Comments on Faction: Surly Underclass...

[Helium Pond]

Roughly, this faction is meant to represent trade unionists, with some tongue-in-cheek jabs at blue-collar folk (all meant in fun, really--don't sic those teamsters on me!) My hope was to design a faction that had to use probe teams as its main military unit--probe teams in this case representing labor organizers who would go and get the workers in other cities to revolt. Here's what I have worked out:

FREE TECH: {Social Psych, Planetary Networks}
+2 PROBE: {Good at rabble rousing. Free PROBE TEAM at start.}
-1 RESEARCH: {No time for sittin' around thinking.!}
-3 POLICE: {Doesn't take well to company-hired goons.}
Benefits Package: {RECYCLING TANKS free at each base.}
Retirement Plan: {2% interest on Energy reserves per turn.}
Union Regulations: {10% extra penalty for hurrying production.}
Kinda Pinko: {Won't use FREE MARKET economy.}
Snubbed by the Elite: {Shut out of Planetary Elections; gets no votes regardless of population.}


My thinking:
The high probe ratings and the probe techs, obviously, are to encourage the player to build and use probe teams. Almost all the other modifications have to do with this imperative, too.
I gave the faction a money bonus because it takes money to do effective probe team work, but then I had to take steps to make it hard to use that money for things *other* than probe teams; this explains the penalty for rush-building, and the penalty for research, and the penalty for deploying military units (the low police rating), as well as the prevention of Free Market (like anyone in their right mind would use Free Market with this faction, anyway). Well, perhaps that's not obvious; my thinking is that Free Market *in addition* to 2% interest is just way too much money. I originally had the interest set at 10%, but then I read someone's post on how 3% is the MOST you should ever give a faction, and I changed it (interestingly, the lowest you can go in the Faction Editor is 10%--another reason that thing doesn't quite replace the need to edit the files yourself).
The free Recycling Tanks are included to somewhat make up for the slow infrastructure development that's going to happen because of the penalty for rush-building.
The lack of votes for planetary governor is unrelated to everything else; I just thought it was funny. I originally wanted to halve the votes, but nothing I tried worked, and this was the closest I could get.

So, what do you think, O masters of mod?
My specific questions are:

1) Is 10% extra enough of a penalty to make a player shy away from military development? I figured that this, in addition to the -3 Police, would be enough of a whammy, but someone could always just run Police State. Maybe I should prohibit use of Police State, and let the player decide for themselves whether or not they want to run Free Market (-7 Police!)?

2) Is 2% enough of a bonus on reserves to make a lot of probe team actions affordable? In my own games, not as this faction but as ragular SMAC/X factions, I hardly ever have enough cash lying around for more than one probe team action per decade. I want this faction to be a real probe team terror, with lots of cash available for grabbing units. Do you think 2% would do it all on its own, or should I also include a starting cash bonus?

Someone said that narrowly-built factions, factions that are really only playable one way, are the worst. This is a narrowly-built faction if ever there was one, but I think it would be a lot of fun to play, if I can get it balanced right. It has to somehow have a lot of cash, but not be able to use that cash for anything other than probe teams. I haven't play-tested it yet--I'm posting here in hopes that some of you smart guys can save me some time; hopefully you can point out any big mistakes, before I jump in and play-test.

[Helium Pond]

No comments? None? What, did I just create the most boring faction ever?

Or maybe it's just so amazingly well-thought-out that no one could think of anything to add?

[Enigma]

The free recycling tanks are HUGE...

Honestly I do not see what the whole shebang about interest is. 10% is quite high, I agree. But 5% is not all that severe. 2% really is quite insignificant, and that would take forever for the money to double at that rate. Rather than give them interest (if you are using ACX) give them a decreased probe action cost like the angels.

-3 police is pretty severe unless you REALLY want them to not be able to use a military at all. Give them a support penalty, this favors probes and doesn't hurt as much due to recycling tanks.

I think that increased hurry costs and no FM are a pretty severe reaction to a mere 2% interest.. one or the other is pretty bad alone.

[Enigma]

Pond that is the point of the support penalty. You do not see morganites with huge armies just sittin around.

The recycling / no FM thing kinda balances out but makes the faction rather inflexible.

[Helium Pond]

thanks for the feedback, enigma.

If recycling tanks are a huge bonus, and not being able to Free Market is a huge disadvantage, do you think they balance out?

I'm not sure about the Police... I just worry that, if you give a faction a lot of money, they'll use it all on military. I want the money to go towards Probe actions.

[Helium Pond]

Enigma:

Thanks for helping me with this. Man, I wrote a big long reply and then somehow it got wiped! Sucks. The gist:

Support seems mainly to affect production, and thus can be overcome with money. This faction is going to have a lot of money. Police, at least once you get down to -3 or less, makes it hard to actually *use* an army.

Can you think of another way to steer the player towards probe teams? I agree that the -3 is restrictive, but I'm afraid that unless I penalize military action, it's going to be too easy for a player with a ton of money to just buy the whole game.

[Enigma]

Low morale will do it. Again the -3 police SHOULD work but I was yelled at by Korn when I tried to a make a pacifist faction with a similar penalty, he just said that it is very very easy to overcome.

A police penalty larger than -3 will hurt them a LOT in the early game because it will be the equivelent of FM drones without the FM cash. I try to go FM as early cause I play a very greedy Morgan and usually it is quite annoying because there is no way to handle drones since you can't use police. For example, by combining demo with this faction expansion will stop. It will take 10 turns before you even have enough minerals in a base to hurry production for a recreation commons.

I reccommend that if you are going to give them -3 police, or even -2 police give them 1 free talent. This way they will still be able to expand to a reasonable amount. Then give them BIG probe discount since they can't run FM the probe actions need to be cheaper. Heck 1 extra talent even fits in with the union idea, drones are happy cause of artificially high wages.

[Helium Pond]

Thanks for your input, I'll try all this stuff out the next time I can put some serious SMAC time in (which sadly doesn't look to be real soon)...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Helium,

I like your tongue in cheek jab at Unionists. I would suggest reexamining your -3 police though. Again in the spirit of light heartedness I would actually suggest a postive polcie ratnig because if there is one thing that organizers do well is that they keep the surly masses inline with their own strong arm tactics (he says looking over his shoulder to make sure no toughs are on the prowl). If the police rating was high enough one could envision this faction becoming rather Orwellian (sp?). All union memebers are equal but some are more equal than others (can you say Teamsters presidents??)

Gotta run I think I hear footsteps.....