Announcement

**Selador** · October 22, 2009, 19:05

Hey, nice to see some modding going on here! It's been a while, but I've done some extensive modding of the SE Table in the past, so I'll give you my thoughts on the matter.

First, I love the idea of giving the default settings minor penalties

. Not only does it give the early game a bit more flavor, I think it actually induces the AI to choose more advanced settings when they discover them instead of sitting idly on Frontier/Simple/Survival the whole game. This has been done before and I'm pretty sure it works, but further testing may be needed (obviously it's not a great idea if in fact the AIs refuse to switch despite the penalties).

So I'd like to see penalties applied to Survival and "None' future society. Perhaps -1 Research to Survival, to represent the lack of resources available for theoretical science due to the focus on more practical/pressing issues like finding enough food and energy in a hostile alien environment. For "None" future society, how about -1 Planet? This would reflect a lack of understanding/ability to integrate with Planet in less advanced human societies. I'd also change Frontier and Simple to only -1 Efficiency and -1 Economy respectively so that the negative effects of the default settings are too overwhelming.

Ok, now for some criticisms of the changes you made in each category:

Politics

Police State is now far too weak compared to the other 3 choices

. Police is great to have in the early game, but less useful later in the game when drone control is less of an issue due to the availability to of anti-drone facilities, specialists, and psych output. Likewise, Support is most useful early game when minerals are in short supply. By giving + Police and - Support, you ensure that this SE will rarely ever be used since early game the support penalty really hurts, and later on the police bonus is all but useless. Also, having a support penalty doesn't really work thematically with PS (imo). I like the idea of giving a probe bonus, but change the penalty. Any of Efficiency, Economy, or Research would work better I think.

Democracy looks great

. The original growth bonus didn't really makes sense to me, I think + Research fits better. Also the penalties to Police and Probe are more intuitive.

I don't like the name change to "Charismatic"

. I mean, "Fundamentalist" isn't great either, but this change doesn't work for me. It's just not a political system, and it doesn't fit in with the other 2. I don't have a better idea right now though, so I'd just leave it as Fundy for now. I like the growth bonus

, makes it a more interesting choice, though +2 may be a bit on the strong side. Not sure though, -2 Research is a pretty harsh penalty after all.

Economics

Yikes, this one's a mess. I don't like any of them

. I feel the original econ choices are actually very well balanced. Here you've made FM even more powerful, while making Planned and Green much weaker. I mean green is really crappy now with -2 Industry, why would anyone ever pick it? It makes sense thematically, but it just doesn't work from a gameplay perspective.

Same thing for Planned; the biggest reason to go Planned in the original game is to pop boom. With no growth bonus there's just no reason to pick Planned over FM now. Personally, I'd like to see pop booming eliminated from the game, so Planned could be ok as is if you're going to do that, but I think you need to redo the other 2 choices. I have some ideas on how to do this that I may post later.

Values

My only problem with this category is "Growth"

. Like "Charismatic", I don't really think it fits thematically. It just doesn't really seem like a value system to me. Maybe this would be a better spot to put Fundamentalism? Secondly, its far too powerful when compared with the other choices. Growth and Industry are probably the 2 most powerful SE factors (why do you think the Hive is so strong?). Even more so when you stack multiples of them together, and here you're stacking 2 of each together into one package. Not only that, but -2 Planet is basically a nothing penalty. This is a total no-brainer choice for every faction all game.

The other 2 choices seem fine

.

Future Society

Looks good except for Thought Control

. Note that negative Industry rolls over past -3 (if I remember correctly), which will be a problem when this choice is combined with Green. I'd change it to -2 Industry only, and change Green to -1 (it's too weak anyway). Also, maybe bump the Probe bonus up to +2 so that you can get +3 when combined with Police State.

For Cybernetic I'd replace the Planet bonus with something else, maybe Research, for thematic reasons. Although the original game gives a Planet bonus as well, I just don't see a machine-based society integrating well with Planet. Otherwise good though

.

I like the fact that you nerfed Eudaimonic a bit

, it was too strong before. It's still very strong, but since it comes later than the other 2 it's probably ok.

