential effect of this kind of a characteristic. The thing is, the less authoritarianistic my nation becomes, the more negative my weather gets — maybe the guys making the stats formulae have noticed that RL nations with strong civil rights and potilical freedoms tend to be located away from the hot and sunny places of Earth.

 

Last but not least, you say the NS stats count is currently at 74, but I could not find anything after the 72nd one (namely Inclusiveness). 

[Mediobogdum]

Oops, you're right 72  Maybe weather is not directly related to weather weather but takes account of how people feel - as in you look a bit under the weather? This would correlate with your thought that as your 'governance' becomes easier on the populace, the better they feel  

[Papercuts and Skittles]

How often do issues come around? I'm trying to wipe my police spending to start over on it at a much lower percentage (I already wiped military, so now police is over 80%, though it was in the 90's)

[Drachmaland]

I believe the possibility of an issue reappearing (at any time interval) is totally random and, in my ~7 months of existence with an issue frequency set at 2 per day, the most times a have had the same issue was thrice. I haven't counted how many of the current 437 issues relate to police spending, but you can check it out at the NS forum thread that Mediobogdum kindly provided at #9.

 

Mediobogdum, that idea of yours that the Weather metric may relate to how people feel is splendid! Thus I'll be trying to see if there can be a correlation with the Happiness metric.

[URAP]

I dismiss a LOT of issues. I've recieved some issues more than 6 times.

[Mediobogdum]

I believe the possibility of an issue reappearing (at any time interval) is totally random and, in my ~7 months of existence with an issue frequency set at 2 per day, the most times a have had the same issue was thrice.

If you want to look at frequency of issues turning up, I did a small, actually not so small, exercise on this!  Please see my Factbook entry:

http://www.nationstates.net/nation=mediobogdum/detail=factbook/id=217225

[Drachmaland]

Wow, Mediobogdum, you are my hero!

[Drachmaland]

If you want to look at frequency of issues turning up, I did a small, actually not so small, exercise on this!  Please see my Factbook entry: http://www.nationstates.net/nation=mediobogdum/detail=factbook/id=217225

Well, yesterday we had Corruption after exactly 14 days — and the more frequent turn-up of some stats compared to others, is something quite common indeed.

 

However, I do not know whether this frequency unbalance constitutes a measure of importance or of true randomness. I believe the less differences there are among the frequencies of the 72 stats appearing, the less random the algorithm that brings up one stat every day is; if we had a perfect 72-day cycle rotation then it would be totally nonrandom. Therefore I'm taking it that it is simply a mater of pure luck how often (or not) one category will appear in the daily stats.

[Drachmaland]

New question:

 

#3a. Does anyone know (or has links to offer for an answer) how Averageness is calculated? You can review your own Averageness rating at nationstates.net/page=compare/nations=%NATION%?censusid=67 (at %NATION% put your nation's name). Logically for the Averageness metric the NS engine would first have to calculate all averages for the stats where an average (median) is calculated (see NOTES below), then determine how far away each one of the nation's stats lies compared to that category's average, and then somehow factor all those data in — but how exactly? Could it really be a process like this or am I missing something completely?

 

#3b. When there is a statistic dipole (of opposites), as in Corruption & Freedom from Corruption, which of them is taken into account for the Averageness calculation? Obviously if they are both put into the formula, then they are canceling out each other. On the other hand, they are also dipoles, like e.g. Godlessness-Religiousness, where the sum of the two values does not equal 0.

 

 

NOTES

• The 45 NS stats where an average (median) is calculated are: Civil Rights, Economy, Political Freedoms, Population, Authoritarianism, Business Subsidization, Compassion, Corruption, Culture, Defense Forces, Eco-Friendliness, Employment, Environmental Beauty, Freedom from Corruption, Godlessness, Human Development Index, Ideological Radicality, Inclusiveness, Income Equality, Industry: Tourism, Influence, Law Enforcement, Most Pro-Market, Niceness, Nudity, Obesity, Pacifism, Political Apathy, Primitiveness, Public Healthcare, Public Transport, Recreational Drug Use, Religiousness, Rudeness, Safety, Safety from Crime, Scientific Advancement, Social Conservatism, Toxicity, Wealth Gaps, Weaponization, Weather, Welfare, World Assembly Endorsements, Youth Rebelliousness.

• The 26 NS stats without an average are: Freedom from Taxation, Government Size, Happiness, Health, all Industries except Tourism (namely: Arms Manufacturing, Automobile Manufacturing, Basket Weaving, Beverage Sales, Book Publishing, Cheese Exports, Furniture Restoration, Gambling, Information Technology, Insurance, Mining, Pizza Delivery, Retail, Timber Woodchipping, Trout Fishing), Intelligence, Lifespan, both Sectors (i.e. Agriculture, Manufacturing), Stupidity, Taxation, Unexpected Death Rate.

• There is also 1 last NS stat, i.e. Averageness, which does have an average, but where its average is most expectedly (naturally/logically) calculated after each nation's Averageness metric is recorded — and then the median for the whole lot is determined. The reason I believe this is how it is calculated, is because the median cannot be determined if the complete pool of all data is not available.

[Drachmaland]

Total number of issues as of today is 443.

[URAP]

Wow, so few.

[Drachmaland]

By comparing effects after selecting a specific option of an issue in multiple instances (i.e., where the affected NS stats differed in value among the cases examined), I reached the conclusion (through observation) that an option that can e.g. boost your nation's Economy by +12 when your Economy is at 16, can have just a +1 change when your Economy is at 84, and nothing at all when it is at 98. I'm therefore checking the hypothesis that, apart from an option having a delta^† effect (which leads to a comparative value), there can also be some kind of an 'absolute value' requirement (meaning that with your decision this metric can't be lower than X or higher than Y) and/or that your decision could have a delta effect at a level of e.g. 20 but the strength of its effect diminishes as the level is closer to either extreme (until it is actually nullified). So, my question is simple:

 

#4. Have you noticed in your own stats the phenomenon described above (i.e., having a much diminished effect of a specific decision option on a specific metric, when said metric has become much higher or lower in the meantime)?

 

_________

^† here 'delta' stands for the difference operator

[Drachmaland]

Total number of issues as of today is 443.

 

Two new issues added, increasing the total number to 445.

 

Issue #443 includes an option for the infamous "cut all subsidies" decision.

[Drachmaland]

Verified fact:

When a nation's stat for the daily-census standing changes between the major and the minor update of that day, this nation's page for the 12-hour interval after the minor update shows the newer stat value, but the nation's positioning (obviously) does not change