Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Police State underpowered, except with Yang, Democracy overpowered

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Police State underpowered, except with Yang, Democracy overpowered

    Unless you use Yang, what good is police state? I fooled around with the Spartans a little, and I found +3 police isn't that good. Would expect non-lethal methods +3 police with 3 units to quell between 9-12 drones and it just doesn't. +2 Support just isn't that amazing. -2 efficiency hurts, and switching costs a lot of credits at higher difficulty.

    The main use I could see is at the very beginning of the game. If somehow you started out next to Yang, traded for Doctrine loyalty and switched. Yet, at higher difficulties Yang would be unlikely to trade, and you wouldn't have the energy credits. Even if you did have the energy credits I doubt its worth it.

    During peace:

    Democracy just wins hands down, +2 growth is awesome until cloning vats. +2 efficiency helps a lot with those drones, and lets you pick planned which gives another +2 growth for +4 growth. In the beginning of the game its hard to beat +4 growth and +1 industry at the cost of 2 support. More growth = more colony pods. In the mid game the +2 efficiency becomes key, and with children's crech you get a whooping +6 growth with democracy, planned, and children's creche.

    During wartime:

    If your winning that +2 efficiency is awesome. Nothing like taking an enemy base and getting nothing out of it because of drone riots. If your struggling Fundamentalist seems better. Fundamentalist Spartans are scary.

    I'm playing Brother Lal right now and he is stupidly powerful with democracy, planned, and knowledge. Switching over from planned to free market for my war against Yang, and just stealing most his bases with probe teams.

    Balancing out democracy:

    +2 growth is just too powerful. +1 growth instead would go a long ways to making democracy balanced.

    Boosting police state:

    +3 research, lack of ethics, just look at the real world the Russians beat the world with Sputnik 1. It also serves as the opposite of fundamentalist, + research as opposed to minus.

    Discuss please.

  • #2
    Police State is practically the dedicated model for the Chairman, everybody else should stay well away from it. (Same with Miriam -- Fundamentalist, Democracy under certain circumstances, otherwise, Fundy)

    All the societal models have been extensively discussed, reviewed, tested in the past. I think they're fine, any adjustment like four or five factors to each element that is not part of the Future Society will just muddle the waters.

    Most people I've heard run Spartans as Democracy. I do, up until it's time for the parades and silly negotiations to end. First strikes on factions on the same continent are the usual 4-1-2s and 4-3-1s if necessary, otherwise I wait for Fusion Power and Chaos Guns because Chaos beats the stuffing out of plasma steel armor. When I am finished researching (assuming I'm way ahead of everybody else in tech), whereby I have Chaos Guns, Doctrine: AP, Fusion Power, Doctrine: Initiative (easy cruiser transports), Comm Jammers, Advanced Military Algorithms (for AAA ECM garrisons) and Neural Grafting then I switch to Fundamentalist. One monolith trip for each trooper and they're elite as long as I have Command Centers where they were built which I usually do since I like the Command Nexus SP. Only catch that I learned was that before, I didn't build energy banks but I do now in every base because without them your cash dwindles into the negative.

    Comment


    • #3
      "Police State is practically the dedicated model for the Chairman, everybody else should stay well away from it."

      Thanks for confirming what I thought.

      I'm surprised how good democracy is in the early game, I thought the -2 support would hurt more then it does. As I said before the +2 growth in the beginning is unbeatable. I used to run frontier and skip democracy because of the -2 support, now I grab democracy ASAP.

      "

      Comment


      • #4
        I don't think Police state needs re-balancing, it's excellent for what it's meant to do: Be a temporary means of bolstering your internal security and military at the expense of efficiency and growth. It's bad in the long term because what SMAX is trying to deliver isn't balance, it's verisimilitude: Autocratic governments are prone to corruption and curtail the aspirations of their people.

        The real reason that Police state is weak is that the benefits are expensive to enjoy. Yes, you can have a lot of units free of support costs, but in order to do that, you still need to build them. The same is true with police. Having a high police rating is great, IF you've got a high drone count in need of a jackboot to the face. If your expectation is to just run police without actually having a use for the benefits it provides, it should not come as a great shock if it under-performs.

        Fundamentalism is in the same boat. If you need morale and probe rating, (like Morgan on war-footing, for example) it's a great SE choice. If you're at peace and aren't running a huge army of probe teams, yeah, it's gonna be mediocre.

        Bottom line, for most factions, they're back-against-the-wall SE choices, not set-it-and-forget-it. Use them when you need them, but when the pressure is gone, get back to Democracy.

        Comment

        Working...
        X