Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: Elok on July 04, 2015, 05:01:17 PM

Title: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Elok on July 04, 2015, 05:01:17 PM
SEE I'M HERE STOP SENDING ME PMS BUNCLE OR I MAIL YOU A DEAD CAT

Ahem.  So, I'm sure this is a discussion you folks have had here many times--but hey, you haven't had it with me!  The traits given to SMAC leaders are obviously centered on what plays well for the most part, as they should be.  They don't necessarily make sense in terms of the leaders' personalities.  Miriam, for example: it's good for gameplay to make her a superspy to balance out her scientific incompetence, so she can steal all those techs she can't research.  Conversely, Zak has the opposite problem, and the game in general makes it hard to have good spies and good tech.

But there's no particularly good reason why Miriam the zealot should be better at espionage than the likes of, say, Yang.  Espionage on the ground requires some combo of technical competence and people skills, and Miriam's lore would have her followers be kind of meh at both.  However, fundamentalists IRL are known for having a LOT of kids (+2 Growth).  Meanwhile Yang's followers wouldn't necessarily be having more kids--I'm guessing that's there to balance out his inability to run democracy somewhat, just like Lal's weird little efficiency penalty is presumptively there to cut his incentives to run it and pop-boom without mercy.  Or something.

Lal, as the die-hard human rights guy, would have serious issues with policing; Deirdre, OTOH, not necessarily, since plenty of wacko environmentalists are quite militant.  Santiago's industry penalty doesn't especially fit in terms of lore either, but I don't know what would.  Morgan, given his close ties between industry and the public sector, really is asking for efficiency issues.  And so on.

Thoughts?
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 04, 2015, 05:28:16 PM
Dang.  I just sent you another PM right before I saw this...

I need to think about your post before I have anything intelligent to say.  -You did leave out that eco-factions should be terrible at pop-booming, and Gaians most decidedly aren't.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Eadee on July 04, 2015, 10:19:01 PM
I wouldn't try to get "realistic" attributes, that would be a LOT of analysing. I'm on your side though, I'd just set the goal to get "plausible" attributes, that would be already satisfying to me.


First Thoughts: (If I don't name an original attribute in the following List, I'd just discarded it and wouldn't include it in the new set of attributes.)

Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 04, 2015, 11:20:02 PM
The logic of that scans.

It strikes me that as far as the Believer probe bonus, it does and doesn't make sense.  They should be very difficult to subvert or pry information from, but make terrible spies because of the exact same inflexibility.  Alas, the game leaves no way to separate the two halves of the function.

This is a point worthy of bringing to Yitzi for .exe code modding, but he'll, no doubt, point out a lack of room in the code for such a major addition...
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Elok on July 05, 2015, 01:26:43 AM
Not sure about Santiago and economy.  A population who can do without frills are not going to consume much, which isn't great for the economy, is it?

Normal person: Hmm, out of peanut butter, better get more--ooohhh, sale on peanut butter bacon fudge, whatever that is!  And it's buy one get one too!  Hey, while I'm here, I should check out the bakery.

Spartan: Out of peanut butter?  I will get more when it is on mega-discount sale, so I can buy in bulk for my fallout shelter.  But only as a durable protein source!  I DO NOT NEED PEANUT BUTTER.  PEANUT BUTTER DOES NOT CONTROL ME.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 05, 2015, 01:56:45 AM
...Peanut butter is nutritious, cheap and keeps well - I lived on peanut butter sandwiches when I was an underpaid actor...
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Geo on July 05, 2015, 10:03:25 AM
Not sure about Santiago and economy.  A population who can do without frills are not going to consume much, which isn't great for the economy, is it?

Well, the Spartan version of 'frills' is cool extremely sophisticated military hardware. And only a strong economy can sustain that.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Dio on July 06, 2015, 02:31:53 AM
The logic of that scans.

It strikes me that as far as the Believer probe bonus, it does and doesn't make sense.  They should be very difficult to subvert or pry information from, but make terrible spies because of the exact same inflexibility.  Alas, the game leaves no way to separate the two halves of the function.