**Quadhelix** · October 22, 2009, 20:07

Selador: thank you so much for your input!

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I'd also change Frontier and Simple to only -1 Efficiency and -1 Economy respectively so that the negative effects of the default settings are too overwhelming.

I see your point about this: it can be pretty bad, especially when they stack (you start the game with -3 effic and -1 Econ).

Still, the basic idea is that these are short-term, ad hoc systems until you have something better, and no society should be running Frontier politics or Simple economics once all the other options are available.

Still, I'll keep that in mind.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Police State is now far too weak compared to the other 3 choices

. Police is great to have in the early game, but less useful later in the game when drone control is less of an issue due to the availability to of anti-drone facilities, specialists, and psych output. Likewise, Support is most useful early game when minerals are in short supply. By giving + Police and - Support, you ensure that this SE will rarely ever be used since early game the support penalty really hurts, and later on the police bonus is all but useless. Also, having a support penalty doesn't really work thematically with PS (imo). I like the idea of giving a probe bonus, but change the penalty. Any of Efficiency, Economy, or Research would work better I think.

The basic idea behind the support penalty is to keep Police State players from building large armies. IMO, it does work thematically: you can fight a war either abroad or at home, and Police State fights it at home.

As for the penalty being too severe, why not a reduction to -1 support? This way, players can still have a free unit at each base and start new bases with free minerals.

(I will freely admit that I am not objective on this idea: the idea for a Police State support penalty is what started me on this whole mess in the first place)

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I don't like the name change to "Charismatic"

. I mean, "Fundamentalist" isn't great either, but this change doesn't work for me. It's just not a political system, and it doesn't fit in with the other 2. I don't have a better idea right now though, so I'd just leave it as Fundy for now.

I can see how "Fundamentalist" would qualify as a political system: basically, the leaders of the state, instead of enforcing their will via heavy-handed police tactics (as with a Police State), the leaders instead use religious propaganda. Sort of.

The reason that I changed the name to "Charismatic" was to include a broader theme of government: Fundamentalism, Fascism, certain forms of Communism, etc. Basically, any government where the leadership is selected/kept in power via oratory, hyper-nationalism, and a central ethic around which they base their platform.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I like the growth bonus

, makes it a more interesting choice, though +2 may be a bit on the strong side. Not sure though, -2 Research is a pretty harsh penalty after all.

One of the main complaints about Fundamentalist politics is that it's -2 Research penalty makes it practically useless during peace time. The idea behind moving the +2 Growth from Democracy to Fundamentalism is so that players would have to go Fundy to pop boom, unless they use Golden Ages.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Yikes, this one's a mess. I don't like any of them

. I feel the original econ choices are actually very well balanced. Here you've made FM even more powerful, while making Planned and Green much weaker.

Fine: Free Market, +2 Econ, +1 Effic, -4 Police, -4 Support

The reason, of course, for keeping police at -4 instead of -5 is so that running Demo/Market will still have the full penalties of both (since -6 Police is the same as -5)

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I mean green is really crappy now with -2 Industry, why would anyone ever pick it? It makes sense thematically, but it just doesn't work from a gameplay perspective.

-1 then, or a completely different penalty?

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Same thing for Planned; the biggest reason to go Planned in the original game is to pop boom. With no growth bonus there's just no reason to pick Planned over FM now. Personally, I'd like to see pop booming eliminated from the game, so Planned could be ok as is if you're going to do that, but I think you need to redo the other 2 choices. I have some ideas on how to do this that I may post later.

Okay, +2 Support, +2 Industry, -1 Efficiency

Does that work, or should I just go back to the drawing board?

Originally posted by Selador View Post

My only problem with this category is "Growth"

. Like "Charismatic", I don't really think it fits thematically. It just doesn't really seem like a value system to me. Maybe this would be a better spot to put Fundamentalism?

I'm aware that "Growth" isn't really a social value, but I can't really think of a better name for it. Maybe "Community," "Expansion," "Colonization,"...

Feel free to pitch in at any time.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Secondly, its far too powerful when compared with the other choices. Growth and Industry are probably the 2 most powerful SE factors (why do you think the Hive is so strong?). Even more so when you stack multiples of them together, and here you're stacking 2 of each together into one package. Not only that, but -2 Planet is basically a nothing penalty. This is a total no-brainer choice for every faction all game.

