SOCIAL ENGINEERING/GOVERNMENT (ver2.1): Hosted by Bell

[Jon Miller]

quick post

Harel, the USSR said they were atheistic

they tought there people to be atheists and were no tolerance to religion

just like the spanish inquisition

Jon Miller

[SnowFire]

I've been reading this thread, but have had no time to add my own responses.

Maniac: For the most part, I agree with your model, but you'll gain no friends with a post like that.

Harel: Let's face it, some of your ideas are silly. If anything, Dynasty should be a primitive Monarchy (like China before the Han) and Monarchy should be a sophisitcated system of royalty and succession (like England and most of Europe from 1400-1800). But no intelligent person in this age is going to accept someone as a ruler because he was the old ruler's son.

*To be added to later*

[Maniac]

First answer the small posts. That's easier.
Means Theben :

"It is possible to attempt to combine ideas rather than fight over whose is best. Ember & I have done this with our combat system ideas."

Our effects we gave to our SE choices are so different that I don't see any similarities.

"I have a question about your new SE choices: have you defined what they do elsewhere? If you have, could you point to where? I'd like to see them."

You're lucky. I have just this night posted some kind of a summary of my religion ideas on the Religion thread.

"Ah. I forgot to explain that in my system there would be no "happy" or "unhappy" citizens, just citizens. The HAPPINESS indicator (one set for the national level, and another in each city) would tell you how happy the city is overall, and the production bonus/penalty would be affected by that. It also affects growth, and immigration/emmigration would be assumed in the growth."

A happiness indicator? Good idea. Much easier than that stupid predetermined happy/content/unhappy/very unhappy citizens!

That production bonus/penalty would be easily done by the x10 system, also growth.

It would also be easier to determine when a city goes into riot or into revolt (then it forms a seperate civ). Just have a fix number.

It would also be easier to present the different religions with each 2 (m/f) independent icons.

If Firaxis had to create different icons for each religions, different icons for each happiness state + all it's combinations, you would get a _lot_ of icons.
Your idea would make it simpler.

Now to...
HAREL :

Small Civs :

I'm not gonna argue about that. The same for me. Do what you like.
Only concerned about this.
Suppose you choose a tiny map with 70 to 90% oceans. Then every civ should have the bonuses cause no one has many cities and then the jump from 5 to 6 cities(wasn't that when you didn't receive any bonuses?) would be too much.

Military Industry :

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Mil Ind itself. I'm only concerned about that cheat.

Well OK, let's use Mil Ind again.
In my model I would give it to Power, Practical (would decrease the many Sup bonuses)as bonus and to Humaniterian as penalty. Perhaps also a penalty for a Value. Knowledge? Wealth? Pacifism???
And of course don't forget to give it to the CTP Military Readiness system.

And if you think you can turn around an army in 3 years, then I suggest you come here and I'll inlist you as a cadet of mine: cause you sure need some army background.

Er... rather not . Draft has been canceled here in Belgium several years ago, now proffesional army. I don't think my decadent weak body wouldn't survive a year of hard military service.
BTW, I can't stand strong authority and orders.

Fish Sticks

Don't you think that all that polluting western countries have a good understanding of biology?
Sure there's nothing wrong with some genetic engineering, but still those green guys are against it. Not likely they will use it.

I have nothing against the idea itself. It would certainly make Environmentalism better. Plus it would make Centralization a more normal factor. It is quite overpowered with food AND labor bonuses. But I just don't see why Env should increase food.

Square roots

Sorry sorry sorry. Of course I know square roots. I just didn't lay the link between the English word and the Dutch word 'vierkantswortel'. Quite different as you see.
The word square made me think of map tiles.
The word root made me think at a tree.
I was quite confused...

But now about SE switching.
8 turns!!!!!!! Come on. You would loose all your cities by revolts. And I don't see why 8 turns of waiting should be more bearable when you're big.

Special bonuses

Wow. I convinced you.

Three levels

Yea I know I know. I was nitpicking. I really got in an annihilator mood.

Balance

It's very hard to understand your model for outsiders Maniac: just how should I know how much +2 eco is balanced by -support? -2? -4? Maybe if you could have a chart of some sort.

How to start that??
First tip. Huge Economy bonuses mostly have penalties that reduce your military capacity, such as Police, Support and Morale.

But I'm not done yet.

Did I scare you?

Conclusion : Your model sucks.

Somehow, I still don't understand why.

I'll give it another try (probably unsuccessful).

Police too much positive rates. Your max is 5, while the max that my Police post allows, is 3. Then you get choices that give you little positive effects because you already have the max police rate.

Too less negatives. My post allows to -10.
You HAVE TO give +2 Eco's Police penalties.
Even -5 Pol (kind of Civ2 Democracy) isn't used.

Corruption is perhaps your biggest lack. Did you just forget it or what? Perhaps it's because you play perfectionist.
You can't rule even 40 cities with only +2 Corr.
And then you gave it to Socialist (I think) which gives you -2 Eco (I think, I don't have your model before me cause it stands on the 50->100 part of the thread). That really makes large empires unlivable.
When making a model, consider all strategies, not just your (perfectionist) one.

