For the sake of Police State, the most oppressed Goverment in SMACX

[Nadexander]

Re: Re: For the sake of Police State, the most oppressed Goverment in SMACX

Originally posted by Fitz

Police/Free Market/Knowledge and Hunter Seeker Algorithm (or lots of probe defenders).

-3 police (only on drone/ unit), +2 Economy, -3 Planet, -1 Effic, +2 Reseacrch, -2 Probe, +2 Support.

Add Aethetic Virtues: -2 Police (NO extra drones).
Add Brood Pit: -1 Police, 0 with AV.
Add Thought Control to above: +2 Police, +2 Economy, +2 Research, +2 Morale, -1 Effic, -1 Support, -3 Planet.
Get the Cloning Vats and -1 Support goes back to +2.

Remember that Children Creche adds +2 Effic to the base it is in. So if you get the Aethetic Virtues, Living Refinery, Hunter Seeker Algorithm and build Brood Pits & Childrens Creches you can either run Police/FM/Power or Police/FM/Knowledge and have effectively a 0 police and efficiency.

Ah! -1 or 0 efficiency sounds okay, but really its a disaster, especially when running free market. Unless you got the magic +4 your gonna be losing lots of energy to inefficiency. Even with +4 your losing ~5%. This might not seem like alot but consider that at that point in the game you have lots of energy enhancing facilities so a single point of energy could come out to 5-10 points of labs/econ/psych. The worst part though is that your missing out on eudimonia or cybernetic or knowledge or wealth. Any two of these in combination would _Dramatically_ increase your energy production. There are many much easier (and much cheaper in terms of oppertunity costs) ways to deal with drones and have high morale troops than to use PS, Power, or Thought Control.

-Nadexander

[EtheMind]

It's nice to find a fellow defender for Police State Nadexander. And your idea of improving Police effect on higher levels is a very good one. I might point out that Police State only and even when running PS only, it should have more effect.

i usually run police/green with most factions

That's interesting. I used to play a lot of games using Police State. Wonder why? But as I started to learn that Firaxis had betrayed the dictatorship I switched my allegiance for the sake of practise. Democracy works so much better, in most of the cases, sometimes even in war, which is just absurd.

I have to say I like that Police State isn't a very good SE choice in general. Human beings don't seem to do well under those conditions! Imagine being 'forced' to go to work by an armed guard, having all your civil liberties suspended or revoked at any moment by the all-powerful police.

You hippie... No, Police State has proven to be inefficient in some matters and the majority of people might find it somewhat...stricting system. But if I'm calling all the shots then I like it And if I'm suspending your rights then I'd like it to have a better effect too

It has been brought out that Police State goes well in the early game, and has nice effects in special circumstances: specialists society(Who does all the WORK there ) and with Yang. And it has also been agreed that Police State doesn't go very well in the mind-late game, nor the police consept in general.

I think the problem is that Police State doesn't fit very well into any overall strategy, which just isn't realistic or "fair". In our history, we have examples of Police States not in constant stage of war but still going high despite having obvious difficulties with an oppressive system dictatorship tends to be.
China, being the only almost-super-power having Police State is handling it rather well, not bringing out the obvious ethical dilemmas. At this point, China, is the only modern Dictatorship integrating capitalism and govermental control.

[Avenoct]

Mr. President,

Morgan doesn't get drones or pollution as an AI very often because his support and pop limits, as well as his [-1, 0, 0, 1, 0] pacifist builder strategy limit him severely. He'll tend to build few bases, which grow slowly (doesn't anticipate needing a hab complex, duh), so ecodamage or drones from lots of workers tends not to happen till the late game, with a lucky Morgan AI. Change Morgan! Make him [-1, 0, 1, 1, 1] and take off his hab limit and you'll see him play like the big guys, wreaking havoc on his people and the environment.

Ethemind: Yah, yah, hippie, you called it! It's just that, as you said yourself, police states loose the efficiency of their workers pretty badly in real life. 'Martial Law' is usually only used in emergencies for that reason...but I suppose that's slightly different from Police State. So you consider modern China to be a Free Market/ Communist / Police State? Interesting.

-Smack

[Basil]

Re: Re: For the sake of Police State, the most oppressed Goverment in SMACX

Originally posted by Nadexander

Btw. Anyone notice that if you quell a double-drone (bright red) with police the city screen incorrectly displays the drone as still out of control?

I hadn't noticed - good tip! I had noticed that the same thing happens with punishment spheres - some drones still show up on the base screen even though the base won't go into riot.

What really kills Police State as a long term peacetime strat is not (just) the inefficiency or the police arguably not being effective enough, but the total lack of growth. Assuming for the moment you're not the Hive, if you're running PS you're not running Demo, and you probably (except for a couple of factions) can't run Planned because the -4 efficiency is a killer. That means you're talking about 0 growth, +2 growth for bases with creches. That's just not enough to keep up with someone who's got +2 growth for Demo and can get +2 for Planned or +2 for GA. Now the Hive can keep up because of their inherent +1 growth and their ability to run Planned without penalty, but other factions can't.

If you do get the Cloning Vats, Police State becomes a much more viable late-game option, since not only does it negate the disadvantages of Power and Thought Control, it also negates the disadvantage of Green, so you can freely run Green for the efficiency if you wish, and it also removes one of the advantages of Democracy - the +2 growth becomes meaningless. If you have something else giving you a bonus to Support - Power or the Living Refinery - the resulting +4 Support is significant even in the late game, although perhaps overkill for peacetime... Of course, games that are still in contention after a player gets the Cloning Vats are few and far between.

[EtheMind]

I had such a high minded reply ready...before it was erased

[johndmuller]

I'm attracted to the idea of Police/Green for early Morgan (Morgan should probably have some restriction viz-a-viz Green as well as Planned); that goes with a general attraction to moderating the characters' personalities with somewhat opposite SE choices (its awfully hard to resist Police/Planned for early Yang however).

Morgan with Police / Green:
+1 Econ; +1 Support; +2 Police; +2 Planet; -2 Growth

The -2 growth is not so much of a penalty with the Size 4 Base limitation (if he is still running it later in the game, it is easily overcome with just an extra nut crawler or two which were built, along with the Police and whatever extra goodies you chose, earlier in the base life instead of the Rec Coms &/or Holos which weren't needed so early. The +2 police is probably an overkill for this stage of the game, but the +2 Planet and +1 Support give early Morgan more flexibility to pursue an aggressive strategy at the beginning. I know someone is going to say that 0 efficiency is lousey, but hey, this is only the beginning of the game.

There is probably some merit to the idea of maximizing the factions' strengths rather than mellowing their extremes, but I'm not convinced that it is the way to go.

[EtheMind]

I know someone is going to say that 0 efficiency is lousey, but hey, this is only the beginning of the game.

Who is? I won't. That kind of efficiency doesn't make much difference at the beginning and +1 Economy makes it up.

These kind of settings might really come into use if you happened to land next to an aggressive faction which just won't like you now matter how much neat tech and spare energy you keep pumping into his warmachines.
In fact, you are going to need some focus into military in this case.

There is probably some merit to the idea of maximizing the factions' strengths rather than mellowing their extremes, but I'm not convinced that it is the way to go

I've tried both ways and both of them work. But the first of them is of course more efficient but also less balanced and often a bit harder. In MP game I'd go for maximizing advantages though. Unless...you're just so damn good you're in no need of that.