I see your point; would dropping the industry boost to +1 work (it would then be vanilla Planned with a different penalty) or would the lack of FM as competition still leave problems.

New version, perhaps: "Growth," +2 Growth, +1 Industry, -3 Planet

I don't know, though.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Looks good except for Thought Control

. Note that negative Industry rolls over past -3 (if I remember correctly), which will be a problem when this choice is combined with Green. I'd change it to -2 Industry only, and change Green to -1 (it's too weak anyway). Also, maybe bump the Probe bonus up to +2 so that you can get +3 when combined with Police State.

The reason that I kept it to +1 was because, apparently, Probe values greater than 3 are treated as 0. This means that, if you have a faction with an inherent probe bonus running Police State and Thought Control...

To be honest, most of the Future Societies are still in flux for me: I'm wondering about changing Thought Control's penalty entirely (Research, Economy, or the original Support), moving Cybernetic's industry bonus to Thought Control (tireless, perfectly docile workers) and giving Cybernetic a Support bonus (computer regulated supply lines).

Originally posted by Selador View Post

For Cybernetic I'd replace the Planet bonus with something else, maybe Research, for thematic reasons. Although the original game gives a Planet bonus as well, I just don't see a machine-based society integrating well with Planet. Otherwise good though

.

I think that the idea behind the Planet boost is that the computers running the society would minimize waste, which would minimize planet's hostile response.

I'm not really sure about the thematic reasons for a research bonus, but anyway, here's an idea:

Cybernetic, +2 Efficiency, +2 Industry, +1 Research, -3 Police
Eudaimonic, +2 Growth, +1 Economy, +1 Planet, -2 Morale
Thought Control, +2 Morale, +2 Police, +1 Probe, -2 Industry

...or something like that.

**Selador** · October 23, 2009, 00:43

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Selador: thank you so much for your input!

You're welcome.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

The basic idea behind the support penalty is to keep Police State players from building large armies. IMO, it does work thematically: you can fight a war either abroad or at home, and Police State fights it at home.

Well, the game already forces the player to choose between "fighting at home" and "fighting abroad" due to the fact that you have to keep police units stationed within a base for them to be effective. So if they're off fighting, there not policing, by design already. I guess the real problem is that the game makes no distinction between "military units" and "police units"; there are only "units".

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

As for the penalty being too severe, why not a reduction to -1 support? This way, players can still have a free unit at each base and start new bases with free minerals.

I guess that could work if you're really set on a Support penalty.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

The reason that I changed the name to "Charismatic" was to include a broader theme of government: Fundamentalism, Fascism, certain forms of Communism, etc. Basically, any government where the leadership is selected/kept in power via oratory, hyper-nationalism, and a central ethic around which they base their platform.

Yeah, I see what you were getting at, I just don't like the name.

Personally, I think Fundy fits well with the new growth bonus, so I'd leave it at that.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

One of the main complaints about Fundamentalist politics is that it's -2 Research penalty makes it practically useless during peace time. The idea behind moving the +2 Growth from Democracy to Fundamentalism is so that players would have to go Fundy to pop boom, unless they use Golden Ages.

Yes, I like this aspect very much.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Fine: Free Market, +2 Econ, +1 Effic, -4 Police, -4 Support

Uh, -4 support??

This will basically just force a beeline to clean reactors.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

The reason, of course, for keeping police at -4 instead of -5 is so that running Demo/Market will still have the full penalties of both (since -6 Police is the same as -5)

Yeah, I understood that that was your intention. It's just that -3 police on it's own really isn't much of a penalty, and -2 support is pretty manageable. Meanwhile, you're raking in the energy AND get an efficiency bonus to boot.

The problem is that +2 Econ is just so incredibly powerful, you give up a lot by choosing a setting that doesn't have it. It's hard to offer a viable alternative to the coveted +1 energy/sq under the confines of the current SE mechanics (which we can't change). One way around this might be to redesign all the econ choices starting from a baseline of +2 Economy for each option. Then you could differentiate the options by adding other bonuses and penalties on top of that baseline.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

-1 then, or a completely different penalty?