Urbanization that much penalties. Have you something against children? It would slow growth too much.

Morale. The Morale rates and system would have to be expanded a lot to allow such positive and negative rates.

Economy. Again that much positives. I can't make up that much rates. Can you? If so, feel free to do so.

And then -4 Eco! Jon Miller is complaining cause I have ONE Economy negative choice. But you have two. Double problems...

Rest is within allowable borders (although I don't have so high and low rates for some).

Still 6/15 factors suck, when I am a bit more free in complaints.

Government

Monarchy is no evolution of Anarchy and Anarchy is never available as a Government choice (just look). That's why it's between parentheses. I also made a small remark about it in a post to Jon Miller.

The SE choices you automatically have in the beginning of the game are :
Despotism/Barter/Survival/Tribal/Animism/Wise Men/None.

Beside, I still don't understand how you can give Monarchy "no pos, no neg". Can you explain that reasoning?

As you should know, in the beginning of Civ2 you are stuck with Despotism, a very bad government. It is the intention that you get a better gov as fast as possible.

I tried to simulate that by letting the first SE choices not be 'no pos or neg' as in SMAC, but let them be very negative choices.
Despotism : +2 Pol, -2 Corr
To simulate increased 'martial law' and much corruption.
Barter/Animism : -2 Tax/-2 Res
To simulate that you can set your taxes and science only at 50%.
Tribal : +2 Sup, -2 Centr
To simulate free units up to city size and to simulate that any resource of 3 and more gets -1.
This how I simulated Civ2 Despotism.

So your goal in the beginning of the game is to get the 'no pos or neg''s as fast as possible, as it was your goal in Civ2 to get to Monarchy as fast as possible.

So I assumed Despotism as bad and Monarchy the good gov you have to reach, just as in Civ2.

Monarchy is the most used gov system in history. So I assumed that as normal 'no pos or neg'.
If I would have to give it effects, I guess +1 or +2 Pol. I can't really think of anything else. Monarchy is the 'normal' gov and all other govs are extremes in a certain thing.

Should I give Monarchy +1 Pol?

Good for SMAC. Never liked the game that much. Did play it from a long time, thought. We don't need to copy SMAC at all. And it was YOU, remember, that said that some people love to use the "no pos, no neg" options. Therefor, it the other options are not powerful enough, it's a low chance they ever will, right?

Indeed I said so. My intention is to make sure I have enough good strategies to make sure they don't want to use 'no pos or neg'.
If someone uses 'no pos or neg' it's because there's something wrong and deficient with that category.

Ha, I just realized I have good reason to include more than 4 options. People need it!

Control Govs

Ding dong! Wrong! You are still not clear between the two destinctions I made: control gov's and absloute power gov's. The difference is not that big.

Ha, now you are contradictious.
You say you want four different strategies, but now you say yourself the difference is not big!
So I say again, they are the same. Delete one of the two. Unite them.

Free Will Govs

What is the difference between a republic and a democracy? In republic, the citizenship is in the hands of a selected group, and in a democracy it's in the hands of everyone. Therefor, due to this small power-difference,

Do you call the difference between a selected group and the entire population small?????

I thought Ayatollah Khameini was the leader of the Iranese Sji'its.
BTW, it may be my personal view, but I think the religious cult gives some power to the democracy.
I don't think Khameini would allow democracy further if the president tried to rob his power.

I don't call the Vatican a country.

Never heart of the Sahandrin.

My view of theocracy...
Pffff... eh... I think something like the power of the pope after some agreement signed at Worms after having some trouble with the Roman/German emperor. Don't remember much details, only fragments.

Absolute power Monarchy is Monarchy-Protectionism.
Monarchy with power of the nobles is Monarchy-Feudalism.
I reask my question. Do you know anything about European history?

So differences in some govs can be showed by including other choices out of other categories.
But I can't do that to show the difference between Republic-Democracy.

The idea of True Democracy is good, but I don't like the effects you give it.

Monarch Govs

I read your comments, Harel. I just find that future unlikely.

Controlled

It's vassals, btw.

In my language it's with 'z'. And if I wrote down all the mistakes you make, I would have the longest post of all forums (now you're pissed).

Hahahahahahah!!!! Oh please. A planned economy uses computers to predict rise of stocks and market shifting and best utalize it to improve industry. Last time I heard, you don't have market shifting and stocks in a communist market.

So every country with a stock exchange is a planned economy?

BTW, ever heart of the Russian 5 year plans.
Duh, if that isn't a planned economy...

No comment on Utopia?

Again I don't like the effects you give it.

Social

I just think Planned and Socialist should melt together.

But I never liked sliders

Could you please repeat that a bit louder to Theben?

Free

And, in the real world and for game balance, you can't give a nation both an economy bonus and an industrial bonus. Either it's very commercial or very industrial, or somewhere in between, but it's CANT be very good at both.

So according to you, Japan, Europe and the USA have a bad industry? Economy and Industry go hand in hand.
About that game balance, you may be right...

Army

In here I have to disagree. A contract that it's army takes very small part of it is much more free and happy.

