Most maligned/underused SE choice?

[Marid Audran]

It seems that for most players social engineering choices are decidedly biased: Demo/Planned whilst growing/pop-booming, Demo/Freemarket/Wealth during Builder/Hybrid periods of just raking in the cash & research (though Knowledge may get a fair amount of use as well). Even warmongers often use these SE settings, forgoing more bellicose POWER and FUNDY SE choices. The rest of the options gather political dust by the wayside for the majority of the game (future society choices excepted, due to their extraneous nature).

So which option is the most maligned/least utilized in your opinion? For my money it's Power; the industry hit is simply too much for most players to bear, myself included the majority of the time. Though, I try to give all of the options a fair trial.

Fundamentalism: I often use this in early game when Democracy's resource woes outweight its strengths when I'll just be breeding a bunch of extra drones in my bases anyway. Morale for early territory wars and worm hunting...and a big PROBE bonus for pilfering juicy techs off of factions squirreling them away in their databases, especially when one's initial research aptitude peters out in the early game and one is looking at a 20 - 25 turn research period for a new tech until some serious infrastructure is in place. Also a good choice for Miriam/Domai, whose research is abysmal anyway and rely increasingly on other factions for research.

Police State: I also use this early game, often during intense colonization sprees where the resource boon helps in funding a recon army and former force free of charge (with the police ready to rein the drones in as well). Very good early on for Morgan as well, who has an initial deficiency in SUPPORT.

Green: Usually forsaken because it lacks the obvious chutzpah of Planned's growth/industry aptitude and Free Market's moneybags economy. (even AI Dee never selects her "favored" economics) However, paired with Police State green is a very good SE choice to tame ineffiency while gaining a PLANET boost, until the player is ready to start growing population again with Demo/Planned. Fundy/Green is also feasible in war-time, especially with mixed forces (mind worms and conventional units) with a faction like the Gaians.

Power: In my opinion, again, the most maligned SE choice for reasons already stated. However, I will switch to power if I already have a large army in the field preparing an invasion, so long as I intend for it to be over in 10 turns or less.

Your opinion?

[Verrucosus]

For the reasons you have given, I use "Green" very often and for extended periods. The other choices can be aptly described as underused in my games, but there are occasions when I find them useful.

Power is only used in offensive warfare and even then only for the offensive action itself, not for the preparatory stage. As soon as the target bases are seized the Power setting is dropped and sometimes even replaced by Wealth to decrease rushbuilding costs in the conquered bases.

When I use Police State/Fundamentalism it's generally for diplomatic purposes to buy time with Yang or Miriam without giving them all of my techs. Not running Democracy is a high price to pay, but sometimes I prefer it to being forced into an early war.

A rare use of Fundamentalism is during defensive warfare in connection with Knowledge. The two choices cancel each other's penalties. When I don't want to take the industry/support penalties from Democracy and Power, I sometimes choose this strange combination in an effort to minimize weaknesses. Fundy/Knowledge is certainly a weird society to live in.

Giving all options a fair trial is something I haven't done yet. (After all, I've played this game just for seven years.) It would be an interesting twist to use SE settings not as a part of your strategy, but as a given that your strategy has to adapt to. To be fair, that's how I thought the AI has to play. Can Deidre still use "Planned" after discovering Centauri Empathy?

[binTravkin]

I still use power in combination with Cloning Vats occasionally, or one can look at Spartan ACDG3 power SE performance, but fundy is useless to me (Police and Green are both good options, I use them often).

And where's the Knowledge?
I can remember only one PBEM where I used it (played as Sparta and had no Wealth choice)

[Kataphraktoi]

Knowledge is a fav of mine, it often( but later game) gives better esearch than wealth, and allows better morale units.though wealth is a bigger fav. actually,i like all the SE

Power is probbly my next favourite SE after wealth...just to get that oh-so-lucrative -2 industry for a turn

BC on cgn advocated a fundy morgan approach, and it sounded good. have yet to try it it though.

[binTravkin]

I've seen Fundy Morgan.
It loses loads of money to inefficency.

[Kataphraktoi]

Yeah, i had forgot Fundy gives -Effic
Here is the post i refer to.
here is the post he made before that on poly,with war story.

However, I think one of the keys to this game, is to be *very* flexible with your SE settings. I set my settings primarily toward the goal I want to achieve, and secondarily according to my factions.

[Chaunk]

My opinion? None of the above!

All SE settings are situation dependant, and so any SE that's underused, is underused because it only fits a niche situation. Power, for example, will cripple (Or at least be a significant handicap) any player if used 100% of the time. But for gaining those lovely Elite units, it's exceedingly useful.

The four SE listed above, are at their best in war situations. That isn't usually the majority of the game, and so they are "underused" vs Wealth for example.

And fundy Morgan should be Fundy, Green, Wealth for some lovely bonuses, and marginal negatives (Assuming you're winning a war and gaining pop via conquest!)

