Feedback loops and drone revolt challenge

[Zeiter]

I've been pondering something for a while now: Strategy games are all about positive and negative feedback loops and how they interact with each other. Usually, there comes a point in strategy games where the positive feedback loops are so overwhelmingly in the player's favor that the player's factional might spirals into infinity. However, there are some feedback loops that could be tweaked to make games more competitive:

1. Hostility towards the unsurpassed faction - this already exists to a certain extent in SMAC, and it can often keep an unsurpassed player from immediately running away with the game. Yet I think this mechanism could be strengthened a bit. When I become, say, 25% more powerful on the powercharts than the #2, that should trigger some serious hostility/tag-team aggression against the unsurpassed faction, especially if the increase in power comes suddenly and is proceeding at a rapid rate.

2. Difficulty in keeping your empire under your thumb - this already exists to a certain extent in SMAC, but it could also be fleshed out a bit more. In real life revolutions are some of the primary threats to governments, yet in SMAC (or any strategy game) there is very little actual threat of revolution. Sure, there are drones, but the game makes it very clear as to how to safetly manage them. In SMAC you can be in situations where you have definite knowledge as to whether your drones will riot or not, whereas in real life revolts can occur at any time, even during times of high prosperity (although they are less likely then). Therefore, I propose...The Drone Revolution Challenge:

*While running democracy, starving citizens is never allowed, not even for one turn. If the nutrient requirements cannot be met, then the citizens are placed so as to gather the highest nutrient value (simulating how citizens in such a society would really function), and if the base riots and revolts, then you'll just have to deal with it.
*While running frontier or fundy, starving citizens is okay as long as the nutrient tanks don't run out (as long as the population doesn't drop).
*While running police state, you can still starve your citizens all you want (grain requisitioning).

That's the simplest aspect of the Drone Revolution Challenge. It would require you to bring along police units with your invasion force, it would make securing bases against drone insurgencies very difficult (especially when running democracy). When coupled with other hindrance measures, I think it could really make things difficult. However, I also think a little bit of unpredictability needs to be thrown into the mix as well. Thus, there's a second aspect that I would propose:

*Each turn you go to the F4 info screen and search for the base with the largest eco-damage (or, if no bases have eco-damage, then the base with the largest mineral production) which also has a population of at least 5 (just go to the F4 screen and sort by minerals). If you don't have any base size 5 or greater, you can totally disregard this. The base that you find will be your temporary "revolutionary hotspot." Each turn you roll two six-sided die:
*If you get a sum of 10, the base gets sent into riots for that turn and one drone control facility of your choice and one military unit stationed in the base of your choice gets destroyed (I think you can do these things by switching on the scenario editor).
*If you roll a sum of 11, the base revolts and all of the units stationed in its radius revolt to the faction with the closest base (or to the free drone faction, or if it's a conquered base, to its former faction). Again, use the scenario editor to do these things.
*If you roll a sum of 12, the base revolts, all of the units within its radius and all of the units the base supports revolt, and all other bases within the radius of half the base's population get treated as if they were rolled a 10.

Hehehe, suddenly you'll have to crush uprisings and deal with huge drone problems, and if you can't starve your citizens, whaddaya gonna do? You'll have to rush in some police units or drastically increase psych or something. Hehehe. Remember, there's always nerve stapling! I suppose if you pre-emptively nerve-stapled your revolutionary hotspot, things would be bumped down a notch, meaning, a roll of 11 would be treated like a 10, a roll of 12 would be treated like an 11.

[Chaos Theory]

Re: Feedback loops and drone revolt challenge

Originally posted by Zeiter
*While running democracy, starving citizens is never allowed, not even for one turn. If the nutrient requirements cannot be met, then the citizens are placed so as to gather the highest nutrient value (simulating how citizens in such a society would really function), and if the base riots and revolts, then you'll just have to deal with it.
*While running frontier or fundy, starving citizens is okay as long as the nutrient tanks don't run out (as long as the population doesn't drop).
*While running police state, you can still starve your citizens all you want (grain requisitioning).

Interesting, and I might be convinced to run police state in some circumstances. It might be hard to determine how to place citizens for optimal nutrient production in cramped empires, though. If all the cities neighboring one are using all the good sources of food, would I need to reassign their use, or could I allow them to force the central base into starvation?