Debate-able

I can see limited cyborgs in 25 years, myself. in that i mean people with implanted poly-carbon armor to protect them, and perhaps some enhanced-vision to replace eyes.

Wow, are you revealing some Israelian or American secret project?

Religion

You presume that USSR was Athiest. Who sad i was? Atheism is the belief that there is no god. USSR didn't promote it, it just went ahead and charge against ANY religon. There is a BIG difference between religos un-sensativity and Athiest. As an Athiest, you should know the difference.

I don't see Atheism as a religion. The word 'religion' has a peiorative sound in my ears.
Atheism is a (the) belief. Now I'm begin to sound as an atheist fundamentalist...

I gave then -3 Hap because fundemnatlist religon is an oppresive one, which ruthlessly imprision the people.

consider fundemntalist as your "prosecution" idea

No no no.
Prosecution is when the government forces a certain religion.
In Fundamentalism the people want it themself.
In most Islam countries it's the opposite. Fundamentalists are bugging the Religious Free Govs. In that case the fundamentalists are the prosecutors. eg Egypt, Algery...

State Religion

Have you read the Religion thread?

Well, you're right it isn't real SE. But it's kinda waste of screens and boxes to make a special box where to choose your state religion while you can just put it also on the SE screen.

Value

Once again, that was SMAC. This is CIV III. I see no need to reflect the people tendacy toward enviromtalism with more then one option. Besides, it's logical to presume every nation that select enviromantlism as a value will also select naturalistic. Double choise isn't nessecry: it's redundant.

Only one option to improve your Environmentalism or any factor lessens your strategies. And that's what you want right? Strategies.
I get the feeling that I have the model with the most strategies.

Why not simulate SMAC? Firaxis invented SE. So they know what makes a good model. They know which strategies must be included in a model.
And 2 choices to improve a factor is one of them. You can clearly see that when studying the model.

So my model is more likely to be accepted by Firaxis than yours, cause it follows their SE ideas.

Before you think: "Is that the reason why he does it, the 2 bonuses?"
No, I agree with their vision on SE. It's as simple as that. Making Social Engineering Models is an art. And I know the art.(now I'm perhaps a bit overexaggerating with that art stuff)

Socialist value : do we agree on that one?

Research

Another +2 Economy!

Conclusion

Oh, it got good reasoning beyond it, I give you that.

Yes indeed, every bit is thought out well. That's why it is almost perfect.

Your post proved to me that your model is even more un-balanced then I thought.

But, the section where you started to compare the SE max/min against SMAC proved to me you don't understand the most fundemnatical thing about the SE option which SMAC had.

Please continue. You were just gonna say why you find my model unbalanced. And you were starting to give your vision on SE.

You said you played SMAC a lot, used it as a starting point for your model. Is that true?

I used that model to understand the art of Social Engineering. And a few things are pretty much the same eg Totalitarianism(Police State), Free Market, my original Cyborg idea(Thought Control), Power.

Than I took of some things the same bonuses but changed the negatives cause they didn't fit on earth or were placed into something else. Or I split up things.
eg Fundamentalism -> Fundamentalism and Theocracy
Knowledge
Environmentalism
Wealth

And off course new things or serious adaptions.
eg ...

I don't have StarCraft. I'm not blessed with all your computer games.

"Ok, maybe the numbers need changing to obtain more balance: that's fine details.

Numbers details !?!?! The names are details. The names I made up in ten minutes. The numbers and balancing is the real work.

That's what you all miss. You seem to forget the big picture when suggesting something.

M@ni@c
Annihilator at your service
Again owner of the longest post?

[Theben]

You don't see any similarities? The only 2 things that are irreconcilable are the buttons/slider bars. Everything else has potential common ground. FE, the happiness indicator?

RE, The people icons-
I envision 2 things: 1) That the icon would be indicative of the civ it came from, by race and a style of dress; 2) each one's religion woukd be shown by a symbol over the heads of the icons: crosses, Stars of David, 1/4 moon & star, the tyrwiewhatever symbol, etc.

[Theben]

Maniac,
Having read the religion thread, you didn't answer my question. My question is regarding the actual SEs. Urbanization, your Happiness, Diplomacy, Culture, etc. What exactly do they do?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

OK, here's the deal.

The last day of posts to be included in this version of the summary will be on August 23 (with a little bit of give to compensate for that whole time zone thing.) That will give me a week to summarize, assimiliate, and then clean up the mess that's left over, before I have to send it off to our fearless leaders. My (current) plan is to do the summary the week of the 23rd, then post it by that weekend, so that everybody is given a couple of days to complain about it before things are set in stone. In my current optimistic mood, I'm planning to both assimilate the systems into a list of ideas, and include a seperate section of the summary which has the integrated systems listed in their entirety.

Now, what would be really nice is if the final versions of each system (assuming they haven't been merged or discarded by then) could be reposted the weekend of the 21st and 22nd. If you don't want to, hey, that's fine, but it would certainly be helpful to me. You, as the engineers of these systems, know them better than I do, since I've just been reading along. If you don't, that's fine, I can do it, but it would reduce my confusion as to what's currently in and what's been tossed out to have a complete version staring me in the face when I do the summary. The detail level on this version is far greater than the last one, so things will be confusing enough as is . . .

