Rebalancing the SE choices

[Chaos Theory]

Police State is occasionally handy, but is usually a bad choice:

Spartans in Police State get the magic +3 Police, allowing for reckless ICSing. Balance the efficiency hit with Green.

Cyborgs in Police State only go down to 0 effic, and can ICS more effectively and spew out more formers.

Police State is, of course, pretty nice in a one-city challenge.

[DilithiumDad]

Police-Green is a good combination. Gaians and University can make good use of it, as well as the Morganites who can't use Demo very well. Lal can't use it, of course. It doesn't help the Believers, since they don't need the Support. But it's good for Gaians, Hive, University, Morganites, and Spartans (especially!) so 5 out of 7 ain't bad. Never a good choice for the long run.

[Natalinasmpf]

Egash, I don't like some of these changes.

Wealth should have a -GROWTH, since decadence leads to decay in family values.

This also prevents the wild success of combinations like Democracy+Planned+Wealth. This might make Morgan less attractive though, since the lack of planned for him is already crippling, so an immunity to negative growth effects can be used instead....

All unchanged. The often overwhelming advantage of free market is negated by an alternative method of gaining +2 economy as will be explained below. Once FM ceases to be such a neccesity then economics becomes much more interesting.

Free Market's penalties should be reduced to -Talent, -3 support, -2 Planet. Seriously, free market's +1 energy doesn't provide much till environmental economics in some situations....and just unrest is created, it doesn't cause a drop in police levels. Bonuses increased to +3 Econ. Population's support for troops drop in such an economy.

As stated: Wealth should be: +1 ECON, +1 INDUSTRY, -1 morale, -1 growth.

Thought control should not be tuned down. The +2 probe is useful in covering for knowledge - a doublethink combination in 1984....in fact, I think compared to Eudaimonic, it does not have much appeal...

Knowledge should in fact get a +Talent (yes, its an actual SE effect, but it wasn't implemented in the final SE choice but the bonus is functional) bonus, intellectualism causes this to happen.

Fundamentalist: +1 morale +1 growth +2 probe, -1 Research. Research doesn't really suffer that much in a fundamentalist state, only slightly due to reactionarism. Preservation of family values causes a +1 growth.. a sudden alternative for Yang...heh!

Democratic:+2 Growth +1 Econ +2 effic, -3 Police. Being democratic should do more than just take away one free supported unit and no free minerals away. In essence, its the lack of tolerance for police.

Power: +2 morale +4 support -2 Industry -Talent - power really increases military tolerance, but industry still slows down. Spartans should get robust to power.

Eudaimonic: +2 Industry, +2 Econ, ++Talent, not growth.

[DilithiumDad]

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
Egash, I don't like some of these changes.

Wealth should have a -GROWTH, since decadence leads to decay in family values.

This also prevents the wild success of combinations like Democracy+Planned+Wealth. This might make Morgan less attractive though, since the lack of planned for him is already crippling, so an immunity to negative growth effects can be used instead....

Wealth needs only a small additional penalty. -Growth is too harsh! -Planet is relatively mild.

All unchanged. The often overwhelming advantage of free market is negated by an alternative method of gaining +2 economy as will be explained below. Once FM ceases to be such a neccesity then economics becomes much more interesting.

Free Market's penalties should be reduced to -Talent, -3 support, -2 Planet. Seriously, free market's +1 energy doesn't provide much till environmental economics in some situations....and just unrest is created, it doesn't cause a drop in police levels. Bonuses increased to +3 Econ. Population's support for troops drop in such an economy.

Too radical a change, when none is needed at all. -3 Support is crippling and eliminates Demo as a choice.

As stated: Wealth should be: +1 ECON, +1 INDUSTRY, -1 morale, -1 growth.

Wealth needs only a small additional penalty. -Growth is too harsh! -Planet is relatively mild.

Thought control should not be tuned down. The +2 probe is useful in covering for knowledge - a doublethink combination in 1984....in fact, I think compared to Eudaimonic, it does not have much appeal...

True. Thought control is out the window after other Future Societies come into play. The major change in the table, though, is moving Future Societies earlier in the tech tree. I personally think Optical Computers is too soon. Eudemonia is probably only used for the last 10 or so turns of the game. Thought Control in particular could be useful if it came much earlier --maybe with Biomachinery, the same tech that gives Cloning Vats?

Knowledge should in fact get a +Talent (yes, its an actual SE effect, but it wasn't implemented in the final SE choice but the bonus is functional) bonus, intellectualism causes this to happen.

