Most maligned/underused SE choice?

[Kirov]

Originally posted by binTravkin

It indeed does carry -2 Efficency if switching out of Democracy..

So at +2 Efficiency (Green) Morgan loses loads of money due to inefficiency? :P

I guess in the same way Green confers -2 Economy?

[wgabrie]

If we took the -2 efficency and applied it to the economy row it would look like this: So in market you loose growth and industry from planned and efficency from green. In planned you loose economy from market and efficency from green. In green you loose double growth and economy but gain drone control because there's no police or inefficency.

Market: -2 growth, -1 industry, -2 efficency; extra drone
Planned: -2 econ, -4 efficency; extra drone
Green -2 econ, -4 growth, -1 industry; talent

Incidentally, the Morganite faction does seem designed with the disadvateges of Free Market in mind with size 4 base limit, support penalty, and with Ind-base the AI is building synth-garisons slowing expantion down in the early game, inefficent. I wonder if relistic custom factions could be created this way.

[Marid Audran]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
With all the Yang players on these boards, I'd never really describe Police as maligned or underplayed, and if it IS maligned, I feel it is justly so. Police is the cocaine SE choice. First it feels great, then you find yourself needing it more and more, and finally you can't stop. Once you become dependent on the high police rating to quell your drones in police state, you start diverting more and more units to garrison duty. You could start building more facilities to help quelling drones, but you're lagging in tech and cash from the efficiency problems that planned gives you, and are typically also engaged in a war with your non-garrison troops, and don't want to divert production of reinforcements toward making your populace less disgruntled. The moral of the story is that if you really want to support more troops, just go crawl some more minerals.

I find the analogy of Police State = Cocaine hilarious. And, a deft observation as to why.

On a similar note you could call Green the heroin of SE choices. And if one I daresay mix the two into a speedball (Police State/Green) it may seem eurphoric and balanced out but one may find one's empire going nowhere fast after prolonged usage, with stunted health (i.e. no growth and no cash, like a true junkie) and amounting debts. Then the withdrawal symptoms may be painful after a rude and abrupt SE shift...

I'm a little surprised that many players have such a dim opinion of KNOWLEDGE; I always thought it was a great combo with Demo/Planned and with factions with an inefficiency penalty, so long as border bases had defensive probes garrisoned in them, especially during war (defensive or otherwise). One learns quite a bit in comparative strategy threads.

[Kirov]

Originally posted by Marid Audran


I find the analogy of Police State = Cocaine hilarious. And, a deft observation as to why.

On a similar note you could call Green the heroin of SE choices. And if one I daresay mix the two into a speedball (Police State/Green) it may seem eurphoric and balanced out but one may find one's empire going nowhere fast after prolonged usage, with stunted health (i.e. no growth and no cash, like a true junkie) and amounting debts. Then the withdrawal symptoms may be painful after a rude and abrupt SE shift...

fantastic...

Not so metaphorically, Free Market resembles speed - gets you a powerful surge of energy, but steady growth is hampered, plus you can potentially run into a lot of troubles with the police...

[Sikander]

I'm surprised that so many people are less than impressed with Green and Knowledge. I find both to be very useful, particularly in the mid-to-late game where Efficiency begins to be more important to an energy economy than Economy. I would also note that some speed transcend record holders (e.g. ZsoZso) ran Green a majority of the time. I find that Knowledge tends to be about as good as Wealth by the time I get the tech or shortly thereafter, and improves as the game goes on.

[binTravkin]

So at +2 Efficiency (Green) Morgan loses loads of money due to inefficiency? :P

I guess in the same way Green confers -2 Economy?

Yes, at +2 Effic with Green-Fundy Morgan loses even more money than with 0 Effic at Fundy-FM.

Elaboration:
Fundy-FM versus Demo-FM
The only real downside of Demo is support.
The non-halvation of morale due to +1 of fundy might be useful but the cost in ECs (lost to 2 less effic) for that is quite tremendous.