Anyways, that's the plan, as it currently exists in my head. If you want to repost the complete systems, that'd be great, but if not, that's fine too. Up to you. If you have problems with this or the timeline, well, this is where to find me. Let me know and we'll try to find something more to your liking.

[yin26]

Bell:

You are a brave man indeed. Fearlessly staring down perhaps the longest post-reply sessions in forum history!

This is really fun to watch. One of the reasons I love Civ is that it tends to draw impassioned feelings from intelligent people. Right or wrong, you guys have some great ideas, and with the dedicated Bell working with you, Civ3 might just be great despite itself.

Yin

[Theben]

As long as you're amused.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 11, 1999).]</font>

[Jon Miller]

Hi all

M@ni@c, I do not disagree so much with communisms -2 econ, it is just unballanced with what mercantilism, commonwealth, and wealth allow (+2 econ and an expanding and/or warlike country)

After reading Bells post I think I might need to leave off critiqueing your setup for a bit and work on my own

please read through my critiques though (they should be useful even though I was tired when I wrote them)

POPULACE

first the populace is devided by percentages into different groups of people

you choose which groups of people are in control by checking the boxe(s) when you declare a revolution

these are: scientists, military people, nobles/rich, workers (those that do the work for the nobles/rich), resource producers (like farmers, fishermen, and miners), religious

each group of people will have certain numbers that you can look at

STRENGTH

first is strength which is made up of political, economical, numerical strength

politic strength is based on which of them is in control of the government (one or multiple groups of people can be in control) and they get a number (which is gotten by deviding a set number by their numerical strength percentage) times their numerical strength is added

economic strength is figure via what values the group(s) of people who are in control have and what economic system you are in modified by your numerical strength and this number is added

ie - in communism all groups have equal ammounts of money so there would be a set number times the numerical stremgth to get the economic strength, however in free market the nobles/rich get a very very large number times numerical strength and workers/resource producers get a much smaller number times numerical strength (this economic strength is how the rich maintain control of governments throughout history)

numerical strength is made up by different things for each group and is gotten by taking the raw numerical numbers of all the groups and comparing them to get percentages and then using those percentages on the population (the number) to give numerical strength and is added

the scientists get raw numerical strength from the more libraries, schools, and other places of learning you build, scientist specialists (if they are included), and they also get more strength for the higher up the tech tree you are

military people get raw numerical strength from the more barracks and other military improvement you build, (soldier specialists), and from the ammount of units you have

nobles/rich get raw numerical strength (a small portion) from the overall population, from monetary improvements, tax men specialists (if they are included), and from overal happiness(?)

the workers get raw numerical strength from larger cities (or worker specialists) and more industrial improvements

the resource producers get raw numerical strength from how many squares you use and how improved your terrain is

the religious get raw numerical strength from the number of religious improvements, (cleric specialists), religious techs, and larger population (possibly there would be events called prophets (no names) that would jump up the raw numerical strength of the religious)

(by religious I do not mean that these are the only ones that beleive in a religion, it is just representative of how strong religion is in the civilization, a really low raw numerical strength means that the people are mostly apathetics and atheists)

world wonders like JS bachs cathedral would add to the raw numerical strength of the religious and ones like seti project would increase the raw numerical strength of the scientists

these three things add together to form strength

the group(s) of people who rule must have more strength than all the group(s) who are left out of ruling or else there will be a revolution

HAPPINESS

happiness is what percentage of each group is happy with you (how this is found I will go into farther down)

overall happiness is what percentage of the group(s) that rule are happy with you based on their respective strengths

ie - if two groups rule the civ and one has 60 strength with 60% happy and the other has 40 strength and 40% happy, the overall happiness would be 52%

if overall happiness goes below 50% there will be a revolution

each group get happiness by happiness improvements (of all types), luxuries, increasing that group's strength, and following that group's values

(a note on revolutions, during a revolution each city independently calculates it's overall happiness and if it's overall happiness is below 50% it stands a chance of splitting off and forming a new civ (all cities that break off in a given revolution form into the new civ), the chance being 100% - city overall happiness, this accurately reflects that some areas can be left out of a government and would then revolt)

(another note on revolutions, anytime there is no choice but revolution (if both conditions cannot be met) then the player loses)

(a third note on revolutions, other civs with spies can spend money to initiate a revolution with chance of success like this: chance of success: 25% - (overall happiness - 50%))

(I will put the notes in there proper place when I get to it)

VALUES

values are done by a slider and each group has a slider value for each value

the sliders go between opposite ends of the spectrum and show the group's values

each group starts every game high in some values and low in others

values for each group can be changed by education/propaganda

education has a certain ammount of points awarded per education improvement per turn that can be limited by the national values

propaganda is something else trade can be put into (or production) like luxury rate (or capitalisation) and the civ would get a certain ammount of points per turn

the total of these points can be spent to change a value of a group (if you had enough points, several values could be changed in several different groups)

all points not spent are lost

policies also affect values but they affect all values of the groups that rule

if a civ builds lots of troops for 50 years then it is following a militaristic policy and the slider between power and pacifism gets moved towards power on all the groups that rule

it is harder to move the slider at both ends of each specific value whether policy or education/propaganda is moving it

all the particular values of the groups that rule that added together, weighted by each's strength (as in happiness), gives the national values

the national values affect the civ with modifiers

values:

pacificism----power

antiimperialism (better word?)----imperialism

conservatism (somethhing else?)----knowledge
____________________________

I am tired, to be continued

Jon Miller

[Harel]

Once more, I have many comments on your posts Maniac. But I just don't have enough strenght to argue with you.