Now there's an idea I like! Knowledge does need a bit of a boost relative to Wealth. +Efficiency reduces B-drones, but +Talent would be nice.

Fundamentalist: +1 morale +1 growth +2 probe, -1 Research. Research doesn't really suffer that much in a fundamentalist state, only slightly due to reactionarism. Preservation of family values causes a +1 growth.. a sudden alternative for Yang...heh!

This has possibilites, too. With +growth (well documented in actual fundamentalist societies!) Fundie could give Demo a run for its money!

Democratic:+2 Growth +1 Econ +2 effic, -3 Police. Being democratic should do more than just take away one free supported unit and no free minerals away. In essence, its the lack of tolerance for police.

+Econ and -3Police? Too radical --too strong bonuses and penalties. Improving Fundie is good enough --your scheme makes Fundie much better than Demo.

Power: +2 morale +4 support -2 Industry -Talent - power really increases military tolerance, but industry still slows down. Spartans should get robust to power.

Nobody uses Power except in desperate last stand defense. -Talent makes it even more absurd! And adding yet more support doesn't help.

Eudaimonic: +2 Industry, +2 Econ, ++Talent, not growth.

Growth is relevant for non-booming factions. ++Talent makes more sense for Cybernetic.

[livid imp]

Natalinasmpf,

All those changes equate more to a full mod than simple SE rebalancing. I would never agree to the massive changes you are proposing within the context of SMAC/X. Besides there are a few that are down right illogical.

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
Wealth should have a -GROWTH, since decadence leads to decay in family values.

Not so. Wealth actually tends to promote growth as folks have more resources to support more childern. That is the entire idea behind Planned growth bonus. As the wealth is distributed evenly, more people have more resources to bear more childern. Rather than the resources being concentraited in a small upper class minority (which of course can only have so many childern) So Wealth in and of itself, has a neutral growth pattern.

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
Free Market's penalties should be reduced to -Talent, -3 support, -2 Planet. Seriously, free market's +1 energy doesn't provide much till environmental economics in some situations....and just unrest is created, it doesn't cause a drop in police levels. Bonuses increased to +3 Econ. Population's support for troops drop in such an economy.

Not trying to get mean, but that is nuts. FM would actually attract Talents, it would just create a lot more Drones to override the additional Talents.

I somewhat agree with the support penalty as in a true FM a soldier could negotiate for his salary costing the state more to hire good soldiers. The Planet rating should remain at -3 as it is a well estabilished fact that corporations tend to trash their own environments. Personally, I think I would have characterized FM as +2 Econ, -2 Support, -2 Police, -3 Planet. This would still make war prohibitly expensive for the Demo/FM SE, without making it so for Fundy/FM or PS/FM. But maybe that would break the system even worse. FM as is, is perfect for game balance, so really it should be left alone.

[Natalinasmpf]

Growth is relevant for non-booming factions. ++Talent makes more sense for Cybernetic.

Hardly. Cybernetic merely makes the society more efficient, not more liberated. + Talent is when the people are liberated from oppression and little in the way of becoming intellectual. Cybernetic displaces workers....especially the uneducated.

Anyway, with enough talents one can get constant golden age anyway and still nab +2 growth.

Wealth needs only a small additional penalty. -Growth is too harsh! -Planet is relatively mild.

-1 Planet is not actually that mild...planned wealth will have a net +1 growth, anyway, with a communist-tendency society, perhaps to override that decadence.... again, this is to try to keep Chaos Theory on his toes....

Nobody uses Power except in desperate last stand defense. -Talent makes it even more absurd! And adding yet more support doesn't help.

With Cloning Vats, that +4 support with Eudaimonic could actually be pretty powerful....especially with Living Refinery and cloning vats....
+2 morale +4 support -1 Industry?

Police State should perhaps get +3 support and -1 efficiency as well?

[DilithiumDad]

I disagree with almost everything you said. In particular, SE settings should not require a secret project in order to be viable. In multiplayer, you will not be seeing many secret projects unless you are running away with game and romping to victory.

Power does need a boost. In keeping with your good suggestion to add +TALENT to Knowledge, how about adding +TALENT to Police State? The reason would be very different, of course. The extra talent could represent a more stable society or elite police units. The advantage would be that +2 police is not much benefit unless you are Spartan and get the double police benefit of +3 police setting. +Talent gives improved drone control for all factions, which is what you are seeking with Police State anyway.