I like the idea of having -Industry for green, it's just that -2 is way too severe for the benefits it's offering. I think lowering the penalty to -1 could work, or you could consider bringing back the Efficiency bonus.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Okay, +2 Support, +2 Industry, -1 Efficiency

I think this is too much. Your original idea of +2 Support, +1 Industry, -2 Efficiency should work if you tone down FM a bit and bring cut Green's Industry penalty in half. It would still be a good early game choice for most factions. Maybe change FM to something like: +1 Economy, +1 Efficiency, -3 Police?

Or, if you want to incorporate the idea of giving all the econ choices +1 energy/sq., you'd have the following:

Free Market
+1 Economy, +1 Efficiency, -3 Police --> +3 Economy, +1 Efficiency, -3 Police

Planned
+2 Support, +1 Industry, -2 Efficiency --> +2 Economy, +2 Support, +1 Industry, -2 Efficiency

Green
+2 Planet, +1 Research, -1 Industry --> +2 Economy, +2 Planet, +1 Research, -1 Industry

This way, anyone running an econ setting other than "Simple" gets the magic +1 energy/sq. However, the settings retain their distictiveness: Free Market is more efficient and gets an "extra" bonus to economy yielding better commerce, but also a smaller police presence and potential domestic unrest; Planned gets cheaper manufacturing and support, but is wasteful and inefficient with the energy it generates; Green is more environmentally aware than the other two, but its industry suffers from regulation.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

I'm aware that "Growth" isn't really a social value, but I can't really think of a better name for it. Maybe "Community," "Expansion," "Colonization,"...

Feel free to pitch in at any time.

I dunno. I guess "Expansion" might work better.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

I see your point; would dropping the industry boost to +1 work (it would then be vanilla Planned with a different penalty) or would the lack of FM as competition still leave problems.

New version, perhaps: "Growth," +2 Growth, +1 Industry, -3 Planet

I don't know, though.

I think it's still too strong. Balancing Growth and Industry bonuses with a Planet penalty just doesn't work imo. Maybe if you lowered growth to +1 as well. Honestly, i would rather just see this idea scrapped altogether. That way, pop booming is only possible with Fundy+Creche+GA until Eudaimonic arrives late game.

How about this: scrap the Growth bonus, move the +1 Industry bonus back to "Progess" (droping the +1 Research), then replace this slot with something providing Research. Call it "Innovation" or something. Maybe rename "Progress" to "Development" to make it a bit more distictive.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

The reason that I kept it to +1 was because, apparently, Probe values greater than 3 are treated as 0. This means that, if you have a faction with an inherent probe bonus running Police State and Thought Control...

Yeah, true. However, the only out-of-the-box faction with a probe bonus is the Data Angels, but they have an aversion to Thought Control anyway.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

To be honest, most of the Future Societies are still in flux for me: I'm wondering about changing Thought Control's penalty entirely (Research, Economy, or the original Support), moving Cybernetic's industry bonus to Thought Control (tireless, perfectly docile workers) and giving Cybernetic a Support bonus (computer regulated supply lines).

Yeah, they could probably stand some more tinkering. I kinda like the idea of giving Thought Control an industry bonus, actually.

**Quadhelix** · October 23, 2009, 11:07

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Well, the game already forces the player to choose between "fighting at home" and "fighting abroad" due to the fact that you have to keep police units stationed within a base for them to be effective. So if they're off fighting, there not policing, by design already. I guess the real problem is that the game makes no distinction between "military units" and "police units"; there are only "units".

The basic idea behind the support penalty is to prevent the player from creating anything other than police units; it might not be a bad idea, in this context, to move the "Non-Lethal Methods" unit ability to Doctrine: Loyalty so that it becomes available at the same time as Police State.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Yeah, I see what you were getting at, I just don't like the name.

Personally, I think Fundy fits well with the new growth bonus, so I'd leave it at that.

Sure, why not.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Uh, -4 support??

This will basically just force a beeline to clean reactors.