This is a point worthy of bringing to Yitzi for .exe code modding, but he'll, no doubt, point out a lack of room in the code for such a major addition...
The best alternative to the PROBE Bonus lies in the MINDCONTROL Faction bonus. This bonus makes the bases and units of the faction immune to mindcontrol and subversion while not giving any morale bonuses to probe teams.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 06, 2015, 02:59:31 AM
If immunity to anyone infiltrating the faction or probing techs could be added, that would be perfect. ;nod
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: benschwab on July 09, 2015, 04:21:21 PM
Keep in mind that realism is complicated.  Israel has its share of fundamentalists and is generally speaking considered very good at espionage.  The Catholic Church, when a secular power, was also good at espionage.  China is a communist state (at-least one that calls itself communist) and is both where Yang comes from and has always had a large population.

I agree with some things such as that on this planet with our species at this period in time, societies that are more regulated tend to have slower population growth.  I don't know how universal this is.  Planet is different than Earth and the time frame and technology is different.  Maybe the "green" economy of the future emphasizes increasing social surplus as well as (or more than) preserving the natural environment whereas the "free market" economy of the future emphasizes increasing private surplus.  I could make this make sense as the Morgans get an economy boost which (amongst other things) increases a faction's energy reserves and the leaders of such a faction would be the richest (no matter the politics, buying the election, oppressing economic competitors, tithes) whereas the Gains get an efficiency boost meaning that they aren't as good at accumulating the credits but loose less energy at each base (compared to baseline) and have lower penalties for having spending unbalanced.

There are three options to this problem.  One is do do what the original poster seams to have done which is to treat the game like a game.  The first thing a game has to do is to be fun and having the factions balanced and interesting does this and so just accept some trade offs from realism.  A perfectly real game is real life and such a game wouldn't sell as people can get that for free.

Another solution is to consider that these are how these philosophies behave in the future in an alien environment: a planet that is dominated by non-Terran life.  It may require some open mindedness and considering concepts that make no sense to Earth at present but it can be done and I find doing so to be entertaining.  I've run Yang as Free Market before because I thought it would be interesting to see what that society would be and to consider what it would be like to live in it.

The last solution is to make your own factions (or find some on the internet) that you think better matches a social preference or ideology.  It may take some time to tweak them to get them to be balanced and if you can't get over some personal opinions (like a particular economic system is in every way superior to another) then your factions will not likely be balanced.  It might be interesting for you to see what you end up with.

Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Geo on July 10, 2015, 01:02:57 PM
If immunity to anyone infiltrating the faction or probing techs could be added, that would be perfect. ;nod

Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. :tada:
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 11, 2015, 05:53:11 PM
= Bonuses to the parts I was talking about Believers not being good at, too.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Geo on July 18, 2015, 12:42:13 PM
In Alpha(x).txt, there's this option to disallow tech stealing from probe teams.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Dio on July 18, 2015, 07:33:11 PM
In Alpha(x).txt, there's this option to disallow tech stealing from probe teams.
Unfortunately, that option prevents all players from stealing technology. However, given the fact that additional features require more code, then it becomes obvious that it must suffice for the moment.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: vonbach on July 26, 2015, 12:50:40 PM
Quote
DEIRDRE: Planet Bonus is a no-brainer but the Efficiency Bonus is some kinda weird. In short terms its way more efficient to exploit ressources and to throw away the garbage you don't need instead of investing much energy into recycling. So I'd go for an Efficiency malus for the Gaians.
YANG: The collective should get a police bonus since they're used to obey. The Industry bonus (brutal serfdom) seems plausible to me. Maybe a research penalty might be fitting since free thought is discouraged.
ZAKHAROV: Research bonus is the no-brainer here. I could imagine a morale malus because they prefer strongly controlled environments for their experiments and really don't feel comfy on chaotic battlegrounds.
MORGAN: The economy bonus is granted. I'd give them a bonus drone per 4 Citizens in a City to resemble  the "expensive taste" rather than the support malus. Giving them a planet malus for exploiting ressources might also fit.
SANTIAGO: The morale bonus seems to be right. A probe bonus seems fitting to resemble some kinda task force and strong indoctrination of standard troops. I'd even give them a economy bonus since personal wealth and luxuries are frowned upon so taxes can be pretty high. Also a research malus might fit in since a survivalist has to be able to light a fire without fancy gadgets and a lot of technologies lead to lazyness in body and spirit.
MIRIAM: The believers should get a decent Morale bonus. Science malus seems legit if you want to emphasise the conflicts between faith and science. (But I'd really enjoy a faction that successfully promote a synthesis between faith and science instead.)
LAL: I can see the lack in efficiency through buerrocracy in the UN. Also like you mentioned there should be a police penalty.
Deirdre should get a industry penalty. Its the real price you pay for a "green economy" industry suffers to lake the greens happy.
Yang: Minus to growth. Police states like that produce mostly corpses and people don't like bringing kids into a world like that either.
Zakharov: Agreed a minus to morale actually seems to fit quite well.
Morgan: Morgan actually seems about right. I'd probably give him an immunity to or at least reduce some of the penalties for free market.
But then I don't think  Free Market should have many penalties at all.
Santiago: I think a minus to planet would be appropriate here. If theres any population that would be at war with the planet from the start it would be them.
Miriam: Support works as does morale and growth. The best penalty I could think of would either be Minus Economy (not really interested in the collection of wealth) or minus Probe Christian congregations have the bad habits of thinking everyone else follows the same morals the do (or at least tries to) Science penalty is just silly. If anything I'd give them a science bonus. Most of the small preachers I know have the equivalent of a phd.
Lal: Minus efficiency. Plus talent is wishful thinking. I'd give them the plus support and make them the militant faction.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: benschwab on July 27, 2015, 03:46:06 PM
Lal: Minus efficiency. Plus talent is wishful thinking. I'd give them the plus support and make them the militant faction.

