what changes would you like to have in SMAC?

[Hydro]

For the Council, I didn’t really like what Moo3 did and don’t particularly like how it is implemented in GalCiv2. Of the three I like SMAC’s best.

Are Council changes mainly in how influence is determined or what the Council does? Both?

Hydro

[Xian]

I'd like to see more options and things to vote on in the Planetary Council. The real UN has voted on literally hundreds of resolutions, in AC we have options for about 6.

[Straybow]

Bah. 99% of the stuff the UN votes on political posturing that accomplishes nothing. Keep it simple.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Cloudbase Academy is overpowered, but only because the Aerospace Complex is overpowered. They should split the two effects of AeroCom into two separate facilities, and then allow the Cloudbase Academy only to provide ONE of those facilities to all bases for free.

[CEO Aaron]

Agreed. Create an Air Defence System that offers the defensive traits of the Aeroplex and leave the training and space support facilities on the existing facility.

[Xian]

Originally posted by Straybow
Bah. 99% of the stuff the UN votes on political posturing that accomplishes nothing. Keep it simple.

I totally disagree. Maybe to privileged, rich whites in first world countries cease-fires, calls for aid, rulings on legality of land/territory etc. are meaningless, but for the vast majority of the world they're critical, often life and death matters.

But even if that were true, political posturing and differences in policy/philosophy are part a crucial part of AC - the PC should reflect that.

Furthermore, it solves some of the problems spellbinder laid out in terms of land acquisition and declaration of war.

[Straybow]

Yeah, yeah... cry me a river. A little war here, a little genocide there. Everybody thinks their problems are bigger than anybody else's.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Cloudbase Academy is overpowered, but only because the Aerospace Complex is overpowered. They should split the two effects of AeroCom into two separate facilities, and then allow the Cloudbase Academy only to provide ONE of those facilities to all bases for free.

One of my general Civ-like game suggestions is to do away with "free in every city/base" as a mechanism for WoW/SPs. Instead, you have to build it but it only costs one row (maintenance is free).

Having a build-cost mechanism also provides a way to make certain facilities cost more or less for a faction, as part of the faction characteristics.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Xian

I totally disagree. Maybe to privileged, rich whites in first world countries cease-fires, calls for aid, rulings on legality of land/territory etc. are meaningless, but for the vast majority of the world they're critical, often life and death matters.

And the reasons they're seen as meaningless to those 'privileged rich whites' is because we know that no amount of outside intervention and money is going to solve the developing world's problems for them. The cease-fires and calls for aid don't resolve the underlying conflicts, and the rulings on legality of land/territory are nearly universally ignored. Sanctions hurt the wrong people, and aid is diverted to serve the corrupt.

To be sure, the issues that the U.N. debates are important, and not just to the people affected by them. The actual efficacy of the U.N. in addressing those issues is considerably more dubious.

[Seleuceia]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron

And the reasons they're seen as meaningless to those 'privileged rich whites' is because we know that no amount of outside intervention and money is going to solve the developing world's problems for them.

I see we have a free-marketeer here...I suppose we could argue forever about the UN and financial aid and what not, but I'll just sum it up with the good old Soviet saying...

"You'll pretend to work, and we'll pretend to pay you"...

The fact is, the UN could work, and the first world countries have more than enough money to end extreme poverty (key word being extreme, not relative).

The unfortunate part of that fact is, the UN doesn't operate properly, mostly due to the "rich" nations playing politics and games for their own benefit...

[CEO Aaron]

A great deal is done both publicly and privately by the western world to alleviate poverty worldwide, but there are practical limits to what can be done in spite of local factors. It's very easy to criticise the wealthy nations of the world for 'not doing enough', but we're the only people doing ANYTHING AT ALL to help, and in many cases over the armed resistance of the thugs and bandits besetting these troubled regions. So who's hurting these regions more? Fortunate citizens half a world away, or the armed gangs of thugs mutilating rival tribes, bombing their enemies and kidnapping foreigners who've come to help so they can shake down the institutions who sent them for a few thousand dollars?

I don't know if I would describe msyelf as a Free Marketeer in real life, but I do believe that, like Democracy, of the available alternatives, it's the least flawed. That doesn't mean it's without flaws. Supply and demand can display some pretty crushing injustices. For example, the fact that the severed horn of a poached rhinoceros is worth many, many times more than a man's life. But it's not the nature of the Free Market to CREATE those injustices, but merely to show them to us. The market shows us what we want, as a society. Supressing it doesn't change what we want, as the thriving black markets in communist nations clearly shows.

So the bottom line is that the economic model isn't really part of the solution OR part of the problem. The real problems is power, and who has it, and what people are prepared to do to get it.

[Seleuceia]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
...in many cases over the armed resistance of the thugs and bandits besetting these troubled regions. So who's hurting these regions more? Fortunate citizens half a world away, or the armed gangs of thugs mutilating rival tribes, bombing their enemies and kidnapping foreigners who've come to help...