Note to self: move Clean Reactors to Industrial Nanorobotics. Also increasing Clean Reactor's cost from 2 (+50% unit cost) to 4 (+100% unit cost).

That should take care of things. Maybe a little too well (

).

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Yeah, I understood that that was your intention. It's just that -3 police on it's own really isn't much of a penalty, and -2 support is pretty manageable. Meanwhile, you're raking in the energy AND get an efficiency bonus to boot.

Yeah - that was something of an oversight on my part.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I dunno. I guess "Expansion" might work better.

Well, the Datalinks descriptions of the Values options always say "Leaders seeking X will..." so it's not out of place to say "Leaders seeking Growth will..."

Anyway, I'm trying to think of a name that would reflect an emphasis on population growth and industrial output. "Prosperity" doesn't quite work, because that would emphasize economy output rather than industrial.

I think, for now, I'll go with Productivity.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I think it's still too strong. Balancing Growth and Industry bonuses with a Planet penalty just doesn't work imo. Maybe if you lowered growth to +1 as well. Honestly, i would rather just see this idea scrapped altogether. That way, pop booming is only possible with Fundy+Creche+GA until Eudaimonic arrives late game.

Well, we could lower both growth bonuses to +1, so that players seeking to pop boom would need Fundy+Growth+Creche+GA until the late game.

On a side note, does the AI "GA farm" in order to pop-boom?

Currently, I've changed "Survival" to -1 Growth due to emphasis on staying alive rather and changed "Productivity" to +2 Growth, +1 Industry, -3 Planet, -1 Research. I may very well wind up removing the Productivity value, but in that case, there is no reason not to return to the old Power/Wealth/Knowledge system.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Yeah, true. However, the only out-of-the-box faction with a probe bonus is the Data Angels, but they have an aversion to Thought Control anyway.

Actually, the Believers also have a +1 Probe bonus.

Anyway, below is the modified version of the system

Spoiler:

**Selador** · October 23, 2009, 12:41

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Note to self: move Clean Reactors to Industrial Nanorobotics. Also increasing Clean Reactor's cost from 2 (+50% unit cost) to 4 (+100% unit cost).

That should take care of things. Maybe a little too well (

).

I don't think moving Clean Reactors up the tech tree will help. Right now, FM just isn't a viable choice until at least mid game because 2 min/unit is so crippling when mineral surpluses are small. If you made CRs available early (but made them very expensive or something), at least you'd have the option of running FM early on. The goal is to increase the strategic options available to players, right?

Right now, only Morgan can run FM, and only in combination with "Security".

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Well, we could lower both growth bonuses to +1, so that players seeking to pop boom would need Fundy+Growth+Creche+GA until the late game.

On a side note, does the AI "GA farm" in order to pop-boom?

That's one option I suppose.

And no, I'm positively sure the AI isn't smart enough to induce pop booms via sustained GAs. However, it may be possible to "force" the AI into GAs by fiddling with their text files. You could add TALENT and NODRONE parameters to give them automatic GAs, for example.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Currently, I've changed "Survival" to -1 Growth due to emphasis on staying alive rather and changed "Productivity" to +2 Growth, +1 Industry, -3 Planet, -1 Research. I may very well wind up removing the Productivity value, but in that case, there is no reason not to return to the old Power/Wealth/Knowledge system.

Maybe a return to the old system would be best? It's currently the only category with name changes. I don't really see a good reason to change it. I'd rather just modify the bonuses and penalties myself, but to each his own.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Actually, the Believers also have a +1 Probe bonus.

Oops, you're absolutely right. Dunno how I forgot that.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

Anyway, below is the modified version of the system

Spoiler:

Playtesting would obviously be required, but right now this looks like a winning strategy to me for most factions:

Take the standard beeline to Industrial Automation (picking up Productivity, Planned, Hab Complexes, and of course, the almighty Crawler), with a slight deviation at some point along the Social Psych --> Ethical Calculus line to get Fundy and Creches.

Then we run Fundy/Planned/Productivity for +4 Growth, +2 Industry, +2 Support. Use the +2 Support and Industry to crank out an army Formers and Crawlers, while building Creches and other base infrastructure as they become available. Grow like a weed when the Creches are Hab Complexes are up and running (+6 growth), and continue along the Social Psych --> Ethical Calculus -> Cyberethics line (albeit at -3 Research) to get Democratic.