Make the "peacekeepers" a consistent militant faction?  Would the extra support diminish, balance out, or surpass the support penalty from democracy?

One of the problems with realistic attributes is who gets to decide what is realistic?  Religious leaders tend to be well educated and sometimes they can be important scientists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre) but most physical and biological science (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel) seams to be done by secular researchers.  Also in my estimations, organized religions tend to aggregate wealth into their organizations.

So we have some differences in how we analyze different social influences.  What is a game designer to do?  The first priority is to make a good game which means balance.  This means that even if one favors a particular social choice (like Free Market), one needs to give it justifiable penalties anyways to make the game more interesting.  If Free Market was such a good choice that nobody would ever chose Planned or Green except for role playing, handicapping, or specific situations, the game would be worse.  Besides, I consider it more realistic to have no low-penalty choices (Free Market has significant penalties but its plus side is also quite good) as I think it is unlikely that any way of structuring society can lead to a society without problems despite what the fiercest advocates of political philosophies claim.

Aside from ensuring balance, whose philosophy should a game developer fallow.  At worst they will fallow that of the project lead and chances are you (or any individual player) will disagree with this stranger's philosophy. Better, they will do extensive research into the most popularly accepted ideas in academia.  Not only would this be biased, game developers aren't social researchers and are likely to misrepresent this consensus and merely most players are likely to find quite a bit of fault.  The most realistic solution is for all of those working on a game to give input and this result is also quite likely to have people disagree with the choices Fraxis made (nobody ever agrees 100% with a good compromise).  At the end the developers need to find plausible effects that keep the game balanced.  I think Fraxis did a great job at this.  The AI doesn't play every faction well but every faction fits some human player's play style and a 7 human player game, with each faction matching a skilled player's play style, would be quite competitive.  At-least for the original 7 factions, I don't have much experience with the expansion factions.