You and I think it two oppisite ways: I belive the goal is first to establish solid, balanced SE options that represnt a balance historial and game-play details.

( One little thing about goverements: The dictatorship/totalirist are govermenets were all power is centred into one person. That gov is not neessercly despot ( vicious ), or oppresive. Some tryants were kind: just look at some of the roman emperators. Despotism, by Oxford, is "Vicous, ruthless, Despot, a tyrant". Despotism is an oppresive goverment regiem, which limit and control the populce by brute force: like SMAC police state. Clear now? )

The numbers derive from the names. They are not the important thing: beta testing will always find flaws in every system which will need mending. You can't get the perfect balanced system in one go. You need to change and adapt the numbers.

You, however, think the numbers are the critical thing. But a good SE is more then numbers: it's several distinct possiblities.

Yes, Indeed, a republic isn't that different from a democracy. We of a westren, democratic states see the difference. But thats because of who we are. The people of a police state probaly won't see the "fine" difference.
And no, in Iran the democraticaly elected president holds quite a lot of power. If you don't like the Vatican, try Tibet. And I can give you a historial explantion of the Shandarin over e-mail if you want.
Saying the Feudalsim, can be "monarch+feudal market" is WRONG WRONG WRONG. It's ok if are using broad-term declartion of what is monarchy. But by including the republic you show you include gov types when the power-shift is differernt ( all the people, upper class ).
Feudalsim isn't just a market type: the power balance is more in favor of the lords and dukes then the king. Several times in feudal states the upper class over-ruled the king desicison ( like a senate ) to go to war. If you know a bit about england history, you know what happened there.
Therefor, since the power shift between a true monarchy and a monarchy where the king gives economical/geographical and militarical power to the upper class is atleast as big as the power-shift between a democracy and a republic, you will need to include that too.

Wow, sorry, got side-tracked. I am not here to argue: if you don't agree with what I just said, ignore. I am here to offer a proposition.

Settlement

I have an idea which can benefit as all:

1. I can understand more on how to balance the social modficators of your model.
2. You, or I, might change our minds about each other models.
3. We might just well get one model, and help poor bell.

My idea? You don't have to agree with my model. I only ask for one thing: try to take the SE options I presented, without changes, and give them balanced numbers.
You might change your opinion about my model. If you won't, and you probaly won't anyway, we both learn some new things and maybe find a way to bridge the difference.

[will I]

Thank you for the responses to my post. I think they miss my main point -- all of the systems I have seen are too darn complex. Thirteen or fourteen factors, with seven or eight SE categories is an immense amount of variation. (Adds up to 15,000 different combinations. Although that's lessened by making some of the choices mutually exclusive, it's still a huge number.) My point is that some of these variables can be handled outside of the SE menu. For example, taking M@ni@c's list as an example, I would delete army from the SE categories. I would delete religion, and make it part of whatever screen is used to interact with the various religions. I would probably also delete the "research" category, thus slimming the list of categories down to four.

As for factors, I was perhaps too eager in axing some categories. Diplomacy is probably worthwhile if it affects how diplomat units are able to operate. Morale probably makes sense, too.

However, on reflection, I think all issues of religion should be handled by a single religious conversion factor. Perhaps different value choices could have a stated effect on the conversion factor, but I see no need for a separate culture or evangelism factor among the SE factors. Happiness also seems to me to be the effect of the SE choices rather than a separate SE factor, so I'd delete it. Ditto on urbanization -- the rate and limits of city growth seem like things that the computer can handle adequately without player intervention.

I would also delete taxes as an SE factor, since I always thought it was unrealistic to think that particular forms of government limited a civ's ability to determine where it spent money, and also lessened the fun of playing the game.

On second thought, I also think we could dispense with nationalism. The computer could generate emigration/immigration rates based on relative happiness and wealth levels. In history, these have been far more important determinants of emigration than "nationalism." Indeed, periods of extreme nationalism in Japan and Italy coincided with high levels of emigration. Success of diplomats is, I think, better handled in the diplomacy factor, and religious conviction makes more sense as a religious factor. Again, look to history. Mexican and French nationalism are in many ways strongly anticlerical.

But too sum up my point -- find ways to simplify the SE options. All of the systems are just too bulky. And, as a beneficial side effect, we may cut down the length of the posts.

(It took me a while to write this, so I may not have hit all of the most current points.)

[Maniac]

JON MILLER :

"so a plus 2 or minus 2 (or 3 or 1) hap means nothing?"