Once you've maxed out your population and have Demo, switch into Demo/Planned/Progress for the rest of the game, giving +2 Research, +2 Support, +1 Economy, +1 Industry and -2 Police, -1 probe, -2 Growth (lol).

**Quadhelix** · October 26, 2009, 18:40

Originally posted by Selador View Post

I don't think moving Clean Reactors up the tech tree will help. Right now, FM just isn't a viable choice until at least mid game because 2 min/unit is so crippling when mineral surpluses are small. If you made CRs available early (but made them very expensive or something), at least you'd have the option of running FM early on. The goal is to increase the strategic options available to players, right?

Right now, only Morgan can run FM, and only in combination with "Security".

Okay, then I'm going to have to play around with this a bit. Right now, I've put Clean Reactors back at Bio-Engineering, but made it so that they double the cost of the unit (I might make them available even earlier - maybe). I've also reduced the Support penalty from -4 (2 minerals per unit) to -3 (1 mineral per unit).

I'm also thinking of replacing the Police penalty with a -1/-2 Industry penalty, but that might be too similar to Green.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Maybe a return to the old system would be best? It's currently the only category with name changes. I don't really see a good reason to change it. I'd rather just modify the bonuses and penalties myself, but to each his own.

Maybe: the change to the values system might be an artifact from when I had simply swapped with Probe and Support bonuses given by Police State and Fundamentalist, which made Fundamentalist too similar to Power.

Still, I think I might tinker around with it a bit before going back.

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Playtesting would obviously be required, but right now this looks like a winning strategy to me for most factions:

Take the standard beeline to Industrial Automation (picking up Productivity, Planned, Hab Complexes, and of course, the almighty Crawler), with a slight deviation at some point along the Social Psych --> Ethical Calculus line to get Fundy and Creches.

Then we run Fundy/Planned/Productivity for +4 Growth, +2 Industry, +2 Support. Use the +2 Support and Industry to crank out an army Formers and Crawlers, while building Creches and other base infrastructure as they become available. Grow like a weed when the Creches are Hab Complexes are up and running (+6 growth), and continue along the Social Psych --> Ethical Calculus -> Cyberethics line (albeit at -3 Research) to get Democratic.

Once you've maxed out your population and have Demo, switch into Demo/Planned/Progress for the rest of the game, giving +2 Research, +2 Support, +1 Economy, +1 Industry and -2 Police, -1 probe, -2 Growth (lol).

Okay, first, changing both Productivity and Fundamentalist from +2 Growth to +1 Growth. This means that, even running both of them, you need to GA in order to Pop-boom. This is, theoretically, made more difficult by Productivity's hidden new -Talent modifier.

Also, changing "Planned" from -2 Efficiency to -4 Efficiency. Thus, according to the Bureaucracy formula, running a Planned economy without some sort of efficiency boost would result in one drone for every base that you had built: your Base Limit would be 0.

However, if you run Planned and Frontier, that would give a negative Base Limit, and I'm not sure how the game would handle that.

Therefore, running Fundy/Planned/Productivity gives +2 Growth, +2 Support, and +2 Industry, but at the cost of -3 Research and -4 Efficiency - which translates to an extra drone for every base that you have, plus the extra drones from Prod's -Talent.

I think that I might be overcompensating again.

**Mart** · October 30, 2009, 17:52

The quote below is from other thread, but since in this one you consider SE modification I was thinking to post it here.

Originally posted by Quadhelix View Post

I still say that Thought Control and Police State are too similar in concept. If anything, I would make Cybernetic a Politics system (it is, after all, a system in which people have "turned over the tasks of governing to sentient computers") and make Thought Control a "Society" choice...of course, it would have to be a choice that is also different from Fundamentalist.

Just wanting to comment on the idea that you gave about making Cybernetic as a politics choice. The more I think about it the more I like it.
It is that Fundy is more like a value or society that political system, so replacing it or changing would be good thing. Placing Thought control over there was meant also to spread future society choices among other groups, like we might have one future political system choice instead of Fundy. Cybernetic or AI control or something like that would fit better than Thought Control.

