Matrix Games Forums

Are the red and green linking and blinking lines relative or absolute? For example, if I see a Green line running from Narcotics to Crime, does this mean that the Narcotics policy is having a POSITIVE effect on Crime (i.e., reducing it), or is it INCREASING Crime? In other words, does Green always mean increasing regardless of the relationship?

I think its absolute (I could be confused by the definintions) basically a green line indicates that an increse in one will cause an increase in the other.

In your example this means that if you increase the availability of narcotics it will result in a corresponding increase in crime.
Or for a different example equality has a green line linking it to income tax and a red line to sales tax, therefore any increase in income tax will increase equality (ie more money taken from higher income earners), whereas any increase in sales tax will decrease equality (as the same amount of tax is paid regardless of income.)

Hope that helps

Thanks for the input. I'll just look at it as Green means the affected bar will get larger and Red means it will get smaller. However, that's confusing in some cases, as a small Unemployment bar is Green. I went ahead and bought the game and am playing as the UK. I will post some confusing relationships if I come across them, as I really want to understand the effects of my actions.

Ok. Here's one:

Unemployment is about 25% full and all green. I assume this means Unemployment is low and it's green so it's good.
There is a green line running from Import Tariffs to Unemployment.

Does this mean that the Tariffs are actually increasing the level of Unemployment? That's not good, right? Shouldn't Tariffs decrease Unemployment?

Never mind. It seems that this was happening because I had Tariffs at the bare minimum. As I increased them Unemployment decreased. 

If i understand correctly the Green bars explain you that if you intervene in a sector the others touched by the Green Bar MIGHT be influenced in a positive way (so the Red one in a negative way).... anyway i assume that this is not always mandatory or just exploiting effects in the turn coming but in the long term.