[Verrucosus]

Does Fundamentalism really carry an efficiency penalty or does it just prevent you from getting Democracy's efficiency bonus?

[Kataphraktoi]

It was more sarcasm. fundy+green still gives +2 effic, although you do lose democracy's +2

[binTravkin]

Yeah, i had forgot Fundy gives -Effic

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

[Senethro]

Green is fine. Both Morgan and Deedee like Green for efficiency/warring. It won't be more used until native life is improved. (Planet rating should make NL cheaper imo)

I would like Police State more if the efficency distance scaled a bit better on larger maps.

Fundy is just weak. Short term Believer wars or Spartans pushing for elite units. I personally would like it to have +2 morale and some property related to Drone control... free churches...?

Power really really needs only -1 industry and to be available earlier in the tech tree. And if Morale effects were fixed in cities and if each morale level gave +15% bonus I think we would see more people taking power.

I'm not at all sure what to do with Knowledge. I've only used it as Spartans. Perhaps if Industry only affected facilities and support controlled mineral cost of units I would change to Knowledge out of Wealth more often. Maybe Wealth could stand to have -1 support as well.


Enough rambling. My only other gripe with the SE system is people evading Free Market's pacifism penalty with Punishment Spheres. If building a PS was an atrocity that would be more interesting :P

[Hydro]

SE depends on faction and situation. I use Green all the time in mid game for the efficiency bump, which helps with drones and cash. I will only periodically go to Planned for a quick pop boom. With my Gaians (favorite faction by far) this yields a very nice +7 efficiency with Dem/Green/Knowledge, which allows absolutely huge empires. For any faction even +5 eff is very good when at war, since you're incorporating other factions into your empire and efficiency is at a premium. Of the other factions, I've only used with Police with Yang - which is a no-brainer in almost all circumstances.

I role play my factions, which is another aspect that other players aren't a finicky about. For instance, my Dee would never go Police. Lal would not use Power, Miriam wouldn't have a hard time with Green considering due to her antipathy toward Plant, etc. Morgan being a pragmatist that looks for pure profit would do anything, hehe. That makes him fun to play for me...

Hydro

[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.

On the other picks: Green is not only good in combination with fundy and wealth, but is a good wartime footing in any circumstances where you're going to be sending lots of units through fungus to reach your foes. You're going to be spawning some worms, so why not get an edge when fighting them, and capture a few and send them at the enemy for good measure?

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.

There are 2 factions that make good use of police state. Yang, of course, gets police without the efficiency penalty, which means most players will simply park there. The other pick is Sparta. Sparta with its innate +1 police rating can spread with impunity by just running police, building 3 1/1/1 clean police to quell drones, and a rec commons. With such a setup, I'll typically run Police/Planned/Knowledge, retain respectable growth, reduce my industry problems, and just live with -3 efficiency. The high support lets me crank out 2 formers per base and still field a good amount of troops early on. The fact that my bases can support 11 population before I even think about building anything more expensive than a rec commons means that I can leverage my huge former force to expand horizontally ad infinitum, and duck into flash booms with Demo/Planned with high psych allocation when I want to turn my horizonal growth vertical.

[Senethro]

Aaron: Regarding Sparta/Police State I take it you make much use of tight spacing, creches and inefficiency-immune specialists to minimise the bad characteristics?

[Kirov]

Originally posted by Senethro
Green is fine. Both Morgan and Deedee like Green for efficiency/warring. It won't be more used until native life is improved. (Planet rating should make NL cheaper imo)

I would like Police State more if the efficency distance scaled a bit better on larger maps.

Somehow I find this Effic hit of PS simply too much to take. Basically, you have to use up your newly gained Police and Support bonus to quell your newly gained drones... At least that's how I see it.

Fundy is just weak. Short term Believer wars or Spartans pushing for elite units. I personally would like it to have +2 morale and some property related to Drone control... free churches...?

I use it very often at wars. Morale bonus is just nice, but what I love is the equivalent of Polymorphic Encryption for my units and bases. I would definitely go for Fundie whenever at war with a stronger player.

Power really really needs only -1 industry and to be available earlier in the tech tree. And if Morale effects were fixed in cities and if each morale level gave +15% bonus I think we would see more people taking power.

100% agree. I also think that Spartans should be immune to Power industry hit.

I'm not at all sure what to do with Knowledge. I've only used it as Spartans. Perhaps if Industry only affected facilities and support controlled mineral cost of units I would change to Knowledge out of Wealth more often. Maybe Wealth could stand to have -1 support as well.

I think it was a great mistake of game designers. What do you need Knowledge for when you have Wealth? These two are far too similar, but Wealth a bit better. I would even switch from Wealth to Knowledge at wars, if not for the fact that then the Probe malus is even worse than the Morale one.

Anyway, I vote for Power. It's useful solely when you're in the middle of a long war with someone on par with you.