**Quadhelix** · October 31, 2009, 10:23

Originally posted by Mart View Post

Just wanting to comment on the idea that you gave about making Cybernetic as a politics choice. The more I think about it the more I like it.
It is that Fundy is more like a value or society that political system, so replacing it or changing would be good thing. Placing Thought control over there was meant also to spread future society choices among other groups, like we might have one future political system choice instead of Fundy. Cybernetic or AI control or something like that would fit better than Thought Control.

The issue with Fundamentalist politics is that it is rather significantly different than both Police State politics and Democratic politics - sufficiently different that I am hesitant to remove it. This, of course, could just be inertia on my part.

The basic reasoning behind my thoughts on this matter is that Fundamentalist politics can be understood quite well as a sort of synthesis of Theocracy (under which the leaders posses the "divine right" to rule and, in certain circumstances, fill the role of both government and clergy) and Fascism (which controls the people by means of strong nationalist fervor and charismatic authoritarianism).

One possibility is to make Police State the "default" politics choice (as opposed to Frontier), perhaps with some sort of rename (I believe that you used "Command politics" in Unity mod), thus making the politics choices: Command, Fundamentalist, Democratic, Cybernetic.

This would, of course, require us to invent a new "Society"/"Future Society" choice from whole-cloth.

**Mart** · October 31, 2009, 18:27

Yes, I renamed Frontier to Centralized, but Command is maybe better description.

There are 2 SPs that in vanila smax have hardcoded effects for:
Cloning vats: power in values and thought control
Network Backbone: cybernetic.

So any new choices in these 3 locations will be effected by any new SP in these 2 positions.

**Wobbo** · November 2, 2009, 16:56

So far, I think Maniac has got it the best

Unitary Democracy/Federal Democracy/ Unitary Police State/ Federal Police State

Subsistence/ Private Free Market/ Planned/ Private Protectionist

Technocrat/ Junta/ Empath/ Plutocrat

Frontier/ Cybernetic/ Green/ Anthropocentric

The only change I would make is swap the positions of Unitary Democracy and Federal Democracy. Centralized governments are more efficient, advanced, and humane than federal systems, despite American propaganda. And it would make sense that they would require more technology and infrastructure to achieve than a more decentralized arrangement.

Other than that, this is the best SE mod I've seen so far, and it's much more balanced than the original choices.

**Quadhelix** · November 5, 2009, 12:41

Originally posted by Wobbo View Post

So far, I think Maniac has got it the best

I do like his system but I feel that it contains certain degrees of redundancy: two types of Police State, two types of Democracy, two types of of Private economy (nevermind that there is no reason that a Planned economy would exclude private ownership).

Originally posted by Wobbo View Post

The only change I would make is swap the positions of Unitary Democracy and Federal Democracy. Centralized governments are more efficient, advanced, and humane than federal systems, despite American propaganda.

Not in context: efficiency, to a degree, represents the amount of bureaucracy in the system. If everything is handled locally, then there is less bureaucracy.

Anyway, I'm having a touch of difficulty integrating Cybernetic politics into the system I had set up: Cybernetic future society has almost exactly the same bonuses and penalties as my currency Democracy.

In any case, here is what I currently have for Politics/Economics:

Command: +2 Police, +1 Probe, -2 Efficiency, -1 Support
Fundamentalist: +2 Morale, +2 Growth, -2 Research
Democratic: +2 Efficiency, +1 Economy, -2 Police
Cybernetic: +2 Research, +1 Industry, +1 Planet, -1 Economy

Simple: -1 Efficiency, -1 Economy
Free Market: +2 Economy, -3 Police, -2 Support
Planned: +2 Support, +1 Industry, -2 Efficiency, -1 Economy
Green: +2 Planet, +1 Research, -1 Industry, -1 Economy

**Brumec** · December 1, 2009, 17:46

Originally posted by Selador View Post

Yikes, this one's a mess. I don't like any of them

. I feel the original econ choices are actually very well balanced. Here you've made FM even more powerful, while making Planned and Green much weaker. I mean green is really crappy now with -2 Industry, why would anyone ever pick it? It makes sense thematically, but it just doesn't work from a gameplay perspective.