Do I really explain everything that bad?
No that +4 and -4 Hap are just added bonuses for reaching that rate.
This is the real Happiness :

Happiness affects the addition of extra unhappy people because a civ has exceeded a certain number of cities.
The Happiness formula works as follows :

City Limit : (8 - difficulty) x (6 + Happiness) x MapRoot / 2

Where :
Difficulty : Player's difficulty level (0-5)
Happiness : SE Happiness rate
MapRoot : Square root of # map squares / Square root of 3200

For each city a civ builds or conquers in excess of this number, one additional unhappy citizen (or in Theben's system a %?) will appear at some city somewhere in your civ.

"you have not addressed my point about protectionism being far better than communism (the -2 econ makes it so it can never have a lot of trade (which comes at +2 econ)"

I wouldn't know what to say about it. Replace that -1 Corr by -1 Eco?

"also I would like to point out that you weakend some modifiers by splitting there effects into 2 while feeping others at the same great strength (ie econ)"

Efficiency was too powerful in SMAC. That was together with Economy the single most important factor. So I split up Efficiency. Very simple cause it has too very distinct uses. But I don't see something alike in Economy. It affects trade. Point. Believe me, if I could split up Economy somehow, I would.

"remember I want research section out, but I am using it in my critique since you have it in your system"

For me it's the same. I wouldn't regret if it's out. I wouldn't regret if it's in.
The only problem if I do away the Research section is that I would have too less Environment factors. But that is easy to solve. I would give +2 Env to Utopia.

Utopia : +3 Centr, +2 Nat, +2 Env, -2 Eco, -1 Corr, -2 Tax?

Note about True Democracy. I have given some thought about uniting Republic and Democracy. How about this?

Republic : +2 Corr, +1 Centr, -2 Mor
->Democracy : +2 Corr, +2 Hap, -2 Mor
-->True Democracy : +2 Corr, +2 Hap, +1 Eco, -2 Mor, -2 Sup

I refused to unite Republic and Democracy because the difference between them was too big and I would rather have +2 Centr than +2 Hap.
Cause I lessened that Centr bonus and making Republic a bit worse, I would prefer +2 Hap over +1 Centr. So now they can be united.
And cause I give the +1 Eco to True Democracy and that is available late in the game, +2 Eco is a bit harder.

And if I add Utopia :

Protectionism : +2 Centr, +1 Tax, -1 Dipl, -1 Eco
->Communism : +3 Centr, +2 Nat, -2 Eco, -1 Corr
-->Utopia : +3 Centr, +2 Nat, +2 Env, -2 Eco, -2 Tax, -1 Corr

So, what does everybody think of the changes?

Hmm, a second penalty for Commonwealth... Add a Nationalism penalty?

And then the shortage of Nat penalties is solved and can I change the penalty of Confederate from -1 Centr, -1 Nat to -2 Centr.

So :
Commonwealth : +2 Dipl, +1 Eco, -2 Pol, -1/2 Nat
Confederate : +2 Hap, +?, -2 Centr

"like the econ places that matter are -1, 2, 5"

Better than in SMAC. There was it -1 and 2 only.

"I think that to determine your modifiers in a ballanced way you need to say what every group of se choices is and make sure that real bonuses are paid for by real penalties"

You're right. But doing it is more difficult than saying it.

Ah, finally some good constructive criticism to respond to.

Despotism :
That's what it's meant to be fore.

Totalitarianism :
IMHO this is a useless choice.
The police is necessary to control the extra drones and the support is needed to maintain the extra police units.
But SMAC included it, Harel wants some different strategies (though most suck), so I might as well include it.

Monarchy :
that's indeed the only use.

Theocracy :
I would rarely use it, but SMAC included Fundamentalism...
Besides not that bad, look at the following :

Republic/Power : +2 Corr, +4 Sup, -1 Centr

Theocracy/Knowledge : +2 Hap, +1 Corr

Since I don't care about Support and I care a lot about Centralization, and Happiness and Corruption are the most important factors the second choice could be better.
To win some Happiness (eg by Confederate) Republic would have to get a serious Centr penalty, while for Theocracy it just has to choose Federal for less Corruption, resulting in better Corr rate than Republic...

Heck, Theocracy is good...

Republic :

Wow wow, the senate a minor hassle?
Unless I wanted an atrocious reputation, I had to listen to that senate.
In my democracy games, the wars were in slow motion : one city per 15 turns.

democracy :

Democracy and Republic changed...

"I think that republic and democracy could be fixed by adding some sort of penalty to both and decreasing republics corruption bonus to at least 0"

Than there wouldn't be any ancient gov decreasing corruption. That would be unbalancing.

Manorialism :

Before neglecting Manorialism, consider this.
In the beginning of the game, a large portion of my shields go always to unit support due to phalanx and settlers support.
So I think that +3 Sup certainly offsets the bad effects of -1 Centr.
I think I would choose that in the early games until Banking appears.

Mercantilism :

The combination Mercantilism-Wealth gives you unhappy people, bad morale and an annoying senate.
So getting +2 Eco on that way isn't that easy as you say.

Protectionism :

Glad to hear it's balanced. I feared no one would choose it.
Would it be too bad if I replaced -1 Corr by -1 Eco?