This is, unfortunately, very true...

However, the West (particularly the US) most definitely has the financial capabilities and military capacity to effectively deliver financial aid for rebuilding poor nations...with a $540 billion military budget, absolute naval superiority, and the most effective air force, the US in particular could, if it wanted to, deliver financial aid and deal with these so-called thugs and bandits...

The Berlin airlift is clear evidence that when the West is determined, it can indeed solve seemingly impossible problems...

The war in Iraq is also proof that, even with a powerful military, industry, and economy, an ignorant and isolationist populace can prevent success of helping other nations...

[Seleuceia]

Now back to topic...the only thing I've modified (other than the worldbuilder) is SE. The changes I feel make all SE choices equally appealing, and most importantly, prevent the AI from dooming itself...

Police State
+2 POLICE +2 SUPPORT -1 EFFIC

Democracy
+2 EFFIC +1 GROWTH -2 POLICE

Fundalmentalist
+2 PROBE +2 MORALE -1 RESEARCH

Free Market
+1 ECON +1 EFFIC -2 PLANET

Planned
+1 INDUST +2 GROWTH -1 EFFIC

Green
+2 PLANET +2 EFFIC -1 GROWTH

Power
+2 MORALE +2 SUPPORT -1 INDUST

Knowledge
+2 RESEARCH +2 EFFIC -1 PROBE

Wealth
+1 ECON +1 INDUST -1 MORALE

Cybernetic
+2 RESEARCH +2 EFFIC +2 PLANET -2 POLICE

Eudaimonia
+2 GROWTH +2 INDUST +2 ECON -2 MORALE

Thought control
+2 POLICE +2 PROBE +2 MORALE -2 SUPPORT

It's also important to note that the Believers have only-1 Research and University only +1 Research and -1 Probe


The advantages of this:
--police state+planned is a viable option for all factions
--Power and Fundy are more appealing and don't crush Spartans and Believers
--Democracy is no longer overpowered, but also doesn't hurt AI's military with -2 SUPPORT; also, now impossible to pop-boom without golden ages
--Free market no longer a golden choice for energy, and doesn't have pacifism

MAJOR DISADVANTAGE:
--Free market+wealth is only way to get +2 Econ, and may prevent human player from doing anything else given lack of disadvantages.

[CEO Aaron]

the US in particular could, if it wanted to

I think a daily read of the headlines in your local news outlet belie that statement. While the U.S. spends an inordinate amount of its federal budget on our military forces, our number of infantry troops deployed on the ground is remarkably low. Even now in the midst of a focused 'push' of occupational forces, U.S. troops number 160,000 or so, and that includes non-combat troops, administrative personnel, right down to the secretaries and kitchen staff. Compare that to a nation with a population of 26 million, and you begin to the see the problem of assuming that our armed forces can simply lock down the country.

Complicating the mere numbers is the troubling problem where the insurgents and warlords rather unsportingly refuse to present targets that can be directly attacked, instead preferring to wage a guerilla/terror war on their own populace, as well as occupying forces.

Lest the folks here mistake me for a neocon apologist, I was and remain a staunch opponent of the Iraqi occupation, and I feel that the job was and is being horribly botched in its management, but even had it been perfectly executed, it's foolhardy to think that Coalition forces would have had an easy job in front of them.

Bagdad, beset as it is with sectarian strife and blood feuds dating back a generation and more, bears no resemblance at all to Berlin in 1948. For one thing, the Germans were faced with a far more imposing invading force, the Red Army, which naturally made them view us as their rescuers. To the Iraqi belligerents, the invading army and the rescuers are one and the same. Second, there's ample evidence to suggest that neighboring Iran and Syria are covertly funding insurgents in Iraq, because they quite rightly fear the presence of (another) regime that's sympathetic to the west on their doorstep. Nobody but nobody was funding guerilla forces inside Germany, as most of the western world, and much of the rest of it, had just fought six brutal years of total war to completely subjugate the German nation. Third, in spite of being recently our enemies in World War II, the Germans shared with us a common religion, ideology and history. Germany is a western european nation, and the U.S. is certainly heavily influenced by western european culture. Iraq, and indeed most of the middle east, has been witnessing the encroachment of growing european power into territory that they perceive to be theirs, for the better part of a thousand years, so it's not too difficult to see how they might take a dim view of our 'mission of liberation' to bring democracy to their doorstep. The people fighting us there view modern, western ways as heretical, blasphemous, and anathema to their way of life.

I don't know if the Iraq wars will really prove anything, except that one can't win the battle of hearts and minds at the barrel of a gun. But then, anyone with a thimbleful of sense could have told you that 4 years ago before this whole sad affair was started, based, as it was, on total bullsh*t:

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2002/rp02-064.pdf

[CEO Aaron]

Okay, threadjack over.