That's the simplest aspect of the Drone Revolution Challenge. It would require you to bring along police units with your invasion force, it would make securing bases against drone insurgencies very difficult (especially when running democracy). When coupled with other hindrance measures, I think it could really make things difficult. However, I also think a little bit of unpredictability needs to be thrown into the mix as well. Thus, there's a second aspect that I would propose:

*Each turn you go to the F4 info screen and search for the base with the largest eco-damage (or, if no bases have eco-damage, then the base with the largest mineral production) which also has a population of at least 5 (just go to the F4 screen and sort by minerals). If you don't have any base size 5 or greater, you can totally disregard this. The base that you find will be your temporary "revolutionary hotspot." Each turn you roll two six-sided die:
*If you get a sum of 10, the base gets sent into riots for that turn and one drone control facility of your choice and one military unit stationed in the base of your choice gets destroyed (I think you can do these things by switching on the scenario editor).
*If you roll a sum of 11, the base revolts and all of the units stationed in its radius revolt to the faction with the closest base (or to the free drone faction). Again, use the scenario editor to do these things.
*If you roll a sum of 12, the base revolts, all of the units within its radius and all of the units the base supports revolt, and all other bases within the radius of half the base's population get treated as if they were rolled a 10.

Hehehe, suddenly you'll have to crush uprisings and deal with huge drone problems, and if you can't starve your citizens, whaddaya gonna do? You'll have to rush in some police units or drastically increase psych or something. Hehehe. Remember, there's always nerve stapling! I suppose if you pre-emptively nerve-stapled your revolutionary hotspot, things would be bumped down a notch, meaning, a roll of 11 would be treated like a 10, a roll of 12 would be treated like an 11.

Perhaps a viable idea, but this is flawed in some important ways. First, ICS is a very potent strategy, but would tend to duck this riot-generating mechanism. Anyone who has a smaller, more manageable empire, would get thwacked much harder with the riot stick, both because he would have bases of size 5 sooner, and because each base would mean more.

Second, apart from keeping cities small (which is a good idea anyway), and nerve stapling, which kills commerce, nothing can be done to mitigate the risk. That is, Yang's size 5 base with 10 garrisons under Police State + Ascetic Virtues is just as likely to revolt as Morgan's size 5 base with no garrison under Demo/FM/Wealth, which is just as likely to revolt as any size 5 Spartan base.

Third, if you can effectively choose exactly which base is at risk of rioting, you can simply make sure it's not a base with anything important except industrial capacity, and ensure surrounding cities are poised to take care of it should it revolt. All you'd need is a single scout rover 6 tiles away to recapture a rogue base. A roll of 12 would still be somewhat problematic, so ensure vulnerable bases have enough slack drone control.

[Zeiter]

On further consideration, I guess if you're running democracy and you can't meet the nutrient requirement, then it's a moot point, and you can place your citizens however you want.

As for the second part, the main reason for the size 5 limit was to prevent this from happening in the very early game. However, now that I think about it, a better stipulation would be that this wouldn't happen until your total faction population was above a certain number...say, 25. Or you could stipulate that this wouldn't happen until you passed your first or second bureaucracy limit. That would discourage ICS playing.

Concerning the risk, one of the things I was going for was for there to always be SOME risk. And a player is already being compensated for running PS and having drone facilities and police units in that they don't have to deal with regular drone riots. But perhaps there needs to be varying levels. Perhaps for the 11 roll one could roll again with one die, and:
*If a 1 is rolled, then one facility and 1 unit is destroyed. If there aren't facilities or police to be destroyed, then the base revolts.
*If a 2 is rolled, 2 of each are destroyed.
And so on. And if a 4 or higher is rolled, then the base revolts regardless of the precautions.

And as for the third comment, yes, you would know where the problems would arise, but it's still a difficulty to deal with. It would be better if it was hardwired into the game and something like this could pop up anywhere. Hey, there's a new feature for SMAC2!

[Commy]

This idea of "drone revolts" is appealing, but would seriously hurt on tiny maps...keep in mind that, if you lose a base, say, to mindworms, oh well, you're down a base, but if you lose it to an enemy, not only did you lose a base, they gained a base, and up you by 2 bases, not just one...

Also, what about free markets and pacifism? Perhaps more implications should be applied...

[Barinthus]

Isn't that the point? To make the game more challenging?

[Zeiter]

Well, the idea with not making these new stipulations too dependent on free market, police units, etc, is that those things already give their benefits. If we were to reward PS and penalize FM anymore they might become imbalance. In addition, I want to create situations that CAN'T BE PREVENTED and make the player have to react to spontaneously arising difficulties.

Anyways, these ideas are out here right now. This is by no means THE definitive "drone revolt challenge." Tweak and adjust as you see fit.

[Commy]

If only it could be added to the Solstice challenge, now that could get interesting...