CCCP's Workshop.

[Kirov]

"Being determines consciousness" means, amongst other meanings, that the most important thing is to give food to the people. After that they will get aware of their handicapped social position and start to fight for their freedom.

Marx hasn't said anything that can lead to conclusion the "Knowledge" is the best of all values listed in SMAC (survival, power, knowledge, wealth).

[Drogue]

Generally a focus upon gaining money (the 'rat race') and on economics development leads to some people having much money, whereas others get less. It generates conflict between people and greed. I believe the focus on industrial development leads to plundering of Planet's resources to try to make more money. Quite simply I think our development as a faction depends more on our knowledge and influence than the amount of Ec we have.

[GeneralTacticus]

How so? Wealth is, as I have said, merely a focus on industrial and economic development. How does this lead to injustice?

[Drogue]

Yes that is Marxism, everyone has their needs met, whereas wealth is more likely to lead to injustice and apathy (I doubt the drones get any more, and the Morale expanation seems to suggest apathy)

While it is true it can lead to faster research, I was only refering to roleplaying, not necessarily the actual effects. I simply think we should be more concerned with knowledge than with wealth, as i think wealth breeds greed and injustice.

I'd like to see a poll not on what values model we should use because it helps us in the game, but on what we should strive for, what we actually value.

[GeneralTacticus]

Isn't the whole point of Marxism to create a society in which everyone has their material needs met? Quite apart from that, Wealth will often result in faster research than Knowledge, due to the economy bonus.

[Drogue]

well put!

[Pandemoniak]

Only knowledge could improve our well being as human kind.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


Why would that be a problem? Using Wealth just means a greater focus on economic and industrial development.

At the expense of everything else!
Wealth is saying that of the things we value (power, knowledge or wealth) wealth is the most important. I think many people, especially CCCP, would feel a little uneasy about declaring that about all else we want money. The Morale penalty is designed to show that the people have become accustomed to having material things, and, like Morgan, prize comfort so highly it has a detrimental effect on society. It creates a society based on greed and the rat race, which is exactly the mistake that caused Earth's downfall IMHO. While of course the Peacekeepers will do whatever the majority wants, I believe we should value happiness over material gains.

I'm sure there was a point in there somewhere!

[Kirov]

I think that 'Wealth' values are the closest of all to Marxist ideology.

[GeneralTacticus]

An ideological problem could be the use of Wealth, but this can be justified by the fact that all people need a minimum of material comfort to reach happiness - hence the focus on creating Wealth and material benefits for ALL citizens.

Why would that be a problem? Using Wealth just means a greater focus on economic and industrial development.

[Main_Brain]

Popboom per Planned&Demo to get those Specialists, also place Bases nearer together to obtain Specialists in a shorter ammount of Time.


I use no FM either.. and Im usually the Drones ;=)

[Drogue]

To counter Maniacs ideas, I don't think you need excessive specialists or wealth, I think with decent efficiency and a knowledge bonus we have all we need! (Although Golden Ages are always good)

[Drogue]

I agree with the idea of non FM playing, I've never used FM as i find that even without i get enough ecological problems, and exploration or assult (more likely defensive assult) becomes impossible, and i keep very little in the way of an army. I generally find that with Planned for growth and then Green late in the game (both with Knowledge and Democracy usually) give me plenty of Ec and enough labs to keep ahead of everyone else.

Besides, I could never bring myself to wreck the havok that free market brings to such a peaceful planet (and yes, i usually play as the Gains)

[Maniac]

Ah, this non-Anglosaxon thanks you for the explanation.

As for a few viable alternatives for FM, I can think of some.

First would a combination of Wealth + Golden Age. This gives the same energy benefit as Free Market. Plus a Golden Age is easy to reach with our Peacekeeper talents. I believe Golden Ages require size 3 or 5 to begin, but most citizens want to stay in Planned anyway until our bases have grown to a decent size thanks to the Planned growth bonus, so that's no problem. An ideological problem could be the use of Wealth, but this can be justified by the fact that all people need a minimum of material comfort to reach happiness - hence the focus on creating Wealth and material benefits for ALL citizens.

Another more mid-game alternative is heavy use of specialists - Engineers, Empaths, Thinkers. They can create more economy, research and psych than most worked tiles can produce raw energy. This approach needs a lot of crawlers, but I hope I can construct some condensers for food gathering in my current T&C term, so this shouldn't be a problem. Minerals are found and can be crawled everywhere in the form of forests, soon mines and perhaps also boreholes (should organize a poll about that some time soon...). An added advantage of this method is most of our people will no longer need to do manual labour as it will all be done by machines. Humans can focus on matters of the mind.

These two methods make heavy use of educated citizens (talents and specialists), thus realizing the ideal of equal chances in education for everyone.

So if CCCP wants to prevent FM, two things can be done:
1) Give crawlers an important place in our economy. On Old Earth such mechanization would cause redundancies of human workers, but here on Alpha Centauri with our limited population there is always need for extra work forces.
2) Prepare for Golden Age. Not sure what we would need to do for that. Build Rec Commons and Network Nodes??

[lucky22]

Originally posted by Maniac
Do you still accept new members??

Of course!

Btw, what exactly do you mean with those last few sentences?

First of last few sentences explanation:

Originally posted by Maniac(in Merchant Exchange)
We have also noticed our industrial development is focused almost exclusively on New Apolyton. Several members of the CCCP have told me this causes growing unrest with our drone population. They believe the "elite in New Apolyton is creating extra comfort for themselves while ignoring the outer bases". So to prevent factionwide unrest I'd like to propose a more homogeneous development of our faction. To be more concrete, I'd suggest topping the mineral production of our bases at about 12 to 16 minerals.

Second of last few sentences explanation:
I didn't do a hard analysis on this, but it seems like the current consensus among active "veterans" and especially newly-joining members is that once we have reached sufficient size we should switch to a Free Market economy. "On the ropes" is from boxing, meaning we are getting weak. A long term goal for the CCCP (as you know) has been to develop a workaround which makes a non-FM decision feasable for our faction once it is mature. We have mostly made scattered suggestions and argued economic philosophy and politics, though.

Third of last few sentences explanation:
"Die with our boots on": "Die fighting", "Never give up" etc. I guess here I just mean we should be trying to make our case for non-FM approaches until the mouse is pried from our cold, dying fingers.

I'll work on using more straight-forward language and clearer ideas.