Years ago I started a project to make 9 factions for each of the 9 non future society social engineering choices.  I ended up making 5 and ended up only regularly playing 2 (the planned economy and wealth values). Also, I played with the original 7 more often.  Without evidence that one's faction choices create a well balanced game I am skeptical that the choices are better than the one's Fraxis made (even if they seam to one person to be more "realistic") as I suspect that Fraxis spent several man hours tweaking the factions and the social engineering choices to create a balanced game.  It seams more balanced than the majority of games that I have played.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: vonbach on July 27, 2015, 10:21:53 PM
Quote
One of the problems with realistic attributes is who gets to decide what is realistic?  Religious leaders tend to be well educated and sometimes they can be important scientists but most physical and biological science seams to be done by secular researchers.  Also in my estimations, organized religions tend to aggregate wealth into their organizations.
No kidding this is why it's not a good idea to let screaming leftist atheists make games. Miriam isn't a faction she's a cartoon character a
and an offensive one at that. Sir Isaac Newton was religious as was Hildegard of Bingem the Nun.
Also were laking a congregation of believers not a church (yes theres a difference) hence the name.
Quote
If Free Market was such a good choice that nobody would ever chose Planned or Green except for role playing, handicapping, or specific situations, the game would be worse.
We are talking realism here. The truth is Socialism and green economies don't work. They work until you run out of other peoples money.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: benschwab on July 28, 2015, 05:51:29 PM
No kidding this is why it's not a good idea to let screaming leftist atheists make games.

To clarify: Are you of the position that those who disagree with your philosophy (any philosophy) should be banned from making games?  Is there something special about "screaming leftist atheists" that justify restrictions on them that don't apply to other groups you disagree with?  Do you have evidence that those who made Alpha Centauri are "screaming leftist atheists" other than your characterization of Miriam?  Should those who you disagree with be allowed to make games if their games don't address those areas you have a disagreement?

We are talking realism here.

Out of curiosity, what do you think Fraxis should have prioritized: making a balanced game or making a game that reflects what you consider to be realistic?
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 28, 2015, 06:13:33 PM
I think von was just pointing out that Miriam is a hatchet job on church people, and I totally agree.

I've had arguments in the past with atheist Euros who just don't see it.  Check the attachment.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: benschwab on July 28, 2015, 07:07:33 PM
... Miriam is a hatchet job on church people, and I totally agree.

I disagree and I think this gets to the heart of the original question.  The question is what are realistic attributes for the AC factions.  The question when applied to the Believers is "is it realistic that 200 years from now there could be a theocracy comprised of Earthlings on an alien planet to be one that is described by the Believing faction?"  I think that is realistic.  I can believe a theocracy in such a setting would suppress secular research.  I can also believe that there could be a theocracy in such a setting that would support secular research.  The existence of the later doesn't make the former unrealistic.

The statment "It realistic that 200 years from now a theocracy comprised of Earthlings on an alien planet could suppress secular research," is a very different statement then "Christians are stupid."  Confusing the games portrayal of Miriam with the attitudes of the developers towards Christians is insulting.

The Believing faction is one possible Christian Theocracy.  The Hive faction is one possible Dictatorship.  The Gain faction is one possible Ecological focused society.  I do disagree with some of the assignments (from my amateur understanding of earthling society, police states (like China post revolution) such as the Hive tend to have lower growth rates then freer societies) but because I can imagine another possible Theocracy, or Dictatorship, or Eco-society doesn't make those chosen by Fraxis to be unrealistic.  Also because the Gains have a negative modifier to Police Rating does not reveal a belief amongst those who developed the game that ecologically mindful individuals dislike authority.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 28, 2015, 07:18:53 PM
It's a story, and she a character who plays a role -one of the bad-neighbor factions- sure.  Taken as representative of people of faith, as the story strongly hints?  Hatchet job.  As a bad guy in the story?  Well-done.  (Note the different Miriams seen in diplomatic contact b****h v. the thoughtful technology ethicist in the quotes and movies, though.)

It all depends on your perspective; you're unlikely to be a lot more annoyed than I am when the church people vote hateful politics and the far extremists bomb abortions clinics, but that's not all of them or the whole of the RL story.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: vonbach on July 29, 2015, 11:34:52 AM
Quote
I think von was just pointing out that Miriam is a hatchet job on church people, and I totally agree.

I've had arguments in the past with atheist Euros who just don't see it.  Check the attachment.
Pretty much yes. Its an obnoxious hatchet job. She's the Saturday night live "church lady" as a faction.
Its like they rolled every anti-Christian stereotype into one for the faction.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: benschwab on July 29, 2015, 03:53:46 PM
It's a story, and she a character who plays a role -one of the bad-neighbor factions- sure.  Taken as representative of people of faith, as the story strongly hints?  Hatchet job.  As a bad guy in the story?  Well-done.  (Note the different Miriams seen in diplomatic contact b****h v. the thoughtful technology ethicist in the quotes and movies, though.)

