University drone penalty on different difficulty levels

[Machinatorculus]

hi everyone.
this is my first post on the forum, although i've been lurking for some time in search of tips and strategies. you're doing a wonderful job helping less experienced players.

i've been playing SMAC for too long to remember how long exactly and i'm fairly familiar with game mechanics. however, one issue eludes me. perhaps some of you will be able to provide an answer.

University is penalized with an additional drone for every four citizens, that is its fourth citizen in a base is a drone. what bugs me about it is how this applies in higher difficulty levels (Talent and onwards.) where all factions get a drone for their fourth citizen. (or third, or second respectively.) since difficulty levels set the drone threshold for all factions, it is no longer a relative disadvantage for University.

my understanding is then that University only perceives its negative modifier on easier difficulty levels, but on the other hand this doesn't look right and so i have a feeling that i err in my assumptions. could anyone point out my mistakes if there are any? all explanations are welcome.

thanks in advance!

[Petek]

Welcome to Apolyton!

At first glance, it does seem that the Uni suffers less of a drone penalty at the higher difficulty levels. For example, playing on Transcend, the first citizen is not a drone, but all subsequent citizens are drones. When your base reaches size 4, you get an extra drone, making all citizens drones. At this point, all citizens are drones no matter what the base size and so no additional drone penalty applies.

However, at the next lower difficulty level (Thinker), the first two citizens aren't drones, but all subsequent ones are. When the base reaches size 4, you now have 1 non-drone and three drones. It's only when the base reaches size 8 that all citizens become drones.

In other words, at any difficulty level, all citizens will eventually become drones. However, the lower the difficulty level, the larger the base can grow until this happens.

HTH

Petek

[Machinatorculus]

thanks for the explanation, Petek! now things make sense. i wouldn't have found it out myself though, i avoid playing as University for silly sentimental reasons.

[vyeh]

I used the scenario editor. For the university (transcend), at size=3, there was one worker and two drones. At size=4, there was four drones (as Petek reported)!

For the Gaians, there was always one worker.

So the Uni penalty means that at size 4, there is an extra drone (4) over what the Gaians would have (3).

What was interesting was what happened to the Peacekeepers.

For the Peacekeepers, it starts as one talent.

For size = 4, it is 1 talent, 3 drones.

For size = 5, it is 1 talent, 1 worker and 3 drones.

For size = 8, it is 1 talent, 1 worker, and 6 drones.

For size = 9, it is 2 talents and 7 drones.

For size = 13, it is 2 talents, 1 worker and 10 drones.

This is all in the unmodified line.

According to the manual, it should be an extra talent for every 4 workers.

Could Petek check this out?

[Petek]

vyeh,

Yes, I verified your observations about the Peacekeepers. I've known for a long time that the first peacekeeper citizen is a Talent, not the fourth as would be expected from reading the manual. I believed it to be a design decision, so that your bases could grow to size three (with a police unit) without going into Drone riots.

It's also odd that your fifth citizen is a worker, instead of a Talent. The HGP SP also works oddly for the Peacekeepers. If a size 2 base doesn't have a police unit, it has one Talent and one worker. If it does have a police unit, then it gets two Talents.

Petek

[Mart]

It looks like there is more strange behavior, I just checked Peacekeepers more on transcend level. What turns out is that 1st citizen is made talent, but when i went to population over 20, all were drones anyway. In between I was geting like workers instead of talents.

It is possible, that these talents are not entirely "enforced" and can be still balanced by other drone factors when calculating the "unmodified" base state.

[vyeh]

When I go over 20, I get specialists (which I have made technicians)

Size: Talents, Workers, Drones, Techs
21: 3, 0, 17, 1
22: 2, 1, 12, 2
23: 2, 0, 18, 3
24: 1, 1, 18, 4
25: 1, 1, 18, 5
26: 1, 0, 19, 6
27: 0, 1, 19, 7
28: 0, 0, 20, 8
29: 0, 0, 20, 9
30: 0, 0, 20, 10
31: 0, 0, 20, 11

[CEO Aaron]

At transcend the Uni drone penalty only really applies when you're using psych expenditure to make your citizens happy.

[Mart]

At transcend the Uni drone penalty only really applies when you're using psych expenditure to make your citizens happy.

You mean, the penalty negates psych allocation advantages. So if there is no psych, drone "bonus" has nothing else to affect? Especially, on transcend difficulty often all citizens are already drones without drone "bonus"?

[Mart]

When I go over 20, I get specialists (which I have made technicians)
...

There are talents, this is PK faction? Yes, the effect is interesting, I never thought about it more before.

[CEO Aaron]

Precisely, Mart. Simply put, the Uni drone penalty gives you extra 'super-drones' at transcend and above, which take 4 psych instead of 2 to cheer up. If you're able to quell your drones entirely through the use of police and facilities, the extra psych cost is a non-factor.

In practice, the Free Drone penalty makes Free Market pop booms a bit harder to reach for Uni than another comparable faction, but hardly inaccessible, especially early in the game. The rest of the time, it's a non-issue.

[Ell_man]

I used the scenario editor. For the university (transcend), at size=3, there was one worker and two drones. At size=4, there was four drones (as Petek reported)!

For the Gaians, there was always one worker.

So the Uni penalty means that at size 4, there is an extra drone (4) over what the Gaians would have (3).

What was interesting was what happened to the Peacekeepers.

For the Peacekeepers, it starts as one talent.

For size = 4, it is 1 talent, 3 drones.

For size = 5, it is 1 talent, 1 worker and 3 drones.

For size = 8, it is 1 talent, 1 worker, and 6 drones.

For size = 9, it is 2 talents and 7 drones.

For size = 13, it is 2 talents, 1 worker and 10 drones.

This is all in the unmodified line.

According to the manual, it should be an extra talent for every 4 workers.

Could Petek check this out?

This looks right to me. The talent bonus is like gaining 2 free psych for every 4 population. Since you're playing transcend you start with one worker. At size 1 that worker is made to a talent. At size 5 you gain your next 2 free psych but you only have drones to quell so it turns it into a worker instead of a talent. Once you get your next 2 free psych at size nine you turn that worker into your second talent.

If you were playing the lower difficulty levels the manual's "extra talent for every 4 workers" would be right since 2 psych added to a worker makes a talent. On transcend though, you have drones at the second pop so you need 4 psych to turn the drones to talents

The psych bonus from the HGP and peacekeepers appears to be the same mechanic as the Hanging Gardens Wonder from Civ2. (I'm going to use SMAC terms in describing civ2 game mechanics since this is in the SMAC forum.) In civ2 however, there was a bug in the game that a superdrone, if given 2 psych(either through hanging gardens or psych allocation) would turn to a talent, and not to a drone. This was especially useful in getting cities to have golden ages. The maximum amount of psych that could be used on a population is 2 per pop. If you were playing the highest difficulty level and had built enough bases so that every citizen were a drone, but not a super drone, you wouldn't be able to get your city happy enough to golden age. This is unless you had the hanging gardens(the 2 free psych ignored this 2psych per pop cap) or had a courthouse improvement under a democracy(made one citizen a talent).

The 2psych making a super drone a talent had some other weird consequences. As you know in SMAC, the game first applies psych, then improvements, then police to handle happieness issues. I think the Hanging Gardens bonus was applied last though, or at least it was handled after police. The point is that if you had a police unit in a base, you would turn the super drone into a drone and then your 2 free psych from hanging gardens would turn the drone to a worker. If instead you had no police, the super drone would turn straight into a talent. Police made you worse off!