I must say that giving industry penalty to green economy/society/whatever has always baffled me. I mean, in that way you actually say that for building something you need more polluting minerals which is precisely the opposite of supposed features of green economy. That is also my biggest complaint to SE in Smaniac's mod.

Green economy is supposed to be more efficient which means that it needs less mineral for producing something.

Also, there's an issue about democracy in SMAC - there are no elections. Each leader leads its faction from beginning to end which is justified with longetivity vaccines and what not...So there's no democracy. At best, there's enlightened absolutism or some strange kind of liberalism/libertarianism without elections.

And, by the way, good replacement for fundamentalizm could be "populism" with many similarities between the two.

**Brumec** · December 1, 2009, 18:02

Originally posted by Wobbo View Post

The only change I would make is swap the positions of Unitary Democracy and Federal Democracy. Centralized governments are more efficient, advanced, and humane than federal systems, despite American propaganda.

Ummm..depends what you mean by centralized and federal.

If centralized means doing most of the businesses, making all decisions and amassing all of taxed money in capital to be on disposal of some government bureaucrat(s) than - no, centralized government are certainly not more efficient, advanced and humane than federal states.

And there are good functioning federal or at least federalized european states, not just USA - Germany and Spain respectively. In last few years decentralization has been a hot issue in my country, Croatia, precisely because of excessive money flow to capital via taxes.

OTOH, if by federal you mean umpteen gazillion redundant ministries for each and every local government with associated bureaucracies then federal state is obviously not efficient.

However, me thinks that original idea of federation was not that of umpteen gazillion redundant bureaucracies, but of greater efficienca caused by greater governmental proximity to its base.

**Quadhelix** · December 1, 2009, 19:17

Originally posted by Brumec View Post

I must say that giving industry penalty to green economy/society/whatever has always baffled me. I mean, in that way you actually say that for building something you need more polluting minerals which is precisely the opposite of supposed features of green economy. That is also my biggest complaint to SE in Smaniac's mod.

Green economy is supposed to be more efficient which means that it needs less mineral for producing something.

There are some problems with this analysis.

Firstly, at least judging by gameplay effects, your Industry rating doesn't necessarily indicate how efficient your industry, just how fast it is. You could have five billion mines supplying a city, and you are still going to get bottlenecks if there is only one factory in that city.

In other words, the Industry penalty for Green doesn't mean that your factories are less efficient, just that they are slower - it takes longer to complete a given project because you have fewer factories to work on it, and those factories are more focused on using the minerals efficiently rather than quickly. This also means that your mining output is reduced (as you don't need all of that surplus material). Nevertheless, all these effects just show up in game as it taking 10% longer to complete a project.

Originally posted by Brumec View Post

Also, there's an issue about democracy in SMAC - there are no elections. Each leader leads its faction from beginning to end which is justified with longetivity vaccines and what not...So there's no democracy. At best, there's enlightened absolutism or some strange kind of liberalism/libertarianism without elections.

Not exactly - democracy just means "rule by the people"; the extent and form of that rule can vary, however.

For example, there are probably millions of details that, as faction ruler, you never have to consider - zoning issues, public safety laws, various civil services, and more - that still have to be handled. The Politics SE setting may well determine who is in charge of them: under Police State, they're handled by military lieutenants; under Fundamentalism, the clergy serve as the ruling class; and under Democracy, either the local leaders are elected or the issues are settled by referendum.

Originally posted by Brumec View Post

OTOH, if by federal you mean umpteen gazillion redundant ministries for each and every local government with associated bureaucracies then federal state is obviously not efficient.

However, me thinks that original idea of federation was not that of umpteen gazillion redundant bureaucracies, but of greater efficienca caused by greater governmental proximity to its base.

Fun fact: the US began as what amounted to 13 different countries with a common army, rather than one country with multiple sub-divisions. This was actually something of a nightmare, in terms of efficiency, because each of the 13 states had their own currency and also tended to ignore the treaties into which the US as a whole had entered.

It was only when the Constitution created a relatively strong central government that the country was able to function.

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