It all depends on your perspective; you're unlikely to be a lot more annoyed than I am when the church people vote hateful politics and the far extremists bomb abortions clinics, but that's not all of them or the whole of the RL story.

I agree with this for the most part.  I also assert that there is not enough information in game to conclude what the attitudes of the developers were and they should not be slandered because of it.  Also as someone who makes games (nothing that has been published so I can't claim to be good at it), I am quite taken aback by the assertion that I should "not be allowed" to make games because 15 years from now someone will read too much into one element of one game I develop and assign me beliefs that I do not hold.  Or that said beliefs justify censorship.

I will grant that Fraxis may have been smart to avoid the issue.  I don't know.  Maybe turn the Fundamentalism into Feudalism or something else and have a "Royalist" faction or something that keeps the role that the Believers play (a faction great on offense and mediocre to awful on defense).  +25% attack due to intense loyalty to the king amongst the warrior caste.  Keep Police State the same, have democracy have the -2 Support and +2 Efficiency but trade the +2 Growth for +1 Research (a flowering of ideas), and have feudalism have -2 Economy (archaic social structure), +2 Growth (large families are important) and +2 Morale (professional warrior caste).  This would also have the effect of having a tradeoff between a population boom and a strong economy.  Maybe this would avoid unintentionally (or intentionally as far as I know) offending Christians.  There are a lot fewer Monarchists and Reactionaries than there are Christians.

Of course, reading too much into any faction leader would offend people.  Does the depiction of Yang mean that the developers think that all Asians are nihilists?  I know several Asians who would take offense to that.  I also know a few PRC nationals who would take offense to Yang anyways and my response to them would be the same: you're reading too much into the game.  Oh, and there are a lot of Asians and PRC nationals in the world.

I never got that the game wanted to make Miriam representative of all Christians.  I always thought that other factions would have Christians in them and organized churches that don't fallow Believing theology.  Maybe not the Hive or University which might enforce atheism but I would think the Spartans and the Morgans would have christian citizens and especially the Peacekeeprs might tolerate Christian groups sympathetic to the Believers as long as they're not caught doing actual treason.  Maybe the game should have made this explicit to avoid giving off the impression that they think all Christians are like Miriam.  Knowing humanity, you might be right in that the developers of the game do think that all Christians are like Miriam as people sometimes are too fond of stereotyping but also knowing humanity, it is entirely possible for people not to realize how people will misunderstand them.  I have no way of differentiating between the two.

As far as the more important issues.  I do get upset (more than annoyed) when hateful laws are passed or people are killed in the name of religion.  I get upset at the people committing the actions and those groups supporting them but I don't take these individuals as representative of the religious groups as a whole.

To paraphrase Larry Niven, people who confuse the beliefs of a character one wrote for the beliefs of the author are fools.  I still disagree that the character Miriam is a hatchetjob on Christians and her portrayal defiantly does not justify slander.

Also something that has always confused me.  Miriam supports the use of Psi Gates but opposes the use of the Bulk Matter Transmitter.  This inconsistency has never sat well with me.  Maybe the developers wanted to (or were forced to) include both possible Christian perspectives for matter teleportation.