Communism :

Nationalism can be found easily? The penalty of Federal is severe and about Fundamentalism, it's the job of Firaxis to make Diplomacy important.
BTW, Diplomacy has more uses than simply affecting other civ's mood to you.

"also diplo, cult, mor(to some extant), tax, hap can all be made to mean little (not give important negatives) while the se choices that have these for negatives have good positives"

Diplomacy : Firaxis' job
Culture : Religion threaders' job; working on it.
Morale : I find it pretty important
Taxes : You're right. on this one. I use it to give a small bonus and to have a difference between an increased economy and increased taxes.
BTW, there is a research factor. Why then no Taxes factor?
Happiness : Very important!

SNOWFIRE :

"Maniac: For the most part, I agree with your model, but you'll gain no friends with a post like that."

Just got sick of all Jon Miller's critique and Harel's unbalanced system.

So Snowfire agrees with me...

BELL :

System support :

1) Harel, Dinoman2
2) Theben, Jon Miller
3) M@ni@c, Snowfire

You see Bell. I have as much support for my model as everybody else.

repost my whole system? Does that also mean all my 14 SE factors? Now THAT will be a long post.

THEBEN :

"You don't see any similarities? The only 2 things that are irreconcilable are the buttons/slider bars. Everything else has potential common ground. FE, the happiness indicator?"

Oops. I thought you were talking about the 'similarities' between Harel's and my system. You have to admit these models can never be united.

"1) That the icon would be indicative of the civ it came from, by race and a style of dress"

That would again lead to endless combinations.
eg 30 civs and 4 religions +1 Animist 'religion' = 150 icons. Plus male/female = 300.
Plus let's say 4 time epochs = 1200.
Don't think Firaxis will do that.
(And if you would include specialists...)

Icons for each religions and for each sex = 5x2 = 10.
Four time epochs = 40.

For the sake of Firaxis I would choose the latter.

Having read the religion thread, you didn't answer my question. My question is regarding the actual SEs. Urbanization, your Happiness, Diplomacy, Culture, etc. What exactly do they do?"

Oh, you mean the SE factors? Simple.
Police and Support are in the last day or so of the SE thread v2.0.
The edited Support and all other factors are within the first 20 posts of the v2.1 thread. You can't miss.

And again to JON MILLER :

POPULACE - STRENGTH - HAPPINESS

If you use that system of Theben of a general Happiness indicator, this could be great.

Wouldn't workers and resource producers be the same?

Only don't want to link it to a 'who' system.

I stay with my point it is good represented by :

Scientists want Knowledge, Religious Freedom.

Military want Despotism/Totalitarianism, Power
Nobles want Monarchy, Feudalism.

Rich want Republic, Banking/FM/Trans, Wealth.

Workers want (True) Democracy, Communism/Utopia, Environment

Religious want Theocracy/ any Religion choice except Religious Freedom

Your SE choices could anger or make happy some of the groups by the way described above.

VALUES

Sorry. Don't agree with that.
A Value some don't like could anger them, but they can't force you to choose something.
They can only revolt as you described if their Hap is too low...

[Jimmy]

Too many choices !! SE has got to be as simple as possible.
I propose sliders for :
- government (from tyranny to anarchy)
- economy (from total free market to planned)
- religion (from agnosticism to fundamentalism)
- each value (power,wealth,knowledge,ecology,peace)
That should be enough to represent any type of society but most importantly it would encourage incremental change. The bigger the change the more unhappiness so a player would have to change the settings gradually to avoid a riots. It would not be possible to change SE choices suddenly just to fit the situation.
Last, the computer would hve pre-scripted descriptions for different settings for each section, and would combine them to make a description of your civ. For example, if I have 20% for gov, 10% for econ, 60% for religion and say 50% for power and knowledge, 0 for the other, the description might read:
"The Roman civilization is governed by a strong despot. His political decisions are not questionned. The economy is left however to the individual producing a minority or rich powerful individuals and the majority are struggling to rise the social ladder. Religion is encouraged and most people have a strong faith. They believe that the pursuit of knowledge and strength leads to a satisfying life."

[Harel]

First off Maniac I guess you accepted my offer since you posted a united republic/democracy threadn used Utopia.
First off, let's agree I am on your side. I like your SE modifcators and I belive they should be used. I also belive your numbers are balanced: I differ with you that balanced numbers are not enough, you also need balanced options, "names". So, I am trying to adapt your numbers with my naming system.
Just keep commenting and I'll just keep editing this post till we can both agree on it.

Military industry

I think you missed a key thing I said to snowfire: I belive that Mil should give a percent bonus to military, not reduce cost to not allow any cheating. So, what i propose is: cut Centraliazation into two section: centr which gives +% to civic industry, and Mil which gives +% to military alone.

Now, for the model:

Goverments

Now that it's clear whats the difference between absloute power and control gov, I am attentive to your suggestions.
I still belive that a Monarchial system is not fitting for "no pos, no neg" but the control section, since monarchs should give a big tax bonus.