Fundy-Green versus Demo-Green
Demo Green is +4 effic, it lets you allocate whatever you want.
The difference is even bigger, not only you lose quite less money to inefficency (which tends to increase as game progresses up the tech tree), but also you can either boost your economy by going full or almost full econ and build loads of stuff, or max out research and be the best researcher for a while (until you feel a need for credits) outresearching even University.

[nhs_boy]

Against the computer, give me Demo-Green-Knowledge for vast sprawling empire building...
Against humans, give me cold hard credits to spend on colder harder tank divisions :-).

[Maniac]

**ADVERTISEMENT**

In SMAniaC (see signature or AC-Creation forum) some of the problems mentioned here have been addressed. Power (renamed Junta) now only gives -1 Industry and is available with level 4 weapons. Police State now gives a research penalty instead of an inefficiency penalty, so it's possible to run the PS/Planned combo.

[Flubber]

I use green frequently in the mid to late game-- Once your bases are at max size, who needs growth and Green usually allows better research than FM when you have a sprawling empire.

I probably use Power the least since that industry hit really hurts and I find it easier to get to elites other ways

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Flubber
I use green frequently in the mid to late game-- Once your bases are at max size, who needs growth and Green usually allows better research than FM when you have a sprawling empire.

Not to mention easy patrolling of your borders without a drone hit.

[John D Ward]

Originally posted by nhs_boy
Against the computer, give me Demo-Green-Knowledge for vast sprawling empire building...

What he said.

The Gaians walk over anything if you role-play them with this combination.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by GeoModder


Not to mention easy patrolling of your borders without a drone hit.

and better odds against those pollution caused natives and more captures

[Flubber]

Originally posted by John D Ward


What he said.

The Gaians walk over anything if you role-play them with this combination.

Single-player ---sure but pretty much any non-idiotic combination works against the AI

Multiplayer-- I dispute anyone that says that any given faction or strategy can walk over anyone

[nhs_boy]

It's true that anything works against the AI, but I favour Demo-Green-Knowledge against it because it makes what I want to do much easier and stress-free.
I'm not worried about turbo-probing or enormous concerted attacks from the AI, so like to build wide-spaced empires and 'play down' to the computer players. Role-playing, as someone said, and not all SE choices allow that kind of flexibility (even if you can eventually win vs AI with pretty much anything).

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
I picked Fundie for most maligned as it is a great SE choice. Extra morale and probe rating all for a paltry dip in my research rate? I'll take it. My favorite wartime settings for Morgan is Fundie/Green/Wealth. Why? Because the net -1 morale is all but wiped out once you've built children's creches in all production centers, you retain the industry and economy bonuses from wealth (+1 energy per square with Morgan's innate bonus), get good efficiency and a nice planet boost from green, all for a little research and growth, which will easily be made up for with all the captured population and probed tech you can get in a war of aggression.

With all the Yang players on these boards, I'd never really describe Police as maligned or underplayed, and if it IS maligned, I feel it is justly so.Police is the cocaine SE choice. First it feels great, then you find yourself needing it more and more, and finally you can't stop. Once you become dependent on the high police rating to quell your drones in police state, you start diverting more and more units to garrison duty. You could start building more facilities to help quelling drones, but you're lagging in tech and cash from the efficiency problems that planned gives you, and are typically also engaged in a war with your non-garrison troops, and don't want to divert production of reinforcements toward making your populace less disgruntled. The moral of the story is that if you really want to support more troops, just go crawl some more minerals.

I have to agree with the CEO. Fundy is probably the most underused SE choice I've seen. Most guys I've seen cringe at the fact that their -2 Research is gonna kill them. Personally, I don't use Fundy partly because of ideology clashes, but mostly cause of the Research hit. Unless I'm playing Miriam, then I go full on Fundy.

As for Police...ahem, ahem...I'd say that it isn't necessarily cocaine insofar as a contributory boost of your faction. Play it safe, get those 1-1-1 CleanPolice in there and you'd probably do fine. Make those Drones pay. And construct those Punishment Spheres as well.....but then again, I usually create "university cities" that hold most of my brainy guys.