Getting back to the original question.  When analyzing weather or not the factions are realistic, I think it is sufficient to consider a faction to be realistic if it is one of several plausible representations of that faction.  An ELF type Green faction would be realistic as are the Gains.  The social engineering choices need stricter scrutiny.  Putting a research penalty on a Fundamentalist faction is a statement that Theocracies must (or tend to) suppress secular research.  Given the differences between a Theocracy run by the Order of St. Benedict and the Theocracy run by the society of Jesus, I do not think such a claim is justified (and both are Catholic Orders much less any other Christian or non-christian religion).  But it's just a game and having an option to sacrifice research for military success is interesting.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 29, 2015, 11:08:04 PM
He's definitely got a point, von, that you put it indelicately.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: vonbach on July 30, 2015, 02:14:43 AM
Quote
He's definitely got a point, von, that you put it indelicately.
Im not overtly bothered honestly. Indelicate or not I think I have a point.
Getting insulted for something like the last two or three decades by leftists in general gets a bit old you know.
The Believer faction in general is a massive slap in the face in general to Christians in general and this culture
of insult has been going on for literally decades. Don't give me any nonsense about censorship either the left just
loves censorship. Just take a look at hate laws and the SJW crowd. The last time a leftist atheist moment
got hold of a country 66 million people died.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 30, 2015, 02:45:16 AM
You know, that's just straight-up politics, and there's a place for that in Recreation Commons, but not here...
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: vonbach on July 30, 2015, 11:46:05 AM
Quote
You know, that's just straight-up politics, and there's a place for that in Recreation Commons, but not here...
True. And I'm not in the mood for a flame war either. We can agree to disagree.
Quote
Out of curiosity, what do you think Fraxis should have prioritized: making a balanced game or making a game that reflects what you consider to be realistic?
They should've gone for a balanced game. For the most part they did. But lets just say I would've been happy if Miriam would've had different
abilities. Certain factions cant use certain politics for a reason. For instance the Drones cant use green because a +2 industry faction capturing mind worms would be flat out obnoxious.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Yitzi on July 30, 2015, 03:44:15 PM
The logic of that scans.

It strikes me that as far as the Believer probe bonus, it does and doesn't make sense.  They should be very difficult to subvert or pry information from, but make terrible spies because of the exact same inflexibility.  Alas, the game leaves no way to separate the two halves of the function.

This is a point worthy of bringing to Yitzi for .exe code modding, but he'll, no doubt, point out a lack of room in the code for such a major addition...

Actually, it wouldn't be that difficult to add new bonus types (though only of the sort that count toward the 8); making an option to have PROBE be entirely defensive (and offensive bonuses to probing only come through faction abilities) would also probably be fairly doable.  Having a twelfth social engineering setting to allow for two PROBE abilities without removing something else would be fairly problematic, though.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Nexii on August 04, 2015, 07:53:07 AM
The Believer bonus to probe never really made sense to me, nor the one to Fundamentalism.  Though from a mind control/subversion perspective it's a possibility.

I think many of the bonuses and penalties to the factions and SEs were put in more for balance reasons than what they would actually contribute.  But I guess that's the fun part if you like to mod, you can change things as they seem realistic to you.  For example I play with Police State giving probe as it seems more fitting than Fundamentalism getting it.  You could give Believers some other bonus instead and see how it plays.

Personally I think PROBE being both offensive and defensive in nature is fine.  You can also argue with terrible spies you would have a hard time protecting information.  I guess you can constrast it with MORALE which works both ways and PLANET which doesn't..
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 05, 2015, 01:51:41 AM
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=957)
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Dio on August 05, 2015, 02:20:00 AM
The spartans may have originally recieved a MORALE, # bonus because it operates in a slightly different manner than the Social MORALE bonuses. The most important difference is that units that come from Unity Pods and (re)starting positions receive the MORALE, #  bonus plus an additional +1. As an example, the Spartans, in an unchanged game, begin with a disciplined Unity Rover; while the Spartans with a MORALE, 1 bonus would start with a hardened Unity Rover. I believe this bonus fits the faction well since they value power and survival which entails independence from conventional support systems.
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Nexii on August 05, 2015, 03:17:10 AM
Realistically though SE MORALE and Faction MORALE are very similar.  I kind of doubt they ever had any factions with the faction morale since it doesn't show up in the SE page.  That being said a few other bonuses don't either.   I think ideally somehow all faction benefits and penalties would show on the SE page though it's probably not a huge issue
Title: Re: "Realistic" attributes
Post by: Eadee on August 05, 2015, 08:05:25 AM
Well, if I read it correctly the SE-Morale is some kinda modifier that applies to all units regardless wich rank they are. While the Bonus Dio mentioned lets units start with a higher rank. So if you want to see it from an ingame-perspective (I still like to avoid the term "realistic") then the Spartan Morale bonus shouldn't be named "morale" it should be named "training", "veterancy" or "rank" because the SE-Morale-modifier wich is the "true" morale will still apply afterwards regardless of  rank.

Did I get this correctly?
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