Anarchy: -3 Hap, -3 Tax, -3 Nat
->Despotism: No pos, no neg
-->Police state: +1 Pol
Republic: +2 Corr, +1 Centr, -2 Mor
->Democracy: +2 Corr, +2 Hap, -2 Mor
-->True Democracy: +2 Corr, +2 Hap, +1 Eco, -2 Mor, -2 Sup
( Tell me what you think about monarchy. The Tax bonus is clear enough. )
Monarcy: +2 Tax, -2 Urb
->Empireship: +2 Tax, +2 Centr, -2 Urb, -2 Eco
-->Dynasty: +3 Tax, +2 Centr, +2 Mil, -2 Urb, -2 Eco, -2 Cult
Dictatorship: +2 Pol, -2 corr
->Totalarism: +4 Sup, +2 Pol, -2 Dipl, -2 corr ( Hap minus is wrong )
-->Brain-washed: +4 Sup, +2 Pol, +2 Nat, -2 Dipl, -2 corr, -2 Res ( ok? )

Maybe Theocracy could replace or be added? 5 gov types is ok. What would you suggest as Theocracy 3 stages as SE bonuses?

Market

Marcentalism, by defination is just "trade". Therefor, I belive it's a natural development from a barter system, to a currency system to a trade system.
The thing I don't understand at all is just how you like Protectionism to Communism.
I would like more debates on planned.

Barter: -2 Tax
->Currency: no pos, no neg
-->Marcantlism: +1 eco
( Tell me what you think about controlled. Good corruption cause it's effiecent )
Feudalism: +1 Corr, +2 Sup, -1 Eco (?)
->Protectionism: +2 Corr, +2 Tax, -2 Eco (?)
-->Planned: +3 Corr, +2 Urb, -3 Eco (too big eco minus? )
Socialism: +1 Centr, +2 Hap, -2 Eco ( ok? )
->Communism: +2 Centr, +2 Nat, -2 Eco, -1 Corr
-->Utopia: +3 Centr, +2 Nat, +2 Env, -2 Eco, -2 Tax, -1 corr
Banking : +2 Eco, -3 Pol, -4 Sup
->Free Market : +2 Eco, +2 Corr, -5 Pol, -3 Env
-->Transnational : +3 Eco, +2 Corr, +2 Centr, -8 Pol, -3 Env, -2 Mor

Army

Now with Mil sorted out, I think that with fine-detailing the numbers for balance it's a better system then CtP. And no, no secret plan just more confidandt in Technology.

Basic: no pos, no neg.
Militia: +1 Hap, +1 Eco, -1 morale
->Volunteer: +2 Hap, +1 Eco, -1 morale, -1 sup
-->Reserve: +3 Hap, +1 Eco, -1 morale, -1 sup, -1 mil
The people army: +3 Mil, +3 Sup, -3 Morale, -3 Hap
->Drafts: +3 Mil, +2 Sup, -2 morale, -2 Hap
-->Civic duty: +2 Mil, +2 Sup, -2 morale
Mercenery: +2 morale, -2 Sup
->Trained: +3 morale, -2 sup, -1 mil
-->Cyborg: +4 morale, -2 sup, -2 mil

Structre

Tribal: +2 Sup, -2 Centr
->City state: no pos, no neg.
Federal : +2 Corr, +2 Nat, -2 Hap
Confederate: +2 Hap, +2 ?, -2 Centr
Commonwealth : +2 Dipl, +1 Eco, -2 Pol, -1 Nat

Religoun

Best of all worlds. Tell me what you think.

Animism: -2 Res
->Polytheism: no pos, no neg
Loose monotheism: 2 Urb, +2 Nat, -2 Cult
Fundementalism: +2 Mor, +2 Sup, -2 Dipl
Religous freedom: +2 Hap, +1 Res, -2 Nat, -1 Cult
Atheism: +2 Res, -2 Urb
Prosecution: 2 Pol, +2 Cult, -2 Hap

Values

Survival : no pos or neg
Power : +4 Sup, +2 Mor, -2 Centr ( I belive +2 Mor, +2 Mil, -2 Centr to be better )
Knowledge : +2 Res, +1 Corr, -2 Tax
Wealth : +1 Eco, +1 Centr, -2 Hap
Environment : +2 Env, +2 Hap, -1 Centr, -1 Urb

Research

Wise Men : no pos or neg
Nature : +2 Env, -1 Urb, Economic Science is +25%
Humanitarian : +2 Cult, -1 Mor, Social Science is +25%
Practical : +2 Sup, -1 Res, Military Science is +25%
Explorer : +2 Res, -1 Hap, Academic Science is +25%
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited August 11, 1999).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited August 11, 1999).]</font>

[will I]

Theben:

I can't verify the number of SE options under SMAC, as I'm at work, but I think there were four categories with four options each for a total of 16 options with 9 factors that mostly ranged from -5 to +5. The two main systems under discussion here seem to have somewhere between 20 and 30 options with 12-14 factors that range by a somewhat greater amount. I fear that the result of so many factors will be lots of micromanipulation and confusion. Therefore, my main suggestion for these otherwise well reasoned systems is to cut them down in size. I've made a few suggestions based on M@ni@c's system, which is the one outlined most thoroughly in this thread. (It's outlined so thoroughly that I beg him not to outline it again.) I haven't seen your system, so I can't comment on that.